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Existential Therapy: Exploring the Challenges of the Human Condition
Prof Emmy van DeurzenHACP
October 2013
What are the human issues we are facing and how can counselling &
therapy help us find the path to a better life?
www.nspc.org.ukwww.emmyvandeurzen.comwww.societyofpsychotherapy.org.uk
Facebook and LinkedIn: Existential Therapy
www.existentialpsychotherapy.netwww.icecap.org.ukwww.dilemmas.orgwww.existentialacademy.com
Emmy van Deurzen PhD, MPhil, MPsych, CPsychol, FBPsS,
UKCPF, FBACP, ECP, HPC reg
• Visiting Professor Middlesex University -UK• Director Dilemma Consultancy• Director Existential Academy • Principal New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling - London
Past Classical education Netherlands (The Hague)
Philosophy masters, Montpellier with Michel Henry (France)
Clinical psychology masters, Bordeaux with Jack Doron (France)
Doctorate in social science: City University with Alfons Grieder (London)
Worked in psychiatry for seven years-private practice since 1978, Lacanian, psychodrama and group therapy training
London 1977-78: Arbours and PA followed by Esalen, USA, Gestalt and bioenergetics
1982: created first masters in existential therapy
1985: moved course to Regent’s College
1987: first book ; founded Society for Existential Analysis
1988: merged course with RC: Prof and Dean SPC
1993-95 first chair UKCP
1996: founded New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling, prof Schiller and Sheffield Uni; now Middlesex Uni.
Books by Emmy
most relevantfor today’s talk:
2009 book on happiness
Existential Therapy
Talking about your troubles is only helpful if you can talk through them in constructive dialogue taking you beyond blame and shame.
No pathology
Focus on Problems in Living
Philosophical view of human existence
Focus of existential therapy
Ontological questions
Addressed by tackling everyday ontic problems
Camus: Sisyphus’ plightWhat to believe and how to live in an absurd
world?
There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is … whether life is or is not worth living. (Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus)
Is rolling the stone up the hill sufficient to fill a human heart?: meaning is found because of challenges, not despite them
There is no abstract ethics. There is only an ethics in a situation and therefore it is concrete. An abstract ethics is that of the good conscience. It assumes that one can be ethical in a fundamentally unethical situation.(Sartre, Notes For an Ethics:17)
Sartre’s existential ethics
Is human emotional suffering avoidable?
Or does the road of life inevitably take us through lows and into dark and scary
places?
Is happiness desirable?
Or d
oes it so
ften
us a
nd
sto
p u
s reflect o
n life
?
HUMAN CONDITION
Understanding the way in which we struggle with the human condition and how this struggle leads to the experience of depression, anxiety and psychopathology
Existential Therapy Understanding human difficulties, conflicts, paradoxes, dilemmas,
contradictions, predicaments
Working with philosophical methods, amongst which phenomenology, dialectics, maieutics, hermeneutics and heuristic methods.
Where do I come from?Scandinavian Viking, Danish aristocrat, political/religious leader banished Bismarck,
copper smith
Central European gypsy, Dutch barge skippers,
farmers, art experts, head of antiques auction
Grew up after WW2 in war torn
Netherlands
Terror of Cold War period
especially Suez crisis and nuclear threat
Classical education
Asking Questions and Reflect
How to live? What is truth? What is the ultimate value of
life?
What do we do when crisis hits?
In the whirlwind of change we need to find steadiness, persistence and
resilience: we need purpose
Nobody is spared crisis, Conflict or LOSS
Are we ever prepared for the life changing challenges?
Even if you play it safe and try to avoid catastrophes
You still need courage and persistence to brave unexpected blows of fate: many respond with
anxiety and depression
Facts: depression 2-10% of European citizens experience depression related
problems
Each year: 33.4 million Europeans suffer
Inability to feel pleasure, tiredness, worthlessness, helplessness, hopelessness and feelings of guilt
Most suicides (30-88%) related to it
60.000 deaths by suicide p.a. in the EU (2X > road acc)
Most common cause of disability in the world, strongly associated with heart disease in linear causal fashion
Total cost p/a: UK: £15 billion USA: $100 billion
Last decade: EU and WHO policy to promote mental health
Facts: anxiety
Often considered in relation to stress
Estimated 15.7 million Americans are affected each year
12% of European population at any time
The core features of GAD are chronic (>6 months) anxious worrying with symptoms of hyper vigilance, hyper arousal and tension
But also Phobias, Panic, OCD, PTSD, SAD (social anx)
NICE figures: cost of anxiety in EU: 41 billion Euros (2004 prices)
Long term use of benzodiazepines (Xanax, Librium, Valium, Ativan): worsens it
Size and burden of mental disorders
Most frequent disorders: anxiety (14%), insomnia (7%), major depression (6.9%), somatoform (6.3%), alcohol and drug dependency (4%), ADHD (5%) dementia (1-30%)
38.2%, i.e. 164.8 million persons affected per year.
Percentage of disorders of brain: 26.6%, headache, sleep apnoea, stroke (8.24), dementia, brain injury, epilepsy, parkinsons, ms, brain tumours (overlap)
People crave happiness and want to eliminate their
symptoms
in 2010 some 16 million prescriptions were issued for anti-depressants in the UK: a 10% rise on the previous year.
Iceland: 9%
SSRIs: Happy pills?
SSRIs as panacea especially with anxiety, but also NRIs and SNRIs
selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (Fluoxetine, Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft)
noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors (Reboxetine, Edronax, Mazanor)
Serotonine- norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (Venlafaxine) (anxiety, ADHD)
From 2006 to 2010: 43% increase in prescriptions for the SSRI antidepressants
2009 BMJ paper titled "Explaining the rise in antidepressant prescribing’’: SSRIs are given for all sorts of problems
2000-2005: already 36% increase in SSRI
How do people end up so overwhelmed by their
emotional experience?
Despair leads to loss of self worth
Panic at coping alone leads to crippling anxiety
It significantly increases mortality
People expect to feel goodBut life is not an eternal
spring..
Unhappiness is not an illness
Many people take the view they deserve happiness
On this view, things like love, friendship, meaningful activity, freedom, human development, or the appreciation of true beauty are ‘‘merely’’ instrumentally valuable for us, i.e. they are not good as ends but merely as means to the only thing that is good as an end, namely happiness. Bengt Brulde 2006.
What happens when life is hard?
Migrant mother in USA depression 1936
Nazi occupation of Paris
Buchenwald
Auschwitz
Bia
fra 1
96
7
Survival is an issue
Resilience
How do we overcome obstacles?
How do we survive difficulties, crises, trauma?
How do we rise above adversity?
Are there personal qualities that enable a person to be resilient?
KNOW YOURSELF (oracle of Delphi):
Man’s task is simple:
he should cease letting
his existence be a
thoughtless accident
Friedrich Nietzsche: The Gay Science
Reality is: we all despair!
All of us are disappointed, dissatisfied, disenchanted at times.
