Chapter 18 – Rollo

May
Existential Psychology
Background
 Kierkegard
 Concern – dehumanization tendency of society
 Opposed to see people as objects
 Opposed subjective perceptions are one’s
ONLY reality
 People – exist in world as thinking, active, and
willing beings
 To overcome the dichotomy of reason and
emotions (subjectivity and objectivity)
Background

 Emphasis of Freedom and Responsibility

 I am in charge of my own destiny –
burden of freedom & the pain or
responsibility
Existentialism - Defined
 Existence (to emerge or become; the process;
growth and change) takes precedence over
Essence (static immutable substance; the
product; stagnation and finality)
 Science emphasizes Essence – the product,
the essential composition of things
 Existentialists – affirm people’s essence is the
power to continually redefine themselves
through the choices you make
Existentialism Defined

 Opposes the split between the subject

and the object
 People – not just subjective thinking
beings ALSO also active beings who find
truth by living honestly and authentic lives
 Person – are not just objects (human
resources)
Existentialism Defined

 Search for Meaning

 Who am I?
 Is Life Worth Living?
 Does my life have a meaning?
 How can I realize my humanity?
Existentialism Defined

 I am responsible for who I am and what I

become
 Cannot blame parents, teachers, employers,
God, or circumstances
 You are what you make of yourself
 I choose to become what I can be
 In the ultimate end, I am alone
 IT is essentially YOUR own choice
Existentialism Defined

 Theories further dehumanize people &

render them as objects
 Authentic experiences takes precedence
over artificial theories or explanations
 When experience is molded into a
preexisting theory – it looses authenticity,
and becomes something foreign to the
person
BASIC Concepts
Being in the World

 Phenomenological Approach (we are all

a separate phenomenon that cannot be
replicated)
 I must be understood from my own
perspective
Being-in-the-world

 Dasien (to exist in the world or being-in-

the-world) - Basic unity of person and
environment
 Hyphen oneness between subject and
object, person and the world – we are
one
Being-in-the-world

 Anxiety and despair – alienation from self

and from the world
 No clear image of self
 Isolated from the world – distant and foreign
 Not in touch with the natural world – not
in touch with one’s own body
Being-in-the-World

 Alienation – manifest in three areas

1. Separation from nature
2. Lack of meaningful interpersonal
relations
3. Alienation from own authentic self
Umwelt – Relation with
Environment
 The world of objects and things - Exists
even without your awareness
 World of nature and natural law - Includes
biological drives (hunger, sleep, sex) and
natural phenomena (birth, death)
 Cannot escape it and must learn to live in
the world and adjust to its changes
Mitwelt – Relations with
others
 We must relate to people as people (not
as things)
 True love – mitwelt (usury love – living in
the umwelt)
 Love
 demands a commitment to the other person
 Respect for the other person’s Dasien
 Unconditional acceptance of that person
Eigenwelt – Relations with
Self
 To be aware of oneself as a human being
and to grasp who one is
 What does this sunset mean for me?
 How is this other person apart of my life?
 What characteristics of mine allow me to
love this person?
 How do I perceive the
 Umwelt – Mitwelt –
Relations Relations with
with environment other people
Adapt to the Relate to others
Natural World with Respect

Healthy People
Live
Simultaneously Eigenwelt –
In all three Relationship with self
relations Keen awareness of what
All these means to me
Nonbeing or Nothingness
 To grasp what it means to exist, one needs to
grasp the fact that you might not exist
 Death at any one moment – Life becomes
more vital and meaningful
 Awareness of nonexistence gives your
existence and each moment absolute quality.
 Try to live today as if it were your last…and
everything has meaning.
Nonbeing

 Other forms of non-being

 Addiction to alcohol & drugs
 Promiscuous sexual activity
 Compulsive behaviors
 Blind conformity
 Generalized hostility
Nonbeing

 Fear of nonbeing (death) “provokes

people to live defensively and to receive
less from life than if they would confront
the issue of nonexistence”
 Flee from making choices: make choices
without considering who they are or what
they want
Nonbeing
 Avoiding the fear of nonbeing – by
dimming their self-awareness and
denying their individuality
 Leads to feeling of despair and
emptiness
 A Constricted Existence
 Better – Nonbeing is inseparable from
Being
Case of Philip and
Anxiety
Anxiety
 Neurotic Anxiety - Nonproductive, self-
defeating behavior
 Much of human behavior is motivated by
an underlying sense of dread and anxiety
 Failure to confront death – temporary
escape from anxiety or dread of nonbeing
 Arises when people are faced with the
problem of fulfilling their potentialities
Anxiety
1. Aware that their existence or
Awareness of one’s nonbeing – I can
become nothing
2. Some value identified with existence
might be destroyed or some threat to
some value essential to one’s
existence.
3. Exists when one confronts issue of
fulfilling one’s potential – stagnation and
decay or to growth and change
Anxiety

