Nostalgia and Well-Being: An Existentialist Analysis

This chapter investigates the relationship between nostalgia and health from an existentialist perspective. Research on the topic of nostalgia is currently thriving, especially in the area of empirical psychology. One of the claims frequently made within this area is that nostalgia is unequivocally a positive emotion when it comes to generating well-being. This chapter intervenes in this claim in three stages. First, I examine some of the claims made by empirical psychology in arguing for a functionally positive account of nostalgia. In doing so, I identify several flaws within the research from empirical psychology, which risks presenting a myopic version of nostalgia. Second, I critically examine the concept of existential health and well-being, giving special attention to the role temporality plays in these concepts. Finally, I apply this framework to the case of nostalgia. In doing so, I employ Thomas Fuchs’ idea of ‘desynchronization’ to account for how nostalgic subjectivity inhabits two temporalities simultaneously, thereby creating what I term a ‘chronophobic’ relationship to the present. I conclude, by pointing out some future direction research on nostalgia and health might take, especially concerning the relationship between nostalgia, ageing, and death.