Rise of Existential Psychology and Psychotherapy

Existentialism in theater

Existentialism in cinema

Existentialism in art

Existentialism in psychology

From philosophy to psychology 

With existentialism becoming a cultural movement and existentialists at the time treated like celebrities, influences of existentialism swept across different disciplines from literature to art, from theater to films, from philosophy to psychology...

Otto Rank

Inspired by writings of early existentialists, psychoanalysts and psychologists from Europe began applying existentialist principles to the practice of psychotherapy in the 20th century. The fusion of existentialist philosophy with psychology first crystallized in the work of Otto Rank (1884-1939), an Austrian psychoanalyst who was one of Freud's closest associates until he criticized Freud for reducing all emotional experiences to sex... Influenced by Nietzsche, Rank saw the denial of emotional life as denial of the will (the creative life) and the interpersonal relationship in the analytic situation so he took a 180-degree turn from classical psychoanalysis and made the relational and experiential aspects of the "here-and-now" central to his practice of psychotherapy. Not only was Rank quite possibly the first existential therapist, he was also the first to coin the term "here-and-now" and recognized its importance. In Will Therapy (1929-31), Rank wrote: 

"The neurotic lives too much in the past to that extent he actually does not live. He suffers... because he clings to, wants to clings to it, in order to protect himself from experience, the emotional surrender to the present" (p.27) 

Unfortunately, Rank's work remained largely unrecognized until much later. Unaware of Rank's writings at the time, Swiss psychiatrist, Ludwig Binswanger (1881-1966) began combining psychotherapy with existential and phenomenological ideas in his work with patients at the Kreuzlingen sanatorium. Influenced by Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre, Binswanger expounded his concept of existential analysis as an empirical science that involves an anthropological approach to the individual character of being human in his book, Basic Forms and the Realization of Human "Being-in-the-World" (1942). Around the same time, an important figure in existential psychology was suffering in one of the Nazi concentration camps, wrestling with the meaning of life. It was Victor Frankl (1905-1997), an Austrian Jewish neurologist and psychiatrist. Fortunately, Frankl survived the Holocaust and after being liberated in 1945, wrote his world-famous book, Man's Search for Meaning (1959), detailing the events inside the concentration camps that shaped his beliefs, at the same time, introducing logotherapy, an existential therapy focusing on Kierkegaard's will to meaning.

While existential psychology was being introduced in various parts of Europe, it  and its main thinkers - including Ludwig Binswanger, Melard Boss, and Victor Frankl - "were almost entirely unknown to the American psychotherapeutic community" (Yalom, 1980, p. 17)! This was not surprising as existentialism was only being quietly introduced in university classrooms in the 1930s. Even Rollo May (1909-1994), an early contributor to existential psychology in the U.S., was only introduced to existentialism through Paul Tillich at the Union Theological Seminary after Tillich had immigrated to the U.S. in 1933 (Wright, 1974). After being introduced to existentialism, May, through his work such as Existence (1958) and Love and Will (1969), played an important role in introducing existential psychology and keeping the existential influence alive in America. During this time, much of Ludwig Binswanger's had also been translated into English, helping to popularize existential ideas as a basis for therapy (Cooper, 2003). 

Yet it was not until September 5, 1959 when Rollo May, Abraham Maslow, and Herman Feifel participated in the American Psychological Association (APA) Symposium on Existential Psychology and Psychotherapy existential psychology began to reach the forefront of psychological thought and practice. By the 1960s, existentialism had become the "buzz" of psychology! Since then, there have been a number of prominent figures in existential psychology and psychotherapy including James Bugental, Irvin Yalom, Kirk Schneider, Stephen Diamond, etc...


References 
Cooper, M. (2003). Existential therapies. London, United Kingdom: Sage Publications.
Wright, E. (1974, May). Paul Tillich as hero: An interview with Rollo May. Christian Century, 530-533. 
Yalom, I. (1980). Existential psychotherapy. New York, NY: Basic Books Publishers Inc. 

