Existential

 Givens  Homeworks  
 
HW  #1:  DO  NOT  WRITE  YOUR  NAME  ON  THIS  ASSIGNMENT!    I  have  a  method  for  
giving  you  credit  for  your  work  that  will  protect  your  confidentiality,  which  I  will  
explain  later.    Write  AT  LEAST  1  full  paragraph  on  the  following  question:    
 
You  find  out  that  you  only  have  1  month  to  live.    There  is  NOTHING  you  can  do  
to  change  this.    What  would  you  do?    How  would  you  live  your  life  in  this  last  
month?        
 
NOTE:  I  will  collect  and  read  all  of  these  out  loud  in  class.    YOU  MUST  HAVE  THIS  ON  
PAPER  AND  IN  HAND  AT  THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  CLASS  TO  GET  CREDIT.  
 
 
HW  #2:  Read  accompanying  handout  on  Existential  Givens.    After  reading  about  
these  6  Existential  Givens,  complete  the  following:  
 
1. Write  a  1-­‐2  sentence  summary  definition  of  each  of  the  6  existential  givens.    
Make  sure  to  capture  what  these  ideas  mean  in  an  existential  sense  as  opposed  to  
what  they  usually  mean.  
2. Choose  any  2  of  the  existential  givens.    For  each  of  the  2  you  choose,  write  a  
paragraph  about  this  existential  given  in  your  own  life.    How  have  you  ignored,  
or  denied,  or  tried  to  escape  facing  the  existential  given  in  your  every  day  life?    
And  /  Or…  How  have  you  faced  or  embraced  this  existential  given  in  your  every  
day  life?    
 
Existential Psychology

Below is a discussion of the existential “givens” of existence according to Irvin Yalom

From Baseball Fan Loyalty and the Pillars of Existence by C. Daniel Crosby

Death

Death is perhaps the most obvious and most important of the four existential givens. Like
all living beings, humans are subject to death, despite our wish to live and persist in our
own being. However, unlike other living things, we have an awareness of the brevity and
fragility of our lives, a concept which can either lead us to live more fulfilled lives, or to
cope maladaptively with the inevitability of our own demise. Our simultaneous wish to
live and knowledge that we will someday die, has serious negative implications if
handled incorrectly. Existential theorists believe that we erect defenses against death
awareness, and that some of these defenses are denial-based, pathological and may have
consequences on character development (May & Yalom, 1989). Optimally, an individual
will confront the imminence of their own death, and use this as a “boundary experience”
that will promote a life more passionately and fully lived. As Yalom points out in The
Gift of Therapy (2002), “though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death
may save us (p. 126).”

Freedom

Freedom, in the existential sense, is different than the freedom we typically speak of.
Typically, we do not think of freedom as a source of anxiety. In America, freedom is
spoken of in reverent terms and is largely seen as what undergirds the greatness of our
country. However, freedom in the existential sense, refers to the “groundlessness” of our
existence, and our attendant responsibility to create a meaningful worldview. As May and
Yalom state (1989), “Freedom refers to the fact that the human being is responsible for
and the author of his or her own world, own life design, own choices and actions
(p.377).” Simply put, life does not come with an instruction manual, which then makes it
our responsibility to mold and shape our lives in meaningful ways. The anxiety that
comes with the realization of this freedom, can either embolden us to move forward,
proactively shaping a world in which to operate, or can be debilitating in that we realize
that, in a real sense, the weight of the world is upon us. As Soren Kierkegaard famously
said, “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”

As a reaction to the groundlessness of existence, people often cling to form and structure,
commonly in the form of religious and political ideologies or organizational structures...
Part and parcel of our personal freedom is the responsibility that comes with it to create a
personality. Far different from more biologically deterministic models of personality,
existentialism proposes that each of us is “contextually agentic”, meaning that we can
create a personality within the parameters of certain contextual variables (e.g. – genetic
endowments, culture). While this possibility is heartening, it can also be daunting, as we
realize that we cannot wholly hide behind faulty genes or bad parenting as excuses for
why we behave in certain ways. Again, given the difficulty of this task, humanity has
often taken symbolic shortcuts en route to personality construction. For instance, owning
a Rolls Royce makes symbolic statements about who we are that largely circumvent the
arduous process of “from scratch” personality construction. If I own a Rolls Royce,
others may assume that I am intelligent, wealthy, or industrious. Of course, they may also
assume that I am pompous and frivolous, but the point remains; we associate ourselves
with symbols and organizations that serve as heuristic shortcuts for making judgments
about our personalities and those of others we come in contact with.

