Rollo May Flashcards
Common elements of existentialism
- Existence takes precedence over essence.
- Existentialism opposes the split between subject and object.
- People search for some meaning to their lives.
- Existentialists hold that ultimately each of us is responsible for who we are and what we become.
- Existentialists are basically antitheoretical.
Dasein means
Being-in-the-world
Three simultaneous modes in their being-in-the-world
Umwelt-around world
Mitwelt-with world
Eigenwelt-own world
Subjective state of the individual’s becoming aware that his or her existence can be destroyed, that he can become nothing.
Anxiety
Types of anxiety
Normal anxiety
Neurotic anxiety
Proportionate to the threat.
Does not involve repression.
Can be confronted constructively on the conscious level.
Normal anxiety
Disproportionate to the threat.
Involves repression and other forms of intrapsychic conflict.
Managed by various kinds of blocking-off of activity and awareness
Neurotic anxiety
It rises when people deny their potentialities, fail to accurately perceive the needs of fellow humans, or remain oblivious to their dependence on the natural world
Guilt
May identified three forms of ontological guilt, each corresponding to one of the three modes of being-in-the-world
Umwelt
Mitwelt
Eigenwelt
(GUILT) It can arise from lack of awareness of one’s being-in-the-world
Umwelt
(GUILT) It is the inability to perceive accurately to the world of others.
Mitwelt
(GUILT) It is associated with our denial of our own potentialities or with our failure to fulfil them.
Eigenwelt
The structure that gives meaning to experience and allows people to make decision about the future.
Intentionality
May used the term “intentionality” to bridge that gap between ____ and _____
Subject and object
T or F: Intentionality is sometimes unconscious
True
To care for someone means to recognize that the person as a _____, to identify with that person’s ____, ____ or ____
fellow human being
Pain or joy, guilt, or pity
T or F: Care is not the same as love, but it is the source of love.
True
T or F: Care is also the source of the will
True
Union of love and will
For the mature person, both love and will mean a reaching out toward another person.
Both involve CARE, both necessitate CHOICE, both imply ACTION, both require RESPONSIBILITY
Union of love and will
Forms of love
Sex
Eros
Philia
Agape
It is a biological function that can be satisfied through sexual intercourse or some other release of sexual tension.
Sex
It is a psychological desire that seeks procreation or creation through an enduring union with a loved one.
Eros
It is an intimate nonsexual friendship between two people.
Philia
It is the altruistic love
Agape
Forms of freedom
Existential freedom
Essential freedom
It is the freedom of action- the freedom of doing.
Existential freedom
It is the individual’s capacity to know that he is the determined one.
Freedom
It is the freedom to act on the choices that one makes.
Existential freedom
The freedom of being.
Inner freedom
Essential freedom
It is the design of the universe speaking through the design of each one of us.
Destiny
It is our destination, our terminus goal.
Destiny
Freedom and destiny are normal paradox of life.
True
Freedom and destiny are intertwined, one cannot exist without the other.
True
Freedom and destiny give birth to each other.
True
Conscious and unconscious belief systems that provide explanations for personal and social problems.
The power of myth
Stories that unify a society, May believed that people communicate with one another on two levels:
Rationalistic language
Thought myths
Truth takes precedence over the people who are communicating
Rationalistic language
The total human experience is more important than the empirical accuracy of the communication
Through myths
May believed that the Oedipus story contains elements of existential crisis common to everyone:
A. Birth
B. Separation or exile from parents and home
C. Sexual union with one parent and hostility toward the other.
D. The assertion of independence and the search for identity
E. Death
May’s MYTH-> Carl Jung’s _____
Collective unconscious
Apathy and emptiness are the malaise of modern times
Psychopathology
May saw psychopathology as _____ of _____
Lack of communication
Neurotic symptoms do not represent a failure of adjustment, but rather a proper and necessary adjustment by which one’s Dasein can be preserved.
Psychopathology
Purpose of psychotherapy is to
Set people free
