WHAT IS EXISTENTIALISM?

1. Existence precedes essence. Existence means to emerge or to become; essence implies a static immutable substance. Existence is a process but essence is a product.

2. People are both subjective and objective and must search for truth by living active autentic lives.

3. People search for some meaning to their lives. (Who am I?, Is life worth iving?, Does it have a meaning?)

4. Each of us is responsible for who we are and what we become. As Sartre (1957) stated “man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.”

5. Authentic experience takes precedence over artificial explanations. (i.e., existentialism can be considered as a atheoretical model.)

BASIC CONCEPTS OF EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Being-in-the-world implies the oneness of subject and object, of person and world. Many people suffer from anxiety and despair brought on by their alienation from themselves or from their world. For example, as people strive to gain power over nature, they lose touch with their relationship to the natural world.

Alienation occurs in three areas:
1. Separation from nature
2. Lack of meaningful interpersonal relations
3. Alienation from one’s authentic self

“... to grasp what it means to exist, one needs to grasp the fact that he might not exist...” – May (1958)

Death is not the only type of nonbeing; other examples include addiction to alcohol or other drugs, promiscuous sexual activity, and other compulsive behaviors. Furthermore, blind conformity to society’s expectations is another example of nonbeing.

We flee from making active choices; that is, we make choices without considering who are we and what we want.

Dogan Kokdemir, Ph.D.