EXISTENTIAL PERSPECTIVES feature extreme phenomenology. There is nothing more to life than a person’s experience. Life is a flow of existential phenomena (experiences). These phenomena are what they are in their immediacy, and are not reflections of something else.

JEAN PAUL SARTRE has said that EXISTENCE PRECEDES ESSENCE. People have no existence apart from the world, and the world has no existence apart from people. This is reflected in the CORE concept of DASEIN, a German word literally meaning THERE (DA) TO BE (SEIN).

In English DASEIN is often interpreted that life is a matter of BEING (BECOMING)-IN-THE-WORLD, indicating that there is no separation of the world from a person’s experience of the world.

The CORE TENDENCY in existentialism is TO BE AUTHENTIC TO ONE’S EXPERIENCE in the 3 realm of the Core:

1. UMWELT (“around” world)--our physical surroundings

2. MITWELD (“with” world)--our social world

3. EIGENWELD (“own” world)--our inner world

Camus: “…to be authentic is to have a full appreciation of the absurdity of life (in which people search for meaning even though there is none to be found.)”

A list of Existential Philosophers would include

KIERKEGAARD

HEIDEGGER

NIETZSCHE

JASPERS

SARTRE

CAMUS

EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOLOGISTS

LUDWIG BINSWANGER

MEDNARD BOSS

ROLLO MAY

IRVING YALOM

People are FREE to make decisions within the constraints of the “GIVENS OF LIFE” For example:

1. DEATH

2. FREEDOM-We are responsible for our life and decisions, and there are no guaranties that our decisions will attain our goals. We create our world.

Sartre: “An individual is condemned to freedom.”

3. ISOLATION

4. MEANINGLESSNESS-Even existence (the only thing people have) may be meaningless.

If each person must die, and each person constitutes his/her own world, and each person is alone in an indifferent universe; then what meaning can life have?

DEVELOPMENT, little formal theorizing

Children need to develop courage to face ontological anxiety.

Parents need to a) impose limits on children expressing their own views, b) love and respect a child as a budding individual, c)teach children the difference between the “givens” and “possibilities”, and d) encourage children to choose the future and present over the past.

Live is a series of decisions. To be authentic is to choose to BROADEN experiences, which always brings ONTOLOGICAL ANXIETY. This is preferable to choosing for what is COMFORTABLE AND FAMILIAR, which always brings ONTOLOGICAL GUILT. To deny responsibility for ontological anxiety and guilt is to forfeit attainment of AUTHENTIC BEING. Defensiveness = Cowardice in the face of ontological anxiety

There are also NEUROTIC forms of ANXIETY and GUILT.

Ontological anxiety

Proportionate to the situation

Doesn’t need repression

Has creative possibilities

Neurotic anxiety

Disproportionate

Needs repression

Destructive, leads to paralysis

The shame and fear that you, yourself, and others will discover that you are terrified of life.

Ontological guilt

Guilt over individual acts

Neurotic guilt

Guilt over one’s life

PERIPHERY, there are two ways to lead one’s life

1. AUTHENTIC

UMWELT--appreciative of the world, its subtleties, and its possibilities

MITWELD--relationships that have intimacy and love

EIGENWELD--great self knowledge and use of judgment, symbolization, and imagination.

2. INAUTHENTIC

UMWELT-- A conventional life with little taste or complexity

MITWELT--a player of social roles in superficial relationships, conformity

EIGENWELT--little self awareness, “automatic” decisions based on custom, simplistic reasoning

Suicide can be an authentic choice in life.

Existential Therapy:

1. Help the client be aware of existential anxiety and guilt

2. Help the client accept the givens of existence

3. Help the client distinguish between the necessities and possibilities in life.

4. Help the client take responsibility for decisions