meaninglessness & Meaning

Meaninglessness

GLORIA IN EXCELSIS MIHI

At the height of the heavens,
the angels, whose voice I hear, glorify me.
I am, beneath the sun, a wandering ant,
small and black, a rolling stone
reaches me,
crushes me,
dead,
in the sky
the sun blazes furiously,
it blinds,
I cry out:
"it will not dare"
it dares.
Georges Bataille 1954 (p.162)

The Milky Way galaxy, of which we are a part, is about 100,000 light-years across. Unfortunately, with distances of this magnitude one cannot even begin to comprehend in units of miles so it is necessary to measure in time. This amounts to approximately 186,000 times the number of seconds in one hundred thousand years. That is how long it takes light to travel from one end of the galaxy to the other. To imagine the amount of space that "space" takes up is futile.

After examination of the Hubble Telescope's Deep Field images this year it would be impossible for one to deny the diminutive nature of the human being's existence. With just a sliver of film, a fraction of an inch, one sees only a tiny part of the "BIG" picture but the view is breathtaking. Millions of galaxies, possibly billions exist in the dark and immense sea we call "space".
Where does that leave humankind? It is possible that we exist as a part of an ordered and structured reality, but is it possible that perhaps we may not be as important as we think we are? From across the galaxies there is no difference between humans and any other life forms. In fact, there is no difference between our solar system and any other that may exist in our home of 100-150 billion stars.

We are not the center of the universe. We are not even the center of the Milky Way. What does this mean to life? It forces one to stop and think. Do we really matter in the realm of cosmological "truths"? If not, then what does this do to our own personal meaning in life?
Meaning and Meaninglessness are polar opposites and humans have been struggling to find their place since they could first ask the question, what is life?

The prospect of meaninglessness affects everybody. We have all questioned the meaning of our lives and existence at various times in our lives. The effects of our conclusions are extremely important because they touch upon all that we are and ever will be.

People have described their experiences with meaninglessness. Sixty-four percent said that while they are experiencing meaninglessness they become very depressed. Thirty-three percent say that while they are experiencing meaninglessness they feel disconnected from the world and all others. Twenty-five percent said that they feel alienated and they do not `belong'. Half said that they feel that there is no purpose for them personally and 24.9% feel hopeless and that their existence has no meaning whatsoever.

Some of the characterizations of meaninglessness are very revealing as to how an experience of meaninglessness can make one feel. For instance, not unlike Bataille, a twenty-six year old man said that "a person may walk and step on an ant with no regard - I feel like I could be stepped on and the world would not even see it." A 27 year old woman said that she would characterize what it is like to experience meaninglessness with the analogy of "a blank landscape after a nuclear war with no life. Just a gray, awful burned out place; something void and empty." A twenty-seven year old man described it as a picture of space without stars or 1,000 slaughtered people." Another 27 year old man characterized meaninglessness as simply as "a perfect nothing".

Salvador Maddi believes that:
existential sickness stems from a comprehensive failure in the search for meaning in life and that existential neurosis in which the cognitive component is meaninglessness, or a chronic inability to believe in truth, importance, usefulness or interest value of any of these things one is engaged in or can imagine doing. (As cited in Yalom, 1980, p.420)

A loss of meaning can create many psychological problems. Salvador Maddi (As cited in Yalom, 1980, p. 450). asserts that "a significant amount of current psychopathology emanates from a sense of meaninglessness." Some common manifestations are "Crusadism, Nihilism, Vegetativeness".

There is also compulsive activity that "consumes the individual's energy to the point that the issue of meaning is drained of its toxin" (As cited in Yalom, 1980, pp. 450-451).

There remains a clinical manifestation of meaninglessness that Yalom does not describe.

It is the tendency for many people to search for meaning and try to find it in idolatry. This is a common occurrence among people who would not normally be "diagnosed" with psychological or emotional disturbances. It can be found in people of all ages but seems to be predominant in younger adults. It is characterized by an intense preoccupation with another human being who is somehow greater and the desire is to all at once emulate and possess this "object". It can be found in "Beatlemania" of the sixties.

It can be found in the Michael Jackson craze of the eighties, and Kurt Cobain of the nineties. It can be easily spotted in popular culture. It occurs when otherwise `normal' human beings are suddenly viewed as extraordinary and it is believed that they have the answers to all questions of a metaphysical nature. This otherwise normal human being is transformed into something superhuman. This person or group of persons become a pre-21st century scapegoat. They are expected to passively take on all of the `sins' and shortcomings, as well as the hopes and dreams, of the multitudes who worship them. They are fantastically reformed and subsequently `deformed' while those who worship them and find their own meaning in their existence are depleted of their own humanity and sense of purpose.

We have become a culture of deification because we cannot look inward to find our own meaning. We can only bear to look outside of ourselves because looking inward is scary and lonely. When we unabashedly idolize other human beings as `gods' we have abandoned our quest for authenticity. We are `guilty' of ontological guilt. We are isolated by our inescapable isolation and social `apartheid'. We are `faced’ with death via the lack of meaning in our lives and we attempt to kill death with death.

We are avoiding facing the loss of our own lives while begging another to sacrifice their own. When an `idol' collapses from drug abuse and dies in a puddle of their own vomit, or when an `idol' takes their own life we cry, and bemoan a tragedy that we did not own. We mourn, but for ourselves. We allow the Jim Morrisons, Kurt Cobains, Karen Carpenters and Marilyn Monroes to die, so we don't have to, only to make way for the next.

Our children grow up, caught in this whirlwind of difficult existential dilemmas because of our own inability to explore the depths of our being. Idolatry takes many forms. Sometimes they are subtle and sometimes they are glaring. It matters not how it is embodied because the bottom line never changes. When we cannot generate our own sense of meaning and purpose we look elsewhere. We want what others have because our emptiness is too demanding to fill by ourselves. We receive these idols as sacred alms onto which we rest our despair. In the end, everybody loses. The idol loses. The one who is idolizing is losing and as a whole we all become more of what we aren't and less than what we are.

In literature one finds a continuous stream of human thought and emotion regarding the meaning or the lack thereof in our lives. Bataille (1954) wrote about meaninglessness. He describes the human being's dilemma of facing the void:

Trembling. To remain immobile, standing, in a solitary darkness, in an attitude without the gesture of a supplicant: supplication, but without gesture and above all without hope. Lost and pleading, blind, half dead. Like Job on the dung heap, in the darkness of night, but imagining nothing-defenseless, knowing that all is lost. (p. 35)

He describes the realization one may have concerning the pain of meaninglessness; the utter and overwhelming feeling of helplessness and hopelessness. The "knowing that all is lost" is particularly accurate in the experience of meaninglessness. When one can no longer find meaning in their life everything that once touched the center of reality is lost.

This is paradoxical because the loss of meaning does not mean the loss of the tangible world around us. We can still see the joy of others. We can still see the blue of a perfect sunny day. We can still see all parts of life but just not for ourselves. In a sense, we are forced to be reminded of all that is lost.

Bataille (1954) also reminds us that in the scope of existence, there may have never been any meaning at all:

This infinite improbability from which I come is beneath me like a void: my presence above this void is like the exercise of a fragile power, as if this void demanded the challenge that I myself bring it, I-that is to say- the infinite, painful improbability of an irreplaceable being which I am. (p. 69)

This is a painful realization and it also enters our being as dread
as it is very frightening to the human being who wishes to live and have meaning. "We are afraid to approach the fathomless and bottomless groundlessness of nothing. [There's nothing to be afraid of.] The ultimate reassurance, and the ultimate terror" (Laing, 1967, p.38).

There is nothing to be afraid of.

Heidegger believed that we use "equipment" in order to keep existential anxiety at bay. When that equipment breaks down (which it always does) we are forced to look at the realities of our existence. We are forced to face the realization that the world can go on just fine without us. We are forced to deal with the questions surrounded our existence.

When we go out to start the car in an early morning of winter there is a chance that it won't start. It will not start and the universe does not seem to care one way or another how late you are. The winds continue to blow, the trees continue to sway and life goes on as you try not to acknowledge it.

Meaninglessness is one of the most scary words in the English language. It surpasses all other concerns. Death may not be so bad if there is hope of a meaning. Isolation is not so bad if one possesses meaning. Freedom is not so scary or arbitrary if there is meaning in the foreground. Meaninglessness is the final stop. It decides most everything else.

If one is experiencing meaninglessness then what does it matter if one dies or feels lonely or frightened. Nietzsche once said that as long as there is a why one can handle any how.
"The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two entities of darkness" (Vladimir Nabokov, Speak Memory 1947, as cited in Barrett,)

Sometimes it is not necessary to look to the sky in order to experience the meaninglessness of human existence. Everyday there is tragedy. Everyday, there is someone in the world who is faced with events that can topple over the strongest "meaninglessness defense shields". Yalom, (1980) describes the consequences of such experiences:

Uncanny are the social explosions that suddenly uproot the values, ethics, and morals that we have come to believe exist independently of ourselves. The Holocaust, mob violence, the Jonestown mass suicide, the chaos of war, all of these strike horror in us because they are evil, but they also stun us because they inform us that nothing is as we have always thought it to be, that contingency reigns, that everything could be otherwise than it is; that everything we consider fixed, precious, good can suddenly vanish; that there is no solid ground; that we are "not-at-home" here or there or anywhere in the world. (p. 482)

With these things in mind is it possible for humankind to find and have a purpose? Can there be meaning even in the face of meaninglessness? This author says yes. Unfortunately, one finds that there is not enough attention paid to meaning and meaninglessness in psychology unless one looks to Logotherapy, and psychiatrists and psychologists such as Viktor Frankl, William Fabry, Irvin Yalom, Abraham Maslow, Rollo May and other `Humanistic/Existential' psychologists.

Meaninglessness is rarely mentioned as a clinical entity because it is generally considered to be a manifestation of some other primary, and more familiar clinical syndrome. Indeed, Freud once stated that `The moment a man questions the meaning of life, he is sick...By asking this question one is merely admitting to a store of unsatisfied libido to which something else must have happened, a kind of fermentation leading to sadness and depression. (p. 477)

meaning

Fortunately, there are those who do not believe as Freud did in regards to meaning. The leading proponent of meaning as a fundamental part of human psychology is Viktor Frankl.
Viktor Frankl created `Logotherapy', which literally means `meaning therapy'. He believes that human beings need to have meaning and purpose in their lives in order to be completely healthy. He also contends that even in suffering one can find meaning.

During World War II, Frankl watched helplessly as his entire family (except one sister) was exterminated in concentration camps. He watched as some fellow prisoners committed suicide by `running into the electric fence' and he watched as many struggled to survive, himself included. This experience could have caused Frankl to lose his faith in the belief that there is always meaning in life but it did not. In fact, it only served to solidify his beliefs that one can always find meaning, even in the face of certain death.

