Reasons to live

Finding Reasons to Live
Emmy van Deurzen

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www.emmyvandeurzen.com
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@therapytraining

Emmy van Deurzen
 MPhil, MPsych, PHD, CPsychol, FBPsS
•Visiting Professor Middlesex University -UK
•Director Dilemma Consultancy
•Director Existential Academy
•Principal New School of Psychotherapy
and Counselling - London

Aim of existential dialogue
 Enable people to search for truth in their lives
 Help them live passionately and compassionately
 Finding inner authority: think for yourself
 Greater understanding of the human condition
 Purpose and direction: intentionality
 Paradox, dialectic: freedom, responsibility, life, death
 Find talents, strength, vulnerability
 Past, present, future, temporality

Different sorts of
psychotherapy

Diversity, Individuality,
Human Universals (Brown, 1991)

Science and philosophy
both important

Learning the facts
 Going beyond the findings of psychology

Using philosophy to get
out of the cave

Dare to explore the cave
and make new
discoveries?

Multi dimensional
Existential Space
Physical space
Social space
Personal space
Spiritual space

Meaning not happiness
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.
@Emmy van Deurzen 2015

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 COURAGE
Tillich’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

Existential intelligence
 Embracing existence in its contradictions and rising to its
challenges
 Realizing that there is no such thing as a perfect human
being or everlasting happiness, or an ideal situation
 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 and surpassing
 Grappling with tensions, conflicts and dilemmas and
slowly learning to make sense of it

Project: active
transcendence
 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 is what we call the project.
(Sartre, Search for a Method:91)

Finding the purpose of life
IKIGAI

John Henry Fuseli’s the nightmare:
Suppression of feelings leads to dysfunction
and despair
loss of freedom: depression is often actually
about oppression or suppression
when we free ourselves: anxiety

pride
jealousy
anger-
despair
fear
sorrowshame
envy
hope-
desire
love
joy
Sadness
Low
Happiness
High
Anxiety
Excitement
Engagement
Depression
Disappointment
Disengagement
Compass of
emotions
evd 10

Resilience: how to deal
with adversity and crisis
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

Making sense: using the
prefrontal lobes

Adaptability, flexibility
neurons, like us: making new
connections: organizing

Spinoza: the universe is governed by
necessary laws which when
respected and understood allow us
freedom: determinism<>contingency

Sisyphus: Life as a futile
uphill struggle
There is but one truly serious philosophical
problem and that is … whether life is or is
not worth living. (Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus)

Meaning found not
despite but because of
adversity

Life’s events are grist for
the mill: nurturance

Classic solutions
 The un-reflected life is not worth living
(Socrates)
 It is not death that a man should fear, but he
should fear never beginning to live (Marcus
Aurelius: stoic).

Aristotle
 Eudaimonia: the good life : virtue ethics, live in line with your
demon force
 Sift opinions between true and false
 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

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.

Skeptics
Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360-275 B.C.)
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
 Akrasia: lack of moral fibre and emotional
weakness
 Find that 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

Reality of existence: to
be fully alive, aware

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)

Confucius: living is a
craft, we learn to perfect

Starting with little
sparks, building a fire

Discovering possibility
inside

Heidegger’s Ereignis:
re-owning
 Original thanking is the thanks owed for being.
That thanks alone gives rise to thinking of the
kind we know as retribution and reward in the
good and bad sense. (Heidegger 1954:141)

You have to own your
life: it is your work of art

Get perspective and find
purpose and direction

Movement, engagement
and action
 Finding your own joy in work and living

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.

Belonging, caring,
communication

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

Potentiality is more than
actuality
 From project to action in our own lives.
 Plotting a route through the obstacles
 Potentiality of past as well as of the present and
future.
 Living in time: transcendence and evolution

Exploring our limits and our
possibilities. Understanding and
getting things in perspective

Ultimately we are intertwined with the
cosmic order: the implicate order of
the universe (Bohm)

Existential therapy
 To attend to the principle of life
 Solomon’s ‘thoughtful love of life’
 Vitality at all levels of life
 What is our interaction with nature, others, self
and the ultimate?