4. Acquisition of freedom or the

possibility of freedom
 Can be pleasurable or painful,
constructive or destructive, energize
and give zest or paralyze and create
panic
 Anxiety can be normal or neurotic
Normal Anxiety
 Normal Anxiety is
 “proportional to the threat,
 does not involve repression,
 and can be confronted constructively on the
conscious level”
 All growth consists of anxiety-creating
surrender of past values
 During insight that leads to recognition
that one’s life is permanently changed
Neurotic Anxiety

 A reaction which is
 disproportionate to the threat,
 Involves repression and other forms of
intrapsychic conflict, and
 Managed by various kinds of blocking-off of
activity and awareness
Neurotic Anxiety
 Felt whenever values are transformed
into dogma
 To be absolutely right in one’s beliefs
provides temporary security
 Security bought at the price of
surrendering one’s opportunity for new
learning and growth
 Person become too rigid to change or to
grow
Neurotic Anxiety

 Case of Philip
 Drawn to “crazy” women
 Stuck in being the guard on duty – to
rescue them
 Could not change or grow out of this
Guilt
 Happens when:
 people deny their potentialities,
 fail to accurately perceive the needs of their
fellow humans, or
 remain oblivious to their dependence on the
natural world.
 Guilt and anxiety – both ontological (refers
to the nature of being and not to feelings
arising from specific situations or
transgressions)
Guilt

 Ontological
 Ontological guilt – need – stems from
one’s own action or failure to act
 Can arise from one’s own lack of
awareness of one’s being-in-the-world
Guilt

 Three forms of ontological guilt

 Umwelt – lack of awareness of one’s being-
in-the-world
 Mitwelt –inability to perceive accurately the
world of others
 Eigenwelt – our own denial of our own
potentialities or our failure to fulfill them.
Guilt - Umwelt
 Alienation from the world
 Technological advancements – not one
with nature
 Referred to as “Separation Guilt
 We are separated from the world and
thus we seek to be one with something, a
higher deity, a oneness with nature, a
oneness with our world around us.
Guilt - Mitwelt

 Inability to accurately perceive the world

of others
 We can see people only through our own
eyes – not perfect to judge others’ needs
 We cannot anticipate the needs of others
– feeling of inadequacy in our relations
with them (guilt)
Guilt - Eigenwelt

 Denial of our own potentialities or failure

to fulfill our potentialities
 We cannot completely fulfill our
potentialities
 The fear of being one’s best
Guilt
 Can be positive or negative effect on
personality
 Guilt – developed to form a sense of humility,
to improve relations with others, and to
creatively use their potentialities
 Refusal to accept ontological guilt – neurotic or
morbid – leads to nonproductive or neurotic
symptoms such as sexual impotence,
depression, cruelty to others, or inability to
make a choice.
Intentionality
Intentionality

 Ability to make a choice – implies a

structure
 Intentionality – structure that gives
meaning to experience and allows people
to make decisions about their future
Intentionality

 Intentionality – used to bridge the gap

between subjective and objective
 Structure which makes it possible for us
(subjective person) to see to see the
outside world (Objective as it is)
 Intentionality – subjective and objective
are partially overcome
Intentionality

 Man and the paper example

 Man (subject) and the paper (object)
 Action depends on his intentions and the
meaning he gives to his experience
 Meaning is a function of both himself and
his environment
Intention

 Sometimes unconscious
 Philip’s care for “crazy” woman – part of
his earlier experience to care for crazy
women
 Trapped by his unconscious belief that
crazy and unpredictable women must be
cared for.
Care, Love and Will
Care, Love and Will
 Care – to recognize that person as a
fellow human being, to identify with that
person’s pain or joy, guilt or pity.
 Active process that is opposite of apathy
 Care is a state in which something does
matter
 Care is the source of Love and the
source of Will
Love
 To love means:
 to care,
 to recognize the essential humanity of the other
person,
 to have active regard for that person’s
development
 Love – a delight in the presence of the other
person and an affirming of that person’s value
and development as much as one’s own
Love

 Without care there can be no love

 Empty sentimentality or transient sexual
arousal
Will

 “The capacity to organize one’s self so

that movement in a certain direction or
toward a certain goal may take place.”
 Will – requires self-consciousness, some
possibility of either/or choice, gives self-
direction, the maturity to wish, protects
‘wish” permits it to continue without
running the risks that are too great.
Will

 Wish – no self-consciousness, no choice,

gives the warmth, the content, the
imagination, the child’s play, the
freshness, and the richness to will
Union of Love and Will
 Modern society – suffering from unhealthy
division of love and will
 Love – associated with sensual love or
sex – temporary, lacking commitment: no
will just only wish
 Will – a dogged (stubborn) determination
or will power – self-serving, lacks passion;
no care just manipulation (no com-
passion)
Union of Love and Will