Frankl has been called the founder of the "Third Viennese Force in Psychology". He differs from Freud who asserted that human beings are motivated by a will-to-pleasure and he differs from Alfred Adler's (Freud's pupil and Frankl's teacher) concept of will-to-power. Frankl asserts that the prime motivator of human behavior is the search for meaning and that things such as pleasure, happiness and power are by-products and a means to an end respectively.
Although Frankl stresses that each individual has a meaning that no one else can fulfill, these unique meanings fall into three general categories:

1. Activities: This category includes a person's work, job, hobbies, and deeds a person does for the sake of others. These meaningful activities are never a means to an end but are rather ends in themselves. It matters not what kind of work one does and Frankl has said, "What matters is not how large is the radius of your activities but only how well you fill its circle."

2. Experiences: This category includes experiences with truth, beauty, and love. Meaning through experience is received by the individual. Again, it does not matter how long these experiences last nor how often, what matters is their content. In this area, Frankl emphasizes the experience of "mature love".

Attitudes: This is the area in which Logotherapy asserts that the deepest meaning can be found. This area is most important in the face of the "Tragic Triad": unavoidable suffering, death, and ontological or "unerasable" guilt. Logotherapy recognizes that every human being must face these truths at some point of their lives and to find meaning in the face of them requires the strength of the human capacity to choose one's attitude in regards as to how one accepts them. (Fabry, 1968, p.40).

Frankl's most optimistic and powerful assertion is that even in situations in which one is faced with unavoidable suffering, meaning exists.

Suffering can have a meaning if it changes one for the better. And finally, even when there is no hope of escape from suffering and death, Frankl states that there is meaning in demonstrating to others, to God, and to oneself that one can suffer and die with dignity." (As cited in Yalom, 1980, p. 446)

Frankl had problems with the tendency of many in psychology to focus on Freudian explanations for behavior. Frankl (1986) said:

Though some psychiatrists state that life-meaning is nothing but defense mechanisms and reaction formations, speaking only for myself I would not be willing to live merely for my defense mechanisms and would be less inclined to die for my reaction formations. (p.154)
The assertion that one can always find meaning is not to say that meaninglessness does not exist or is unimportant. According to Logotherapy, every human being is composed of three essential dimensions.

The first is the biological dimension (soma) which houses our physical, genetic and chemical qualities.

There is then the psychological dimension (psyche) that holds our psychological qualities.

Lastly, there is the purely human dimension of the human spirit (Nous). The Noetic Dimension is the aspect of the human being that holds all of our specifically human qualities such as "creativity, will-to-meaning, conscience, humor, ideas and ideals, self-detachment, the ability to take on commitment, capacity for love, self-transcendence" (Fabry, Festival of Meaning, p.10).

It is the perfectly healthy core that each individual possesses. The Noetic Dimension is always healthy and whole. "The logotherapist looks for the healthy human core behind sickness, despair, and suffering" (Logotherapy Course Manual, III, p. 5).

So while it can never become vulnerable to sickness in itself, the Noos can become blocked. The Noos becomes blocked as a result of value collisions and conflicts of conscience, such as a person who was brought up that `Thou shalt not kill' being thrust onto the battlefield of war.
When the Noos is blocked an `existential vacuum' (existential frustration) develops.

Logotherapy describes this `existential vacuum' as the catalyst for feelings of inner emptiness, increased idleness, tendency toward aggression, drug addiction, slovenry, excess sexuality, pleasure seeking, overemphasis of fashionable games, and increased doubts about world, society, and life (Fabry, Festival of Meaning, p.9).

Logotherapy further distinguishes between two stages of meaninglessness:

1. The Existential Vacuum (existential frustration) (as described above)

2. If the person develops, in addition to explicit feelings of meaninglessness, overt clinical neurotic symptomology, then Frankl refers to the condition as an existential or `Noogenic' Neurosis.

`Noogenic neurosis' is a distinctive type of neurosis that results specifically from a blocked Nous. It can cause physical as well as psychological symptoms. Research has been shown that at least 20% of all neurotic clients were suffering from neuroses resulting from existential issues (Frankl, 1981, p. 73).

It is important to note that Logotherapy is usually implemented as an adjunct therapy for many clients. Its techniques are beneficial in many circumstances. Further investigation into this area of psychology is highly recommended and information regarding Logotherapy has been provided in the bibliography section of this paper.

At this point the question should be asked, how is it that we find meaning? How is it that we seem to go on even in the face of meaninglessness? They are easy questions to ask but very difficult to answer. Yalom (1980) tells us that there are two fundamental facts about human existence. The first is that the human being seems to require meaning. The second and paradoxical fact is that "the existential concept of freedom posits that the only true absolute is that there are no absolutes" (p. 287).

Jung (1961) said that "meaning makes a great many things endurable-perhaps everything"(p. 340). With this in mind what is the consequence of having lost one's sense of meaning and purpose. There are many people walking the earth in a constant state of emotional pain as a result of such a loss.

One of the reasons why these questions linger is because there are those who live in the monotonous reality of western civilization life so far removed from their sense of existential issues that they seem to have forfeited their unique lives in order to just get by. Meaning becomes something of a shadow of what we are. Some cannot find it because they are looking for it in the wrong places. Some neither see it nor consciously miss it but the effects of the shadow simmer beneath the surface. In its simmering there is an occasional reminder that can in turn bring up all one's existential dilemmas sometimes resulting in major psychological pains and disturbances. To avoid the challenge of life by ignoring our existential situations and all of our ultimate concerns including death, isolation, meaninglessness and responsibility to put oneself at risk for great anguish once we realize what we have lost.

The human being pays a dear price for safety and comfort and usually one does not realize this until the damage to has been done. To accept the challenge is to certainly risk pain. However, along with the pain there is growth, vitality, love, joy, deep and passionate union with other human beings. There is learning and creating, giving and receiving. There certainly are tears, times of melancholy, and even despair but the tears and despair will most often come as the other side of what is most joyous and hopeful. To accept the challenge is to live dynamically, experience growth and ultimately achieve a sense of self that is strong enough to withstand anything that life could throw at you.

When people were asked to describe their experiences with meaning, just about everyone described a marked feeling of clarity and the feelings of joy and hope. Most people experienced these moments in the face of something natural, as in a dog sniffing a flower, or the birth of a child. There were also feelings of connectedness with all things and a transcendence of the everyday trials and suffering.

This connection, for some had even been to their memories of earlier times in their lives. One of the most striking things that observed was that those who had been interviewed have experienced much pain and sadness in regards to other existential issues such as death and isolation. Yet, the memories of experiences of meaning allowed them to transcend their current pain. I watched as those who barely moments before described the pain of the loss of a family member, or the feelings of loneliness, or the fear of one's mortality, brightened up when sharing an experience of meaning. Even the memory and retelling of a meaningful experience can be so powerful as to allow the person to transcend, even if momentarily, current sufferings of existential pains. "In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer." --Albert Camus (1954)


Conclusion
The area of Existential Psychology needs to be incorporated within the other areas of psychology. As we approach the beginning of a new millennium we should look back over the past and reflect on the progress that psychology has made over the past few hundred years. We should offer our respect to and be thankful for those from all `schools of thought' who have worked throughout their lives to develop the field of psychology and who have paved the way and took their chances while establishing the most fundamentally human venture into understanding.

Unfortunately, rather than becoming a solid healthy family of related ideologies, psychology, for many, has become dysfunctional just as a typical divided family; complete with authoritarian parents, greedy uncles, sacrificial children forgotten in the shadows of the star athlete and perfect student siblings. There are black-sheep and victims of causticity on all sides. We laugh with a sense of annoyance at the political leaders running for office with their pomp and self-righteousness. Meanwhile, psychology is falling into the same familiar trappings. Everybody has their feet firmly planted in the soil of a particular ideology or theory. The trouble with that is that no one goes anywhere.

We should not be afraid to risk the loss of some of the beliefs that can no longer help us to achieve all we can as a species. We should not allow our pride to prevent us from breaking the molds of outdated ideologies. We should not allow our fears and anxieties to decide the fate of future generations of psychologists and clients. Our humanity is composed of biological processes, environmental pushes, spirituality, patterns of thinking and learning, memories and unconscious drives, and existential realities such as those described in this paper. It is our humanity that connects us all to one another and the strength of our connection is dependent upon the strength of our commitment to all aspects of our humanity. As Abraham Maslow said some time ago, "If all you have is a hammer, you will treat everything as if it were a nail".

I would like to leave you with a final quote that ended Miguel De Unamuno's work, Tragic Sense of Life, because the words are, to this work, gracefully meaningful:

I hope, reader that sometime while our tragedy is still playing, in some interval between the acts, we shall meet again. And we shall recognize one another. And forgive me if I have troubled you more than was needful and
inevitable, more than I intended to do when I took up my pen proposing to distract you for a while from your distractions. And may God deny you peace, but give you glory!

Freedom

Freedom

"It is the mental agency that transforms awareness and knowledge into action; it is the bridge between desire and act." -ARISTOTLE (As cited in Yalom, 1980 p. 289)

American society places high value on freedom. Freedom is a considered an inherent right, not a privilege. Our constitution tells us that we are all created equal. People say that they would risk their lives for freedom. In fact, my home state of New Hampshire has the motto "Live Free or Die" on its license plates.

But what exactly is freedom? Is it really all it is cracked up to be? With the risk of equivocation I assert that freedom is not everything we think it is and in other aspects it is much more. Jean-Paul Sartre (1957) wrote:

Man is condemned to be free. Condemned because he didn’t create himself, yet in other aspects is free, because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does… (p. 23).

One of the largest ongoing arguments in psychology and philosophy concerns freedom. Do we, as humans have a choice in the things we do? Staunch behaviorists would say no. They would say that our actions are nothing more than learned responses to stimuli and patterns of reinforcement schedules. This leaves barely, if any room for choice. However, in response to Skinner's assertion that we are determined by the environment, Yalom (1980) states, "If we manipulate the environment, then we are no longer environmentally determined, on the contrary, the environment is determined" (p.270).

Erich Fromm (1956) said, "There is no good and evil unless there is freedom to disobey" (p.8).

Sigmund Freud asserted that we are determined by our past. Our experiences during particular stages of our childhood determine who we will be and what we will do. He also described a tri-partite system of Id, Superego, and Ego to explain our behavior. The Id being the instinctual insatiable satyr that drives us through desires for sex, aggression and the like. The Superego is the highly moralistic internalization of our parents and their value systems that also drives us to repress our immoral desires. Finally there is the Ego that functions as a "middle man", attempting to balance the other two. According to Freud, we feel anxiety when there is conflict between the parts of our personality structures and since we do not like to feel anxiety, we unconsciously erect defense mechanisms to deal with the uncomfortable feelings. This system is extremely deterministic and thus, again we have no real choice in who and what we become. "If we are determined by the past, whence comes the ability to change?" (Yalom, 1980, p. 348).
It is ironic that our society, the one that places so much emphasis on freedom, is the same society where these two schools of thought flourish the most.

Jean-Paul Sartre once said that we are our choices and we are condemned to be free. The existential view of freedom describes something entirely different from the catchy mottoes and political rhetoric of America, and ultimately more horrifying as well.