We get sad and depressed.
Seligman (1973) has described depression as, `The common cold of psychopathology, at once familiar and mysterious’
Holmes and Rahe scale of stressful
eventsDeath of spouse 100
Divorce 73
Marital separation 65
Jail term 63
Death of close family member 63
Personal injury or illness 53
Marriage 50
Fired at work 47
Marital reconciliation 45
Holmes and Rahe
Retirement 45
Change in health of a family member 44
Pregnancy 40
Sex Difficulties 39
Gain of new family member 39
Business readjustment 39
Change in financial state 38
Death of close friend 37
Change to different line of work 36
Change in number of arguments with spouse 35
Mortgage over $100,000 31
Foreclosure of mortgage or loan 30
Change in responsibilities at work 29
Holmes and Rahe
Other Life Events
Son or daughter leaving home
Trouble with in-laws
Outstanding personal achievement
Wife begins or stops work
Begin or end school
Change in living conditions
Revision in personal habits
Trouble with boss
Change in work hours or conditions
Change in residence
Change in schools
Change in recreation
Holmes and Rahe
Change in church activities
Change in social activities
Mortgage or loan less than $30,000
Change in sleeping habits
Change in number of family get-togethers
Change in eating habits
Vacation
Christmas alone
Minor violations of the law
Things can be a lot worse
Iraqi refugees who dare not go back home
Syrian refugees in Turkey
Reduced to standing in line
Life reduced to rubble
No safety
Sudanese refugeesno more land, water or
hope
Sami people in Lapland losing land
to mining
Greece economic crisis 2012
Suffering and learning
and the learning is always personal
9/11/01 NYC
Japanese girl in Quarantine after nuclear disaster
2011
Coffins arriving from Afghanistan at
Wootton Bassett, UK, 2011
Homes devastated in Alabama tornado
2011
We cannot avoid all danger and all problems and need to learn to cope
It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life.
Where you stumble lies your treasure
Joseph Campbell
Being lost and finding something
new
Heidegger’s aletheia (ἀλήθεια): truth means: unveiling the hidden
In loss we become homeless, Unheimlich and are forced to find ourselves for the first time.
Shock to one’s system of meaning.
In crisis the connections we rely on to find security and our identity are shaken up at the roots
Everything is in question and we can no longer trust in life, other people, ourselves, fate or gods
We can no longer take things for granted
On Dying: Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
denial
anger
bargaining
depression : reactive or preparatory
acceptance
hope
Laing:Breakthrough in
stead of breakdown. Loss and transition are about breakdown
of the old.
Instead of breaking down and becoming depressed it can mean we break through some block and move on to a next level.
In the process we become stronger.
We establish values that are more deeply rooted.
What meaning after crisis?
Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked.
In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.
Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, p.172
Frankl’s way to meaning
• Experiential values: what we take from the world.
• Creative values: what we give to the world.• Attitudinal values : the way we deal with
suffering.
We need problems and challenges: to learn and
evolve Camus:
In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer
Happiness is nothing except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads
In darkness we learn about the
depth of lifeThe discipline of suffering,
of great suffering — do you not know that only
this discipline has created all enhancements of man
so far?
(Nietzsche, 1886/1990: 225)
Dialectics
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.
Human evolution proceeds with constant conflict and forward movement in overcoming a previous state.
Paradoxes, conflicts and dilemmas are integrated and gone beyond.
Perhaps this is the true purpose of life and suffering: to learn, surpass and evolve.
We need COURAGETillich’s Courage to Be:
Courage is the universal self-affirmation of one’s Being in the presence of the threat of non-Being(Tillich 1952:163).
Integrating non being: Paul Tillich:
1886-1965 A neurotic person can take on board only a
little bit of non-being
The average person can take on a limited amount of non-being
The creative person can accommodate a large amount of non-being
God can tolerate an infinite amount of non-being.
What stops us?The fear of truth
which is the fear of freedom Sartre’s Truth and Existence, 1989:34.
‘
Facing truth is the first step to freedom
We need to find a new path and new direction
We have to carry on and find a new way
Hold strong, even though we are
afraidSouth Sudan soldier before liberation
Prisoner defying Himmler
Show courage and defianceTank man in Tiananman Square
1989
Onto-dynamics
Learning to live in line with the laws of life
Paradox, conflict, difficulty and dilemmas are our daily companions
When crisis comes we need to have the courage to descend to rock bottom
From there we can build something better
Important to take context, political, cultural and social into account
Images of happiness
Walhalla, Utopia, el Dorado, Garden of Eden, Nirvana, Land of the Lotus eaters
What is happiness anyway?
Classic distinction hedonism/eudaimonia
Positive emotion: feeling good
Life satisfaction (Diener): an evaluation of overall picture of one’s life
Absence of problems: having a good time
Contentment or state of harmony
Elation or bliss and ecstasy
An aim which is always elusive
Problems with happiness
Nagel’s post accident situation of not having a care in the world, yet being pitied: happy fool
(View from Nowhere, 1986).
If pleasure or feeling good is the goal, then what of Nozick’s ‘experience machine’ (1974)?
Need for pleasure is addictive and undermines happiness
Pure happiness is unrealistic: not true to life.
Tree of Knowledge and Exile from Paradise: human evolution.
Kierkegaard: the Fall : tragedy or necessary and beneficial?
After Eden: knowledge of good and evil
Return to Eden is not the objective
Rather to live with consciousness and learn
EXISTENTIAL THERAPY IN PRACTICE
Greater values than happiness:
love, truth, beauty, loyalty, honour, courage, freedom.
Hedonism or Eudaimonia:
are we after ease or do we seek to live well?
www.existentialacademy.com 81
Aristotle’s Eudaimonia: value based Or a banker’ version of value: how big was your bonus?
Global map of Well Being 2006
(or affluence/prosperity)
What is the Happy Planet Index?
Global measure of sustainable well-being: the extent to which countries deliver long, happy, sustainable lives for the people that live in them.
The 2012 HPI report ranks 151 countries based on their efficiency – the extent to which each nation produces long and happy lives per unit of environmental input.
How is the Happy Planet Index calculated?
Experienced well-being x Life expectancy
Divided by Ecological Footprint
The website www.happyplanetindex.org
Well Being measured by Gallup World Poll Ladder of Life: 0-10 rating
Life expectancy: average age people can expect to reach
Ecological Footprint: WWF measure of per capita hectares of land required to sustain consumption pattern
Happy Planet Index
Sheffield geography research group: Benjamin Hennig
Can we have enduring happiness ?
