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MindMap Gallery Existential Psychotherapy by Irving Yalom First Edition

Existential Psychotherapy by Irving Yalom First Edition

Existential therapy is a spiritual orientation, or philosophy of life, that every psychotherapist may adopt in his clinical work and personal life. Here the fundamental questions of psychotherapy meet the central questions of human existence. In this book, Professor Yalom starts from clinical experience, empirical research, philosophical literature and a large number of other materials, focusing on the four "ultimate concerns of life" - death, freedom, loneliness and meaninglessness of existence - one by one. An in-depth discussion explains the meaning of each existential concern and discusses how therapists should understand them to carry out effective clinical work. This book not only provides a classic textbook for psychotherapists with existential orientation, but also provides a space for reflection on life and existence for therapists of all schools and all people who have thought about the meaning of life.

Edited at 2023-12-13 22:31:59

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Existential Psychotherapy by Irving Yalom First Edition

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Outline

existential psychotherapy

die

What is death anxiety?

After a certain life-threatening accident, everything was fine, but at some point in the future, he suddenly became afraid of going out, socializing, etc.

Two psychological defense mechanisms of death anxiety

Create one's own uniqueness, believing that one can avoid universal death through uniqueness

Looking for some saving power, both are escapes from death

Avoid death by taking refuge in a religious god or omnipotent being

Sublime, create achievement, dedicate oneself and efforts to someone else, transcend death spiritually

The correct way to deal with death anxiety

Break through the defense mechanisms that existed in the past and face death anxiety

Find Horney, what Maslow calls your true self, and move toward self-actualization, free from obsessive thoughts and free from the shackles of what should be.

Contemporary psychotherapy: existential tricks, false funerals, epitaphs, simulated arrival of death

free

Reality and setbacks lead to giving up freedom, or even escaping from freedom, leaving one unable to recover and falling into internal strife.

Believe that people must be subject to various restrictions

Existential freedom is not a completely unrestrained state, but is often accompanied by responsibility (responsibility refers to the awareness of being responsible for one's own choices)

Sartre and others believe that freedom means that you have the freedom to choose at all times. No matter what your situation is, you have the freedom to choose how to face it. Freedom is reflected in one's own choices, and people continue to become themselves in their choices. (Choose to escape or face; choose to be a coward or a hero) The right to choose is always in our hands, we are our choice - Sartre

A common defense mechanism that people use to avoid responsibility, a means of evasion to maintain psychological safety.

compulsive

Constructing a spiritual world without independent experience, believing that one's experiences are affected by some irresistible force, and then falling into some compulsive and necessary behavior. (I have to be rich enough to retire and enjoy life. I have to be good enough to make friends and have intimate relationships with others.)

In this way, you exclude your true wishes or other options. Avoiding the responsibility of facing choices

transfer responsibility

Transferring many of the individual's own responsibilities to another person, thinking that one's own predicament is the responsibility of others, so that one does not need to be responsible for one's own pain (my pain is caused by your choice, it is none of my business)

Example - Man complains about sexual problems

deny responsibility

See yourself as a victim who was involved in the incident for no reason, feel that you are innocent, believe that your current situation and difficulties have nothing to do with your past 'choices', and avoid the responsibility for your past choices.

escape from autonomous behavior

Longing for good health but not exercising; longing for intimate relationships but not taking the initiative;

existential therapy key

Help people become aware of their responsibilities and take responsibility. I only realize that freedom of choice is not complete until we take responsibility.

result

Although they have escaped the existential anxiety that arises when they realize their own responsibilities, they still feel helpless and depressed.

The individual does not understand that even if he encounters the most tragic situation, whether it is illness or death, the individual still has a choice of how to experience it, how he feels about the situation, his attitude, etc.

Epicurus Example: I must die and be exiled. Can anyone stop me from smiling when I am exiled? You can tie my feet, but you cannot tie my will.

The limiting effect of environmental factors on people is indeed very obvious. We cannot deny birth, genetics and accidental events. But this does not mean that we are irresponsible and have no choice in such a situation, but we must understand that we are still responsible for what we can gain from such an experience, and we are responsible for our own attitude. , is still responsible for the accompanying pain, guilt, regret and other feelings.

It is neither possible to adopt a negative attitude towards a bad environment (because we all have to bear the consequences of the negative attitude in the end and be responsible for everything caused by the negative attitude), nor is it a method of victory in Ah Q’s spirit. Instead, we should listen to our true self and stand up to face it. Maybe we will not be able to overcome the difficulties until we die, but a certain sense of attitude control brought about by having no regrets about life and taking responsibility is thus established. Defense mechanisms established in the past will gradually loosen

Maslow and R.R. May all believed that feeling guilty and anxious meant that people heard the call of their true selves.

