About: Love and Will

Love and Will (1969) is a book by American existential psychologist Rollo May, in which he articulates the principle that an awareness of death is essential to life, rather than being opposed to life. The book explores how the modern loss of older values, whose structures and stories provided society with explanations of the mysteries of life, forces contemporary humanity to choose between finding meaning within themselves or deciding that neither oneself, nor life, has meaning. May argues that the core issue informing modern Western man's struggles is the failure to understand the significance, origin, and dynamic interrelationship between love and will.