Without this philosopher and theologian, it is impossible to imagine existential psychotherapy. Paul Tillich’s The Courage to Be is about how to overcome your anxiety in the face of death and deal with the lack of meaning.
Paul Tillich is a philosopher and theologian, without whom it is impossible to imagine existential psychotherapy. Before becoming a professor at Harvard University (USA), he managed to be a Lutheran pastor in the working-class districts of Berlin and an army chaplain on the fields of the First World War. He saw a painful and senseless death, and after that it became difficult for him to preach hope and believe in a good God. And yet he did not fall into despair and did not renounce the faith, but wrote: «I came to the paradox of faith without God.» He then taught theology and philosophy at major universities, but was fired when the Nazis came to power. Tillich moved to the USA, where he wrote his most important works. One of them, The Courage to Be, became a classic almost immediately after its release in 1952. What was greatly facilitated by the fact that its language is simple and non-specific and it is addressed to everyone who is concerned about the most important problem of human existence — how to overcome their anxiety in the face of non-existence, how to cope with the lack of meaning? A student and later friend of Tillich, who closely accepted his ideas, was Rollo May, one of the founders of existential psychotherapy.
MODERN, 240 p.