Anxious Attachment

All psychiatric diagnoses have their socio-historical moments (currently in vogue: ADHD), but the two that most of us face at some point in our lives are depression and anxiety. As a therapist, I often discuss the latter as a response to other emotions — like anger and sadness — that have difficulty finding expression. Or as David A. Robertson writes in All the Little Monsters, “It can make you feel anything and everything and often several symptoms at once. Anxiety can be an onslaught.”

Countless books have emerged in the last decade on the proliferation of mental health challenges. Some are pop psychology, others are academic, and many more blend cultural criticism, medical writing, and personal essay. (At the same time, the rise of autofiction reveals another kind of anxious narrative, one that jettisons plot in favour of an obsessive consideration of the day-to-day.) This work sits somewhere between self-help and artist’s memoir. A two‑time winner of...