 Babies – one with the universe (umwelt),

mother (mitwelt), and themselves
(eigenwelt)
 Babies – needs met without self-
conscious effort (nursing); the first “yes”
 Later Will development – manifested as
opposition; the first “no” (late infancy)
Union of Love and Will

 No – positive assertion of self and not

opposition to parents
 Parents see it as negative – stifle the
child’s “no”
 Children learn to disassociate Will from
blissful love (previously enjoyed)
Union of Love and Will
 Task – unite will and love
 Not easy
 Union of love and will – a reaching out
towards another person
 Involves care,
 necessitates choice,
 Implies action,
 Require responsibility,
Forms of Love

 Sex
 Eros
 Philia
 Agape
Sex

 Satisfied through sexual intercourse or

release of sexual tension
 “The power of procreation,
 the drive which perpetuates the race,
 source at once of the human being’s
most intense pleasure, and
 his most pervasive anxiety”
Sex
 Ancient times – sex was taken for
granted like eating and drinking
 Modern times – sex is a problem
 Victorian period – denial of sexual
feelings and sex was a taboo topic
 1920’s – reaction against sexual
suppression, - sex became open and a
preoccupation
Sex

 Development
 From sex heavy with guilt and anxiety
 To a time of not having it brought about
guilt and anxiety
 Today?
Eros

 “Physiological desire that seeks

procreation or creation through an
enduring union with a loved one.”
 “takes wings of human imagination and is
forever transcending all techniques,
giving the laugh to all the ‘how to’ books
by gaily swinging into orbit above
mechanical rules”
Eros
 Eros  Sex
 Making Love  Manipulation of sex
 Wish to establish organs
lasting union  Desire to experience
pleasure
Eros

 Built on care and tenderness

 Longs for a lasting union with another
person such that both experience delight
and passion
 Both are broadened and deepened by
the experience
 Can be regarded as the salvation of sex
Philia
 Eros, the salvation of sex is built on the
foundation of philia
 Philia – an intimate nonsexual friendship
between two people
 Cannot be rushed, takes time to grow, .
To develop, or to sink its roots
 Love between siblings, between lifelong
friends
Philia

 Does not require anything except that

we:
 Accept him
 Be with him
 Enjoy him
 Friendship in the simplest and most
direct terms
Philia

 Necessary requisite for healthy erotic

relationships during early and late
adolescence
 Philia makes eros possible
 The gradual, relaxed development of true
friendship is a prerequisite for the
enduring union of two people
Agape

 Philia needs Agape

 Agape – “esteem for the other, the
concern for the other’s welfare beyond
any gain that one can get out of it;
disinterested love, typically, the love of
God for man”
Agape

 Altruistic love
 Spiritual love that carries with it the risk of
playing God
 Does not depend on any behavior or
characteristics of the other person
 Undeserved and unconditional love
Love

 Healthy people – blend all four types of

love
 Authentic kind of love is difficult
 Requires self-affirmation and assertion of
oneself
Love
 At the same time requires:
 tenderness,
 affirmation of the other,
 relaxing of competition as much as possible,
 self-abnegation in times of interests of the
loved one,
 and the age old virtues of mercy and
forgiveness
Freedom and
Destiny
Freedom and Destiny

 One’s freedom and a confrontation with

one’s destiny is required for true
authentic love
 Healthy individuals are able:
 To assume their freedom, and
 To face their destiny
Freedom

 “Freedom is the individual’s capacity to

know that he is the determined one”
 Early definition
 Later – determined one became
synonymous with destiny
 Freedom - the possibility of changing,
although we may not know what those
changes might be
Freedom

 Comes from an understanding of one’s

destiny:
 That death can come at any moment
 That one is either male or female
 That one has inherent weaknesses
 That early childhood experiences disposes
one toward certain patterns of behavior
Freedom

 The possibility of changing, although one

may not know what those changes may
be
 Being able to harbor different possibilities
 Often leads to increased normal anxiety
Forms of Freedom

 Existential Freedom
 Freedom of DOING
 Essential Freedom
 Freedom from BEING
Existential Freedom

 The freedom of action/ freedom of doing

 Free to travel, to choose my associates
and friends, to vote for whom I want to
represent me, freedom to select what I
will buy, what pizza I will eat.
 The freedom to act on the choices that
one makes
Essential Freedom
 Freedom of Being
 Existential Freedom makes essential freedom
more difficult
 Prisoners in concentration camp talked about
their “inner freedom”
 It is part of considering the deepest part of our
being, and the freedom from our own
bondages as well as the bondages around us.
Destiny
 Destiny - the design of the universe
speaking through the design of each one
of us
 The pattern of limits and talents that
constitutes the ‘givens’ in life
 The design of the universe speaking
through the design of each one of us
 Ultimate destiny is death
Destiny