The role of guilt and anxiety

To realize that I was avoiding, procrastinating, and denying my true self.

Reasons to feel guilty

It's because people think they have no possibility of realizing their true selves.

constitute the first step of change

Facing guilt and anxiety is healthier than invoking low-quality, stagnant defense mechanisms. It allows individuals to realize what they really want, realize that this is what they don't want, and that they should have other different choices.

Step 2: Act responsibly and make brave decisions

When faced with a major decision, people have a "borderline experience", that is, avoiding the decision, procrastinating the decision, and being unable to make a decision.

Because the individual has a kind of existential anxiety, it means that there is no absolute external power at this moment, which means that the individual realizes that he is helpless.

The more anxious the individual is at this time, the more they need to rely on their own rationality, rather than automatically falling into a sense of helplessness, fate or some kind of learned helplessness. Tell myself that I still have a choice, and I am responsible for my own choices. I can no longer force, deny or transfer responsibility.

Lonely

psychological loneliness

Obsessive-compulsive neurological symptoms, self-isolation

Compulsively suppressing one's emotions and desires, automatically suppressing one's true self. Taking what should be and what must be as one's own wishes, not believing in one's true inner self, and thus breaking away from an independent self, resulting in obsessiveness and paranoia.

interpersonal loneliness

subtopic

existential loneliness

Even with perfect communication with others and the highest degree of self-integration, existential loneliness does not disappear.

Heidegger: The feeling of loneliness and abandonment is inherent in all human beings

People who cannot face the existence of loneliness will unconsciously fall into two reaction modes

Subconsciously creating illusions of fusion

That is to say to myself that I am not alone, I am part of others

Weaken self-boundaries and turn yourself into another part that is superior to yourself

Give up oneself, worship and rely on others. This kind of worship and dependence makes one live for others in a dominant position, suppress one's own expectations, try to find the expectations of others, and regard other people's expectations as one's own expectations. Such people avoid offending others and put safety and integration before individuality.

Others are cages

Extremely self-centered, narcissistic person

Clinging to one's own ego and trying to devour others

Trying to get things from others, treating others as a tool and resource, the other person will not feel understood and accepted, because the extreme self-narcissist only associates with the other person's part, and the purpose of the association is In order to affirm one's own existence, because when an individual cannot confirm himself, he needs the confirmation of another person.

Others are tools

Isolation from others, being alone in one’s own world

Strengthen psychological loneliness

The main cure for loneliness

relation

Individuals relate in ways that require nothing from each other

Buber: I-you relationship

There is no subject of me, both are equal in relationship and emotional experience, and there is even no individual consciousness.

The example of Buber and horses

Similar to Fromm's mature love - two people combine while maintaining human integrity and individuality. In love, two people become one while each remains independent.

Mature love comes from one's own richness, not poverty, and from one's own growth, not lack.

i-it relation

Focus only on oneself, forget the unique existence of others, and do not regard others as an equal and equally unique object

sense of meaninglessness

At a certain moment in life, one suddenly falls into a kind of "awakening" about life and existential problems. After the awakening, the sense of meaninglessness and spiritual emptiness become a major issue of life and death for people.

A fool moves bricks, and after a while he wakes up and wonders why he moves bricks. (Just like fish in a fish tank lose their memory repeatedly. People on the earth repeatedly lose their memory in reincarnation. When the fish wakes up, they will feel that the fish tank is small and the life of the fish is meaningless. This is even more true for humans.)

What is the meaning of life? Why live? What do you live on? This type of psychological existential crisis is what Tolstoy calls the ‘cessation of life’

Tolstoy wondered why he wanted to manage property and educate children. So what if he had money? So what if his writing surpassed Shakespeare's? He said: I can't find an answer, but I urgently need an answer, otherwise I won't be able to live, but there is no answer. The meaning of life collapsed in Tolstoy's later years, and Tolstoy committed suicide.

Jung also lamented that the lack of meaning in life plays a vital role in the occurrence of neurosis. Among the patients in his life, 1/3 of the patients could not be clinically diagnosed as neurotic, but suffered from a sense of meaninglessness and futility in life. The torture of a sense of purpose.

meaningless syndrome

The subjective state of boredom, apathy, and emptiness

The individual may feel cynical, lack a sense of direction, question the meaning of most activities, and have a vague sense of dissatisfaction and emptiness after being busy. These people don't actually know what they want to do, so they choose to conform and conform. But this will still make them feel meaningless and lost. In severe cases, they may also fall into compulsive behaviors, such as alcoholism, addiction to consumption, indulgence, etc.