Meaninglessness

As Yalom states in his treatise on existential therapy (1981), we are meaning seeking
creatures born into a meaningless world. Each of us needs a raison d’etre but life is
largely formless and allows us to create (or not create) a personal meaning that will guide
our own earthly travails. Perhaps no other existential psychotherapist has spoken as
poetically and as powerfully about the power of meaning as Viktor Frankl. Relating his
experiences in the concentration camps of World War II, Frankl speaks to the power of
the human spirit when motivated by an overarching purpose in life (2000). Rather than
giving in to the absurd tragedy of his experience, Frankl maintained personal meanings
such as his love of God, and his desire to teach future generations that saw him through
the terrors of Auschwitz. Commonly repeating Nietschzke’s words (as quoted in Frankl,
2000), “He that has a ‘why’ to live can bear with almost any ‘how’”, Frankl became the
living embodiment of the power of aligning oneself with something grander than oneself.

Specialness

Going along with Meaninglessness, we must come to grips with the idea that we are not
special as individuals. From Yalom’s Love’s Executioner: “Specialness is the belief that
one is invulnerable, inviolable – beyond the laws of ordinary biology and destiny. At
some point in life, each of us will face some crisis: it may be a serious illness, career
failure, or divorce; or… it may be an event as simple as a purse snatching, which
suddenly lays bare one’s ordinariness and challenges the common assumption that life
will always be an eternal upward spiral” (pg. 7).

From T.S. Corso’s “On the Basic Assumptions of Existential Psychotherapy”

Uncertainty

Uncertainty is one of the most unsettling and anxiety provoking 'givens' of existence, and
one of the issues most present in the therapy room. At the end of a therapy session when
my client says 'see you next week' I sometime respond with the same phrase, yet I feel a
little uncomfortable about saying it. Will I see you next week? How do I know? How do
you know? We don't. We assume it. There is no guarantee that either of us will be there.
Events out of our control can impede our next meeting. Thinking about it I will not say it
anymore. I will just nod. (Fulfilling a popular cliches about therapists!)

Living with the uncertainty of the future is difficult, at times unbearable; and the quest for
certainty is in vain. Yet, certainty is one of the most sought after state of being. Looking
for a condition that is impossible to achieve is a waste of energy, yet this particular
expenditure soars high in most people's life.
Attempting to gain control over one's life is to a certain extent a natural and sensitive
response to this 'given' of existence. We try to minimise the risks by increasing the level
of 'safety'. 'Minimise' and 'level' are relative terms, and the only terms we can use in
conjunction with the concept of 'safety', or 'certainty'. They both elude us. And the more
they elude us the more we seek them out. Because we want to feel 'safe', we want to feel
'certain'. It's a natural quest. It's part of our survival instinct.

However, when the quest for 'safety' or 'certainty' is taken to extremes it can become an
obstacle to personal growth, to experiencing a greater range of experience and to live life
to the maximum of one's possibilities. It becomes life diminishing.

To become aware of the consequences of one's attitude to this inevitable fact of life can
be an eye opening experience. Or a mere intellectual exercise. It depends on the strength
of the person and on the level of risk that one is prepared to take, which are objects of the
therapeutic work. It follows that the acceptance of the impossibility of absolute 'certainty'
or 'safety', and a change of attitude towards these issues, can take place within the context
of the therapeutic work on the whole person. Like any other issue.

Relationships

Existential psychotherapy focuses on relationships. The relationship with the people in

Relationships are another 'given' of our existence, for we always find ourselves in some
form or another of relation. As Heidegger says we live in a world-with-other beings, and
we are interdependent. From the moment we are born we find ourselves in a relation, and
utterly helpless and dependent on our mother, father, or substitute for them. We slowly
become independent from our parents, but for as long as we live in a world-with-others
we never become totally independent, as our world always entails the presence of other
people. Our survival, our physical, emotional and social well being, depends on our
interdependence. Hence, the quality of our relationships is of the utmost importance to
leading a harmonious life in a world with others. Therefore, in Existential therapy the
exploration of personal relationships is of fundamental importance.

Difficulties in interpersonal relationships are one of the most common reasons that bring
people to therapy. We carry with us the traces of our life's experiences. Sorrow,
suffering, traumas and other painful experiences have a tremendous impact on the way
we relate to people, and to our selves, and bring about obstacles to establishing
satisfactory relationships. These obstacles enter the room and impinge on the very
relationship between client and therapist. In other words, the therapeutic relationship
mirrors the relational difficulties that the individual encounters in the outside world, and
it becomes a tool to identify and remove the individual's problems.