An Existential Perspective on Tariff Anxiety

In the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu writes, “When the government is laid back / The people are relaxed. When the government is nitpicking / The people are anxious.” The Tao Te Ching aimed to help humans understand the paradoxes and complexities of life, which is very much in line with existential thinking and the therapeutic concept of existential and humanistic psychology. Though Lao Tzu’s work dates back to the third century BCE, its focus on understanding and accepting life’s complexities remains pertinent today. Irvin Yalom, widely viewed as the forerunner of existential psychotherapy, points out that “traumatic neuroses are rare. The overwhelming majority of patients suffer from stress that, to differing degrees, is part of every person's experience.” We can look at Yalom’s point as a way to understand our current national anxiety related to the state of the stock market and the economy.

While certainly, some individuals are currently experiencing completely valid and understandable stress, worry, and anxiety about finances, our existential and humanistic point of view allows us to recognize that these responses are normal given the larger situation and our lack of control over the outcome. To label these individuals “neurotic” or “histrionic” is to downplay the normalcy of anxiety related to facets of life such as stability, finances, and creature comforts. When our news sources report that the stock market is tanking, that the cost of goods is increasing, and that our country is entering a vicious trade war, we rightly cannot help but be concerned and feel some level of anxiety. This is simply human.

Acceptance of Anxiety

In his classic text, Man’s Search for Himself,” psychologist Rollo May provides a profound example of the type of anxiety we often face as humans: “A little girl coming home from school after a lecture on how to defend one’s self against the atom bomb, asked her parents, ‘Mother, can’t we move someplace where there isn’t any sky?’” Wow. How often do we wish to be elsewhere when we are overcome with stress and anxiety? For some individuals, this becomes an actionable response as they actively search for ways to leave the country due to anxiety and fear. A recent article in The New Republic points out that “it’s emigration, not immigration, that should worry Americans. Because people wanting to leave…is a sign that this country is losing its capacity to address even its most pressing problems.”

May later explains that humans, when in a state of anxiety like the little girl he describes, “must cower from the sky, which is classically the symbol of vastness, imagination, and release.” To not “cower from the sky,” or completely withdraw from life and the possibility of peace and stability, some level of acceptance is required. One way we can view this from the existential psychotherapy perspective is to embrace the duality of life. 2,500 years ago, Lao Tzu had the same idea when he reminded us that “myriad things act in concert.” How can the little girl be aware of the danger in the world and also of the world’s beauty and vastness? This is an open-ended question and a way of coping adaptively with the current uncertainty in our country. Existential therapists would remind you that there is room for both: on the one hand, fear and anxiety, and on the other, stability and peace. We need not ignore either one or focus only on one, but rather, be aware of and accept both.

Finding Stability in Instability

Swiss psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger developed a structure for comprehending a person’s worldview, which has been adopted by existential psychotherapists. According to Binswanger, the four worlds of the individual are: the umwelt (psychical dimension), the mitwelt (social-public dimension), the eigenwelt (personal-private dimension), and the uberwelt (spiritual dimension). Put simply, we hold within us multiple unique and complex parts of our existence. We are not all one thing or the other, and an emphasis on only one dimension often results in anxiety and fixation. If we are unhealthily fixated on financial anxiety, we are apt to lose focus in other areas of our lives.

If we take Tzu, May, Yalom, and Binswanger’s theories and mix them together, we end up with a guide for coping with societal uncertainty from an existential perspective, the takeaways being:

• Life is complex and nuanced. It is a common part of the human experience to feel that we do not have control. We are neither disordered nor pathological when we feel this way.
• Stress, worry, and anxiety are part of every human’s existence.
• Embracing duality can help us to cope with uncertainty. In May’s example, the sky is both a place from which bombs can fall and a place of vastness and beauty.
• Human beings possess various dimensions, and a focus or fixation on only dimension can lead to increased anxiety.