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

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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)