Happiness and unhappiness are twins that grow up together. (Nietzsche, 1882: 270)
Dangers of complacency
1994 study Galen Bodenhausen: students in happy mood more keen to condemn their less privileged peers
Diener’s follow up study: happy kids drop out of college more, earn less later on
June Gruber: happiness good but you can have too much of it
Iris Mauss: happiness leads to lack of training for crisis
Paradoxes of human existence
challenge gain loss
Physical Death and pain
Life to the full Unlived life or constant fear
Social Loneliness and rejection
Understand and be understood
Bullying or being bullied
Personal Weakness and failure
Strength and stamina
Narcissism or self destruction
Spiritual Meaning-Lessness and futility
Finding an ethics to live by
Fanaticism or apathy
Don’t lose yourself when life is tough
The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work. Harry Golden
The art of living is to be equal to all our emotions rather than to select and cultivate only the
pleasant ones
Tuning into our feelings in order to move towards
understanding A pathway
towards the light
of understanding
We have learnt to deal in emoticons
Your own little sphere of existence
matters
Imagine a person like a sphere
That person is located in a universe with other planets,
stars, suns, moons and spheres
Sphere as a planet or a cell: micro or macro
level.
If a cell: connection with other cells, function and internal constitution are
paramount
If planet: orbit and position matter
Merleau Ponty: Visible and Invisible
Things are structures – frameworks – the stars of our life: they gravitate around us. Yet there is a secret bond between
us and them –
through perception
we enter into the
essence of the flesh
(Visible and Invisible: 220)
A fractal universe: patterns of leaf veins repeat
Going into the molecules at the quantum level: we discover whole worlds of atoms and anti-matter
Other end of spectrum: into infinity: galaxies and black
holes
Feeling our own feelings
The universe is our location
We are part of it
We are also an entire universe of our own: the
human universe
Each of us is a universe to ourselves.
You experience yourself as having a nucleus: a core, a heart or a soul
Solar anatomy
Layers of the sun
Corona, chromosphere, photosphere, convection zone, and core.
Perhaps we are more like suns, generating heat
and light
Merleau Ponty: soul
The soul is the hollow of the body, the body is the distension of the soul. The soul adheres to the body as their signification adheres to the cultural things, whose reverse or other side it is. (233)
Layers of a person’s life.
4.Physical: Umwelt
3.Social: Mitwelt
2.Personal: Eigenwelt
1.Spiritual: Uberwelt
Spiritual:Good/Evil
Intuitions, values, beliefs, purpose, meaning.Worldview/Ideas.
Personal:Strength/Weakness
Thoughts, memories, identity, freedom.Selfhood/Me.
Social:Love/Hate
Feelings, relations, belonging, acknowledgement.Communication/Others.
Physical:
Life/DeathSensations, actions, environment, body, things.
Survival/World.
Dimensions of existence
Different quality of experience at each
dimension
Befindlichkeit
Befindlichkeit, attunement, disposition or state of mind: the way I find myself. The way I am situated in the world, disposed towards it. Affectedness: an implicit understanding of the world, not yet articulated. (later: understanding and language)
In an ontic fashion every moment of our experience will be coloured by a particular tonality, or mood (Stimmung).
Emotions are our orientation.
Emotions are like the weather: never none.
They are the way we relate to the world.
They define the mood of the moment.
They are our atmosphere and modality.
They tell us how and where we are.
They show us what we want and don’t want
Learn to tune in rather than tune out.
Freedom and the brain: connectivity is
everythingThe more explicit we can make our experience the more connected we become. Each feeling left goes into
implicit rather than explicit memory. The more organized our
connections, the greater the freedom. Pre-frontal lobes, rather
than just limbic system.
Emotions and values
Emotions are always experienced in relation to
values and beliefs and principles.
They are our response to and message about our
ideologies
Ideologies
Polytheism: Many Gods
Monotheism: One God
Marxism: Society as
God
Psychology: Individual
as God
Atheism: No God
Science: Fact are
God
Humanism: Mankind as
God
Agnosticism: Don’t
know God
Pantheism: All is God
Classic solutions dealing with emotions by
changing your values/beliefs It is not death that a man should fear, but he should
fear never beginning to live (Marcus Aurelius).
The un-reflected life is not worth living (Socrates)
Early therapists
Gilgamesh (Noah) 2750 BC
Dwaipayana (Krishna) 1500 BC
Moses 1400-1280 BC
Zoroaster 630 -553 BC
Lao-Tze 604- 531 BC
Gautama Buddha 563 –510 BC
Confucius 557- 479 BC
Wide range of Athenian and Roman philosophies
Plato 427 – 347 BC
Diogenes 413 - 323 BC
Aristotle 384 – 322 BC
Epicurus 341 – 270 BC
Zeno 335 – 263 BC
Cicero 106 – 43 BC
Lucretius 98 – 51 BC
Jesus Christ 4 BC – 29 AD
Seneca 1 AD - 65 AD
Epictetus 55 - 135
Marcus Aurelius 21 - 180
Socrates: 469 –399 BC
Preceded by Heraclitus 540 –480 BC
and Parmenides 515- 450 BC
Taught his students how to examine life: cultivating the love of wisdom.
Get out of the cave, in which we are chained in ignorance living amongst shadows.
Rediscover the light of truth about life.
Socrates
The unreflective life is not worth living
Aristotle
Eudaimonia: the good life : virtue ethics
Should benefit the community at large rather than only the individual
Philosophy teacher's discourse with the pupil (client) should be a co-operative, critical one that insists on the virtues of orderliness, deliberateness and clarity
Aristotelian practice
Pupils are taught to separate true beliefs from false beliefs and to modify and transform their passions accordingly
Winnowing and sifting opinions
Virtue ethics: live in line with the demon: force, power, spirit.
Epicureans
The Epicureans seek to treat human suffering by removing corrupting desires and by eliminating pain and disturbance (ataraxia).
Adjust values retaining only those that are attainable and may bring pleasure.
Relinquish the unobtainable and adjust expectations to what is realistic, so that with a slight of hand we can obtain what we think we want.
From Socrates to Epicures
Dialectical investigation and critical thinking are replaced with formulae and communal living enforces the creed.
Epicures understood something that neither Plato nor Aristotle had fully grasped, i.e., that false beliefs are often settled deep in the soul and that they may not be available for argument.
Skeptics Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360-275 B.C.)
The Epicurean view is that pleasure is the only good and we are taught to adjust our needs so as to guarantee the procurement of pleasure from small natural resources.
Skeptics: the only way to stop pain and suffering is to simply not believe in or desire anything.
So whilst Epicureans try to get rid of false beliefs, the Skeptics want to get rid of all beliefs.
Stoics: overcoming weakness
Ordering of the self and soul
Exercise of the mind
Lack of moral fibre and emotional weakness
Everything is connected, but Stoics consider that different temperaments need different approaches and that there is a critical moment (kairos) for change :
Zeno: virtue is its own reward
Stoic goal
For the Stoics the pupil's goal is to become his own teacher and pupil
In order to improve a person's life the soul must be exercised everyday, for instance by the use of logic and poetry
The objective is wisdom, the only ultimate value and virtue and leads to eudaimonia, the flourishing life: wisdom, courage, justice, temperance
The means: detachment and self-control : apathy
Spinoza-ethics
Prop.VI. The mind has greater power over the emotions and is less subject thereto, in so far as it understands all things as necessary. (under a species of eternity)
Sartre Theory of Emotions
The existence of desire as a human fact is sufficient to prove that human reality is a lack. (87)
Human reality is its own surpassing towards what it lacks; it surpasses itself toward the particular being which it would be if it were what it is. (89)
Sartre’s emotional theory
Embodied human existence mobilizes itself towards or away from that which it desires or dreads.