 The type of sickness that may befall you

is determined by your biological
properties, your intelligence, your size,
your strengths, and genetic
predispositions towards certain illnesses
 Psychological and cultural factors also
contributes to your destiny
Destiny

 Not preordained or foredoomed

 It is our goal, our terminus, our
destination
 Within the boundaries of destiny, we
have the power to choose
 The freedom to choose helps us confront
and challenge our destiny
Destiny

 We cannot cancel out our destiny, but we

can choose how we shall respond, how
we shall live out our talents which
confronts us.
Destiny - Freedom

 Like love-hate, life-death, light-darkness

– these are the normal paradoxes of life
 The paradox: Freedom owes its vitality
to destiny; Destiny owes its significance
to freedom
The power of Myth
Power of Myths
 There is an urgent need for myths
 Lacking myths – turned to religious cults,
drug addiction, and popular culture in
vain effort to find meaning in their life
 Myths – unconscious and conscious
belief systems that provide explanations
for personal or social problems
 Support beams of a house
Myths

 Meaning in life – by the myths they

shared
 Stories that unify a society
 Essential to the process of keeping our
souls alive and bringing us new meaning
in a difficult and often meaningless world
Myths
 Communication with others
 Rationalistic Language – truth takes
precedence over the people who are
communicating it
 Myths – total human experience is more
important than the empirical accuracy of
communication
 Myths – transcends the immediate concrete
situation, to expand self-awareness, and to
search for identity
Myths
 Comparative to Jung’s idea of the
collective unconscious
 Myths contain the archetypal patterns in
the human experience
 Avenues of universal images that lie
beyond individual experiences
 Myths can contribute to psychological
growth
Myths

 If people deny universal myths, or see

the myth’s regressive function, the risk
alienation, apathy and emptiness –
principle ingredients of psychopathology
Psychopathology
Psychopathology

 Apathy and emptiness are the malaise of

modern times.
 When people abandon their myths, the
lose their purpose of being, become
directionless
 Without a goal, people become sick and
engage in a variety of self-defeating and
self-destructive behaviors
Psychopathology
 Alienation from Umwelt, Mitwelt, and Eigenwelt
 Helpless to prevent natural disasters, to
reverse globalization, and to make contact with
another person
 Feeling of Insignificance – in a dehumanizing
world
 Leading to apathy and a diminished state of
consciousness
Psychopathology
 A lack of communication – the inability to know
others, and to share oneself with others
 Denial of destiny and thus loose freedom
 Neurotic symptoms are erected not to regain
freedom but to renounce it
 Narrowing down one’s world so that it is easier
to cope,
 Develop rigid routine so no new choices need
to be made
Psychopathology

 Symptoms - may be temporary or

relatively permanent
 Long-term – stems from early childhood
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy
 Anxiety and guilt are not primary ingredients of
psychopathology
 Not to cure particular disorder or eliminating a
specific problem
 Goal: to make people more human, to help
them expand and develop consciousness so
that they are in a better position to make
choices
 Choices – leads to simultaneous growth of
freedom and responsibility
Psychotherapy

 Purpose: to set people free; free to be

aware of and to experience possibilities
 Neurotic patients are running away from
freedom; indication that inner possibilities
are not being used
Psychotherapy

 When patients are more free and more

human – neurotic symptoms disappear;
neurotic anxiety becomes normal anxiety,
neurotic guilt becomes normal guilt
 Psychotherapy – must be concerned with
helping people experience their
existence, and that relieving symptoms is
merely a by-product
Psychotherapy Therapist

 No specific direction to follow

 No special set of techniques or methods
 They have their own humanity to offer
 Establish a one-to-one relationship
(mitwelt)
 Enable patient to become more aware of
themselves (eigenwelt)
Psychotherapy Therapist
 Challenge patient to confront their own
destiny
 To experience despair, anxiety and guilt
 Establish an I-Thou encounter in which
the therapist and client are viewed as
subjects and not objects
 In the I-thou relationship the therapist has
empathy for client and is open to their
subjective world
Psychotherapy
 Therapy – partly religion, partly science,
partly friendship
 Friendship – confronting and challenging
the patient
 The relationship itself is therapeutic
 Transformation – independent of
anything therapist might say or any
theoretical orientation they might have
Psychotherapy

 “our task is to be guide, friend, and

interpreter to persons on their journey
through their own private hells and
purgatories.
Psychotherapy

 “Specifically our task is to help patients

get to the point where they decide
whether they wish to remain victims…or
choose to leave this victim-state and
venture through purgatory with the hope
of achieving some sense of paradise.”
Psychotherapy

 Similar beliefs as Rogers

 Human encounter (I-thou relationship)
 Relationship – potential for growth within
both therapist and client
Psychotherapist

 Fantasy Conversations
 Philip with mother
 Philip with “little Philip”