Existentialism Flashcards
- We are born with choice-the choice of lifestyle
* We are born as a self creator-a creator of our own world
Structure of the Personality
We are born with:
- Freewill
- Responsibility
- Teleological (goal driven)
- Holistic -the sum is greater than the parts
- Unique
- Creative
Structure of the Personality
- Being in the world
* Ability to think and reflect on events or assign meaning to those events
Daisen
- The biological world
- The world
- Objects
- Environment
- Drives, instincts, cycles
- “thrown world”
Umwelt
- “With the world” of human relationships
- Mutual awareness of one another
- When a person is treated as an object, then the person is dehumanized
Mitwelt
- Subjective; self awareness from how we see the world
* For me, I perceive, I believe
Eigenwelt
- The importance of beliefs about the world
- Religious in nature
- Can cause conflicts (Al-Qaeda)
Uberwelt
- Think of the past and present and future
- What are we doing with our time
- Umwelt-clock time
- Mitwelt-# of years known
- Uberwelt-attention to time and beliefs
- Eigenwelt-what is in the present
The Givens of Life (Time and Being)
- Normal -appropriate to situation, not repressed, provide an opportunity to confront dilemmas
- Neurotic-Reaction blown out of proportion to the situation, destructive, and of little value to the client.
The Givens of Life (Anxiety: Normal/Neurotic)
- Death will happen
- How people handle impending death
- Can be dreadful
- But asks, how will we be remembered?
The Givens of Life (Living and Dying)
- Freedom to live life and have a responsibility to do so
- Responsible for own world, their life plans, and their choices
- The universe is not structured; we have ways to live
The Givens of Life (Freedom, Responsibility and Choice)
- Referes to owning ones own choices and dealing honestly with freedom
- Is turned into action when the client is willing-wishing and deciding.
- Sarte-used bad faith to denote that individuals are finite&limited, blaming somone else for the problem and not taking responsibility.
The Givens of Life (Responsibility)
- Psychological illness is the inability to wish (emptiness and despair)
- When they wish, they must choose
- Must live with the choice
The Givens of Life (Wishing)
- 3 types: interpersonal, intrapersonal, and existential
- Can be geographical, psychological, or social
- Existential isolation is being separated from the world
The Givens of Life (Isolation & Loving)
- How to bridge the isolation
- I-Thou (where the people experience one another)
- Need free
- Fusion (lose sense of self in relationship)
The Givens of Life (Loving)
- Why am I here??
- What about my life is meaningful?
- What gives me purpose?
- Why do I exist?
- There is an absurdity of life…
The Givens of Life (Meaning/Meaninglessness)
- To transcend above a situation and self interest; to strive toward something beyond the self
- Go above own needs to be aware of others and one’s responsibility to them as a human
The Givens of Life (Self-Transcendence)
- A central genuineness and an awareness of being
- Face the limitations of human existence
- Issues related to moral choices, the meaning of life, and being human
- Aware of self, and are more flexible in situations
The Givens of Life (Authenticity)
- We are born with the potential to have the core experience of the human psyche: The I-AM experience.
- This is the realization of one’s being, one’s awareness. One simply exists
Function of the Personality
*Essence is any feeling thought or action. Essence is secondary to the simple fact that one exists.
Existence Precedes Essence
*To preserve and assert one’s existence- the process of unfolding one’s potential
Mass Motive in Life
- Reactions to the Umwelt
* We get anxious when we start worrying too much about what other people think!
Role of the Environment
- Experience the world
- Accept Responsibility
- Search for Meaning
- Self-Transcendence
- Experience Freedom
- Authenticity
Healthy Functioning
- Handling anxieties with ineffective defense mechanisms
- Neurotic Guilt-fantasized aggressions, locked up potentialities
- Think too much of oneself
Unhealthy Functioning
- Two individuals being-in-the-world together during the length of the session
- Authentic encounter
- Explore the inner self
- Deal with Life
- See freedom as an opportunity to change
- Accept responsibility
How Change Occurs
- Make the choice to live and experience
- Understand that we enter and leave the world alone-and that we are alone when we are here
- Bring intimacy and therapeutic loving the relationship
How Change Occurs
- Existential crisis
- Solid therapeutic relationship
- Learning the existential themes and dealing with them
Conditions Necessary for Change
- Be in the moment
- Be open
- Listen and experience
- Getting over the dread, boredom, hate and bigotry
Role of the Client
- Learning to get over the isolation and learning to love
* Learning to deal with transference and resistance
Capacity for Change
- Natural
- Does not take responsibility, is alienated, or not aware of feelings-victim!
- Inaccurate view of thee world/inaccurate view of self
- Whining, complaining, talking about insignificant material, seducing the therapist, or being inauthentic
Source of Resistance
- Authenticity
- What to do with the full realization of being
- Find a task to pursue in life
- Understand beliefs and values
- Make good choices
- Experience existence as real
- Showing how they are dealing with thee four areas of Being in the world
Goals of Counseling
- Identify maladaptive defense mechanisms
- Discover destructive influences
- Correct restrictive modes of dealing with self and others
- Develop ways of coping with & utilizing anxiety
Role of the Therapist
- Fundamental
- Authenticity and understanding of the client as unique
- Subjective experience of both therapist and client
- Work on therapeutic love (loving friendship-a genuine caring encounter that does not encumber the client’s growth)
Relationship with Client
- Openness
- Inquiry
- Acceptance of client uniqueness
- Confrontation
- Imagery
- Awareness exercises
- Interruption when avoiding responsibility
- Encourage clients to own feelings
Specific Techniques