We can do magic in letting ourselves fall into emotion, thus transforming the world in bad faith.
Difference between reflective and non reflective emotions.
Project
Man is characterized above all by his going beyond a situation and by what he succeeds in making of what he has been made.
This going beyond we find at the very root of the human-in need. (scarcity)
This is what we call the project. (elementary objective, original intention)
(Sartre, Search for a Method:91)
Emotion classification tree Virginia Teller.
Lövheim cube of emotion
pride
jealousy
anger-despair
fear
sorrowshame
envy
hope-desire
love
joy
SadnessLow
HappinessHigh
AnxietyExcitementEngagement
DepressionDisappointmentDisengagement
Compass of emotions
evd 10
Four kinds of emotions
• Loss of value
• Aspire to value
• Threat to value
• Gain value
approach fight
flightfreeze
Threat to value: pride, jealousy, anger
PrideJealousyAnger
Loss of value (despair, fear, sorrow):
Despair, fear,
sorrow
Aspire to value: desire, envy, shame
DesireEnvy
Shame
Gain value: hope, love, joy
Hope, love, joy
Physical: things
Social: others
Personal: self
Spiritual: ideas
Four relational layers
World:Dimension
Umwelt:Where and how?
Mitwelt:With what?
Eigenwelt:Who?
Uberwelt:For what?
Physical:survival
Nature:senses
Things Body Cosmos
Social:affiliation
Society:emotions
Others Ego Culture
Personal:identity
Person:thought
Me Self Consciousness
Spiritual:meaning
Infinite:intuition
Ideas Spirit Conscience
Different dimensions of human relationships at different levels of existence
Overview of conflicts, challenges and paradoxes on four dimensions
World Umwelt Mitwelt Eigenwelt Uberwelt
Physical Nature:Life/Death
Things:Pleasure/Pain
Body:Health/Illness
Cosmos:Harmony/Chaos
Social Society:Love/Hate
Others:Dominance/Submission
Ego:Acceptance/Rejection
Culture:Belonging/Isolation
Personal Person:Identity/Freedom
Me:Perfection/Imperfection
Self:Integrity/Disintegration
Consciousness:Confidence/ Confusion
Spiritual: Infinite:Good/Evil
Ideas:Truth/Untruth
Spirit:Meaning/Futility
Conscience:Right/Wrong
1:Pride-confidence-arrogance-conceit
2:Jealousy-worry-vigilance-caution
3:Anger-hate-rage-despair
4:Fear-confusion-cowardice-alarm
5:Sorrow-misery-resignation-regretShame-emptiness-guilt-humilation:7
Envy-curiosity-aspiration-interest:8
Hope-desire-resolve-trust:9
Love-courage-commitment-vow:10
Joy-thrill-excitement-bliss:11
6. Low DespondencyDepression
Sadness
ExhilarationHappinessGladness 12:High
Upgain
Downloss
Emotional Compass
How do we experience our
world? We are lenses, prisms for light to refract.
We allow light through, reflect it, magnify it, block it, divert it. We change the tone and mood and affect the world in turn.
Tune into the feelings and moods that colour our worldview
They create different atmospheres at different times.
The colour of emotion
Depressed worldview
THE ART OF LIVING:HOW TO BE ON THE PATH OF LIFE?
Understanding our emotions is the best way towards understanding our mode of being and our values. Living with
our emotions is the path to our elemental objectives
The art of living is to be equal to all emotions rather than to select only
the pleasant ones
When the storm hits at seawe need to be prepared
pride
jealousy
anger-despair
fear
sorrowshame
envy
hope-desire
love
joy
SadnessLow
HappinessHigh
AnxietyExcitement
Engagement
DepressionDisappointmentDisengagement
Greed
Stinginess
Frustration
Disgust
PainNeed
Craving
Excitement
Lust
Pleasure
DeprivationEmptiness
SatisfactionFullness
GainSurvivalsurprise
LossThreatshock
Sensory Compass
Care
Jealousy
Anger
Fear
RejectionShame
Envy
Approval
Love
Acceptance
IsolationSeparateness
BelongingOneness
EngagementDisengagement
Emotional Compass
Superiority
Stubbornness
Defiance
Deflation
HumiliationInferiority
Anxiety
Courage
Commitment
Confidence
ImperfectionWeakness
PerfectionStrength
SuccessFailure
Mental Compass
Pride
Prudence
Wrath
Resignation
DisillusionmentGuilt
Aspiration
Hope
Resoluteness
Bliss
FutilityAbsurdity
Meaning Purpose
GoodEvil
Moral Compass
Rising above your emotions
Above the clouds the weather is steady even when it rains below.
Transcending our own situation and emotions allows us to understand our own response.
Bringing down emotional intensity: painting the world pale or in pastel shades
Taoism: Yin (moon/dark/ female) and Yang (light/sun/male)
Chiaroscuro, claire-obscure, the light and shade of life
Making sense of life
HighBigFar
Good
LowSmallNearBad
Energy is the flow between two poles
Source: kidzoneweather.com
Dialectics: working with tension, dilemma, conflict, opposition,
polarities, paradox
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.
Human evolution proceeds with constant conflict and forward movement in overcoming a previous states.
Paradoxes and dilemmas
are integrated
and gone beyond.
Transcendence
Thesis Antithesis
Synthesis
Dialectics
future
Thesis: my view(past )
Antithesis: your view(present)
Dialectics: transcendence in space and time
Synthesis:a wider view
Anxiety as source of energy
Anxiety is life energy rather than a symptom of illness
When we face the responsibility of making something out of nothing we become anxious
Heidegger and anxiety Anxiety individualizes. This
individualization brings Dasein back from its falling, and makes manifest to it that authenticity and inauthenticity are possibilities of its Being. (Heidegger 1927:191)
Going beyond happiness
Happiness as a high is doomed: every high is followed by a low.
Constant pleasure leads to addiction and misery.
Happiness as contentment may be more feasible, but could easily lead to mediocrity and lack of awareness.
Beyond the quest for happiness is the quest for right living.
This is not just about meaning and purpose but about truth, being, nothingness, learning and evolution, dialectically integrating paradox.
Existential intelligence
Embracing existence in its contradictions and rising to its challenges.
Realizing that there is no such thing as a perfect human being.
Learning to be resilient and flexible enough to negotiate on-going paradoxes
Facing existential challenges in a personal and creative manner that allows for dialectic.
Emotional well being
An ability to creatively encounter challenges and crises.
Capacity for re-establishing equilibrium through strong, dynamic centre of narrative gravity.
Enhanced enjoyment of life, appreciation of physical world, others, self-worth and meaning.
