4. 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
6. 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
18. 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
19. 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.
20. 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).
22. 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
23. 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)
@Emmy van Deurzen 2015
25. 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
27. 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
31. Spinoza: the universe is governed by
necessary laws which when
respected and understood allow us
freedom: determinism<>contingency
32. 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)
35. 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).
36. 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
37. 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.
38. 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.
39. 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
40. 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
42. 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)
48. 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)
49. You have to own your
life: it is your work of art
56. 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.
58. 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
@Emmy van Deurzen 2015
59. 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
60. Exploring our limits and our
possibilities. Understanding and
getting things in perspective
61. Ultimately we are intertwined with the
cosmic order: the implicate order of
the universe (Bohm)
62. 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?
64. DESIRES FEARS VALUES
PHYSICAL life death vitality
SOCIAL love hate reciprocity
PERSONAL identity freedom integrity
SPIRITUAL good evil transparency
Human values
rediscovered.
65. 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
66. 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.
68. Existential therapy helps
people refocus their
lives, to free themselves
:
steadiness, courage, persistence,
resilience, flexibility, clarity, direction,
purpose, understanding and meaning
71. 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)
72. 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.
74. 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.
75. 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.
77. 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)
@Emmy van Deurzen 2015
78. 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
@Emmy van Deurzen 2015
79. Reasons for therapy
Lost, confused
Traumatised
Imprisoned in routines
No sense of self, isolated
Paralysed, scared
Moral conflicts or dilemmas
Conflicts with others
Meaninglessness
80. 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
89. Existential Therapy
Working with philosophical methods,
amongst which phenomenology,
dialectics, maieutics, hermeneutics
and heuristic methods.
90. 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