Despair as the Sickness Unto Death: Kierkegaard on the Self

Søren Kierkegaard’s The Sickness Unto Death is one of the most penetrating analyses of despair ever written, and it begins with a deceptively simple claim: the self is a relation that relates itself to itself. From this strange-sounding starting point, Kierkegaard builds a profound account of what it means to be a self, and of the despair that arises when the self is out of joint with itself and with the power that created it. The “sickness unto death” of the title is not a physical illness; it is despair, and Kierkegaard argues, disturbingly, that it is far more widespread than we admit, and that most people are in despair without even knowing it.

Here is what The Sickness Unto Death taught me about the structure of the self, about the hidden forms of despair, and about despair as a doorway to faith.

Key takeaways

• The self is a relation that must rightly relate to itself and to its source.
• Despair is misrelation: failing to be the self one truly is.
• Most despair is unconscious; people despair without knowing it.
• Despair takes two forms: not willing to be oneself, and defiantly willing to be a false self.
• Despair points toward faith, resolved only by resting in the power that made us.

What it means to be a self

Kierkegaard’s account of the self is dense but rewarding. To be a self, he argues, is not simply to exist as a thing; it is to be a relation that actively relates to itself, that is aware of itself, takes a stance toward itself, and must somehow hold together the opposing elements of its nature: the finite and the infinite, necessity and possibility, body and spirit. The self is a task, something we have to become, not a fixed fact we simply are. And crucially, for Kierkegaard, the self is not self-created; it is established by a power outside itself, which he understands as God. To be a healthy self, then, is to relate rightly both to oneself and to that source. Despair arises whenever this delicate relation goes wrong.

The hidden epidemic of despair

The most unsettling part of the book is Kierkegaard’s claim that despair is nearly universal, and usually unconscious. We tend to think of despair as a dramatic emotional state, the obvious anguish of someone in crisis. Kierkegaard means something deeper and quieter: despair is the condition of any self that is not properly related to itself and its source, whether or not the person feels it. The contented bourgeois, busy and outwardly cheerful, may be in the deepest despair of all, the despair of having a false self, of never having become who they truly are, and of not even noticing the loss. This is a haunting idea. It suggests that the absence of felt anguish is no proof of health, that one can be in despair precisely by being too shallow to realise it. The most common despair, he says, is not to choose to be oneself.

Despair as a doorway

And yet Kierkegaard does not leave us in darkness. Despair, for him, is paradoxically a sign of our greatness; only a being capable of relating to itself, only a spirit, can despair, which is why animals cannot. Despair is the misrelation of a self that is meant for something more. And it points beyond itself. The only true cure for despair, Kierkegaard argues, is faith: the state in which the self, in relating to itself, rests transparently in the power that established it, in God. Despair is thus not merely a sickness to be escaped but a doorway, a painful awareness of our condition that can drive us toward the only thing that can heal it. The way out of despair runs not through distraction or busyness but through a deeper relation to ourselves and to our source.

What I’m taking with me

The Sickness Unto Death is demanding, and its theological frame is essential to its argument, but its psychological insight reaches anyone. What I am taking from Kierkegaard is his profound idea that to be a self is a task we must take up rather than a given we passively possess; his disturbing diagnosis that much despair is hidden, that we can be lost without knowing it, comfortably failing to become ourselves; and his suggestion that even despair has a purpose, as a summons to a deeper relation to ourselves and to the ground of our being. He will not let me mistake mere comfort for genuine health, and that uncomfortable honesty is exactly his gift.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Sickness Unto Death about?

It is Kierkegaard’s analysis of despair, which he defines as a misrelation of the self to itself and to God. He argues despair is widespread, often unconscious, and ultimately resolved only through faith.

What is the “sickness unto death”?

Despair. Not a physical illness but a spiritual condition in which the self fails to be what it truly is, which Kierkegaard considers more deadly and more common than we recognize.

How does Kierkegaard say despair is overcome?

Through faith: the state in which the self, relating to itself, rests transparently in the power that created it. For Kierkegaard, only this right relation to God truly cures despair.

References & further reading

1. Kierkegaard, Søren. The Sickness Unto Death. (1849; translated by Alastair Hannay, Penguin Classics, 1989.)
2. Hannay, Alastair. Kierkegaard. Routledge, 1982.
3. Gardiner, Patrick. Kierkegaard. Oxford University Press, 1988.