To those who recognize the "existential" in psychology, freedom is an "ultimate concern". "The individual is entirely responsible for, that is, is the author of his world, life design, choices, and actions" (Yalom, 1980, p. 221). Freedom is the confrontation with groundlessness. As human beings, we desire structure and things that are familiar. The realization that one is responsible for oneself and one's life is difficult to accept. Groundlessness can be more frightening than death, more lonely than isolation and to face it requires strength and courage. To not face it and accept it is to forfeit one's will, and ultimately one's opportunity to create an authentic life. It is with freedom and choice that people begin to grow and heal. It is when one takes his or her life in his or her own hands that wondrous things occur.

There are two main concerns when dealing with freedom. The first is "responsibility" and the second is "existential guilt". They are closely related and interconnected. Viktor Frankl, founder of Logotherapy, distinguishes between `responsibility' and `responsibleness'.

Responsibility can also be called `authorship' and clinically speaking, without it no real therapy is possible. "At the deepest level, responsibility accounts for existence" (Yalom, 1980, p. 222). This means that we are solely responsible for ourselves, for our existence. We are responsible for all of our choices, including the choices we have not chosen, including the all that we have failed to acknowledge.

What does this mean for those who would help to heal? It means that those who are suffering must take the first step alone. This step is fundamentally simple yet at the same time quite difficult to attempt. The person must take their life into their hands and acknowledge it as their own. Not unlike a baby who takes its first steps to walk must acknowledge they are both the vehicle and driver. Those who are suffering must take responsibility for themselves and begin to acknowledge their entire role in experience and life.

The following are, according to Yalom (1980), many types of "denials of responsibility" (pp. 227-229):

Compulsivity. A person who experiences an uncontrollable urge to do a particular behavior and seems to be out of control is in a sense avoiding their responsibility. "Compulsivity obliterates choice" (Yalom, 1980, p. 227).

There is Displacement of Responsibility which is very common in psychotherapy. It occurs when a person "shifts responsibility from themselves to another person."

It can occur in when one asks, what should I do? What do you think I should do? Yalom asserts that for many clients who have problems with doing `homework' it is not so much about time or convenience, even if that is what they purport but rather, "what is at stake is the facing of one's own personal responsibility for one's life and one's process of change. And always lurking beyond that awareness of responsibility is the dread of groundlessness." (Yalom 1980 pp. 229)

The Denial of Responsibility: the Innocent Victim is described when a person fails to
take responsibility for consequences that have occurred as a result of their own volition but they fail to recognize their role in it.

Denial of Responsibility: Losing Control: This occurs when a person "loses control, or goes "out of one's mind". There is a common payoff to this type of denial and that is "nurturance". "Some patients so deeply crave to be nursed, to be fed, to be cared for in the most intimate ways by their therapist that to gain those ends, they `lose control' even to the point of deep regression requiring hospitalization" (p.228).

Avoidance of Autonomous Behaviors: This occurs in clients "who know very well what they can do to help themselves feel better but inexplicably refuse to take that step" (Yalom, 1980, p. 227).

Disorders of Wishing and Deciding: "If one is terrified by groundlessness, then one may avoid willing by deadening oneself to wishing or feeling, by abdicating choice, or by transferring one's choice to other individuals, institutions, or external events" (Yalom, 1980, p. 230).

There is a paradigm that offers insight regarding those who have problems with avoiding responsibility by focusing on one's perception of personal responsibility based on "locus of control". There are those who have an "external locus of control" which may be described as "lack of responsibility acceptance." This is related to "greater feelings of inadequacy, more tendencies of mood disturbances, more tension, anxiety, hostility and confusion" (p.261).

"Those who believe that they are not responsible for what happens to them in the world may pay a heavy penalty. Though they avoid paying the price of existential anxiety associated with awareness of responsibility, they may develop fatalism and depression" (Yalom, 1980, p. 263).

As human beings we all must face the possibility of events that are out of our control. In the past few years we have seen many terrorists' actions here in the United States as well as abroad. People are killed everyday from `natural disasters'. It is when these inexplicable events occur that we feel groundlessness at the core of our being. It is in the face of evil, tragedy and the unexplainable that we experience the sobering and sometimes brutal reality of our freedom. However, even when these things occur, even when we are faced with the horrors of existence, we still have a choice of how we choose to face these horrors.

As our existence approaches the 21st century we are faced with the possibility of self-annihilation. Even with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end to the cold war and arms race we are still at risk for a nuclear devastation. Our environment is weakening and dying as a result of over-population and its subsequent `consumer mentality'. Most tend to ignore these truths and with that comes the ignorance of the possibility of obliteration.

Joseph Fabry, founder of the Institute of Logotherapy, distinguishes between two types of freedom. When a human being is freed from the repression of outside forces such as a totalitarian government, authoritarian parent or religion, or slavery, their freedom not only offers them freedom of motion or thought but also the responsibility of choice and creation. No longer underneath the blanket of control one is forced to respond to the world within his or her self. With freedom comes groundlessness. It is our response to this groundlessness that decides how healthy we are to be. One can either face the reality of freedom and accept his or her responsibility or ignore it. To ignore it is to open up the self to emptiness within. This ignorance is apparent in our actions to ourselves, others, and the earth. It is apparent in the lack of respect for life and the lack of awareness of the realities of our existence. We have become our own potential worst enemy it seems. "Human freedom allows Mankind to say no to even his own existence" (Fabry, 1967, p.124).

In our society there seems to be an aura of complacency that surrounds the "average" person. Recently, I was able to witness it while sitting in the snack bar one rainy afternoon in November. The alarm sounded and instructed everyone in the building to go to the nearest exit. Everyone around me sort of meandered while they put their cigarettes out and packed up belongings, myself included. Everyone was talking and it seemed as though we left the building in a fog. When I got outside I was struck by the reality of the situation. As it was raining, everyone huddled close to the building in order to remain dry. I stepped back from the crowd about thirty feet and watched in horror at the lack of concern of this mystery emergency. I asked the person next to me if he thought we would be so calm if we lived on the West Bank or even Oklahoma City. I looked at everyone, including myself, and said that we think that we are untouchable.

As a species, we are terribly unprepared and part of the reason is that we try to remain so far away from the existential givens of existence. There is an unspoken surrender within most of us. We cannot face these givens and this results in false sense of security. It is ironic that our fear of the "danger" of reality only serves to keep us in harm's way. This is just one of the parents of existential guilt.

Viktor Frankl has said that during his imprisonment in concentration camps during Hitler's rampage of cruelty and murder, he realized that he had both freedom and choice. He could not choose not to be in the death camps but he could choose how he handled it. He said that even in the face of unavoidable suffering, and even death, we can find meaning in how we choose to accept our death.

Epictetus said over 2,000 years ago that, I must die. I must be imprisoned. I must suffer exile. But must I die groaning? Must I whine as well?…My leg you will chain—yes, but not my will—no, not even God can conquer that" (As cited in Yalom, 1980, p. 272).

Another major part of Freedom is Existential guilt. The fact that one is responsible for one's own life assures the experience of existential guilt. One who has existential guilt has transgressed against one's own self - the victim is one's own potential self. Redemption is achieved by plunging oneself into the true vocation of the human being which (as Kierkegaard said) "is to will to be oneself"(1980, p. 27).

A 27 year old woman described how she could characterize existential guilt: "Imagine someone loved you and you loved them, and then imagine telling that person everyday that you hated them." Another 28 year old man characterized it as an aggression towards yourself as well as a shot of "existential adrenaline." Many people denied ever experiencing existential guilt and for some they were only able to mention it intellectually but unable to describe it from a gut level. Two people described existential guilt only to later deny the experience.

Rollo May (1953) defines existential guilt as "arising from one's transgressions against oneself; it emanates from regret from an awareness of the unlived life, of the untapped possibilities within one" (p. 19). Some people described the difficulty in being in the moment while one is experiencing existential guilt and thus self-perpetuating. Once one is caught in the throes of existential guilt, it is very difficult to get out.

As with the other existential concerns that the human being must experience, `existential guilt' is often found in literature although it is one of the tougher ones to spot. The French author, Jean Genet, wrote in The Thief's Journal, "I say to myself, this painful moment must concur with the beauty of my life. I refuse to let this moment and all the others be waste matter" (1964, p.171).

It is clear that there is an underlying current of existence guilt within these words. Our lives are filled with an endless chain of choices. Some that we have chosen and some that we have not. With every decision and act of freedom and will there is its antithesis that we have denied. In contemplating the act of choosing one cannot separate the chosen from the unchosen for they are infinitely part of each other. Just as in life there is the inherent truth of death, in the chosen there is the undeniability of the denied. Perhaps, we fear death not only because when we die we will `be no more’, but also for the fact that when we die before we have found our true selves we shall forever be what we are not.

Yalom defines existential guilt not as the result of some criminal act that the individual has committed, but quite the contrary. Existential guilt issues from omission. He is guilty for what he has not done with his life.

We all carry within us the pains of our past; the realities of our human tendency to squander our lives caught up in the trappings of everyday lives. No one can ever be all they would be if they could. Within the freedom we experience lie limitations that prevent us from being all there is. These limitations are exaggerated when one takes into account our oftentimes willful waste. There will always be the trailing reminder of all that has never been and all that never will be. We cannot escape it.

We are like a lot of wild
Spiders crying together,
But without tears
(Robert Trail Spence Lowell Fall 1961(1964)

We enshroud our transgressions against ourselves within a fog as thick as guilt itself. This fog is not near us but is us. Each failing strikes fiercely against our shield of the "myth of the average man". Freedom is life unshielded. Freedom is therefore frightening and avoided. Thoreau once said, "Oh, to have reached the point of death and not have lived at all!" When we sit passively on the fence of decision we are committing an act of violence against ourselves. Many are frozen in fear of movement because movement can bring the frightening realities to the surface. The inner waters of contemporary man are still. The sludge of terror awaits in the depths. It waits for an active current to stir up the realities that are inevitably unavoidable. Our guilt is one of neglect, neglect of our humanity and being. When one lives their life in existential stagnancy, like the pond, that life will become unhealthy and clouded. For many, the numbness of the dead pond is better than the painful fear of finitude and regret.

So we live.

However, as difficult and painful as it may be, one must learn to forgive oneself because to cling to sin is to forever offend. There comes a point in time when one must let go and accept the hard realities of our actions and our inaction. Existential guilt is a common roadblock to psychological healing and growth. If one is stuck behind the guilt of wasted time and wasted life, there can be no action beyond that point. If there is no action then there is no progress and therefore no healing or growth.

isolation

Isolation
We have all felt alone at one time or another. Many have felt alone more often than they would care to admit. And who has never felt alone in a room full of people? As humans, we are aware of our autonomy. We are aware that we are only one. One can be a very uncomfortable place to be especially when there is a pre-existing problem with boundaries in psychical life. "Existential isolation refers to an unbridgeable gulf between oneself and any other being. It refers, too, to an isolation even more fundamental - a separation of oneself and the world" (Yalom, 1980, p. 355).
Existential isolation is rooted in human existence. We are all alone in the strongest sense of the word. We are born alone and we die alone. How many times have I heard that in conversation? Too many, yet I believe that it is just another one of those sayings that protect us. If you really think about it, being a human is a lonely existence.

