EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY: ROLLO MAY COURSE CODE

SECOND SEMESTER | ACADEMIC YEAR: 2023-2024 | JENICKA JUNI

EXISTENTIAL GUILT

Existence means to emerge or to become; essence arises when people deny their potentialities, fail to
implies a static immutable substance. Existence accurately perceive the needs of fellow humans, or
suggests process; essence refers to a product. Existence remain oblivious to their dependence on the natural
is associated with growth and change; essence signifies world.
stagnation and finality. ● both anxiety and guilt are ontological; that is,
they refer to the nature of being and not to
BASIC CONCEPTS feelings arising from specific situations or
transgressions.

a) Umwelt - it can arise from a lack of awareness

BEING IN THE WORLD
of one’s being-in-the-world. As civilization
advances technologically, people become more
Existentialists adopt a phenomenological approach to
and more removed from nature.
understanding humanity. To them, we exist in a world
● separation guilt - this type of guilt is a result of
that can be best understood from our own perspective.
our separation from nature.
Dasein literally means to exist in the world and is
b) Mitwelt - inability to perceive accurately the
generally written as being-in-the-world.
world of others (Mitwelt). We can see other
1) separation from nature
people only through our own eyes and can never
2) lack of meaningful interpersonal relations
perfectly judge the needs of these other people.
3) alienation from one’s authentic self.
Thus, we do violence to their true identity.
c) Eigenwelt - ontological guilt is associated with
● Umwelt, or the environment around us; the
our denial of our own potentialities or with our
world of objects and things and would exist
failure to fulfill them. In other words, this guilt is
even if people had no awareness. It is the
grounded in our relationship with self.
world of nature and natural law and includes
biological drives, such as hunger and sleep, and
such natural phenomena as birth and death. INTENTIONALITY
● Mitwelt, or our relations with other people; We
must relate to people as people, not as things. The ability to make a choice implies some underlying
● Eigenwelt, or our relationship with our self; structure upon which that choice is made. The structure
refers to one’s relationship with oneself. It is a that gives meaning to experience and allows people to
world not usually explored by personality make decisions about the future.
theorists. To live in Eigenwelt means to be aware
of oneself as a human being and to grasp who CARE, LOVE, AND WILL
we are as we relate to the world of things and to
the world of people. CARE - is a state in which something does matter. Care is
not the same as love, but it is the source of love. To love
NONBEING means to care, to recognize the essential humanity of the
other person, to have an active regard for that person’s
Being-in-the-world necessitates an awareness of self as development.
a living, emerging being. This awareness, in turn, leads
to the dread of not being: that is, nonbeing. LOVE - 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”. Without care there can be no
ANXIETY
love—only empty sentimentality or transient sexual
arousal.
anxiety when they become aware that their existence or
some value identified with it might be destroyed. The
WILL - the capacity to organize one’s self so that
subjective state of the individual’s becoming aware that
movement in a certain direction or toward a certain goal
his or her existence can be destroyed, that he can
may take place.
become ‘nothing’.
● Normal Anxiety - which is proportionate to the
threat, does not involve repression, and can be UNION OF LOVE AND WILL
confronted constructively on the conscious level.
● Neurotic Anxiety - a reaction which is For the mature person, both love and will mean a
disproportionate to the threat, involves reaching out toward another person. Both involve care,
repression and other forms of intrapsychic both necessitate choice, both imply action, and both
conflict, and is managed by various kinds of require responsibility.
blocking-off of activity and awareness.
 EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY: ROLLO MAY COURSE CODE

SECOND SEMESTER | ACADEMIC YEAR: 2023-2024 | JENICKA JUNI

FORMS OF LOVE addition, psychological and cultural factors contribute to

our destiny. but we can choose how we shall respond,
SEX - a biological function that can be satisfied through how we shall live out our talents which confront us.
sexual intercourse or some other release of sexual ● Without destiny, then, we have no freedom, but
tension. Although it has become cheapened in modern without freedom our destiny is meaningless.
Western societies, “it still remains the power of Freedom and destiny give birth to each other. As
procreation, the drive which perpetuates the race, the we challenge our destiny, we gain freedom, and
source at once of the human being’s most intense as we achieve freedom, we push at the
pleasure and his or her most pervasive anxiety”. boundaries of destiny.

EROS - Eros is a psychological desire that seeks

procreation or creation through an enduring union with a
loved one. Eros is making love; Eros is the wish to
establish a lasting union; Eros is built on care and
tenderness. It longs to establish an enduring union with
the other person, such that both partners experience
delight and passion and both are broadened and
deepened by the experience.

PHILIA - an intimate nonsexual friendship between two

people. Philia cannot be rushed; it takes time to grow, to
develop, to sink its roots.

AGAPE - “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”.
Agape is altruistic love. It is a kind of spiritual love that
carries with it the risk of playing God. It does not depend
on any behaviors or characteristics of the other person.
In this sense, it is undeserved and unconditional.

FREEDOM AND DESTINY

Freedom is the individual’s capacity to know that he is

the determined one”. Freedom, then, comes from an
understanding of our destiny: an understanding that
death is a possibility at any moment, that we are male or
female, that we have inherent weaknesses, that early
childhood experiences dispose us toward certain
patterns of behavior. Freedom is the possibility of
changing, although we may not know what those
changes might be.

FORMS OF FREEDOM

● Existential freedom - It is the freedom of

action—the freedom of doing. The freedom to
act on the choices that one makes.
● Essential freedom - Freedom to act, to move
around does not ensure; allows us to be less
concerned with freedom of doing and more
concerned with essential freedom.

WHAT IS DESTINY?

the design of the universe speaking through the design

of each one of us. Our ultimate destiny is death, but on a
lesser scale our destiny includes other biological
properties such as intelligence, gender, size and strength,
and genetic predisposition toward certain illnesses. In