People with meaningless mental symptoms

It manifests as a compulsive life, self-imprisonment, and a fanatical state of activity, consuming a lot of individual energy and escaping the influence of meaningless problems.

Even if the current meaning of oneself is already shaky (such as those who pursue material gains and social status), in order not to be affected by the anxiety caused by emptiness, individuals will become more fanatical, more aggressive, and more obsessive.

Instead of facing their anxiety, they force themselves to give up observing their own hearts and continue to fall into the obsessive pursuit (Crusades example)

Owen Yaron believes that people need to pursue meaning. A life without meaning and value will bring great pain to people, so individuals often pursue some decisive meaning at the beginning. However, in the process of individual growth, the absolute meaning of what we have learned in the past is broken by practical experience, and we realize that the only absolute in the world is that there is no absolute.

Making money and honoring one’s ancestors are meaningful

Tolstoy's denial of suicide

Thinking about truth makes sense

Nietzsche believed that life was meaningless and denied it

Zhuangzi abandoned wisdom

Religion has meaning

atheist denial

Existentialist Camus used the term "absurd" to describe the world. Human longing and the world's indifference constitute Camus's view of the human condition. Human beings who seek meaning always receive the cold shoulder of the world, which is indifferent to individual expectations.

Camus believed that we should establish a new meaning of life by cherishing our "late night of despair", and that only by facing the absurdity of reality with dignity can we gain meaning, and the meaninglessness of the world itself be transcended through resistance. 'Nothing can match human dignity'

The solution to meaninglessness

Recognize that death and meaninglessness are not consistent

Owen believed that there is no eternal heaven and God, and no absolute meaning. He chose to dedicate himself to the ethics of meaning he constructed. Devotion itself is meaning.

creative activities

The flow experience in positive psychology is goal-oriented, selfless, and meaning itself.

self-actualization

Care for others instead of treating others as a means of self-expression or filling emptiness. Dedicate yourself to and surpass your own goals, which can be as big as benefiting the human cause or as small as the growth of your partner. (For me, it means living this life well and experiencing this life)

(Go to the pier to order French fries)

Hume spoke of dispelling doubts with love, vivid sense impressions. 'I ate, played chess, chatted and had a good time with friends, and after three or four hours of entertainment I returned to these philosophies, which now seemed so cold, forced, and ridiculous.'

Owen, Yaron: Rational reflection is not enough for meaning, what is important is to continue to participate in life

Wittgenstein said: The solution to life's problems is to make them disappear.

Doubtful, fully committed

Admit life, the world is unpredictable and absurd. Acknowledge loneliness, death, meaninglessness

Be fully immersed in the flow of life of your choice and continue to participate in life.

(Personally I don’t agree with it) I don’t think that the path I have chosen is the path of absolute meaning, and I will not be completely confident in writing “I have found the meaning of life.”

People with obsessive meaning patterns

Only when experiencing some major changes, facing death, encountering a major illness or traumatic event, or facing an existential crisis, will the compulsion stop, come to a standstill, or even change.

subtopic

compulsive repetition

Psychoanalytic theory holds that

Individuals tend to involuntarily create early situations and repeat some early traumatic experiences.

Maslow

When the core of human nature is denied and suppressed, people will become sick. Every time we are alienated from the core of our own nature, it will be recorded in our unconsciousness, making us despise ourselves.

Honey

The price individuals pay when they fail to realize their destiny is self-alienation. When an individual is separated from his true self, he will not recognize his true emotions, desires, and thoughts. Actively self-contempt, self-exploit, and fall into a predicament where you think you have no choice and are difficult to change.

existential anxiety

Any factors that endanger personal survival (such as disease, disaster, death, etc.) or factors that endanger beliefs and ideals that are of equal value to life (such as status, reputation, self-esteem, pursuit of knowledge, career, etc.) will cause this kind of anxiety. It's a subjective feeling.

Han Binzhe: The Other

Maslow-Love

scarcity love

Selfish

Need satisfaction, conditional love

existential love

selfless

Appreciate sexual love rather than need

They are independent and complete with each other, less jealous, less demanding, and more indifferent. They help each other achieve self-realization and feel proud of each other's success, which provides a sense of self-acceptance and being loved.