Upcoming...

Next let's talk more about meaning... 

Philosophical Cultural Movement of Existentialism

       

How existentialism became popular

References to existentialism are ubiquitous in popular culture today. Unlike Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, we now live in a time where existentialist ideas are widely accepted. But how did such a dramatic change occur? Well, through not just a philosophical but a cultural movement of existentialism! Let's briefly look at what happened.

Influenced by Kierkegaard's and Nietzsche's writings, the early 20th century witnessed a number of European philosophers exploring existential ideas. These included Jewish philosopher and theologian, Martin Buber (1878-1965), who in the book I and Thou (1922), introduced the premise of human existence as "man with man", an encounter or dialogue between two beings meeting in their authentic existence. This idea later came to have a profound impact on psychotherapy. Others also included German philosophers, Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and Paul Tillich (1886-1965), who in his later work Courage to Be (1952), extended on Kierkegaard's ideas and proposed that humans must, via God, achieve selfhood in spite of life's absurdity...

Yet it was not until after WWII in 1940s that existentialism became a well-known philosophical and cultural movement thanks to two prominent French writers, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) and Albert Camus (1913-1960) who at the time wrote some of the best-selling novels, plays, and theoretical texts dealing with existential themes including Nausea (1938), The Wall (1939), and Being and Nothingness (1943) by Sartre as well as The Stranger (1942), The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), and Caligula (1944) by Camus. While some consider Sartre's writings too cynical, he contributed majorly to existentialism by establishing much of the common existentialist terminology (Hoffman, 2004). Sartre's Being and Nothingness, wherein he claimed that "nothingness lies coiled in the heart of being - like a worm" was particularly influential and remains an existential class. On the other hand, much of Camus' work concerned with facing the absurd. In The Myth of Sisyphus, for instance, he illustrated the futility of existence through the protagonist, Sisyphus who, according to Greek mythology, was condemned to roll a rock up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this action for eternity! Such existence seems pretty pointless, right? Yet Sisyphus ultimately found meaning simply by continually applying himself to the task.

Around this time, Sartre adopted the term "existentialism" for his own philosophy and by 1945, Sartre and his associates including Camus and Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986), had become internationally famous as leading figures of the movement known as existentialism. In just a few years, Sartre had launched his own journal, Les Temps Modernes and given the famous "Existentialism is Humanism" lecture while Camus' earlier fictions and plays had been reprinted and performed. De Beauvoir, a feminist and existentialist as well as a long-time partner of Sartre, even wrote at the time that "not a week passed without the newspapers discussing us"; existentialism became "the first media craze of the postwar era" (Aronson, 2005)! And the rest is history...

    

References

Aronson, R. (2005). Camus and Sartre: The story of a friendship and the quarrel that ended it. Chigago, IL: University of Chigago Press. 

Hoffman, L.  (2004). Philosophical forerunners of existential psychotherapy. Existential Therapy. Retrieved from http://www.existential-therapy.com/key%20figures/Philosophical_Forefathers.htm

Upcoming...
Next let's look at the rise of existential psychology and psychotherapy... 

Philosophical Roots of Existential Psychology and Psychotherapy Part II

People may have misunderstood what Nietzsche meant by
"God is dead" but this picture is still quite amusing

Some consider Nietzsche a
madman

Nietzsche and his mustache in
popular culture

   We shall continue to explore the philosophical roots of existential psychology and psychotherapy, turning our attention to the other father of existentialism - Friedrich Nietzsche, who was most famous for the statement - "God is dead"! Some people think of him as a madman, an anti-christ, a nihilist but the truth is, Nietzsche is often misunderstood (Hoffman, 2004). His ideas had even been twisted to support Hitler's ideologies such that his name is often mistakenly associated with the Nazis! Yet, Nietzsche and his mustache remain with us in the popular culture and we shall soon understand how contemporary thoughts and existential psychology have been influenced by him...