True freedom is always spiritual. It has something to do with your innermost being, which cannot be chained, handcuffed, or put into a jail.
The Courage to Be Yourself
Making suffering meaningful
Processing is of prime importance.
Assimilate crisis and make it meaningful.
Process emotions, values, beliefs
Transcend and overcome.
Rise to the challenge
Find the purpose and meaning in the suffering
What helps? Those who have experienced trauma do better if they have good social
support.
They do significantly better if they have integrity and a sense of wholeness. (to survive trauma you either need good conscience or no conscience at all…)
The conflict or trauma has to be put to good use.
There has to be a safe place one can retreat to.
It makes a big difference whether you can take some responsibility for your fate.
It helps if you feel your trauma is in some ways a proof of your character or a building block of it.
If you can claim the crisis as part of your success rather than evidence of failure and bad character: making it count!
Resilience
Physical: safety, sleep, food, comfort, survival, healing, repair,
recovery
Social: strong relationships,
allow and understand emotions, belonging,
caring, sharing, support
Psychological: clear thinking, making sense, analysis,
understanding, new perspective, taking charge, responsibility,
character building
Spiritual: review values, new vision, trust,
transcendence, dialectic,
stronger beliefs, meaning, purpose
Our luck will change
We are united with
what we love
Help others when possible
bushfires in Victoria 2009
Make gestures of good will when possible
Pentagon Vietnam protests: flower power
Loving your Life
Loving your fate and destiny in all its manifestations (Nietzsche’s Amor Fati)
Challenges and difficulties are not the enemy, nor to be avoided but rather to be welcomed as grist for the mill and par for the course: life as an adventure.
Chiaroscuro, claire-obscure, the light and shade of life
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars. Ralph Waldo
Emerson
Eventually: Earth Rises again
1968 picture from Apollo mission
www.existentialpsychotherapy.netwww.icecap.org.ukwww.dilemmas.orgwww.nspc.org.ukwww.existentialacademy.comwww.emmyvandeurzen.comFacebook and LinkedIn: Existential Therapy
Podcast of Living with your Emotions onwww.societyofpsychotherapy.org.uk
How to live? Who am I? What is the
ultimate value or meaning of my life?
Living matters. Life is short.
We don’t know how to live well or right
Living is not easy
Much of psychopathology is rooted in a lack of understanding of human existence
Existential Approach
A philosophical method for understanding a person’s difficulties in living
Enabling people to be more aware of their own existence
Through dialogue it shows the limits, paradoxes, conflicts and contradictions of life.
Asking Questions and Reflect: a search
for truth
Existential AuthorsPhilosophers
ofFreedom
Phenomeno-logists
Existentialists Post-Structuralists
Existential- Humanists
Sðren Kierkegaard1813-1855
Franz Brentano1838-1917
Jean Paul Sartre
1905-1980
Michel Foucault
1926-1984
Martin Buber1878-1965
Friedrich Nietzsche1844-1900
Edmund Husserl
1859-1938
Maurice Merleau Ponty
1908-1961
Emmanuel Levinas
1905-1995
Paul Tillich1886-1965
Arthur Schopenhauer 1788-1860
Karl Jaspers1883-1969
Simone de Beauvoir
1908-1986
Paul Ricoeur1913-2005
Rollo May1909-1994
Fyodor Dostoyevski
1821-1881
Martin Heidegger1889-1976
Gabriel Marcel1889-1973
Jacques Lacan
1901-1981
Hannah Arendt
1906-1975
Karl Marx 1818-1883
Max Scheler1874-1928
Albert Camus1913-1960
Jacques Derrida
1930-2004
Abraham Maslow
1908-1970
Existential Philosophers
Kierkegaard Nietzsche Husserl Jaspers Heidegger Sartre de Beauvoir Buber Camus Merleau Ponty Foucault
Existential Therapy
Understanding human difficulties, conflicts, paradoxes, dilemmas, contradictions,
Works with philosophical methods, amongst which phenomenology, dialectics, maieutics, hermeneutics and heuristic methods.
No prescription
Existential therapy does not have to impose rules for living.
Uncover the laws of life
Recover our capacity to trust in life
Be inspired once again when we were despondent, forlorn, forsaken, desperate or confused.
Meaning and Purpose
Find out what is meaningful
Find out what your purpose in life is and take it seriously.
Engage with it and work for it in truth and with dedication.
Come what may, follow your dreams and make sure your actions match your dreams.
Landscapes of our life
• Understand the Lebenswelt:the world in which we live.
How do we co-constitute the world?
Aim of existential therapy.
• Enable people to tell the truth about their lives and themselves
• Help them live passionately and to the full taking authority over their destiny
• Facilitate greater understanding of the human condition and its purpose
• To think for themselves and live more freely, responsibly, passionately and compassionately
• Recognize strengths and weaknesses and make the most of both
Understanding connections.
Helping persons to understand their difficulties aims at exploring as much of the web of their lives as is possible, focussing not on one particular line but on the connections between as many lines as show themselves.
(Cohn, in Existential Perspectives, 2005:226)
Leave behind the dark ages of therapy : an open, collaborative
quest for truth rather than a dogmatic one
Existential Practitioners
Ludwig Binswanger: 1881-1966.
Karl Jaspers: 1883-1969.
Paul Tillich: 1886-1965.
Medard Boss: 1904-1990.
Viktor Frankl: 1905-1997.
Rollo May: 1909-1994.
Ronald Laing: 1927-1989.
Existential Practitioners
Binswanger Boss Frankl
Tillich May Laing
Existential Practitioners
Early psychiatrists
Humanisticpsychologists
British alternative
Recent Americans
Recent British
Ludwig Binswanger1881-1966
Paul Tillich1886-1965
George Kelly1905-1967
James Bugental1915-2008
Hans Cohn1916-2004
Karl Jaspers1883-1969
Carl Rogers1902-1987
Aaron Esterson1923-1999
Thomas Szasz1920-2012
FreddieStrasser1924-2008
Eugene Minkowski1885-1972
Rollo May1909-1994
Ronald Laing1927-1989
Irvin Yalom1931-
Ernesto Spinelli1949-
Medard Boss1904-1990
Viktor Frankl1905-1997
David Cooper1931-1986
Kirk Schneider1956-
Emmy van Deurzen1951-
Recent rapid growth of Existential therapy
internationally North America
Central and Latin America
UK, Ireland, Portugal, Greece, France, Belgium, Netherlands
Scandinavia
Eastern Europe
Russia
China
Japan
South Korea
India, Pakistan, Iran
Australia, Singapore
Existential therapy: reflecting on life and what is implicit rather than explicit: asking rather than
answering questions
What is the person’s worldview?
What is their situation?
What are their values and beliefs?
What is their purpose in life?
What has been their fate?
What is their purpose?
What are their talents?
What are their yearnings?
What are their connections
to the world and others?
What is their attitude?
What are their actions?
How do they create meaning?
Method: Edmund Husserl’s Phenomenology
1859-1938
Phenomenology: appearance<>essence
Wesenschau: to things themselves.
