Sick Souls, Healthy Minds: How William James Can Save Your Life

by John Kaag,
Psychology Today, April 21, 2020

In 2010, thirty-year-old John Kaag, a postdoctoral student in philosophy at Harvard, had just watched his estranged, alcoholic father die and was in the midst of a divorce. A “sick soul” even on good days, Kaag teetered on the edge of the abyss. Until William James, the subject of a monograph Kaag was writing on creativity, saved his life. Or, more precisely, taught him that life is worth living and that one’s beliefs helps create that fact.