Theories of Personality Final: Rollo May

What field of psychology was May a psychologist in?

Existential area of the humanist-existential field

May's Beliefs and Interest

- Human beings are not only good but also evil because both evil and good exist in the world.

- Believed the way to meaning is through struggle and despair

- Wrestling with death is a meaningful part of one's existence and isn't morbid

- Getting through hardship, the other side is joy and light

- Interested in the idea of mystics, the divine, and spirituality.

When did existentialism emerge?

- 19th and 20th centuries as a major philosophical movement

- Roots are found in Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Albert Camus, and Jean-Paul Sartre

What did existentialists believe?

Human beings should be studied not as objects but as subjects with a focus on their phenomenological or interior epistemologies/spaces, which are respected and valued.

- Rile/rebel against the conventional establishment

- Believe in free will- With it comes freedom and responsibility

- Face a world that could be uncertain and absurd, but we also realize that we must die

- Must live life with goals and courage

- Human behaviors are motivated by a profound sense of anxiety

- Each of us is unique and individual - we craft ourselves, and we are motivated to emphasize our individuality and uniqueness in these challenges

Ontology

A branch of philosophy with a philosophical belief, which focuses on the nature of being, existence, and reality

- Relates to the metaphysical universe

May's Beliefs

The 20th century has seen a real loss in our sense of values

- Modern society has engendered a sense of value loss

Unhealthy outcomes that arise from disintegrated values:

- Become hypercompetitive

- Lack concern for others

- Pursue materialistic successes

- Embrace no sense of community

- Establish malevolent power over others

- Feel powerless, like pawns in an unjust system

- Experience corruption, violence, and crime in societies

Mays Thoughts on Sex

- People shouldn't confuse sex with love

- Believes that sex has been used as a narcotic to dull the senses

- Although sex may decrease anxiety temporarily, it doesn't resolve your sense of loneliness, anxiety, worthlessness, and emptiness

3 levels of interrelationships that intersect and help form personality

Umwelt- biological needs (food, water, shelter, oxygen)

Mitwelt- relationship with others in our environment. (connection with family, friends, community)

Eigenwelt- self-awareness, relationship with yourself. sense of feelings, intuitions, etc.

Anomie

feel a sense of alienation and disconnection from the larger societal space.

May capitalizes on anomie to say that post-modern society has created a space of disintegration, disconnection, alienation, and isolation

What does isolation create?

a system of "joiners", where people want to join different organizations so that they can create meaning to their existence (false sense of wholeness)/

What was May's therapy called and its goals? (3)

existential-analytic therapy

- Help you understand suffering and existential angst

- Create more harmony with nature and become more connected with growth

- Become more real and genuine with yourself (authenticity)

May's techniques of assessment (3):

Introspection

Case study analysis

Structured interviews