Intentionality (Franz Brentano)
Intuition: question natural attitude.
Knowledge begins with experience
Bracketing assumptions, epoche
Phenomenology
Key points
We are always making sense of the world, we can never be free of our assumptions.
Existential philosophy is an application of the phenomenological research method to the study of existence.
Existential therapy is a phenomenological research project for both therapist and client.
It needs to comply with rigorous standards of philosophical research and verification as well as with the requirements of human interaction and encounter.
In order to get a more accurate picture of the world we need to understand how we make sense of it.
By attending – just noticing, describing – not explaining, and not pre-judging, we can get a better idea of our assumptions
Phenomenological openness
By being phenomenological we can become more aware of the way we interpret the world in narrow and often unrealistic ways.
Listening with the right sort of openness and attentiveness is the foundation of all good practice.
The task of existential therapy is one of facilitating the client to be come freer to choose when to be open and when not to be open.
Openness to experience means to able to embrace autonomy and this is as true for the therapist as for the client.
Intentionality
Ego cogito (subject): transcendental reduction
Noesis or cogitatio (process or predicate): phenomenological reduction
Noema or cogitata (object): eidetic reduction
What stands out?Look at things anew: suspend our assumptions and see what is there.
Assumptions
Existentially, all assumptions relate to the givens of existence - there are:
Physical assumptions like, ‘my children will not die before me’,
Social assumptions like, ‘my intimate relationships are always of a particular quality’,
Psychological assumptions like, ‘I never get to do things the way I want’, and
Spiritual/ethical assumptions like, ‘People will be punished if they do bad things’.
Phenomenological Method
I. Phenomenological reduction Noesis
II. Eidetic reduction Noema
III. Transcendental reduction Cogito
Find a new perspective
I.Phenomenological reductioncogitatio: process of thought
1. Noesis.
2. Epoche: suspend assumptions.
3. Description.
4. Horizontalization.
5. Equalization.
6. Verification.
Description
Phenomenology is about description not explanation.
The intention is to open out possibility, not to close it down.
The client’s autonomy is respected at all times
The person is enabled to combine a subjective and an objective view on their own life
Take an everyday object, like a paper clip, a milk carton, a newspaper or a flower.
Without assessing effectiveness or value, think of 20 other uses for the object.
What did you have to do in order to stop thinking of the object in terms of its original use?
Verification: check that what you think makes sense to the
person Characteristic statements or intentions of verification are:
‘What is your part in what you are describing?’ This brings present responsibility into the dialogue and questions the client’s denial of responsibility and their sense of separation from both their own life and the lives of others.
‘Has this ever happened before in your life? Is this feeling familiar?’ This introduces the past, previous experience, into the dialogue and looks to finding the universals behind the individual properties.
‘How is this leading you to what you say you want?’ This introduces the future, hope, expectation and change, into the dialogue.
‘On the one hand you feel [...] but on the other hand you feel [...].’ This draws the client’s attention to the dilemmas, contradictions and the tension between opposites that they usually try to avoid. It highlights the dynamic nature of emotional life and helps them to face up to their inner and outer reality, gaining strength from their ability to do so.
II. Eidetic Reductioncogitatum: object of thought
1. Noema.
2. Abschattungen: profiles, adumbrations.
3. Wesenschau: intuiting essences.
4. Genetic constitution (vs. static).
5. Universals beyond the properties.
Adumbrations
Different facets of experience
Genetic constitution
Things change over time
III. Transcendental reductioncogito: ego, thinking mind
1. Cogito.
2. Transcendental ego.
3. Solipsism overcome.
4. Horizon of intentionality.
5. Self as point zero.
4. Transcendental inter-subjectivity.
We are connected to all there is
We are part of and generate electromagnetic fields
Resonance
Presence/energy
Transcendence
Existential approach not a technique
It is a worldview which allows to integrate a variety of methods
Addresses universal problems
Provides a method for rigorous philosophical questioning and logical tools
Non prescriptive
Assumptions and prejudice
We are always making sense of the world, we can never be free of our assumptions.
In order to get a more accurate picture of the world, we need to understand how we make sense of it.
By attending – just noticing, describing – not explaining, and not pre-judging, we can get a better idea of our assumptions.
Existential therapy is a phenomenological research project for both therapist and client.
Hermeneutic interpreting
1. It must be tentative, for the client must be able to dispute it and consider it, rather than to feel obligated to swallow it whole and agree with it: they are interpreting, not you.
2. Any interpretations we may must make a direct connection between a trigger event that the client is currently preoccupied with and its internal and external consequences it has in the client’s life.
3. Therefore the emphasis is ultimately always on the authority of the client. We model a modest though clear speaking clarity so that the client can learn to articulate their own living experience for themselves with increasing authority.
Quest for Truth
Truth is paradoxical: coming to term with the dark and light sides of life equally.
Not just well being, but also tackling negativity and difficulties with courage.
Gestalt therapy (polarities). Jungian therapy (shadow). Later Freud: death instinct (destrudo) alongside libido, the life instinct.
Assumptions and prejudice
We are always making sense of the world, we are never free of assumptions
Understand how we make sense of it Attend, notice, describe Don’t explain, pre-judge, condemn Existential therapy is a
phenomenological research project for both therapist and client.
Bracketing
Work with bias.
• Become aware of your own and your client’s bias: outlook, assumptions, beliefs, prejudice, blind spots.
Therapist bias: SOAR
State of Mind: current situation, basic orientation in the world, point of view, emotional state, mood, disposition
Orientation: based on worldview, beliefs and theoretical belief system, perspective, cultural political context
Attitude: based on aptitude, genetic predisposition, constitution, temperament, previous experiences
Reaction: response to this particular person, situation, interaction, provocation
Client Bias: SOAR
State of Mind: current situation, basic orientation in the world, point of view, emotional state, mood, disposition
Orientation: based on worldview, beliefs and theoretical belief system, perspective, cultural and political context
Attitude: based on aptitude, genetic predisposition, constitution, temperament, previous experiences
Reaction: response to this particular person, situation, interaction, provocation
Big Questions
What does it mean to be alive? Who am I? What is the purpose of my existence? How should we live? What can I hope to achieve? Is happiness possible? What is expected of me? How should I act and be in relation to other people? Is there fairness in the world? Can I make a change for the better? Is it possible to understand life and get a grip on it? Can I find ways of overcoming my troubles? Is it necessary to suffer this much? How can I be a better person and live a worthwhile life?
Quest for Truth
Truth is paradoxical: coming to term with the dark and light sides of life equally.
Not just well being, but also tackling negativity and difficulties with courage.
Gestalt therapy (polarities). Jungian therapy (shadow). Later Freud: death instinct (destrudo) alongside libido, the life instinct.
Buber’s encounter
The interhuman: das Zwischenmenschlichen; the in-between is where real communication takes place (Buber, Between Man and Man, 1929).
All actual life is encounter (ibid: 62)
This is where truth is found.