When we close our eyes at night, the dark screen before us reminds us how it is. The screen that no one else can ever see that precedes our dreaming sleep is only for us. Sometimes as we drift off to another level of consciousness there is a point when, for one instant, we experience a moment of our existential situation when pure existential isolation attempts to break free into our consciousness. It comes in a jolt or a feeling of falling. Certainly, there are biological explanations for this phenomenon but even if there are, there is something primal and profound about the feelings we experience for that one moment.

There are times while we are awake when existential isolation makes itself felt. Some people are aware of it more than others and some do not know it as "existential isolation" but experience it nevertheless. "Existential isolation is a vale of loneliness which has many approaches. A confrontation with death and with freedom will inevitably lead the individual into that veil" (Yalom, 1980, p.356).

When people were asked describe the experience of isolation, more time was spent on isolation than any other. Every person had many examples to reflect upon. Seventy-three percent described a feeling of alienation, of not belonging and not feeling "at home". Eighty-six percent described feeling completely disconnected from all others and the world. Forty percent described feeling disconnected from even themselves or having parts of themselves fragmented.
The pain that they all felt was very clear. Isolation had touched them all more than once and in more than one way. Forty percent said that there is more than one kind of isolation and that feeling alone while with others is much worse than being physically alone. There were many references to fear (46.2%) as well as depression (52.8%). An experience with isolation can bring immense pain and suffering. To be alone in the world, feeling that you have no connection to others, or even to yourself is intensified when around you are reminders of how "it could be". The television becomes a "friend". A friendly voice in the background that breaks up the hopeless silence. One may fall into depression and deep despair and even become suicidal.

One 26 year old woman described her on-going experience with feeling isolation and described feeling severe anger with her neighbors, to the point of hatred, because she could hear the footsteps in the hall of the apartment building familiarly walking by and past her own door. She described the reminders of her aloneness as a complete shutdown of her entire experiential self. During the day she was a B+ student, motivated and friendly and alive while at school. She looked no different than any other college student one may encounter on any given day on campus. However, when she arrived home every evening, as soon as she closed her car door it was as though all energy and motivation was immediately expelled from her Being.

This friendly and intelligent co-ed instantly metamorphosed into a depressed, worthless, disconnected nothing who knows first hand about the solitary nature of life. We think that we know people. We think that we know who is suffering and who is not. This belief only serves to keep us more isolated. We think because someone smiles they are happy. We think that because someone socializes in school or work that they do not feel that loneliness. We think that we are the only one who suffers from the somber effects of being an autonomous individual in western society. We see others and we wish we had what they have when in reality they too, cry for connection. The belief that others are somehow immune from the effects of isolation while we are not serves to help us believe that we are defective and ultimately we increase the gap between us.

As with death, there too is a denial of existential isolation. We want to believe that we could bridge the gulf that lies between ourselves and others but on a deeper level we know it is futile. It may be said that this is for philosophers to think about and not for psychologists but to deny the influence of this isolation is to set people up for great psychical pain.

This should be a concern to the psychological community because if a person has pre-existing issues concerning isolation like abandonment on one extreme to enmeshment on the other extreme then there will undoubtedly be problems in dealing with existentially related issues.
"No relationship can eliminate isolation. Each of us is alone in existence" (Yalom, 1980, p. 363). This is a hard fact for an emotionally "healthy" individual to take in. So how difficult would it be for someone with pre-existing problems with boundaries?

"If we are overcome with dread before the abyss of loneliness, we will not reach out toward others but instead we flail at them in order not to drown in the sea of existence" (Yalom, 1980, p. 367).

In our culture, there seems to be a commitment to frenzy. Everyone seems to be "sex-deprived" In a week's time I have heard three people allude to this. One said, "Oh, I haven't had sex in three days", another it was a few weeks, and still another topped it with less than 24 hours. This is tragedy? Yes it is because it describes the frenzy; the frenzy to attach and not be alone--temporarily. One rarely, if ever, hears someone say, "no one has shown me love in three days..." Someone else did say, however, that "having sex with someone is much easier than holding their hand". What? It is less frightening to have sex with someone? To strip down naked makes you less vulnerable than holding someone's hand? Unfortunately, for many there is truth to this statement. Recently, I visited the `super highway of the World Wide Web' and when I punched in `isolation' I got citations about biological research. But when I punched in `pornography', thousands and thousands of citations became available.

"The bonds that unite another person to ourselves exist only in our mind....Man is the creature that cannot emerge from himself, that knows his fellows only in himself; when he asserts the contrary, he is lying." (Marcel Proust 1913-1927 The Sweet Cheat Gone)

Proust's image is a difficult one to incorporate into our world view. However, as difficult as it is to accept that we are in fact separate in the most despairing sense of the word, we know it is true. Nevertheless, just as the threat of death is fought through defense and denial, so is existential isolation.

In Man's Search for Himself, Rollo May (1973) wrote "I can never know exactly how you see yourself and you can never know exactly how I relate to myself. This is the inner sanctum where each man must stand alone. This fact makes for much of the tragedy and inescapable isolation in human life..." (p. 94).

Erik Fromm (1941) describes the human need to be related to the world, the need to avoid aloneness. He describes perfectly the difference between being physically alone and feeling isolated and feeling completely disconnected, even when with others. The latter may or may not be unpleasant because one still may feel a connection to ideas, values or social patterns that give a feeling of "belonging". The feeling of total isolation however is to feel "morally alone". To feel there is no connection. No relatedness.

He also describes the individual isolation and powerlessness as not being in everyday awareness of most people because it is too frightening. The daily routines we all are susceptible to help to keep existential isolation out of direct view. But he goes on to say that "Whistling in the dark does not bring light" (1941, Fromm, p.34).

Fromm believed that people go one of two possible routes to combat the feeling of isolation. The first, which many people opt for, is to give up freedom completely. This can be done through a number of ways, from religion, sado-masochistic relationships, attaching oneself to a political organization etc. The other way is to progress from negative to positive freedom, which he describes thoroughly in his book, Escape from
Freedom.

Isolation is a common theme in literature. American author, Thomas Wolfe (1929), describes the intense existential isolation in his book, Look Homeward Angel:

Unfathomable loneliness and sadness crept through him: he saw his life down the solemn vista of a forest aisle, and he knew he would always be the sad one: caged in that little round of a skull, imprisoned in that beating and most secret heart, his life must always walk down lonely passages. Lost. He understood that men were forever strangers to one another, that no one ever comes really to know anyone, that imprisoned in the dark womb of our mother, we come to life without having seen her face, that we are given to her arms a stranger, and that, caught in that insoluble prison of being, we escape it never, no matter what arms may clasp us, what mouth may kiss us, what heart may warm us. Never, never, never, never, never. (p. 31)

Isolation is strongly connected to other existential issues. Many people see death as a form of isolation. Death could be imagined as the ultimate symbol for isolation. You cannot get more "alone" than in death. Freedom is also closely related to isolation. One who must choose must ultimately choose alone. Outside influences are only part of the reality. There is a point in every decision that is characterized by a sense of solitariness. Yalom supports this by saying, "to the extent that one is responsible for one's life, one is alone. Responsibility implies authorship...Deep loneliness is inherent in the act of self-creation. One becomes aware of the cosmic indifference."
Clark Moustakas (1972) begins his book, Loneliness and Love by saying, "Every once in a while I awaken to the reality that I'm all I've got" (p. 1). It is an awakening of sorts, this feeling of being alone in one's existence. It is an awakening that can cause much anxiety.

The fear of existential isolation is the driving force behind many interpersonal relationships...On the one hand, one must learn to relate to another without giving way to the desire to slip out of isolation by becoming part of that other. But one must also learn to relate to another without reducing the other to a tool, a defense against isolation. (Yalom, 1980, p. 363)

Nineteenth century philosopher, Immanuel Kant, said that no human being should be treated as a means to an end, regardless of the value of that end. A person's inherent value and worth far surpasses any ends that may be achieved by using that person as a tool or a `means’. There is a delicate balance between reducing our feelings of isolation without reducing those with whom we attempt connection.

In The Art of Loving, Erich Fromm writes, "Mature love is union under the condition of preserving one's integrity, one's individuality. Love is an active power in man; a power which breaks through the walls which separate man from his fellow men, which unites him with others...In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two" (p.19). This is a difficult balance to strike. It is impossible if the persons involved do not recognize the need for healthy separation.

Isolation may be the core of what it means to be a human being. There are none who are spared its reality and none can ever truly escape it. "..around me extends the void, the darkness of the real world-I exist, I remain blind, in anguish; other individuals are completely different from me, I feel nothing of what they feel." (Bataille, 1954 p.64) Bataille gives a face to the abstract and personal experience of existential isolation. Are these not words that many of us as human beings have whispered in the depths of our being at some point in our lives? Is it possible to be human without the anguish of our blindness? Yet as human beings we continue to exist and we continue to reach out to others from our inner sanctums, to connect.

It is in this act of reaching where we, as humans, seem to have the most joy and the most suffering. In reaching we attempt to become more than what we are and oftentimes lose some of who we were.

"...and I would feel my gaze lingering on the world and merging with it or else turning inward and disappearing" (Genet, 1964).

Most people have experienced the feeling of being alone in a crowd; alone in the world or in the universe. In our attempts to connect we often experience the feeling of turning inward and disappearing as if we might never be recognized, as if we might never experience the connection for which we search.

For instance, one woman described her isolation as a child. She oftentimes felt alone in a crowd and her method of escape was to daydream. A profound discovery was made when she described her daydreams. This young child who was feeling very isolated and lonely in the world of others escaped into a fantasy world where there were no other people. Her immense feelings of loneliness were soothed by images of herself alone, complete in her young and fresh wisdom.

At age 8 she knew what Kant knew. She understood Genet and Bataille intuitively. On some level she knew that she was not to be fragmented and that human beings are masterful at viewing themselves and others as tools and as means to an end. Whatever "parts" do not fit, you squelch.

Unfortunately we are taught to abandon ourselves and others as well. We are taught to accept the fragmentation of our selves until we no longer understand the language of love and connection. We mourn those parts of our selves that `die' in our relations with others and with ourselves. We feel the emptiness and attempt to eliminate the pain by eliminating the isolation. Ironically, we attempt to eliminate the isolation through relationships but "no relationship can eliminate isolation. Each of us is alone in our existence" (Yalom ,1980, p.363).

This is a hard fact to take for emotionally `healthy' individuals, so imagine how it would be for someone with pre-existing problems in interpersonal relationships. Yalom (1980) said:
If we are overcome with dread before the abyss of loneliness, we will not reach out toward others but instead we flail at them in order not to drown in the sea of existence. In this instance our relationships will not be true relationships at all but out of joint miscarriages, distortions of what might have been." (p. 363)

To sum up the experience of existential isolation I offer a beautiful reflection from Irvin Yalom (1980):

There is, of course, no `solution' to isolation. It is part of existence, and we must face it and find a way to take it into ourselves. Communion with others is our major available resource to temper the dread of isolation.

We are all lonely ships on a dark sea.

