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Theories of Personality

May

Chapter 12© 2009 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

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Outline• Overview of Existential Psychology• Biography of Rollo May• Background of Existentialism• The Case of Philip• Anxiety• Guilt• Intentionality• Care, Love, and Will

Cont’d

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Outline

• Freedom and Destiny

• Power of Myth

• Psychopathology

• Psychotherapy

• Related Research

• Critique of May

• Concept of Humanity

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Overview of Existential Psychology

• Rooted in European Existential Philosophy• Based in Clinical Experience• People live in the Present and are

Responsible for Experiences• People lack Courage to Face Destiny and

Flee from Freedom• Healthy People Challenge Destiny and Live

Authentically

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Biography of May

• Born in Ada, Ohio in 1909• B.A. from Oberlin College in 1930• Lived as an itinerant artist in Europe for

three years after college, where he heard Adler speak

• Returns to the U.S. in 1933• Graduates from Union Theological

Seminary with Master of Divinity in 1938

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Biography (cont’d)

• Serves as a pastor for two years, then quits and begins to study psychoanalysis

• Received his PhD in clinical psychology from Columbia University in 1949

• Published The Meaning of Anxiety in 1950• Served as visiting professor at institutions

including Harvard and Princeton• Died in Tiburon, California in 1994

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Background of Existentialism• What Is Existentialism?

– Existence takes precedence over essence– There is no split between subject and object– People search for some meaning in their lives– Each of us is responsible for who we are and

what we become – Basically Antitheoretical

• Basic Concepts– Being-in-the-world– Nonbeing

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The Case of Philip• Philip was a successful architect in his mid-50s• Despite his apparent success, Philip experienced

severe anxiety when his relationship with Nicole took a puzzling turn

• Difficulties with women were related to his early experiences with his mother

• He began to recover only after he accepted that his “need” to take care of Nicole was merely part of his personal history with unstable women

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Anxiety• Human Behavior Is Motivated by Sense of Dread

and Anxiety• Normal Anxiety

– That “which is proportionate to the threat, does not involve repression, and can be confronted constructively on the conscious level” (May, 1967)

• Neurotic Anxiety– “a reaction which is disproportionate to the threat,

involves repression and other forms of intrapsychic conflict, and is managed by various kinds of blocking-off of activity and awareness” (May, 1967)

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Guilt• Guilt Arises when:

– People deny their potentialities– Fail to accurately perceive the needs of others– Remain oblivious to their dependence on the

natural world

• Anxiety and Guilt are Ontological • Three forms of Ontological Guilt:

– Umwelt – Mitwelt – Eigenwelt

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Intentionality• Intentionality is the structure that gives

meaning to experience and allows people to make decisions about the future

• Bridges the gap between subject and object

• Can be unconscious

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Care, Love, and Will

• Union of Love and Will

• Forms of Love

– Sex

– Eros

– Philia

– Agape

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Freedom and Destiny

• Freedom Defined

• Forms of Freedom – Existential Freedom

– Essential Freedom

• What is Destiny?– Philip’s Destiny

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The Power of Myth• Myths have powerful effects on individuals and

cultures• Believed that Westerners have an urgent need for

myths• Because they have lost many of their traditional

myths, they turn to religious cults, drugs, and popular culture to fill the vacuum

• People communicate on two levels:– Rationalistic language

– Myth

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Psychopathology• Apathy and emptiness as the malaise of

modern times• People have become alienated from the

natural world (Umwelt), from other people (Mitwelt), and from themselves (Eigenwelt)

• Symptoms can be temporary or permanent• Psychopathology is a lack of

communication– Inability to know others and to share oneself

with them

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Psychotherapy

• The goal of May’s psychotherapy was to make people more fully human (e.g., expand their consciousness)

• The purpose of psychotherapy is to set people free

• Existential psychotherapy de-emphasizes techniques while stressing the personal qualities of the therapist– Must establish one-to-one relationship

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Related Research• Existential Anxiety Has Been Researched

– An existential approach to the study of terror and death has carried over into “terror management,” a modern experimental offshoot of existential psychology

• Mortality Salience and Denial of Our Animal Nature– Goldenberg et al. (2001)

• People distance themselves from animals because they remind us of our physical body and death

• Cultures differ in their denial of animal nature– Cox et al. (2007)

• Goldenberg’s findings extended specifically to breast feeding• Mortality salience increases disgust at breast feeding as at other creaturely behaviors

• Fitness as a Defense Against Mortality Awareness– Arndt, Schimel, & Goldenberg (2003)

• Different levels of defense against mortality awareness• People are motivated to fight against death and disease when their own mortality is made

salient• Terror management bolsters the fundamental principle of existential psychology that

existential anxiety drives much of human behavior

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Critique of May

• May’s Theory Is:– Moderate on Organizing Knowledge and

Parsimony

– Low on Internal Consistency

– Very Low on Generating Research, Falsifiability, and Guiding Action

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Concept of Humanity

• Free Choice over Determinism

• Optimism over Pessimism

• Teleology over Causality

• Equal emphasis on Conscious and Unconscious and Social Influence and Biology

• Uniqueness over Similarity