Chapter 11: Existential Psychology (Rollo May)

Question 1

_____ psychology is rooted in the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and other European philosophers.

Answer 1

Existential

Question 2

May attributed his own two failed _____ to his mother’s unpredictable behavior and to his older sister’s psychotic episode

Answer 2

marriages

Question 3

_____ view of anxiety as a struggle against nonbeing, that is, loss of consciousness.

Answer 3

Kierkegaard

Question 4

He opposed any attempt to see people merely as objects, but at the same time, he opposed the view that subjective perceptions are one’s only reality. Instead, _____ was concerned with both the experiencing person and the person’s experience.

Balance between freedom and responsibility.

Answer 4

Kierkegaard

Question 5

Two German philosophers, _____ and _____, helped popularize existential philosophy during the 20th century.

Answer 5

Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger

Question 6

_____ takes precedence over essence; this means that process and growth are more important than product and stagnation.

Answer 6

Existence 1

Question 7

_____ oppose the artificial split between subject and object they believe that people are both subjecting and objective who searches for truth in order for them to live active and authentic lives.

Answer 7

Existentialist 2

Question 8

They stress people’s search for meaning in their lives. People ask questions like “who am I?” “Is my life worth living?”

Answer 8

Existentialism 3

Question 9

They insist that each of us is responsible for who we are and what we will become. People can choose to become what they can be and what they do is basically their choice.

Answer 9

Existentialism 4

Question 10

Existentialists take an antitheoritical position, believing that theories tend t objectify people. They believe that if we press our experiences based on preexisting theory, we lose our authenticity to experience such phenomena.

Answer 10

Existentialism 5

Question 11

Being-in-the-World
Nonbeing
Anxiety
Guilt
Intentionality

Answer 11

Existentialism Basic Concepts

Question 12

Existentialists adopt a phenomenological approach to understanding humanity. To them, we exist in a world that can be best understood from our own perspective.

Answer 12

Being-in-the-World

Question 13

The basic unity of person and environment is expressed in the German word _____, meaning to exist there. Hence, Dasein literally means to exist in the world and is generally written as being-in-the-world. The hyphens in this term imply the oneness of subject and object, of person and world.

Answer 13

Dasein

Question 14

_____is the illness of our time, and it manifests itself in three areas.

Being away from existence.

Answer 14

Alienation

Question 15

Three areas of Alienation.

Answer 15

1. Umwelt, or the environment around us;
2. Mitwelt, or our relations with other people;
3. Eigenwelt, or our relationship with our self.

Question 16

_____ is the world of objects and things and would exist Even if people had no awareness. It is the world of nature and natural law and includes biological drives, such as hunger and sleep, and such natural phenomena as birth and death.

We cannot escape _____; we must learn to live in the world around us and to adjust to changes within this world.

Freud’s theory, with its emphasis on biology and instincts, deals mostly with _____.

Answer 16

Umwelt

Question 17

We must relate to people as people, not as things. If we treat people as objects, then we are living solely in Umwelt.

The difference between Umwelt and _____ can be seen by contrasting sex with love. If a person uses another as an instrument for sexual gratification, then that person is living in Umwelt, at least in his or her relationship to that other person.

Answer 17

Mitwelt

Question 18

The theories of Sullivan and Rogers, with their emphasis on interpersonal relations, deal mostly with _____.

Answer 18

Mitwelt

Question 19

_____ refers to one’s relationship with oneself. To live in _____ means to be aware of oneself as a human being and to grasp who we are as we relate to the world of things and to the world of people.

Answer 19

Eigenwelt

Question 20

_____ people live in Umwelt, Mitwelt, and Eigenwelt simultaneously. They adapt to the natural world, relate to others as humans, and have a keen awareness of what all these experiences mean to them

Answer 20

Healthy

Question 21

Being-in-the-world necessitates an awareness of self as a living, emerging being. This awareness, in turn, leads to the dread of not being: that is, nonbeing or nothingness.

Answer 21

Nonbeing

Question 22

_____ is not the only avenue of nonbeing, but it is the most obvious one.

Answer 22

Death

Question 23

When we do not courageously confront our nonbeing by contemplating death, we nevertheless will experience _____ in other forms, including addiction to alcohol or other drugs, promiscuous sexual activity, and other compulsive behaviors. Our nonbeing can also be expressed as blind conformity to society’s expectations or as generalized hostility that pervades our relations to
others.

Answer 23

nonbeing

Question 24

“The subjective state of the individual’s becoming aware that his [or her] existence can be destroyed, that he can become ‘nothing’”.

Part of life.

Answer 24

Anxiety

Question 25

It exists when one confronts the issue of fulfilling one’s potentialities. This confrontation can lead to stagnation and decay, but it can also result in growth and change.

Part of life.

Answer 25

Anxiety

Question 26

“Which is proportionate to the threat, does not involve repression, and can be confronted constructively on the conscious level”.

Does not lead to depression, this is perfectly existing with us. Unlike other descriptions of it that means a cause of disorders etc.

Answer 26

Normal Anxiety

Question 27

“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”.

When you deny it, this is experienced. Bad experience. You are limiting yourself.