We see the lights of other ships-ships that we cannot reach but whose presence and similar situation affords us much solace. We are aware of our utter loneliness and helplessness. But if we can break out of our windowless monad, we become aware of the others who face the same lonely dread. Our sense of isolation gives way to a compassion for the others, and we're no longer quite so frightened. An invisible bond unites individuals who participate in the same experience-whether it be a life experience shared in time or place or simply as a member of an audience at some event. But compassion and its twin, empathy, require a certain degree of equilibrium; they cannot be constructed on panic. One must begin to confront and tolerate isolation to be able to cope more fully with one's existential situation. (p.363)

death

Death
The essential, basic arch-anxiety (primal anxiety) is innate to all isolated, individual forms of human existence. In the basic anxiety human existence is afraid of as well as anxious doubts about its being in the world…only if we understand this can we conceive of the seemingly paradoxical phenomenon that people who are afraid of living are also especially afraid of death. (Medard Boss as cited in Becker, 1976, p. 208)

The subject of death is one that does not usually come up in "polite society" except in the form of titillating anecdotes or in the retelling of broadcast news and gossip, which are, at times, on and the same. We watch death on television and in the movies. Everyone dies in the movies, sometimes more than once. Soap operas are especially gifted when it comes to resurrecting the dead. But to talk about it, to really get into it and begin to contemplate the nature of death and our relationship to it and to actually communicate with other human beings about our fears concerning death, our rage at the prospect of losing our lives and our loved ones is somehow wrong. It is called morbid and useless.

Those who do venture into the domain of death and its psychological effects are labeled neurotic or depressed. Or they are told that "you just think too much. You really
should get a hobby."

Death is the only thing in life that we, as humans, can be absolutely sure of. Death is always with us, even when we choose to avoid its presence. French philosopher and writer, Georges Bataille (1954) writes "we only have two certainties in this world-that we are not everything and that we will die. To be conscious of not being everything, as one is of being mortal, is nothing. But if we are without a narcotic, an unbreathable void reveals itself" (p.xxxii).

Everyone has a theory or two about death and usually these "theories" are nothing more than attempts to prevent ourselves from "thinking too much" And we shan't want to wander too deeply lest we become neurotic or too abstract. The irony is that once we do come face to face with death it is not an experience of abstraction but rather an "in your face", concrete wake-up call to the way things are as opposed to the way we think they should be.

In Herman Feifel's book, The Meaning of Death, C. Wahl, in The Fear of Death, is cited as saying, "One cannot look directly at the sun or death" (1963, p.214). Unfortunately this quote is true. We put on our shaded glasses and feel protected but unlike looking at the sun which can make you blind, facing death will not make you dead.

Adolf Meyer said, "Why focus on bitter and immutable reality?" (As cited in Yalom, 1980 p.29). Why? Why not? Everyone is an individual, but it seems ironic that despite such `autonomy’ we, as a culture, are guilty of one of the biggest conspiracies of all time. How is it that we have become so metaphysically lazy? How is it that we have managed to trivialize something so human to the point of disinterest? Something so profound and mysterious to the point of boredom? These are questions that should be asked about the Zeitgeist in which we live, However, they can also be asked of the Psychological community.

In commenting on Herman Feifel’s paper, "Death—A Relevant Variable In Psychology", Gordon Allport (1960) says, "Of course it is a relevant variable. Why is it at this late date we still need to be persuaded?" (As cited in May, p. 94).

A common objection by psychotherapists to examining the influence of death in a client's life is "Don't clients have enough to fear and enough dread without the therapist reminding them of the grimmest of life's horrors?" (Yalom, 1980, p.29). Casting such dramatics aside, if the truth were to be known the question would probably be rephrased as, don't I have enough to do without having to deal with my own fears of death that come to the surface as I do my job? Irvin Yalom (1980) quoted Adolph Meyer when he described the general attitude toward death in therapy, "Don't scratch where it don't itch" (p. 29). This is another common bit of caution to those who would help to heal. But isn't it true that some of the best back scratches occur when the scratcher doesn't limit the scratching to only the itchy parts?

The point is that we do tend to experience life in ways that are safe and comfortable. `Ignorance is bliss' is the old adage to which we cling in the face of threatening phenomena. While we cling to avoid fear and pain, we lose much of the vitality and brilliance which life can offer and these losses can wound us deeper than what we set out to avoid in the first place.

This is not to say that by talking about death, either to ourselves, our children or parents, or to clients and therapists, we will always feel good in the final analysis or that everyone's problems are rooted in death. Death is a serious topic and should be dealt with appropriately whether in our personal or professional lives.

Death can hurt us so much when we lose what is dear and important to us. The experience of losing someone can be horrendously painful and the aftermath can be marked by extraordinary anguish. The person who is dying can also feel tremendous pain, physically and/or emotionally. To lose one's life is to lose the world and everything and everyone in it. From the loss of loved ones to the loss of the color blue. It is important to never forget that. However, Viktor Frankl once said: "If you want to endure life, prepare yourself for death" (As cited in Yalom, 1980, p.58).

So, by conveying these opinions about the current era's avoidance of death and its effects, it is not to make light of death but rather to demonstrate the fatuous nature of our attitudes. To avoid or deny even what seems to be an insignificant part of a human being is to deny one's humanity and to trivialize one's suffering.

Death is indeed a fearful piece of brutality; there is no sense pretending otherwise. It is brutal not only as a physical event, but far more so psychically: a human being is torn away from us, and what remains is the icy stillness of death. There no longer exists any hope of relationship, for all the bridges have been smashed in one blow. (Jung, 1961, p. 314)

For many people to approach the subject of death with courage is frightening, otherwise courage would not be needed. However, for many people to approach the subject of death is what is needed in order to heal. Death strikes one of the hardest blows against a person's psyche and it is baffling to see how most in the field of psychology avoid it.

Heidegger said that "Only when our defenses against death anxiety are removed do we become fully aware of what they shielded us from" (As cited in Yalom, 1980, p. 30). The prospect of the termination of life is frightening for most people. Some people have great fear and anxiety about death that they hold tightly within themselves. Wondering alone about what may or may not be. With one eye opened and one eye closed some imagine what it would mean to die; to be no more. For some people death is a scary monster, for others it is not. There is one thing that is accepted by people in general and that is that we do not talk about it unless it is absolutely necessary. One question arises and that is who is better off? The person who is fully shielded?

The person who is not?

German Philosopher, Martin Heidegger believed that

there are two states of Being; state of forgetfulness in that:

one lives in the world of things and immerses oneself in everyday diversions of life: one is leveled down absorbed in idle chatter, lost in the they. One surrenders oneself to the everyday world, to a concern about the way things are. In a state of mindfulness of being: One marvels not about the way things are but that they are. Continually being aware. (as cited in Yalom, 1980 p.28)

Generally, people are living in the former. Such "living" is the result of the inability to question. When one continues to live life day after day within a den of unchanging habits, growth is suppressed. Heidegger refers to this as "inauthentic living". Life inherently means growth and it is apparent that a life which is devoid of growth is in a sense devoid of life. If psychology really is interested in human beings then it would encompass all of what it means to be human.

In his book, Existential Psychotherapy, Dr. Irvin Yalom (1980) describes four postulates of death:

"The fear of death plays a major role in our internal experience; ...It is a dark, unsettling presence at the rim of consciousness.

The child, at an early age, is pervasively preoccupied with death, and his/her major developmental task is to deal with the terrifying fears of obliteration.

To cope with these fears, we erect defenses against death awareness, defenses that are based on denial, that shape character structure, and that are maladaptive, result in clinical syndromes.

4. A robust and effective approach to psychotherapy may be constructed on the foundation of death awareness." (pp. 27-28)

"Psychopathology (in every system) is, by definition, an ineffective defensive mode. Even defensive maneuvers that successfully ward off severe anxiety, prevent growth and result in a constricted and unsatisfying life" (Yalom, 1981, p.110). Dr. Yalom appears to be the champion of existential issues in the area of psychological health. Knowing the dynamics of these otherwise avoided issues, he fully integrates them within his assessment and treatment of psychological pathologies. He has successfully shown that treatment involving the basic human concerns helps to clarify, and most importantly, to heal. In some ways he is a pioneer in that he does not profess to have cures for these issues. He does not use medication to suppress death anxiety. He does not attempt to "cure" the person of their existential situation. Instead he helps the person to face their fears of these existential issues and helps the client to deal with them in healthy ways.

There is a considerable amount of support for the thesis that death attitudes and anxiety play a large role in the occurrence of psychopathology. R. Skoog (As cited in Yalom, 1980) reports that 70% of all patients with a severe obsessional neurosis had at the onset of illness a security disturbing death experience. Concerning unconscious death anxiety Feifel's research showed that:

on a conscious level over 70% of individuals denied a fear of death. On the fantasy level 27% denied fear of death, 62% answered ambivalently, and 11% gave considerable evidence of death anxiety. At a level below awareness, most of the subjects gave evidence of considerable aversion to death. On the more conscious level older subjects and religious subjects perceived death in a "fairly positive vein" but succumbed to anxiety at the gut level. (p. 52)

Rosenzweig and Bray present data that indicates that among schizophrenic patients, when compared with a normal population, with manic depressive sample, and with a general paretic sample, there is a significantly greater incidence of a sibling dying before a patient's sixth year...and "if one considers loss of a parent as well as loss of sibling, then one finds in Rosenzweig's research that over 60% of schizophrenic patients suffered an early loss. Perhaps the schizophrenics had too much too soon. (Yalom, 1980 pp. 104-105)

Research of this type presents the psychological community a door to understanding our relationships with the profound.

In addition, some interesting facts about some of Freud's most popular cases have been brought forth. Yalom (1980) notes two in particular:

Frau Emmy von N. developed her illness immediately after the death of the person closest to her, her husband. Freud hypnotized her and asked for important associations. She reeled off a litany of death related memories: seeing her sister in a coffin (at age 7), being frightened by her brother dressed as a ghost and by siblings throwing dead animals at her, seeing her aunt in a coffin (at age 9), finding her mother unconscious from a stroke (at age 15) and then, (at age 19) finding her dead, the death of her brother and the witnessing the sudden death of her husband. (p.63)

Anna O's illness first developed when her father fell ill, (and succumbed to the illness ten months later) Breurer noted Anna O's preoccupation with death. He commented that, although she had 'bizarre and rapidly fluctuating disturbances in consciousness, the one thing that nevertheless seemed to remain conscious most of the time was the fact that her father had died. (p. 62)
It is obvious that there was more going on with these two clients than the suppression of sexual desire. Reading over some textbooks from previous psychology classes, the only mention of death in relation to Freud is the "death instinct" that theorizes that we all have a subconscious wish to die. While there are allusions to sexual abuse when Anna O is referenced, there is no mention of death whatsoever.A question arises when one thinks about the concept of death and how it affects people and even more so, the concept of death in children and how death affects them. Our denial of death begins early in life for most people. Parents believe that they can protect their children from the reality of death but to try is futile and even dangerous to young minds. Parents attempt to quiet the questions regarding death by shielding them from actual experiences with death, whether it be the death of family member or otherwise. However, children are still faced with death on other, less overt levels. Most ironically, some of the vehicles for death-related issues are provided by the parents who wish to keep them uninformed. For instance, there are many children who are taught to say nightly prayers. There is the one that goes, "Now I lay me down to sleep….if I should die before I wake…There are also lullabies that have extremely overt themes about death.

