Existential Psychology

http://www.eiu.edu/~psych/spencer/Existential.html

Eastern Illinois University

Existential Psychology represents a synthesis of philosophy and psychology. The philosophical bases were

formed by Kierkegaard and Heidegger. The most popular one-sentence summary is "existence precedes

essence". The followers who have translated their thinking into statements about personality include the

Europeans Ludwig Binswanger, Medard Boss, and Victor Frankl. Major American theorists include Rollo May and Paul Tillich, but I will also include some writings of Salvatore Maddi. The following notes represent

an attempt at a synthesis of the writings of many theorists. I will not attempt to associate each concept

with it's originator. You can get this detailed information in a graduate class. The writings of Rollo May are considered as a primary source.

Core of Personality

I. Core Tendency: To achieve authentic being. Being signifies the special quality of human mentality (aptly called intentionality), that makes life a series of decisions, each involving an alternative that precipitates persons into an unknown future and an alternative that pushes them back into a routine, predictable past. Choosing the future brings ontological anxiety (fear of the unknown), whereas choosing the safe status quo brings ontological guilt (sense of missed opportunity). Authenticity involves accepting this painful state of affairs and finding the courage or hardiness to persist in the face of ontological anxiety and choose the future, thereby minimizing ontological guilt.

II. Core Characteristics

A. Being-in-the -world: This concept emphasizes the unity of person and environment, since, in this heavily phenomenological position, both are subjectively defined. Being-in-the-world has three components:

1. Umwelt ("world around") - the natural world of biological urge and drive.

2. Mitwelt ("with-world") - the social, interactive, interpersonal aspects of existence.

3. Eigenwelt ("own world") - the subjective, phenomenological world of the self.

B. Six ontological principles:

1. Every person is centered in self and lives life through the meaning he or she places on thatcenter.

2. Every person is responsible for mobilizing the courage to protect the self, to affirm it, and to enhance its continued existence.

3. People need other people with whom they can empathize and from whom they can learn.

4. People are vigilant about potential dangers to their identities.

5. People can be aware of themselves thinking and feeling at one moment and may be aware of themselves as the person who thinks and feels in the next moment.

6. Anxiety originates, in part, out of a person's awareness that one's being can end.

C. The goals of integration: May conceives of the human being as conscious of self, capable of intentionality, and needing to make choices. To do this we must recognize and confront the paradoxes of our lives. A paradox is too opposing things posited against each other all the while the fact is that they cannot exist without each other. Thus, good and evil; life and death; and beauty and ugliness appear to be at odds with each other, but the very confrontation with one breathes life and meaning into the other. The goals of integration include confronting one's potentialities for the daimonic, power, love, intentionality, freedom and destiny, and courage and creativity.

1. The Daimonic: This is defined as "any natural function that has the power to take over the whole person". Sex, anger, and power can become evil when they take over the self without integration. We are capable of both good and evil.

2. Power: Life can bee seen as a conflict between achieving a sense of significance of one's self on the one hand, and the feeling of powerlessness on the other. Violence has its breeding ground in impotence and apathy. As we make people powerless, we encourage violence, rather than control it.

3. Intentionality: Intentionality underlies any decision. It is "the structure which gives meaning to experience". It is the capacity to participate in knowing. How a piece of paper is perceived will differ depending on whether one intends to write on it or to make a paper airplane. May holds that we cannot know the truth until we have taken a stand on it.

4. Freedom and Destiny: Freedom is the capacity to pause (and make a choice) between a stimulus and a response. In the debate between dispositional and situational factors, there is a third alternative -human beings can choose when and whether they are to be acted upon or do the acting. To the extent that one is unaware of one's responses, then determinism may be the appropriate term. The shift from determinism to destiny occurs when a person is self-conscious about what is happening to him or her. To accept one's destiny is to accept personal responsibility.

5. Courage: Courage is the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair. Courage is necessary in order to make being and becoming possible. The paradox of courage is that we must be fully committed but at the same time aware that we might be wrong.

Development

I. Early Development. The period during which the child is dependent and requires parental guidancein order to develop courage. Ideally, parents 

(1) expose the child to a richness of experience, 

(2)freely impose limits expressing their own views,

 (3) love and respect the child as a budding individual,

and (4) teach the value of vigorous symbolization, imagination, and judgement directly and by example.

Experiencing these things, the child develops courage, or the willingness to consider what is facticity (given) and what is possibility, and the tendency to chose the future rather than the past, tolerating ontological anxiety (fear of unknown) rather than building up ontological guilt (sense of missed opportunity).

II. Later development. Begins when courage has been developed (presuma

I. Later development. Begins when courage has been developed (presumably sometime in adolescence, if

conditions have been ideal). This period, which continues throughout life, involves self-initiated learning from failure experiences. There are two transitional stages to go through before authenticity or individuality can be reached. The first is the aesthetic phase, which takes place as soon as the person leaves the family. It is characterized by living in the moment (without regard for past or future) an failing to form deep relationships. The loneliness and aimlessness of this orientation teaches the person its shortcomings. Thus, the idealistic phase begins, characterized by undying commitments and uncompromising principles. Sooner or later the person recognizes, through failures, that commitments cannot be made forever and that the relationship between principles and any particular persons or events is problematical. With this learning, the phase of authenticity or individuality begins.

Periphery of Personality

Personality types emphasizing self-definition and world view: (This is mostly from Maddi's writings)

I. Authenticity or individuality (ideal type) involves the self-definition as someone with a mental life permitting comprehension and influence over one's social and biological experiences. The world view is characterized by considering society the creation of persons and properly in their service. The individualist's functioning has unity and shows subtly, taste, intimacy, and love. Doubt (or ontological anxiety) is experienced as a natural concomitant of creating one's own meaning and does not undermine the decision-making process. There is a minimum of ontological guilt, or sense of missed opportunity.

II. Conformism (nonideal type) is the expression in adulthood of not having learned courage in early development, and, hence, being unable to learn from failures. The self-definition is nothing more than a

player of social roles and an embodiment of biological needs. Expression of symbolization, imagination, and judgement, is inhibited, leading to stereotyped, fragmentary functioning. Biological experiencing is

exaggerated and gross, and social experiencing is contractual rather than intimate. The conformist feels

worthless and insecure because of the buildup of ontological guilt through frequently choosing the past

rather than the future. The relevant world view stresses materialism and pragmatism. This type represents

a vulnerability to existential sickness, which tendency becomes an actuality when environmental stresses

occur that are sufficient to disconfirm the conformist's self-definition and world view.