When King David, in the Bible, says that “fearfulness and trembling are come upon me,” is he suffering an anxiety attack?

Everywhere and nowhere, anxiety, Ms. Pearson writes, is “unbearably vivid yet insanely abstract.” In many cases it is the fear of fear itself, a free-floating, nebulous entity that, like a mutant virus, feeds on any available host. Reason is powerless against it.

Ms. Pearson argues, in fact, that rationalism, intended to banish superstition and fear, has instead removed one of the most effective weapons against anxiety, namely religious faith and ritual.

That, in a nutshell, is her situation, one that she addresses through therapy, pull-up-your-socks willpower and a blend of religion and the insights of writers like the cultural geographer Yi-Fu Tuan