Listening to parents of young children it is apparent that they cannot believe that such young children think about death. One mother, curious about whether her own children actually have ideas of death, asked her 5 and 6 year old children about death they told her that they knew all kinds of things about it and that they do in fact think about it. "Parents say (of children), what they don't know won't hurt them, but in reality, what they don't know they invent" (Yalom, 1980, p. 80).

Case studies support the assertion that children are not as "blissfully ignorant" as we assume them to be:

Erik Erikson reports the case of a four year old child whose grandmother died, and who had an epileleptiform attack the night after he saw her coffin. A month later he found a dead mole, asked about death, and again had convulsions. Two months later he had a third series of convulsions after accidentally crushing a butterfly in his hand. (Yalom, 1980, p. 77)

Yalom presents four conclusions of death and children based on prior research and clinical work:

1. When behavioral scientists choose to investigate the issue closely, they invariably discover

that children are extraordinarily preoccupied with death. Children's concerns about death are pervasive and exert far-reaching influence on their experiential worlds. Death is a great enigma to them, and one of their major developmental tasks is to deal with fears of helplessness and obliteration, whereas sexual matters are secondary and derivative.
2. Not only are children profoundly concerned with death, but these concerns begin at a much earlier age than is generally thought.
3. Children go through an orderly progression of stages in awareness of death and in methods they use to deal with the fear of death.
4. Children's coping strategies are invariably denial based: It seems that we do not, perhaps cannot, grow up tolerating the straight facts about life and death. (p. 81)

According to Yalom, there are two basic forms of death denial and each carries particular types of psychopathology as a result. The first is `specialness'. It is not unlike the term that developmentalists usually assign to teenagers, adolescent egocentrism concerning "personal fable" (Santrock, 1992, p. 395).

Specialness refers to a belief that one is somehow different from the rest of the world, that death or illness happens to others but does not exist for me. This form of death denial is very resistant to ideas of the mortality of the individual. However, it also is the form of denial that is easiest shattered upon the learning of a terminal illness or an experience of death awareness.

According to Yalom, (1980), there are specific pathologies related to Specialness; "compulsive heroism", "workaholism", "narcissism", and "problems with aggression & control" (p118).
Compulsive heroism occurs when the specialness defense becomes "overextended". It can be found in the behavior of those who engage in extremely hazardous activities. This raises questions in regards to current trends in psychological diagnoses and treatment. How many clients who exhibit such behavior are encouraged to examine their behavior from this point of reference?
Specialness may also play a part in some of the more offensive maladaptive behaviors we encounter. "All persecutory trends and ideas of reference flow from a core of personal grandiosity; after all, only a very special person would warrant that much attention, albeit malevolent attention, from his environment" (Yalom, 1980, pp. 117).

"The compulsive heroic individualist represents a clear example of the defense of specialness which is stretched too thin and fails to protect the individual from anxiety or degenerates into a runaway pattern" (Yalom, 1980, p. 121). This runaway pattern that Yalom describes is found in people who are "consumed" by their work. But the explanation in psychological terms reflects back to the denial of death and its subsequent anxiety. He says, "time is the enemy not only because it is the cousin to finitude but because it threatens one of the supports of the delusion of specialness: the belief that one is eternally advancing." He also says that "a frantic fight with time may be indicative of a powerful death fear".

Narcissistic personality disorder is the most commonly diagnosed syndrome in psychoanalytic centers in recent years and it is described as having a pattern of a grandiose sense of self-importance, often combined with feelings of inferiority (Bootzin, Acocella & Alloy, 1993, p.279). According to the textbook of Abnormal Psychology edited by the above mentioned, the genesis of this "disorder" is debatable among those psychologists coming from different schools of thought. However, there was no mention of the connection to death anxiety.

Dr. Yalom has often come across narcissism during his years as a psychiatrist and he clearly points to "specialness" as the catalyst of this phenomenon. Self-centeredness is a key function of the "Narcissist" as well as the escape route for those with a "thinning" of the defense against mortality.

Aggression and control is another way that "Specialness" is manifested. "One's own fear and sense of limitation is avoided by enlarging oneself and one's sphere of control" (Yalom, 1980, p. 127). When one thinks of the ways people seek control in their life one cannot avoid the question, why? Why this demand for control? It makes sense to answer this question with the paradigm of death anxiety and "specialness". People who are the most fearful of the unknown are understandably drawn to situations and behaviors that can tone down the feelings of anxiety.

Yalom even goes so far as to say that there are professions that are "death-related" such as soldier, doctor, priests and morticians. He did not include psychiatrists and psychologists but perhaps they too should be added. Herman Feifel has researched this topic and the results are fascinating. He found that "although physicians have less conscious death concern than contrast groups of patients or the general population, they have, at deeper levels, a greater fear of death" (As cited in Yalom, 1980). Yalom translates this as an assertion that "conscious death fears are allayed by the assumption of power, but deeper fears, which in part dictated the choice of the profession, operate still". (p. 127)

However, for most people this shield is not reliable nor impenetrable. It only takes one brush with death, one experience with the "reality" of a terminal illness or sudden tragedy to shatter our shields and plunge us into the abyss of the (being just like everybody else) ordinary. The realization that one is not special and that in fact one will die is extremely traumatic in its rapidity. To be faced with death, knowing that life will go on without you is a hard pill to swallow.

There is no cure for mortality and maybe realizing this is the only thing that can save us. "One can face it, fear it, ignore it, repress it, but one cannot be free of it" (Yalom, 1980, p. 167).
The second belief that people can use in dealing with death anxiety is that of the "Ultimate Rescuer". It is the belief that someone or something is going to save you. It can be in the form of a personal God, or a fellow human being, particularly one who is caught in the grips of the assumption of "Specialness". One of the commonalities among religions is that of the savior.
In our times of trouble we seek help from those whom we deem capable. We go to doctors to cure our ills, lawyers to defend our rights, and priests to save our souls. Death in itself is one of largest woes. We escape thinking about it by following a leader. The temptation of immortality is the sweetest fruit on the vine so we drink of the wine pressed by the ultimate rescuer and become drunk from the joys of everlasting life...until, of course, we collide with an event that brings death to the forefront.

What Heidegger would call "a breakdown in the machinery", Yalom (1980) calls the "collapse of the rescuer" (p. 132). Again, the realization of a terminal illness as well as depression can shatter the faith in the `rescuer'. In these instances often there are related problems concerning isolation because of an internal push to reconnect with a `rescuer' outside oneself.
It is important to note that there is not an assumption that death is the only cause of anxiety that can generate pathologies and emotional distress, nor that these two forms of denial (rescuer and specialness) are independent forces. Yalom stresses that there are highly interconnected sources of death anxiety and denial. Oftentimes they are not able to be separated from one another.

The crux of this part of the human being's experience with death and finitude is the reality that death does play an important role in pathologies as well as in the process of growth. Yalom offers many case studies that focus on the area of death anxiety. He has helped a great number of clients by using his knowledge of existential issues. He has successfully integrated the issue of death and the other issues within the framework of group therapy. There have been times when he would bring a person with a terminal illness into a group with "healthy" individuals and he has put a "healthy" individual into a group that consisted of people with terminal illnesses such as cancer. The dynamics and growth that took place in these groups are amazing to note.

As I probe further into this area of existential issues and psychology I am beginning to understand the human being far better than I ever have been able to. I understand enough to know that we all walk around with our question marks, heavy on our minds. Most of us carry our inner experiences alone as if there were some metaphysical ordinance dictating our silence. In our daily lives we rarely share our most frightening and painful sufferings with others. In this truth may lie the key to healing.

Unlike anything else that wounds us, these issues are inescapable. What if our silence is doing more harm to others? Yalom (1980) said, "that maybe it is not translation into other less "deathy" anxieties that the neurotic patient needs; he or she may not be out of contact with reality but instead, through failing to erect "normal" denial defenses may be too close to the truth" (p.190).

In other words, anxiety related to death is a genuine and significant component of the human being. To the extent that it is recognized, confronted and dealt with properly, it is normal. However, if a person does not possess the abilities to take death as a part of one's existence or to deal with their fears and anxieties, pathologies may result. For psychotherapists and counselors to ignore the presence of death anxiety because they themselves have not dealt with these issues, is to inhibit the growth of their clients.

What if in our attempts to shield ourselves we are in fact helping to create sickness by helping others to detach themselves from and to ignore the realities of our human condition? If this is true, therein lies our greatest malady.

existentialism

Existentialism
I have been asked on numerous occasions to define "Existentialism" and I always find myself hard pressed to recite a concise textbook definition that encompasses the entire realm of this philosophical thinking. Jean-Paul Sartre, one of the central figures of Existentialism in the 20th century, decried the overuse of the word by stating that "the word has been so stretched and has taken on so broad a meaning, that it no longer means anything" (Sartre, 1957, p.12). Walter Kaufmann (1956) defined Existentialism as not a philosophy but rather a "label for several widely different revolts against traditional philosophy" (p.11).

However, there are a few basic tenets associated with Existentialism and the first being the most recognizable is Sartre's declaration that "existence precedes essence". Sartre (1957) writes, "By existentialism we mean a doctrine which makes human life possible, and in addition declares that every truth and every action implies a human setting and a human subjectivity" (p. 10). This first principle of Existentialism denotes the idea that a human being is brought into the world and only after can he or she make something of him or herself. There is no a priori meaning or purpose for this existence. It is up to the individual to construct his or her own meaning; his or her own purpose. Sartre states this succinctly by saying, "Man is nothing but what he makes of himself" (Sartre, 1957, p.13). He also makes it clear that this should not be confused with so call arbitrariness of choice. He answers the question, `But why may not someone choose himself dishonestly?’:

I reply that I am not obliged to pass moral judgment on him, but that I do define his dishonesty as an error…Dishonesty is obviously a falsehood because it belies the complete freedom of involvement. Freedom as definition of man does not depend on others but as soon as there is involvement I am obliged to want others to have freedom at the same time that I want my own freedom. Consequently, when, in all honesty, I‘ve recognized that man is a being in whom existence preceded essence, that he is a free being who, in various circumstances, can want only his freedom, I have at the same time recognized that I can want only the freedom of others (Sartre, 1957, pp. 45-46)

The second most agreed upon axiom is the existence of choice and personal responsibility. Sartre (1957) writes that "Existentialism’s first move is to make every [hu]man aware what he is and to make the full responsibility of his existence rest on him" (p. 16). That we alone are responsible for ourselves, our choices, and how we define ourselves. This is not the same thing as being self-centered or egoistic. In being responsible for ourselves, we are responsible for humanity because with every choice we make or not make we are not only defining ourselves but also defining humanity in the broader spectrum. What we choose for ourselves is ultimately what we choose for all of humankind. After all, humanity is made up of humans and humans are made up of their choices.

