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)