Dwelling With Anxiety: A Heideggerian Case Study in Existential Therapy

This paper presents a case study of anxiety within the framework of hermeneutic-existential-phenomenological therapy (HEPT), grounded in Martin Heidegger’s early philosophy. Through the therapeutic journey of a young man caught in a self-perpetuating spiral of anxiety and control, the paper explores how, in Heideggerian terms, mood worlds the client and how the shift from reflexive management to existential description opens new possibilities for presence, freedom, and relational attunement. The paper offers therapists an alternative lens for engaging with anxiety—not as pathology but as a mooded disclosure of being. For practitioners, this case offers a reminder that the work of existential therapy lies in staying-with, rather than in solving. It invites practitioners to help clients find language not about moods but from within the moods—where a different kind of agency can begin to stir.