Another tenet of Existentialism is that we are all individually faced with the certainty of death and the uncertainty of what death entails. This tends to color what we do, how we think, and ultimately who we are whether we deal with it directly or whether it latently brews below the surface. This is closely related to the concept of authentic versus inauthentic existence.

"Inauthenticity is the mode of existence in which man is not truly himself. Repressing what is unique and particular in his own being, he never acquires a distinctive individual identity, and often lives without any real awareness of the deficiency" (Gill & Sherman,1973, p. 19).

Psychologist Rolf von Eckartsberg (1986) defines Existentialism as
an effort to specify the essential and perennial themes of human existence in its broader sense, as finite, embodied, mooded, in time, situated, threatened by death, capable of language, symbolism and reflection, striving for meaning and values and choices, self-fulfilling and self-transcending, as involving and committing itself to relationships, accountable and capable of responsibility. (p. 11)

In Existentialism and Human Emotions, Jean-Paul Sartre said in defense of Existentialism that
Existentialism is not a `quietism’! Since it defines [hu]mankind in terms of action; nor is it pessimistic description of man—there is no doctrine more optimistic, since man’s destiny is within himself; nor for an attempt to discourage man from acting since it tells him that the only hope is in his acting and that action is the only thing that enables man to live. This theory is the only one which gives man dignity, the only one which does not reduce him to an object…The subjectivity that we have thus arrived at, and which we have claimed to be truth, is not a strictly individual subjectivity for we have demonstrated that one discovers in the cogito (I think) not only himself, but others as well. (pp.36-37)
William Barret (1958) describes Existential Philosophy as a "revolt against oversimplification and an attempt to grasp the image of the whole man even when this involves bringing into consciousness all that is dark and questionable in his existence" (p. 22). He also credits the advent of Protestantism and the decline of religion in general as two of the key predecessors to the birth of Existential Philosophy. The Church provided a connection to God. People possessed a system of rites, symbols and dogma that anchored the human being comfortably in his or her existence. Protestantism did away with most of the outward connections that had kept him or her safely occupied for so long. "Man was face to face with God, stripped of all mediating rites and dogmas that could make the confrontation less dangerous to the psychic balance" (Barrett,1958, p. 33).
In 1848, the Danish writer credited as being the `father if existential philosophy’, Soren Kierkegaard described Christian heroism as "to risk unreservedly being oneself, an individual human being, this specific individual human being alone before God, alone in this enormous exertion and this enormous accountability" (1980 p.5).
Kierkegaard's philosophy was greatly influenced by the Hegelian failure to recognize subjectivity in the notion of the Geist or "Spirit". According to Hegel, truth and reality are objective. "Hegel's failure, as the failure of all traditional rationalistic philosophy, was avoidance of the subjective viewpoint, the existence of the individual" (Solomon, 1972, p.53).
Existentialism was a revolt against those in philosophy who seemed to ignore the human side of knowledge and experience. Existential philosophers actively broke the abscess that had been swelling for centuries and the pus of "Nothingness" was unleashed. You can find its influence in the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche who proclaimed that "God is dead" (1961, p. 41); in the writings of French author, Albert Camus when he charged that mankind's existence is absurd . Kierkegaard once said that "absentminded man is so abstracted from his own life that he hardly knows he exists until, one fine morning, he wakes up to find himself dead" (as cited in Barrett, 1958, p.1).
Lastly, American "pragmatist" and psychologist,
William James was burdened by melancholy, ill health, and depression...James was often on the verge of suicide. He wrote frequently of his yearning that someone could give him "a reason for wishing to live four hours longer...in his early thirties in Europe, he decided" one day that it was worth the wager to will to believe in freedom. He wrote in his diary, `My first act of free will is to believe that what matters is not that someone give me a reason but that I create meaning out of my life by an act of will'. He was afterwards convinced--that his existential solution to the problem of will enabled him to deal with his depression. (as cited in May, 1960, p.5)
It is appropriate to assess the effects of contemporary humankind's penchant for avoiding existential issues. With anonymity and deficient of religious dogma, we find ourselves in a state of chaos, both within and without. Rather than working through the darkness and facing ourselves openly and purposely we deny the obscure and retreat. We can see the ever increasing thrust to get back to "the good old days" via the Christian right and many of the conservative political "leaders". We are vulnerable, searching for a reassurance of structure and certainty and because of this, we are dangerously close to becoming a theocracy. Because we have lost our sense of true individuality we have become addicted to dramatics and CNN and we cannot tell the difference between the two any longer.
In 1958, William Barrett described this phenomenon and its consequences:
Knowledgeability becomes a substitute for real knowledge and every man has a pocket digest of culture in his head.... It becomes more and more difficult to distinguish the second hand from the real thing until most people end up forgetting that such a distinction ever existed at all. (p. 32)
When was the last time we experienced news first hand? Or anything for that matter. Everything is mediated by technology or some other buffer and we think that we are accomplished. We have become complacent and arrogant in that we flick a switch and the world vomits in our laps. We think it is real and we boast of our freedom and excellence. But what of our excellence? What of our "freedom"?
Our ideas of excellence and freedom have somehow become twisted. We have become a populace that is shriveling from the denial of our finitude. We attempt to distract ourselves from anxiety with manmade trinkets and bobbles. We try to replace anxiety with an overabundance of choices, diversions, and technical "advances". We have 32 different kinds of margarine to choose from at the supermarket and we cannot see the absurdity. We are intoxicated by choice but this "choice" has less to do with freedom than it does boorishness and existential oblivion.
In our lifetime one can see that the pattern that technology and communications has followed and it is similar to what Barrett was referring to in 1958. Drive-ins made way for Box Offices with 12 choices of movies. Movies made way for Cable T. V. We have VCR's so we can record one program while we watch another. Most recently, we have satellite dishes and the `Internet’ so we really do not even need to leave our homes except to go to work so we can afford these "luxuries". We have advanced dramatically in the area of technology but we continue to drift further and further away from our existential core of Being.
Our cinematic heroes have changed dramatically also. As technology has "improved" our heroes have changed. We once applauded for heroes who were human and as time went on it was for the super-humans. They were nothing more than caricatures of the "ideal"; an ideal that leaves much to be desired. Our heroes kill, maim, and waste their intellectual abilities in exchange for high-impact thrill-seeking. Currently we have computer animation so now we merely hear the familiar voices of our biggest "stars". We have come so far where now we applaud the caricatures of caricatures. We are so far from the authentic in our daily lives that it is becoming difficult to see the irony of our `heroes'; as well as ourselves.
To sum up existential thought and add a bit of prophetic wisdom, turn once again to Barrett's eloquence and understanding of 1958:
The individual is thrust out of the sheltered nest that society provided. He can no longer hide his nakedness by the old disguises. He learns how much of what he has taken for granted was by its own nature neither eternal nor necessary, but thoroughly temporal and contingent. He learns that solitude of the self is an irreducible dimension of human life no matter how completely that self seemed to be contained in its social milieu. In the end he sees each man as solitary and unsheltered before his own death. Admittedly, these are painful truths, but the most basic things are learned with pain, since our inertia and complacent love of comfort prevent us from learning them until they are forced upon us. It appears that man is willing to learn about himself only after some disaster...what he learns has always been there lying concealed beneath the surface of even best-functioning societies; it is no less true for having come out of a period of disaster and chaos. But so long as man does not have to face up to such a truth, he will not do so. (pp. 34-35)
We do not like to hear these words; contingent, finite, painful truths, human and nakedness. We do not want to be reminded of what awaits around the corner; what exists in the core of our Being. We do not want to talk about the existential, the horror and the radiance of the nakedness of our existence. Nevertheless, we will be reminded. We will have to face it, eventually. Life, like margarine, will only last so long...






