Psychology for Dummies (87 page)
Read Psychology for Dummies Online
Authors: Adam Cash
Tags: #Psychology, #General, #Body; Mind & Spirit, #Spirituality
What’s the meaning of life? Don’t go to an existential psychologist for the answer to this question. Each of us is expected to create our own meanings, to construct something out of this meaningless mass of confusion. When we adaptively and creatively use our wills to build meaning for ourselves, we’re on the right track.
Patient:
I’ve wanted to get a new job for while, but I can’t seem to find anything.
Therapist:
Have you been looking?
Patient:
Not really.
Therapist:
Then how can you say that you can’t find anything when you’re not looking? Do you really want another job bad enough to actually look for one?
Patient:
I don’t know. I think I just want to be treated with more respect at work.
Therapist:
Then what you really want is respect, not another job.
Patient:
Respect is important.
Therapist:
To whom?
Patient:
Respect is important to me. I want it.
After the patient becomes aware of what she wants, the therapist helps her remove any obstacles or blocks to action. The therapist also points out that the patient makes decisions every day, even when he or she doesn’t realize it. If you’re standing in your own way, move over. Here comes the existential express: I’m a lean, mean, existential fact-facing, decision-making machine.
When we start using defense mechanisms to protect us from what can sometimes feel like an abyss of existential truth, we can get into trouble. Sometimes, we can
Develop an unconscious sense of being special or omnipotent to ward off the unknown. Irvin Yalom points out that this development may lead to being selfish or even paranoid. I once knew a man who thought he was Jesus Christ. I told him that I had just met Jesus Christ in a previous therapy session with another patient, and I was pretty sure there could be only one. He insisted he was the one. There must have been a lot of emptiness or meaninglessness in this patient’s life.
Believe in an ultimate “rescuer.” Too much indulgence in this kind of thinking can lead to dependency. This is a no-no in existential therapy. It’s a cop out and serves as a poor excuse for facing the existential facts. Man, the existentialists won’t even let me carry around my almighty teddy bear, Snuggles. Sorry Snuggles, I guess we’ll just have to go it alone. The existentialists take all the fun out of everything.
Hello, Dali!There’s a famous Salvador Dali painting titled
The Persistence of Time.
A quick story: My wife and I went to Paris, France, to see some paintings. We went to the Salvador Dali Museum to check out this painting and a couple of his other works. When we arrived, it wasn’t there! It was in a gallery in St. Petersburg, Florida. We couldn’t believe it. St. Petersburg? Come on! Anyway, my fascination with this painting comes from Dali’s representation of time using flimsy clocks draped over different objects like the way you drape dirty clothes over the back of a chair. I’m no art critic, but I took that to symbolize the flexibility of time — it’s not brittle; it doesn’t break; it only bends. Time drapes over everything, and nothing escapes it. Well Mr. Dali, the existentialists would have probably agreed.
With all this talk about being, you may begin to wonder if the existential therapists ever do anything but philosophize. Existential therapy incorporates core issues into therapy and uses them to guide the focus of the therapist in treatment. Existential therapists
Help their patients to act willfully and responsibly in the face of the existential facts
Listen for existential themes and point them out to patients when they suspect one is lurking underneath some trivial dilemma or psychological symptom
Explore these existential themes and point out the patients’ compromised and maladaptive ways of coping with them
Set out to help patients develop more adaptive coping behaviors
Expect patients to create their own lives and worlds through action and choice
Expect patients to exercise their will in making decisions without being too impulsive or compulsive
Acting impulsively and compulsively are not active approaches to living in an existential sense. Active approaches are thoughtful, deliberate, and responsible actions, and active approaches are what existentialists look for. Existentialists emphasize responsible action without the need to defer to someone around us to make our decisions. Because of this, existential therapists can sometimes be frustrating to a patient because the therapist refuses to get into a caregiver-care receiver interaction.
If you have trouble “owning up” to the circumstances of your life and accepting responsibility for them, existential therapy may help. It includes an expectation of owning one’s experiences, including feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. One way to demonstrate this ownership is for patients to learn how to say
I,
instead of
you,
when talking about their experiences. Check out this example:
Patient:
There are people in your life who you love, and when they hurt you, it sticks with you.
Therapist:
I want you to practice saying
I
instead of
you.
For example, instead of saying, “There are people in your life,” try saying, “There are people in my life who I love, and when they hurt me, it sticks with me.”
Patient:
There are people in my life . . .
Therapist:
Good. How does that feel?
Patient:
It kind of makes you feel sad.
Therapist:
It makes me feel sad?
Patient:
No, it makes
me
feel sad.
Therapist:
You feel sad.
Patient:
Yes.
I hope that I haven’t painted too bleak of a picture of existential therapy. The truth is that existential therapy is one of the most hopeful therapies out there. It doesn’t sound like it at first because it kind of works in reverse. Instead of using hope in external things, such as other people and supernatural forces, it points patients inward, toward themselves, helping them to generate hope from the smallest of actions. With each step we take, we’re exercising our hope that the ground will not fall out from under us. It’s a leap of faith facilitated through willful action. By taking patients down to the bare bones of existence, the existentialists show them how every thought, feeling, and behavior is an act of will that demonstrates the presence of their being — their striving to exist, survive, and to be.