Answer 27

Neurotic Anxiety (similar to neurotic claims by Horney)

Question 28

_____ arises when people deny their potentialities, fail to accurately perceive the needs of fellow humans, or remain oblivious to their dependence on the natural world.

Answer 28

Guilt

Question 29

As civilization advances technologically, people become more and more removed from nature, that is, from Umwelt. Because this type of guilt is a result of our separation from nature, May also referred to it as _____ guilt, a concept similar to Fromm’s notion of the human dilemma.

Answer 29

separation

Question 30

The second form of guilt stems from our inability to _____ the world of others (Mitwelt). We can see other people only through our own eyes and can never perfectly judge the needs of these other people.

Answer 30

perceive accurately

Question 31

The third form of ontological guilt is associated with our _____ of our own potentialities or with our failure to fulfill them. In other words, this guilt is grounded in our relationship with self (Eigenwelt). Again, this form of guilt is universal, because none of us can completely fulfill all our potentials.

This third type of guilt is reminiscent of Maslow’s concept of the Jonah complex, or the fear of being or doing one’s best.

Answer 31

denial

Question 32

The structure that gives meaning to experience and allows people to make decisions about the future is called _____. Without _____, people could neither choose nor act on their choice.

Answer 32

intentionality

Question 33

May called _____ “the capacity to organize one’s self so that movement in a certain direction or toward a certain goal may take place”.

Answer 33

will

Question 34

_____ is an active process, the opposite of apathy. “_____ is a state in which something does matter”. _____ is not the same as love, but it is the source of love

Answer 34

Care

Question 35

When love is seen as sex, it becomes temporary and lacking in commitment; there is no will, but only wish. When will is seen as will power, it becomes self-serving and lacking in passion; there is no care, but only manipulation.

Answer 35

Union of Love and Will

Question 36

Sex
Eros
Philia
Agape

Answer 36

Forms of Love

Question 37

The power to procreation, the drive which perpetuates the race, is the source at once of the human being’s most intense pleasure and his most pervasive anxiety. It is a physiological need that seeks gratification through the release of tension.

Answer 37

Sex

Question 38

The psychological state desire that seeks procreation through an enduring union with a loved one. It is making love, the wish to establish a lasting union. It is built on are and tenderness with the longing for both partners to experience delight, passion, and depend on experience.

Answer 38

Eros

Question 39

Eros, the salvation of sex, is built on the foundation of _____, that is, an intimate nonsexual friendship between two people. Philia cannot be rushed; it takes time to grow, to develop, to sink its roots.

Such as friends, siblings.

Answer 39

Philia

Question 40

Just as eros depends on philia, so philia needs _____. May defined _____ as “esteem for the other, the concern for the other’s welfare beyond any gain that one can get out of it; disinterested love, typically, the love of God for man”. _____is altruistic love.

Answer 40

agape

Question 41

In summary, _____ adult relationships blend all four forms of love. They are based on sexual satisfaction, a desire for an enduring union, genuine friendship, and an unselfish concern for the welfare of the other person. Such authentic love, unfortunately, is quite difficult.

Answer 41

healthy

Question 42

Freedom Defined
Forms of Freedom
What Is Destiny?

Answer 42

Freedom and Destiny

Question 43

May said that “_____ is the individual’s capacity to know that he is the determined one”. _____ is the possibility of changing.

Answer 43

Freedom

Question 44

Forms of Freedom:

Answer 44

Existential Freedom - of doing

Essential Freedom - of being

Question 45

May defined _____ as “the design of the universe speaking through the design of each one of us”. Our ultimate _____ is death, but on a lesser scale our _____ includes other biological properties such as intelligence, gender, size and strength, and genetic predisposition toward certain illnesses.

Answer 45

destiny

Question 46

May suggested that _____, like love-hate or life-death, are not antithetical but rather a normal paradox of life. “The paradox is that freedom owes its vitality to destiny, and destiny owes its significance to freedom”.

Answer 46

freedom and destiny

Question 47

Myths are the stories that unify a society; “they are essential to the process of keeping our souls alive and bringing us new meaning in a difficult and often meaningless world”.

Answer 47

The Power of Myth

Question 48

May’s concept of myths is comparable to Carl Jung’s idea of a _____ in that myths are archetypal patterns in the human experience; they are avenues to universal images that lie beyond individual experience.

Answer 48

collective unconscious

Question 49

Psychopathology: According to May, _____—not anxiety and guilt—are the malaise of modern times.

Answer 49

apathy and emptiness

Question 50

Psychopathology: When people deny their destiny or abandon their _____, they lose their purpose for being; they become directionless.

Answer 50

myths

Question 51

May saw _____ as lack of communication—the inability to know others and to share oneself with them. Psychologically disturbed individuals deny their destiny and thus lose their freedom.

Answer 51

psychopathology

Question 52

Unlike Freud, Adler, Rogers, and other clinically oriented personality theorists, May did not establish a school of _____ with avid followers and identifiable techniques.

Answer 52

psychotherapy

Question 53

Instead, he suggested that psychotherapy should make people more human: that is, help them expand their consciousness so that they will be in a better position to make choices. These choices, then, lead to the simultaneous growth of freedom and responsibility

Answer 53

Rollo May

Question 54

May believed that the purpose of psychotherapy is to set people _____.

Answer 54

free