How to find our way in our Existential Space
Physical, natural space
Social interpersonal space
Personal, psychological space
Spiritual, ideological space
Dialogue of the therapeutic relationship
Being
therapist
Client’s life
client
Directive or non directive?
Purposeful and directional rather than directive or non-directive
Directness: speaks plainly
Equal challenge and support
Collaboration and mutual respect
Joint search for truth
Like SisyphusAlways onwards
And upwards
Enough
To fill
A
Human
Heart.
Objective of therapy.
Rediscover vision
Seeing and overseeing their situation
Widening the horizon
Helicopter view of life
Broader perspective
New connections
Understand human existence
Encouragement
Liberation
Purpose, direction
Engagement
Four dimensions of life.
4.Physical: Umwelt
3.Social: Mitwelt
2.Personal: Eigenwelt
1.Spiritual: Uberwelt
Spiritual:Good/Evil
Intuitions, values, beliefs, purpose, meaning.Worldview/Ideas.
Personal:Strength/Weakness
Thoughts, memories, identity, freedom.Selfhood/Me.
Social:Love/Hate
Feelings, relations, belonging, acknowledgement.Communication/Others.
Physical:Life/Death
Sensations, actions, environment, body, things.Survival/World.
Dimensions of existence
Different layers and levels of intervention
Umwelt: understand physical subtext and embodiment: person’s relation to the world around them. Behavioural/Bioenergy/Biodynamic/Classic Psychoanalysis.
Mitwelt: describe and take into account the social, cultural and political context of the client’s life. Object relations/Systemic/TA/Group/CBT/Adlerian.
Eigenwelt: read and understand the text of the client’s life, find the narrative point of gravity. Who do they think they are? Gestalt/Self Psychology/Ego-Psychology
Uberwelt: recognize worldview and values: what is the purpose of the person’s life? Jungian/Psychosynthesis/Core process/Transpersonal
Umwelt Mitwelt Eigenwelt Uberwelt
Physicalsurvival
Nature Things Body Cosmos
Socialaffiliation
Public Others Ego Culture
Personalidentity
Private Me Self Consciousness
Spiritualmeaning
Transcendence
Ideas Spirit Conscience
Different dimensions of the four spheres of existence
evd 10
Spiritual:Integrate what has happened in world view
Improve rather than give up values, beliefs, purpose, meaning.Stick with what is true.
Personal:Allow the event to strengthen your character
Express thoughts and memories. Regain a sense of freedom in relation to adversity.Learn to yield as well as be resolute.
Social:Seek to go beyond hateful and destructive relations by isolation and avoidance till
Reconciliation is possible. Seek belonging with like minded allies.Communicate your emotions without reproach, resentment, bitterness.
Physical:Seek safety when under threat.
Trust and heed sensations of stress. Find natural environment that can soothe as well as expand your horizons.
OVERCOMING TRAUMA
TrustING that we can discover what is true, possible and right.
The freedom of our feelings: making room for our life
Reflecting on our emotions and actions Doing magic and transforming the world in
a positive and constructive way
How to create value in life?
Through committed and engaged action
Step by step
Diligently proceeding no matter what challenges come on your path
Steady progress comes from undaunted focus on your project
Flexibility and finding joy in the process rather than aiming for success or happiness
Magritte:Empire of
Lights.
Learning to live with paradox and the tensions of life
Emotional well being
An ability to creatively encounter challenges and crises.
Capacity for re-establishing equilibrium through strong, dynamic centre of narrative gravity.
Enhanced enjoyment of life, appreciation of physical world, others, self-worth and meaning.
True freedom is always spiritual. It has something to do with your innermost being, which cannot be chained, handcuffed, or put into a jail.
OSHO, Freedom: The Courage to Be Yourself
Baumeister (1991) Meanings of Life
Baumeister concluded that there are four basic needs for meaning:
1. Need for purpose (spiritual)2. Need for value (social)3. Need for efficacy (physical)4. Need for self-worth (personal) It is the process of going in the general direction of these
four objectives that makes for a good life.
Baumeister (1991:214)
Happiness is when ‘reality lives up to your desires’.
Long-term goals offer a sense of direction, but it is necessary to have short-term goals in order to derive daily meaning.
In fact it is having short term achievable goals that allow us to feel efficient and purposeful that gives us most of a sense of self worth and value of life.
Meaning and Purpose Find out what your inner landscape currently is:
what is meaningful to you and inspires you.
What is your purpose in life ?
How do we experience our
world? We are lenses, prisms for light to refract.
We allow light through, reflect it, magnify it, block it, divert it. We change the tone and mood and affect the world in turn.
Living happily or living well: an existential view
Crystallization of discontent may be the beginning of insight into what is wrong.
Conflict, dilemmas and problems are an intrinsic part of being alive
Being cured of difficulties is the death of possibility and creativity
Perhaps constant problems and troubles are necessary to a well lived life and provide the depth of life
Emotions are our orientation.
Emotions are like the weather: never none.
They are the way we relate to the world.
They define the mood of the moment.
They are our atmosphere and modality.
They tell us how and where we are.
Learn to tune in rather than tune out.
Kierkegaard’s breathing
Personhood is a synthesis of possibility and necessity.
Its continued existence is like breathing (respiration),
which is an inhaling and exhaling.
(Kierkegaard, Sickness unto Death: 40)
Inspiration and expiration
let go
ExhaleDepression
release
pause
InhaleAnxietytension
hold
Value
threat
Loss
hope
Gain and anxiety
Gain:Value
DepressionDesperation
decompression
Loss:Value less
AnxietyAspirationoppression
Four kinds of emotions
• Loss of value
• Aspire to value
• Threat to value
• Gain value
approach fight
flightfreeze
Threat to value: pride, jealousy,
anger
PrideJealousyAnger
Loss of value (despair, fear,
sorrow):
Despair, fear,
sorrow
Aspire to value: desire, envy, shame
DesireEnvy
Shame
Gain value: hope, love, joy
Hope, love, joy
pride
jealousy
anger-despair
fear
sorrowshame
envy
hope-desire
love
joy
SadnessLow
HappinessHigh
AnxietyExcitement
Engagement
DepressionDisappointmentDisengagement
The colour of emotion
Rita’s Grief
When I speak to Rita, who is grieving over her husband and small son who have perished in a car accident, the words that I say to her at first hardly reach her.
She is in a place of relative safety deep inside of herself, in a state of suspended animation behind the façade that she turns to the world. She barely engages with people at all.
Rita’s grief 2
At first it is not my words that make the link to her world, but the consistency that I can offer in being attentive and careful to not hurt her further or push her too hard.
I spend nearly half an hour in relative silence with Rita, at times formulating her fear on her behalf, gently, tentatively, checking for verification by noting her response.
Rita’s grief 3
Mostly the work consists of me letting myself be touched by her suffering and learning to tolerate her pain with her, so that I can offer reactions and words that soothe and move her forward to a place where she can begin to face what has happened to her so shockingly out of the blue. In this process she guides me and exposes more and more of her nightmarish universe to me as she perceives me as capable of venturing further into it with her.
