ROLLO MAY (EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY) Flashcards
Although May’s writings were somewhat philosophical in tone, his views originated from his experience as a
Psychotherapist
Kierkegaard, like most existentialists, suggested a balance between
A) life and death. B) freedom and responsibility. C) hope and despair. D) consciousness and unconsciousness. E) Yin and Yang.
freedom and responsibility.
May said that healthy people
A) retreat from their destiny. B) deny their freedom. C) challenge their destiny. D) deny death.
challenge their destiny.
The terms Umwelt, Mitwelt, and Eigenwelt refer to
a person’s being-in-the-world.
May believed that people acquire freedom of action in part by
A) expanding their self-awareness. B) relying on other people. C) using the tools and technology of modern society. D) denying nonbeing. E) becoming self-actualizing.
expanding their self-awareness.
The personality theories of Sullivan, Maslow, Rogers, and others that emphasize interpersonal relations deal mostly with
Mitwelt
The term Dasein expresses
the essential unity of person and environment.
Our relationship to self and our ability to grasp who we are best describes
Eigenwelt.
May would accept the statement that
A) essence precedes existence. B) subject and object must not be split. C) responsibility precedes freedom. D) freedom takes precedence over responsibility.
subject and object must not be split.
Various compulsive behaviors and addictions can be seen as manifestations of
nonbeing
May defined anxiety as
an awareness that our existence or some value identified with it may be destroyed.
The guilt that arises from our inability to accurately perceive the world of others is associated with
Mitwelt.
May defined intentionality as
the structure that gives meaning to our experience and allows us to make decisions about the future.
May regarded care as the source of
love and will
According to May, an authentic person must unite love with
Will
May defined love as
A) a delight in the presence of the other person and an affirmation of his value and development as much as one's own B) the capacity to organize oneself toward a prized partner C) the imaginative playing with the idea that another is an object of affection D) agape minus eros E) philia minus eros
a delight in the presence of the other person and an affirmation of his value and development as much as one’s own
Philia is defined as
an intimate, nonsexual friendship.
May believed that freedom grows from an understanding of one’s
destiny.
According to May, a denial of destiny leads to
psychopathology.
May contended that contemporary people of Western civilization have an urgent need for
myths
People use myths to
A) transcend the immediate situation. B) expand self-awareness. C) search for identity. D) all of the above.
all of the above
In The Cry for Myth, May suggested that one myth is powerful today because it contains elements of existential crises common to all of us. This is the story of
Oedipus
What is Existentialism
First, existence
takes precedence over essence.
Second, existentialism opposes the split between subject and object.
Third, people search for some meaning to their lives.
Fourth, existentialists hold that ultimately each of us is responsible for who we
are and what we become.
Fifth, existentialists are basically antitheoretical.
The basic unity of person and environment is
expressed in the German word
Dasein
Alienation is the illness of our time, and it manifests itself in three areas:
(1) separation from nature,
(2) lack of meaningful interpersonal relations
(3) alienation from one’s authentic self
people experience three simultaneous modes in their being-in-the-world:
Umwelt, Mitwelt, Eigenwelt
the environment around us
Umwelt
or our relations with other people
Mitwelt
our relationship with
our self
Eigenwelt
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
May (1958) defined _________ as “the
subjective state of the individual’s becoming aware that his [or her] existence can
be destroyed, that he can become ‘nothing’”
Anxiety
May (1967) defined _______ as
that “which is proportionate to the threat, does not involve repression, and can be
confronted constructively on the conscious level”
Normal Anxiety
May (1967) defined
_________ as “a
reaction which is disproportionate to the threat,
involves repression and
other forms of intrapsychic conflict, and is man\aged by various kinds of
blocking-off of activity
and awareness”
Neurotic Anxiety
_________ 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
(May, 1958)
Guilt
The structure that gives meaning to experience and allows people
to make decisions about the future is _________
intentionality
May (1969b) called ___________ “the capacity to organize one’s self so that movement
in a certain direction or toward a certain goal may take place”
Will
May (1953) defined ________ as a “delight in the presence of
the other person and an affirming of [that person’s] value and development as much
as one’s own” (p. 206).
Love
“________ is a state in which something does matter”
Care
__________ a biological function that can be satisfied through sexual intercourse or some
other release of sexual tension.
it still remains the power of procreation, the drive which perpetuates
the race, the source at once of the human being’s most intense pleasure and his [or
her] most pervasive anxiety
Sex
______ is a psychological
desire that seeks procreation or creation through an enduring union with a loved
one.
Eros
Does not require that we do anything for the beloved except accept him, be with him, and enjoy him. It is friendship
in the simplest, most direct term.
Philia
May (1969b) 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.
Altruisic Love. It is a kind of spiritual love that carries with it the risk
of playing God.
Agape
______ is the individual’s capacity to
know that he is the determined one”
Freedom
freedom
of being, inner freedom
Essential Freedom
It is the freedom of action—the freedom of doing.
Existential Freedom
The design of the universe speaking through the design of
each one of us
Destiny
