Author Guide · Psychology
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In the early 1940s Rollo May, then a doctoral student in New York, was diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent to a sanatorium at Saranac Lake, with no certainty that he would recover. He spent the time reading Kierkegaard and Freud on anxiety, and in 1949 Columbia University awarded him its first PhD in clinical psychology for a dissertation on the subject. The American psychologist, born in 1909, went on to bring European existential thought into American therapy, and his 1969 book Love and Will became a best-seller. This guide covers his 11 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 11 key books · 1939–1991 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Rollo May published about fifteen books. The best known are The Meaning of Anxiety (1950), Man’s Search for Himself (1953), Love and Will (1969), The Courage to Create (1975) and The Cry for Myth (1991). Start with Man’s Search for Himself, written for general readers; the list below gives all 11 key books with what each one is about.
Where to Start with Rollo May
If you want the most accessible way in
→ Man’s Search for Himself (1953) — loneliness, anxiety and courage, written for general readers.
If you want his best-known book
→ Love and Will (1969) — the 1969 best-seller on love, sex and will.
If you want a short book on creativity
→ The Courage to Create (1975) — essays named in tribute to Paul Tillich.
If you want the theory behind his work
→ The Meaning of Anxiety (1950) — the dissertation that started it.
11 Rollo May Books, in Order
The Art of Counseling
His first book, written after his years at Union Theological Seminary, where he took a Bachelor of Divinity in 1938. It is a practical guide to counselling for ministers, teachers and advisers, and shows the influence of Alfred Adler, whose seminars he had attended in Vienna while teaching in Greece.
The Meaning of Anxiety
The published version of his Columbia dissertation, the first PhD in clinical psychology the university awarded. May surveys how philosophers and psychologists from Kierkegaard to Freud understood anxiety, and defines it as the apprehension set off by a threat to a value a person holds essential to their existence as a self. He separates normal anxiety, which belongs to growth, from neurotic anxiety. He revised the book in 1977.
Man’s Search for Himself
Written for general readers rather than therapists, it describes the loneliness, emptiness and anxiety May saw in his patients in post-war America, and argues that people can only meet them by building a strong sense of self. Later chapters deal with freedom, conscience and courage.
Existence
An anthology, edited with Ernest Angel and Henri Ellenberger, that brought the work of European existential psychiatrists such as Ludwig Binswanger to English-speaking readers. May’s two opening essays explain what existential psychology is. It is usually credited with introducing the approach to American readers.
Psychology and the Human Dilemma
A collection of essays built around what May calls the human dilemma: that a person can experience themself both as a subject who acts and as an object things happen to. The essays cover anxiety, identity, freedom and the limits of a purely scientific psychology.
Love and Will
His most popular book and a best-seller. Writing at the height of the sexual revolution, May argues that modern society has split sex from love and that giving in to every impulse does not make anyone free; love has to be willed. He draws on Greek ideas of love, from eros to agape, and on what he calls the daimonic. It won the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award for humane scholarship in 1970.
Power and Innocence
Written after the violence of the late 1960s, it argues that violence grows out of powerlessness rather than power, and that people who claim innocence of power are often its most dangerous users. The New York Society of Clinical Psychologists gave it its Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Award in 1972.
The Courage to Create
A short book of seven essays, its title a tribute to The Courage to Be by his teacher and friend Paul Tillich. May defines creativity as bringing something new into being, argues that it takes courage because new forms threaten what a society protects, and writes about the role of the unconscious, encounter and the limits that give art its form.
Freedom and Destiny
An argument that freedom only has meaning in relation to destiny: the givens a person cannot choose, from their body and family to death. May sets this against the ideas of limitless personal liberation that were popular in the 1970s.
The Discovery of Being
A compact introduction to existential psychotherapy, partly drawn from his essays in Existence. It sets out the core ideas of his approach, including the three “worlds” a person lives in at once: the natural world, the world of other people and the relation to oneself.
The Cry for Myth
His last major book argues that modern people suffer from a lack of shared myths, which he describes as ways of making sense in a senseless world. He reads stories such as Peer Gynt, Faust and The Great Gatsby as myths for the problems his patients brought to therapy.
In What Order to Read Rollo May
None of May’s books depends on another, so you can read by subject. Publication order does show how his work developed: the early books come out of counselling and his study of anxiety, Existence (1958) marks his turn to European existential thought, and the books from Love and Will onward apply those ideas to love, violence, creativity, freedom and myth.
The Meaning of Anxiety and Existence are written for specialists; most general readers start with Man’s Search for Himself, Love and Will or The Courage to Create and come back to the theory later.
A reading path
1. Man’s Search for Himself (1953)
2. The Courage to Create (1975)
3. Love and Will (1969)
4. The Meaning of Anxiety (1950)
5. The Cry for Myth (1991)
Everything Else Rollo May Published
Beyond the 11 key books: 4 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Other books
4
4 books · 1940–1995
- 1940The Springs of Creative Livingan early book on personality and religious faith
- 1973Paulusa personal portrait of Paul Tillich
- 1985My Quest for Beautya personal book on art and beauty
- 1995The Psychology of Existencea clinical book, published after his death
The years · 1909–1994
Quick facts about Rollo May
- Known for
- Rollo May is known for bringing European existential philosophy into American psychotherapy, and for arguing that anxiety, when faced, is part of growth rather than only a symptom.