Bringing down emotional intensity
Rita
World Physical Social Personal Spiritual
Umwelt Take interest in objects, space
Meet others
Relate to own body again
Recognize value
Mitwelt Leave dead behind
Love dead still
Find self valid
Find others valid
Eigenwelt Recover sense of self care
Rediscover love
Love self Find project
Uberwelt Make sense of disaster
Life with others is worthwhile
I am me and this matters
There is a purpose to it all
Rita
World Physical Social Personal Spiritual
Umwelt Take interest in objects, space
Meet others
Relate to own body again
Recognize value
Mitwelt Leave dead behind
Love dead still
Find self valid
Find others valid
Eigenwelt Recover sense of self care
Rediscover love
Love self Find project
Uberwelt Make sense of disaster
Life with others is worthwhile
I am me and this matters
There is a purpose to it all
Overview of conflicts, challenges and paradoxes on four dimensions
World Umwelt Mitwelt Eigenwelt Uberwelt
Physical Nature:Life/Death
Things:Pleasure/Pain
Body:Health/Illness
Cosmos:Harmony/Chaos
Social Society:Love/Hate
Others:Dominance/Submission
Ego:Acceptance/Rejection
Culture:Belonging/Isolation
Personal Person:Identity/Freedom
Me:Perfection/Imperfection
Self:Integrity/Disintegration
Consciousness:Confidence/ Confusion
Spiritual: Infinite:Good/Evil
Ideas:Truth/Untruth
Spirit:Meaning/Futility
Conscience:Right/Wrong
Dimension
Positive Purpose
NegativeConcern
Minimal Goal
Optimal Value
Physical: Health Illness Fitness Vitality
Pleasure Pain Safety Well Being
Strength Weakness Efficacy Ability
Life Death Survival Existence
Social Success Failure Skill Contribution
Belonging Isolation Kinship Loyalty
Acceptance Rejection Recognition Cooperation
Love Hate Respect Reciprocity
Personal Identity Confusion Individuality Integrity
Perfection Imperfection Achievement
Excellence
Independence
Dependency Autonomy Liberty
Confidence Doubt Poise Clarity
Spiritual Good Evil Responsibility
Transparency
Truth Untruth Reality Authenticity
Meaning Absurdity Sense Value
Purpose Randomness
Possibility Freedom
Loving your Life
Loving your fate and destiny in all its manifestations (Nietzsche’s Amor Fati)
Challenges and difficulties are not the enemy, nor to be avoided but rather to be welcomed as grist for the mill and par for the course: life as an adventure.
How to create value in life?
Through committed and engaged action
Step by step
Diligently proceeding no matter what challenges come on your path
Steady progress comes from undaunted focus on your project
Flexibility and finding joy in the process rather than aiming for success or happiness
VALUES AND BELIEFS
Values and beliefs are the basis of a personal code of ethics which is about:
how I want to live my life
how I want to treat others
how I want to be treated by others
how I aim to evaluate my actions and those of others
how I feel about human existence as a result
Checklist of existential therapy
1. Collaboration, liberty and equality
2. Uncovering the implicit
3. Themes and personal predicaments
4. Four worlds and emotional compass
5. Projects, values, fears and tensions
6. Complexity; connectivity
7. Structural analysis: clarity
8. Meanings: hermeneutics, heuristic practice
9. Paradoxes: positives and negatives
10. Dialectics: human evolution and transcendence
11. Liberation and freedom
12. Savouring life: both resolution and letting be.
Recapturing radical FREEDOM
‘Freedom is not a property (Eigenschaft : characteristic) of man; man is the property (Eigentum: possession) of freedom.’
(Heidegger 1971: Schelling’s Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom, transl. Stambaugh J. (Athens Ohio: ohio University Press 1985: 11/9).
Work hard, enduring hardship and forging forwards, to find
light at end of the tunnel.
When the going gets tough, the tough get
going:we get to work..
We meet challenges by working together to make sure things get better and not
worse
Adversity introduces us to ourselves as we show our worth
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
Michel de Montaigne
remember to face up to life:
Time and space to pay attention to our passions and reflect on the things that matter to us and we feel strongly about whether positive or negative.
With others, in a loving and communal spirit.
Work hard, enduring hardship and forging forwards, to find
light at end of the tunnel.
We endure and wait patiently
North and South Korean family united briefly in 2010
DESIRES FEARS VALUES
PHYSICAL life death vitality
SOCIAL love hate reciprocity
PERSONAL identity freedom integrity
SPIRITUAL good evil transparency
Human values rediscovered.
The art of living is to be equal to all our emotions rather than to select and cultivate only the
pleasant ones
Values and actions to make you feel good and strong and true instead
of happy.1. Earning your keep with your own labour
2. Understanding others
3. Pondering your own motivations
4. Reflecting on your life
5. Living true to your own values
6. Living in line with the purpose and truth of human existence.
7. Contributing more to the world than you take from it.
8. Respecting nature and the universe
9. Making your life matter
10. Loving as much as you can.
11. Being prepared for change and transformation.
12. Knowing when to be resolute and when to let go.
13. Having rules to live by and change them when necessary.
Background action to make life right.
to be healthy and look after your body the best way possible.
to enjoy what is free in the world and be close to nature
to be loving with others and care for someone deeply.
to respect and esteem yourself and make sure others do too.
to find concrete goals worth putting your whole energy into.
to learn to question things and not take anything for granted
to find life interesting and relish every minute
to be prepared to let things go and be ready to die
to strive for wisdom and excellence
to be content and find routines that satisfy you
to achieve something, whatever, and leave the world a better place than you found it.
World:Dimension
Umwelt:Where and how?
Mitwelt:With what?
Eigenwelt:Who?
Uberwelt:For what?
Physical:survival
Nature:senses
Things Body Cosmos
Social:affiliation
Society:emotions
Others Ego Culture
Personal:identity
Person:thought
Me Self Consciousness
Spiritual:meaning
Infinite:intuition
Ideas Spirit Conscience
Different dimensions of human relationships at different levels of existence
Baumeister & Deurzen
Feel effective in our embodied existence in the physical world, in relation to nature and the objects we encounter, whilst feeling part of the cosmos.
Feel of value by having confidence in our personal ego, whilst relating with others in the social world, with a sense of belonging to the culture we live in.
Feel a sense of self worth as the individual we are, at ease in that private sphere where we encounter our personal thoughts and consciousness.
Feel purposeful in relation to what is sacred, meaningfully and soulfully proceeding to transcend the banality of our lives.
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We survive and count our blessings
Leading a philosophical life.
To lead a philosophical life means also to take seriously our experience of men, of happiness and hurt, of success and failure, of the obscure and confused. It means not to forget but to possess ourselves inwardly of our experience, not to let ourselves be distracted but to think problems through, not to take things for granted but to elucidate them. (Jaspers,1951:122)