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In Unnerved, Jason Schnittker investigates the social, cultural, medical, and scientific underpinnings of the modern mental state. He explores how anxiety has been understood from the late nineteenth century to the present day and why it has assumed a more central position in how we think about mental health. Contrary to the claims that anxiety reflects large-scale traumas, abrupt social transitions, or technological revolutions, Schnittker argues that the ascent of anxiety has been driven by slow transformations in people, institutions, and social environments. Changes in family formation, religion, inequality, and social relationships have all primed people to be more anxious. At the same time, the scientific and medical understanding of anxiety has evolved, pushing it further to the fore. The rise in anxiety cannot be explained separately from changes in how patients, physicians, and scientists understand the disorder. Ultimately, Schnittker demonstrates that anxiety has carried the imprint of social change more acutely than have other emotions or disorders, including depression. When societies change, anxiety follows.
List of contents
1. The Significance and Meaning of Anxiety
2. A Late Modern History of Anxiety
3. The Evolving Science of Anxiety and Depression
4. Anxiety Disorders in the United States
5. Family Change and Cohort Differences in Anxiety
6. The Decline in Religious Participation
7. Uncertain Attachments
8. Status Anxiety and Growing Inequality
9. The Ascent of Anxiety as a Therapeutic Target
10. The Past, Present, and Future of Fear
Methodological Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Jason Schnittker is a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of The Diagnostic System: Why the Classification of Psychiatric Disorders Is Necessary, Difficult, and Never Settled (Columbia, 2017).
Summary
Anxiety is not new. Yet now more than ever, anxiety seems to define our times. Anxiety disorders are the most common psychiatric disorders in the United States, exceeding mood, impulse-control, and substance-use disorders, and they are especially common among younger cohorts. More and more Americans are taking antianxiety medications. According to polling data, anxiety is experienced more frequently than other negative emotions. Why have we become so anxious?
In Unnerved, Jason Schnittker investigates the social, cultural, medical, and scientific underpinnings of the modern state of mind. He explores how anxiety has been understood from the late nineteenth century to the present day and why it has assumed a more central position in how we think about mental health. Contrary to the claims that anxiety reflects large-scale traumas, abrupt social transitions, or technological revolutions, Schnittker argues that the ascent of anxiety has been driven by slow transformations in people, institutions, and social environments. Changes in family formation, religion, inequality, and social relationships have all primed people to be more anxious. At the same time, the scientific and medical understanding of anxiety has evolved, pushing it further to the fore. The rise in anxiety cannot be explained separately from changes in how patients, physicians, and scientists understand the disorder. Ultimately, Schnittker demonstrates that anxiety has carried the imprint of social change more acutely than have other emotions or disorders, including depression. When societies change, anxiety follows.
Additional text
With clear prose, empirical rigor, and a keen sociological eye, Schnittker has written a masterful synthesis of the research on anxiety. Unnerved reveals that, yes, we are truly living in an age of anxiety. Anyone interested in anxiety, its history, and its social determinants would be wise to start with this book.
