Personality Ch. 11: May and Existential Psychology

Overview of May’s Main Theories

• Rollo May’s perspective is heavily influenced by existential philosophers

  • E.g., Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre

  • Somewhat of a “popularizer” of these ideas

• May was a successful psychotherapist

  • His ideas were guided by existential thinkers and his clinical experience (as opposed to scientific research)

• May believed that many people negate their freedom because they lack the courage to face their destiny

  • They avoid responsibility and develop a sense of insignificance and alienation

• Healthy people, according to May, recognize the inevitability of death and have the courage to authentically live life in the present

Existentialism (and difference between existence and essence)

• For existentialists, existence > essence

  • Existence means to emerge or to become (i.e., a process)

  • Essence refers to a static, unchanged substance (i.e., a product)

• Existentialists believe that people’s essence is their power to continually redefine themselves through the choices they make

  • In the end, we are each alone and must take responsibility for what we make of ourselves

  • Driven by important questions like: who am I? Does life have meaning? How can I realize my human potential?

• This approach is opposed to the use of theories

  • Explaining experiences using preexisting theoretical models causes them to lose their authenticity for an individual

Being-in-the-world

• From the German Dasein “to exist there”

• A sense of unity of self and the world (as opposed to isolation and alienation from the natural world)

What does alienation manifest itself through?

1. separation from nature (Unwelt)

2. lack of meaningful interpersonal relationships (Mitwelt)

3. alienation from the authentic self (Eigenwelt)

Nonbeing/nothingness

The awareness of nonbeing (e.g., our inevitable death) is difficult, but has the potential to imbue life with meaning

Anxiety

• According to May, anxiety is caused by someone becoming aware that their existence (or some value identified with it) might be destroyed

  • Understanding that one can become “nothing”

• May believed that freedom cannot exist without anxiety, and that anxiety cannot exist without freedom

  • Anxiety can provide inspiration, energy, and zest, but also be paralyzing and lead to panic

Normal Anxiety

• Anxiety that “is proportionate to the threat, does not involve repression, and can be confronted constructively on the conscious level” (May, 1967)

  • Growth from surrendering past values gives rise to normal anxiety

Neurotic Anxiety

• Anxiety that “is disproportionate to the threat, involves repression and other forms of intrapsychic conflict, and is managed by various kinds of blocking-off activity and awareness” (May, 1967)

Care

• Refers to the active process of recognizing someone else as a fellow human to the extent that they identify with that person’s experience (e.g., pain, joy, guilt, pity, etc)

• That is, the other person “matters”

• Care is the source (i.e., a necessary state) for love and will

Love

“delight in the presence of the other person and an affirming of their value and development as much as one’s own”

Will

• “the capacity to organize one’s self so that movement in a certain direction or toward a certain goal may take place”

• May believed that a basic human goal should be to unite love and will

  ◦ A challenging aim

Freedom

• an individual’s awareness that they have the capacity to pursue their destiny

• Must have an understanding that life is fleeting and death may arrive at any moment

• Must be able to harbor several different possibilities in one’s mind even though it is not always clear which way one must act (May, 1981)

• This condition leads to “normal anxiety”

Existential Freedom

Freedom of action (e.g. doing, going, choosing whatever you wish)

Essential Freedom

Freedom of being (e.g. freedom of thought and experience in our inner world)

Destiny

• the design of the universe speaking through the design of each one of us” (May, 1981)

  • Everyone’s ultimate destiny is death

  • Intelligence, gender, size, strength, genetic predispositions, cultural influences, etc

  • Destiny is not a predetermine fate, but rather our overall destination or endpoint

  • Within the boundaries of our destiny, we are free to choose how we live

• May held that freedom and destiny cannot exist without each other

  • A paradox (like life’s relationship with death)

Myths

• May felt that humans have a fundamental need for myths

  • Like how beams provide an invisible, but necessary, support structure for buildings

• Myths are conscious and unconscious belief systems that provide explanations for personal and social problems

  • Stories that unify society and provide meaning within an often seemingly meaningless world

• Humans communicate through rational and factual means, but also using myths

  • Myths can transcend concrete situations, expand self-awareness, and search for identity

• Similar to Jung’s notion of archetypes and the collective unconscious

  • Myths can be used to expand experience and understanding, and unlock opportunities for psychological growth

Psychotherapy

• May was a well-known and successful psychotherapist, but did not adhere to any easily identifiable techniques

• His approach aimed at “making people more human”

  • Expand their consciousness so they could make better choices

• He believed that therapy should not aim at reducing feelings of anxiety and guilt

  • These symptoms usually subside as a byproduct of helping patience understand and experience freedom and destiny

• May’s approach shares similarities to Rogers

  • Building a relationship between therapist and client that includes empathic concern

  • May was more active in this regard, often making specific suggestions and asking pointed questions

• One interesting technique he used was to have clients have imaginary/fantasy conversations with dead relatives or with past selves

Related Research

• As someone who was a vocal critic of theory, it is not surprising that May’s work has not directly led to much empirical research

• Terror management theory (TMT) can be linked to May’s work

  • Basic assumption is that humans are primarily motivated by fear of death

• Most research using TMT involves experimental designs that use a “mortality salience” manipulation

  • Considering one’s mortality has been found to: decrease interest in sex (Goldenberg et al, 2000, and alienation from our physical bodies (especially for women; Morris, Goldenberg, & Heflick, 2014)

  • Mortality salience is also linked with strong motivation for forming/appreciating close relationships (see Cox & Arndt) and placing greater emphasis on intrinsic goals over status-oriented extrinsic goals (Heflick et al, 2011)

Issues with May’s theory

• May’s existential psychology rates poorly on the criteria for an effective theory from chapter 1

• His ideas did not directly lead to empirical research and are largely unfalsifiable

• He did not include thoughts on key aspects of psychology like development, learning, motivation, etc

• Being opposed to theoretical frameworks and articulating specific therapeutic techniques, his ideas do not provide a practical guide to action

• The main strength of his ideas are in how they often connect with specific individuals and potentially inspire them to reflect on, and make more of, their lives

Concept of Humanity