Multi dimensional time
 Past
 Present
 Future
 Eternity
 Timelessness
 Parallel universes

DESIRES FEARS VALUES
PHYSICAL life death vitality
SOCIAL love hate reciprocity
PERSONAL identity freedom integrity
SPIRITUAL good evil transparency
Human values
rediscovered.

Tensions and paradoxes at all levels
World Umwelt Mitwelt Eigenwelt Uberwelt
Physical Nature:
Life/
Death
Things:
Pleasure/
Pain
Body:
Health/
Illness
Cosmos:
Harmony/
Chaos
Social Society:
Love/
Hate
Others:
Dominance/Sub
mission
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

Simone de Beauvoir
the Mandarins (625)
 ‘You can’t lead a proper life in a
society which isn’t proper, in which
every way you turn, you are always
caught’
 You can’t draw a straight line in a
curved space.

Therapy: finding the
space and time to face
oneself

Existential therapy helps
people refocus their
lives, to free themselves
:
steadiness, courage, persistence,
resilience, flexibility, clarity, direction,
purpose, understanding and meaning

New perspectives:
life as an adventure
 Learning to be you and living life well

Facebook and LinkedIn: Existential Therapy
www.slideshare.com

Project: active
transcendence
 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 is what we call the project.
(Sartre, Search for a Method:91)

Time Zones
 Present: zone of activity, which includes all the other
zones of time
 Remote past: zone of the obsolete and of history,
including one’s own life myths
 Mediate past: zone of loss and regret
 Immediate past: zone of remorse or grief
 Immediate future: zone of expectation
 Mediate future: zone of wish and hope or dread and
anxiety.
 Remote future: zone of prayer and ethical action and
also of ultimate meaning of life.

What does it mean in
practice?
 The person needs to talk, be listened to,
discover that they can fill the space, the silence.
Hold their own. Know things, understand
themselves, find out who they are, what their
talents are and where they want to go.
 They need to feel connected, understood, heard,
important, enabled, validated. They need a
sense of purpose and direction.

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.

Finding your talent, your
mission.

The right level of challenge
 To live a meaningful life and have goals and values
is not enough: you must also feel you are capable
of achieving these things.
 ‘It is necessary to find moderately difficult tasks to
maintain that middle ground between boredom (too
easy) and anxiety (too hard).’ (Baumeister 1991: 41)

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

Reasons for therapy
 Lost, confused
 Traumatised
 Imprisoned in routines
 No sense of self, isolated
 Paralysed, scared
 Moral conflicts or dilemmas
 Conflicts with others
 Meaninglessness

We discover being
 We are part of change
 We impact on others
 We can create and contribute
 We can relate differently
 We can shape shift
 We can open up and blossom
 We can breathe and be and enjoy
 We can discover awe, transcendence, infinity

Growing strong
 We don’t
 have to be
 champions.

Imagination and dreams:
reconnecting

Learning to love your
life:
sleep, humor, safety,
comfort

Getting to know yourself
in past, present, future

Existential Therapy
 Working with philosophical methods,
amongst which phenomenology,
dialectics, maieutics, hermeneutics
and heuristic methods.

Limits of therapy:
ontonomy
 “Therapy when practiced well is a fine but delicately
balanced intervention in another person’s life. It requires a
devotion to truth and a merciless pursuit of right living.
 Expertise in bringing people out of the darkness of a
disappointed or bitter life into the light of a new vitality is hard
earned. It is a privilege and a pleasure when it works well.
 But that level of engagement with clients is also extremely
demanding and it can never be achieved by trotting out
stereotyped tricks from approved textbooks.”
― Emmy van Deurzen

Minkowski’s idea of time
Present
Remote
Past
Mediate
Past
Immediate
Past
Immediate
Future
Mediate
Future
Remote
Future

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