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 - August, 25, 1900)

Born in a small German village, Nietzsche was named after the Prussian king, Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Nietzsche, who vigorously challenged the foundations of Christianity, had ironically come from a very religious family. Not only were his father, uncle, and grandfathers all Lutheran ministers, his paternal grandfather was even a distinguished Protestant scholar (Wicks, 1997)!
As a philologist, philosopher, cultural critic, poet, and composer, Nietzsche inspired many leading figures in philosophy, psychology, sociology, art, and literature. His work can be divided into three stages with later writings said to be influenced by his deteriorating health as he battled with what appeared to be syphilis. Toward the end of his life, he had a mental breakdown followed by multiple strokes, leaving him partially paralyzed,unable to speak or walk...
Click here for a documentary on Nietzsche's life  

 

God is dead

The phrase - "God is dead" appeared in several of Nietzsche's work and was also portrayed in the film, When Nietzsche Wept. But what did Nietzsche really mean by that? The idea was stated in his parable of The Madman in The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs (1887/1974, Section 125) as follows: 

"Have you not heard of that madman who... cried incessantly: 'I seek God! I seek God!'---As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around... he provoked much laughter.... 'Whither is God?' he cried; 'I will tell you. We have killed him....What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving?...Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? ...How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? ...what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?..."

What Nietzsche tried to convey in the phrase "God is dead" was his observation that the Christian worldview no longer held a prominent explanatory role in people's lives with the rise of science in the late 19th century. Yet, without introducing a new set of values to replace the discarded Christian values, Nietzsche saw future generations as facing  a fundamental crisis whereby there would be a lack of meaning and value in life, namely nihilism. Contrary to popular beliefs, Nietzsche was not a fan of nihilism. He believed that people need to identify some source of meaning and value in their lives and saw the demise of the divine as an opportunity for the transformation (or overcoming) of human into a being that derives meaning of its existence from within itself, not from external authority. For the first time in history, human is called to give meaning both to its existence and to the existence of the world and this idea has become a tenet of existential psychology and psychotherapy. 

        

Affirmation of Life and Eternal Return  
As mentioned in the last entry, Kierkegaard believed that people must take the leap of faith in face of anxiety if they are to flourish and become truly aware of their potential and identity,  Nietzsche, on the other hand, emphasized on self-creation and affirmation of life for humans to overcome themselves and move toward becoming the Übermensch (German word for "overman", "above-human", "superman").Click here for more information on Nietzsche's concept of the Übermensch.

Nietzsche's idea on affirmation of life is particularly inspiring, I find. What he meant by that is to affirm life unconditionally, in its entirety, including all the suffering it has involved, in face of all the basic givens of life that cannot be changed. In The Heaviest Burden, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs (1887/1974, Section 341), Nietzsche asked us to consider this: 

"What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence... The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!' Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine'? If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are, or perhaps crush you." 

Are you able to embrace the idea that each moment of your life will be repeated infinitely? For Nietzsche, one who affirms his life would gladly will its eternal return. For me, I am struck by this thought: what if I don't only live once, what if all the choices I make, I make for an eternity of lifetimes. Nietzsche did not call this the heaviest burden for no reason... I feel an immense sense of responsibility over my life or lives, you? Is this thought not more powerful than today's YOLO (You Only Live Once)? 

References
Burnham, D., & Papandreopoulos, G. (n.d.). Existentialism. The internet encyclopedia of philosophy. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/existent/
Friedrich, N. (1974). In W. Kaufmann (Ed.), The gay science: With a prelude in rhymes and an appendix of songs. New York, NY: Random House. (Reprinted from Die frohliche wissenschaft 2nd ed., 1887)
Hoffman, L.  (2004). Philosophical forerunners of existential psychotherapy. Existential Therapy. Retrieved from http://www.existential-therapy.com/key%20figures/Philosophical_Forefathers.htm
Wicks, R. (1997). Friedrich Nietzsche. The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Apr 2011 ed.). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/


Upcoming...
Let us fast forward into the 20th century next to look at the existentialist movement...