Existential Psychology
French Philosopher Gabriel Marcel observed in 1933:
Modern man has lost the awareness of his sense of the ontological. If ontological demands worry him at all it is only dully, as an obscure impulse. Indeed I wonder if a psychoanalytical method deeper and more discerning than any other that has been evolved until now, would not reveal the marked effects of this repression of this sense and ignoring this need" (Marcel, 1956, pp. 9-10).
Existential Psychology is an extremely important part of Psychology. It deals with issues that are regularly avoided by many in the field. No amount of Rational Emotive Therapy or other cognitive "tricks of the trade" can bridge the underlying existential isolation that every human being experiences. You can medicate a person with Prozac and Lithium but it will not increase the meaning nor decrease the meaninglessness in a person’s life. All of the psychoanalytical therapy in the world can never stamp out the existential guilt that a person experiences and alas, you cannot measure a person's fear of death or even begin to help that person deal with morality and loss with Skinner Boxes and reinforcement schedules. In regards to the ultimate concerns of human life, these approaches can offer only a temporary fix, but you end up having a deep puncture wound that heals over too quickly. It looks fine and seems to be all better. However, underneath the facade of a healthy covering, lies the core of the wound, swollen with poison, infecting the body. The wound can not be healed until there is an acknowledgment of the core as well as direct contact. There will be much pain when tending to such deep wounds but that does not mean we should avoid it.
Each realm of psychology is important and has its place among the rest and each has its own theoretical and clinical worth. In Existential Psychology, Rollo May (1960) said that:
the existential emphasis in psychology does not deny the validity of conditioning, the formulation of drives, the study of the discrete mechanisms and so on. It only holds that we can never explain or understand any living human being on that basis. And the harm arises when the image of man is exclusively based on such methods. There seems to be the following "law" at work: the more accurately and comprehensively we can describe a given mechanism, the more we lose the existing person. The more absolutely and completely we formulate the forces or drives, the more we are talking about abstractions and not the living human being. (p. 14)
Some may ask, what does philosophy, in particular Existentialism, have to do with Psychology? Ernest Becker (1976) described Kierkegaard as
"A great a student of the human condition as was Freud. The fact is that, although writing in the 1840’s he was really post-Freudian, which conveys the eternal uncanniness of his genius" (p. 68).
What could Kierkegaard possibly tell us that Sigmund Freud or B.F. Skinner couldn't? It is very simple. When psychologists speak of "clinical disturbances" they are talking about manifestations of particular psychological disturbances. These "manifestations" are presented "scientifically" and objectively. So, while their contributions to humanity may be great, Freud, Skinner and many others only offered a partial picture of the psychology of human beings. While Freud attempted to enter the "inner reality" of the human being, he did so from a very deterministic and incomplete perspective. "Freud was writing on the technical level, where his genius was supreme; perhaps more than any man up until his time he knew about anxiety. Kierkegaard, a genius of a different order, was writing on the existential, ontological level; he knew anxiety" (May, 1960, p.3).
To "know" what it is like to experience anxiety is just as important or more important than offering an objective operational definition. We cannot begin to help a person heal and grow until we "know" what that person is experiencing and this kind of "knowing" can only be achieved through the communication between two human beings, not just through mere roles of a "patient" and a "doctor". There must be an openness to the person's experiential world, otherwise there can be no true communication, connection and ultimately no real understanding that will lead to true healing.
It may be argued that the prime focus of psychology is not healing the individual but to study and report on the psychological functions and disorders of the human race. To those who adopt this view of psychology, It must be asked, why? Why do psychological researchers want to understand the human race? Just for knowledge? Just to be recognized in psychological journals? Is research conducted just for the sake of research? Or is there an underlying reason for the desire to understand?. The thirst for understanding is a respectable characteristic for any psychologist to possess. However, with no concern for the psychological health of fellow human beings, the research is devoid of true human meaning and content; in a word, empty.
When I first learned of the "Existential" school of psychology, it appeared to be somewhat of an afterthought of the author of an undergraduate psychology textbook. The label, "Existential" was attached to the Humanistic label and given a brief mention. It was indeed a mystery.
When I questioned why there was not more mentioned about existential psychological thought or theory I was told that it was not a major area of psychology. As I began to learn more about it I could not understand how it could be avoided by "mainstream" psychology in general. To this day I still cannot find justification for avoiding the deeply profound, yet universal, issues that existential psychology addresses.
One of the worst parts of "Existential" Psychology is that most people discount it without really knowing what it is because the title, "Existential" is too mysterious. It seems that some people forget what it means to "exist". It is easily dismissed as another word for subjectivity. Existential Psychology deals with the most fundamental issues of what it means to be a human and the fact that it is oftentimes blatantly avoided is reprehensible. In his book, The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy, Irvin Yalom (1985) said, "I do not care for the word, existential. It is a term embedded in its own mystique, a term that means something to everyone, yet nothing precise" (p. 88).
"One's attitude toward one's situation is the very crux of being human, and conclusions about human nature based solely on measurable behavior are distortions of that nature." (Yalom, 1980, p.272) According to Jean-Paul Sartre (1957),
The principle of existential psychoanalysis is that man is a totality and not a collection. Consequently, he expresses himself as a whole in all his behavior…The goal of existential psychoanalysis is to decipher the empirical behavior patterns of man; that is bring out in the open the revelations which each one of them contains and fix them conceptually… The point of departure is experience and the method is comparative. (p. 27)
Psychologists who do not avoid the areas of meaning, death, isolation and responsibility when dealing with human beings are practicing realistic psychology. Those who attempt to avoid or belittle the most common of all human experiences are guilty of contriving Psychology and they have sentenced all humans to be `objects' for eternity.
Existential psychologists recognize that there is more than one model of anxiety. Although similar in structure to Freud's model of anxiety, the existential dynamic model of anxiety places at the genesis of anxiety the awareness and fear of ultimate concerns rather than opposing drives (Yalom,1980, pp. 6-9).
For instance, Freud would charge that one experiences anxiety when faced with conflicting drives such as a drive for aggression conflicting with the superego's drive for morality. In the existential model, the genesis could be the awareness of the reality of death and non-existence conflicting with the desire to exist or the awareness.
According to Yalom, Existential Psychology is a paradigm, and its proponents do not insist that it is the paradigm. Existential Psychology is unique in that it does deal with the "darker" issues; the unchangeable facts that all of us, as humans, face and deal with everyday of our lives. Death affects us. Isolation affects us. Meaninglessness affects us. Personal responsibility and guilt from an unlived life or irreclaimable opportunity affect us. Period. Let it be clear that usage of the word `darker’ in addressing these issues is not to assume an all encompassing negativity toward them. They are `darker’ not because of some inherent negative essence but rather because of our own active avoidance keeps them out of direct light, so to speak. They reside in the darkness because we have collectively assigned them to dwell there while we count on the old adage `out of sight, out of mind’. However, existential psychologists and philosophers know that this is not the truth. The more we try to keep these concerns separate from our experiential lives, the more they affect us negatively; it is the beginning of neuroses. To continue is to add to the natural suffering and pain that is associated with them.
It is somewhat ironic that there even has to be a label, "Existential Psychology". How can we take death out of the human experience? How can we take the search for meaning out of the human experience? It is perplexing and somewhat annoying. "We must dare to think about `unthinkable things’ because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless" (James William Fulbright-Speech in the Senate March 27, 1964 as cited in Bartlett, p. 715).
There are those psychologists who agree with the biological model that the experience and reality of the human being rests in the "gray matter" within our skull; that we are nothing more than neurons and chemicals and biological processes. This assertion is an incomplete and confused notion of what it is to `experience'. In responding to a remark by Bertrand Russell that `the stars are in one's brain', R.D. Laing said, `the stars as I perceive them are no more in my brain than the stars as I imagine them. I do not imagine stars in my head any more than I see them in my head'. (R.D. Laing, 1967 p.21)
When a person is fragmented into bundles of drives or learned reactions, one is left to ask, as Ronald Reagan said in the Casey Robinson Screenplay, Kings Row, "where's the rest of me?" Existential Psychology attempts to reintegrate the human issues that have somehow become separated from the "science" that supposedly studies the human being. It does this by viewing the person as a whole; rather than atomizing them down into neat irreducible units to be categorized, classified and labeled.
It is the real relationship that heals; and to view the therapist-patient relationship as a crate to transport the merchandise of healing (insight, uncovering the events of early life, and so on) is to mistake the container for the contents. The relationship is the merchandise of healing and the search for insight, the task of excavating the past, are all interesting, seemingly profitable ventures that engage the attention of patient and therapist while the real agent of change, their relationship, is germinating. (Yalom,1980,p. 404)
By attempting to see the person's perspective, Existential Psychotherapists (and researchers) do not "lose" the person or his point of view. Sometimes, however, to do just that it is necessary to delve into the so-called `darker’ areas. How can anyone expect to heal themselves when professionals cannot even view them in their human entirety? When are we going learn that we are all united in our humanity and it is in this union where healing and growth occur?
Existential psychology recognizes the paradoxes that surround the existence of the human being. While many are uncomfortable to think about death and confront its reality the fact is that one cannot escape it. One cannot successfully avoid death physically or metaphysically because it can never be seen as a separate entity from life itself. The fact that we live is absolutely intertwined with the fact that we shall die. The "two" can never be separated and still retain the power and certainty of their nature.
The same analysis can be described in a number of existential concepts: good/evil, meaninglessness/meaning, love/apathy, fear/courage, mind/body, etc. Contemporary thinkers are still clinging to the Cartesian myth that these entities can be separated from one another. In reality, they are so inextricably intertwined and connected that it could be posited that they are not separate at all but rather elements of an entirety that is not meant to be fragmented if one is to understand clearly. One cannot exist without the other and that is what gives them their power; a power that can heal as well as cause suffering.
However, still we try. We try to live on one side of reality and attempt to ignore the other. We want only the good; only the safe; only the comfortable, warm and fuzzy. We try to deny what many consider to be vulgar, dark and threatening. We want freedom and choice but only so far as it can provide us with what we want and then, when we are faced with certain responsibilities that we do not want, we go so far as to deny that we even have freedom and choice. We want to pick up only one end of the stick but in our attempts we fail terribly. If we are successful at denying the "darker" side of our existential situation the "lighter" side is affected. When we have freedom of choice we experience anxiety. Anxiety is "not good" so to combat it, we retreat from action only to experience existential guilt. The truth is we do not have to lose our humanity in order to be healthy. Existential psychology recognizes this.
The tenets of existential psychology contain within them a wealth of insight and courage. If we could just learn to accept the "darker" side of existence and embrace it as part of our experience the brighter side would keep its brightness and even become more illuminating. This is not to say that we have to like death, or isolation, or meaninglessness, or pain. We do not have to become metaphysical masochists. We do not have to be happy at the prospect of losing our lives and we do not have to be cheery when someone we care about loses their own. What we have to do, surely what we must do, is to acknowledge these elements of life and appreciate their power and truth. Then their existence brings a new meaning: a dignified and magnificent contrast to the "lighter" side of existence. One can run but cannot hide, and to try is a waste of valuable energy and time.
In addition, existential psychology tries to avoid the practice of reductionism and labeling. When we try to put forth the pan-deterministic view of the human being we commit the human being to a life without hope or possibility for transformation. The human being is an amazing and multidimensional existent. When we expect the worst from others that is usually what we receive. Human beings not only have the capacity for understanding the past but also the capacity for reaching toward the future with the tools of insight and ability to change. This applies to all human beings. Viktor Frankl has offered what he considers the finest maxim for any kind of psychotherapy, "If we take people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat them as if they were what they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of being" (Fabry, 1968, p.154).
`Existential' psychology is not so much a `school of thought' as it is a reminder that there is much about human life that is rejected by "Psychology". This includes the profound, yet familiar, human concerns that we, as humans, experience. Until `Psychology' recognizes this part of human condition, no matter how far we get, no matter how much exciting research makes its way into the welcoming arms of the APA, "Psychology" will never be a complete human science and this is tragic.
William Whyte in Organization Man, cautions readers that:
modern day's enemies may turn out to be a mild-looking group of therapists who...would be doing what they did to help you. He refers to here the tendency to use the social sciences in support of the social ethic of one's historical period; and thus the process of helping people may actually make them conform and tend toward the destruction of individuality. We cannot brush aside as unintelligent or anti-scientific the cautions of such men; to try to do so would make us the obscurantists. There is a real possibility that we may be helping the individual adjust and be happy at the price of loss of being. (As cited in May,1960 p.4)

Rollo May was a psychiatrist who understood the relationship between existential issues and psychological health. His statement about helping people to conform so that they may fit into society holds true today. Most psychologists and psychiatrists are less interested in concerns about existential issues than they are about quick fixes and techniques such as those found in pharmacological, cognitive-based or behavioristic method of "therapy". This is not to say that there are no uses for such techniques. It is to say however, that these methods are beneficial, but only to a point. While it is true that one could be conditioned to behave in practically any way, the idea of a person living out their life within a constant stream of reinforcements, unnecessary and over-administered drugs and mental shortcuts is terribly inhuman as well as inhumane. There must be something more and there is; that something is acknowledgment of existential concerns and an openness on the part of the therapist as well as the client to these issues. Furthermore, there must be commitment to the client to embark on the sometimes frustrating and painful journey into the depths of the human core of existence.

Existential Psychology does not attempt to "own" the field of psychology but rather help psychology as a whole to understand and ultimately help human beings to understand themselves and their sufferings and ultimately help them to heal the wounds that hurt so deeply. Existential psychology and phenomenology also provides research and research techniques that complement and strengthen the total field.

Gordon Allport said of Existentialism that "it deepens the concepts that define the human condition. In doing so, it prepares the way (for the first time) for a psychology of mankind " (As cited in May, 1960 p. 94).

In addition, it is important to note that in practicing psychology in a clinical setting, existential Psychology does not call for any strange or hocus-pocus type prescriptions. "In the treatment of many patients the existential paradigm of psychopathology does not call for a radical departure from traditional therapeutic strategies or techniques" (Yalom,1980, pp. 11-14).

R. D. Laing (1967) said it beautifully when he wrote:
We are a generation of man so estranged from the inner world that many are arguing that it does not exist; and even if it does exist, it doesn't matter...Quantify the heart's agony and ecstasy in a world in which the inner world is first discovered, we are liable to find ourselves bereft and derelict. For without the inner the outer loses its meaning and without the outer the inner loses its substance. (25)