- 1909
- Born in Ada, Ohio
- 1949
- Columbia’s first PhD in clinical psychology
- 1969
- Love and Will
- 1975
- Moves to California
- 1994
- Dies in Tiburon, California
- Born
- 21 April 1909, Ada, Ohio; grew up in Marine City, Michigan
- Died
- 22 October 1994, Tiburon, California, aged 85
- Education
- Oberlin College (1930); Union Theological Seminary (BD, 1938); Columbia University (PhD, 1949)
- Worked
- William Alanson White Institute; the New School for Social Research, 1955–1975; co-founder of Saybrook in San Francisco
- Influences
- Paul Tillich, Søren Kierkegaard, Alfred Adler, Otto Rank
- Honours
- Ralph Waldo Emerson Award (1970); American Psychological Foundation Gold Medal for lifetime contributions (1987)
The red mark is 1969: Love and Will, his best-selling book on love, sex and will.
How Rollo May Writes: Psychology as Philosophy
May writes as a practising therapist who reads philosophy, and his books move between the two. A chapter will start from a patient’s dream or complaint and turn to Kierkegaard, Nietzsche or the Greek tragedies to explain it. He was trained in theology before psychology, and the questions he asks are often the old ones: what courage is, what love demands, what a person owes to their own freedom.
His central move is to treat difficult feelings as meaningful rather than only as symptoms. In The Meaning of Anxiety anxiety is a sign that something a person values is at stake; in Love and Will the daimonic, the urge that can be creative or destructive, has to be integrated rather than suppressed; in The Courage to Create rage against injustice feeds creative work.
He wrote most of his books for general readers, in essays rather than systems, and often used literature as evidence: Ibsen, Goethe and Fitzgerald sit beside case material in The Cry for Myth. That makes him easier to read than most theorists, but also less systematic; readers looking for a method of therapy will find it set out most clearly in Existence and The Discovery of Being.
Frequently asked questions about Rollo May’s books
How many books has Rollo May written?
About fifteen. The 11 key books on this page run from The Art of Counseling (1939) to The Cry for Myth (1991); the other four are The Springs of Creative Living (1940), Paulus (1973), My Quest for Beauty (1985) and The Psychology of Existence (1995), written with Kirk Schneider and published after his death.
What are Rollo May’s books in order?
The Art of Counseling (1939), The Meaning of Anxiety (1950), Man’s Search for Himself (1953), Existence (1958, co-edited), Psychology and the Human Dilemma (1967), Love and Will (1969), Power and Innocence (1972), The Courage to Create (1975), Freedom and Destiny (1981), The Discovery of Being (1983) and The Cry for Myth (1991).
Where should I start with Rollo May?
Man’s Search for Himself (1953), which he wrote for general readers and which covers his main themes: loneliness, anxiety, freedom and courage. If you prefer something short, The Courage to Create (1975) is a book of seven essays.
What is Rollo May’s most famous book?
Love and Will (1969), a best-seller that argues modern society has separated sex from love and that love has to be willed. It won the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award in 1970.
Is Rollo May still alive?
No. He was born on 21 April 1909 in Ada, Ohio, and died on 22 October 1994 in Tiburon, California, aged 85, of congestive heart failure.
What did Rollo May say about anxiety?
In The Meaning of Anxiety (1950) he defined it as the apprehension set off by a threat to a value a person holds essential to their existence as a self. He distinguished normal anxiety, which comes with freedom and growth, from neurotic anxiety, and argued that facing anxiety is part of becoming a person.
Is Rollo May an existentialist?
He is often described as the leading figure of American existential psychology. The anthology Existence (1958), which he co-edited, introduced European existential psychiatry to American readers. He is often grouped with humanistic psychologists such as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, but relied more on philosophy than they did.
What is the connection between Rollo May and Paul Tillich?
Tillich, the existentialist theologian, was one of his teachers at Union Theological Seminary and became a close friend. May named The Courage to Create after Tillich’s The Courage to Be and wrote a memoir of him, Paulus (1973).
Was Irvin Yalom a patient of Rollo May?
Yes. Irvin Yalom, the psychiatrist and author of Existential Psychotherapy and Love’s Executioner, was one of May’s therapy clients.
Did Rollo May win any prizes?
Love and Will won the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award in 1970 and Power and Innocence the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Award of the New York Society of Clinical Psychologists in 1972. In 1987 the American Psychological Foundation gave him its Gold Medal for lifetime contributions to professional psychology.
Footnotes
- Rollo May — Wikipedia
- Rollo May — New World Encyclopedia
- Rollo May and Existential Psychology — LibreTexts (Kelland, Personality Theory in a Cultural Context)
- Rollo May — GoodTherapy
- Rollo May and the Courage to Create — Psychology Today, 2016
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“We are living at a time when one age is dying and the new age is not yet born.”
— Rollo May, The Courage to Create (1975)
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