Soren Kierkegaard wrote one of the most remarkable theistic existentialist works of the 19th century, The Sickness unto Death is famed for the depth and acuity of its psychological insights.  

Writing under the pseudonym Anti-Climacus, Kierkegaard explores the concept of ‘despair’. Despair is a deeper expression for anxiety which is a not-wanting-to-be-oneself. It is a "misrelation" that arises in the self when once cannot balance the eternal (God).  The book is a psychological exposition with Christianity as its background and as intended for “edification and awakening”.  

The sickness which is the topic of Kierkegaard’s work is mental, he describes it as a “sickness of the spirit”.  The book presents a step-by-step progression towards this crisis from a state in which the sufferer is not even aware of this sickness. The principal focus is the raising of the level of a person’s awareness of the urgency of the choice.  

This despair, however, is not something that should be rooted out. From the point of spiritual development, there is actually something healthy about it. Spiritual development is bound to progress through a state of sickness.   The only way out of escaping despair, therefore, seems to be to go through with it.

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━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⌛ Timestamps (0:00) Background (0:47) Preface (1:12) Introduction (2:46) Part I. The Sickness unto Death is Despair (8:34) Part II. Despair is Sin