About the Book: A Few Notes on Existential Psychology With The Light of Rollo May’s “The Discovery of Being”

A Few Notes on Existential Psychology With The Light of Rollo May’s “The Discovery of Being”

1- Six Principles Counted by Rollo May

1. Putting yourself in the center is inevitable.

2. There is a self-affirmation and a need for centrality in every existing person.

3. All existing people have the need and possibility to leave their own centrality to share with another person.

4. Awareness is the subjective aspect of centrality.

5. Self-consciousness is a type of awareness that is only seen in humans.

6. Anxiety is the situation that people are in during their struggle against what will destroy their existence.

In the light of these principles, we can say that our relationship with others is an inevitable part and need of our existence, and that we are concerned if we encounter an event, situation or person that we perceive as a threat to our centrality during transfer. Everyone is at the center of their universe. However, anxiety level may remain at a normal level if this center is stable and based on solid foundations.

2- Human and His Environment

Existentialism is an effort to understand people. It is an endeavor to understand the human being in the environment and relationships he lives in, not in pieces or away from his own environment. The existentialist therapist assists the client by developing a new relationship.

Existentialists advocate that the person and his world are a unitary structure, a structural whole, and the expression of being in the world describes just that.

Human and world cannot be separated. They contain each other. When the world is said, it should be evaluated from a very wide angle. It should be understood that the person also includes his past and future prospects.

3- Transcendence

"The main issue of man is that he doesn't allow life to be just another accident, he achieves a real" existence. "

Transcendence is also one of the important expressions for existentialism. Because freedom is expressed by overcoming the current situation. Self is the person's capacity to see himself in these different possibilities.

Being trapped in a certain world is an indication of psychological disorder.

4- Death

Facing death, according to existentialists, gives people the most positive reality. Death makes life valuable. In this context, as Nietzsche put it: “The thought of suicide is a great consolation." Because with this thought, one can comprehend that he has the freedom to make decisions about his own existence.

5- Abstraction and Alienation

The expressions in the comments of extroverted people are actually a kind of abstraction, and abstraction can be seen not only in patients but also in people who are considered normal.

For example, when you like a book, instead of saying "I like the book", saying "the book is well written" can be explained by the abstraction of the person.

This kind of abstraction is about the alienating of the person to himself.

6- Three Kinds of Worlds

1. Umwelt: The biological world that includes all living things including humans.

2. Mitwelt: The world where man is in contact with other people.

3. Eigenwelt: The world of human subjective perceptions and interpretations.

7- Time

There is a problem in the relationship of schizophrenia patients over time. Accordingly, patients are so trapped in the present that they can expect something that will not happen every day. This situation, which is also seen in depression and sadness, can be expressed as the inability to perceiving beyond the present time and to be drawn into the vortex of the moment. However, when one can think of the good times of the past or the good possibilities of the future, he can get rid of the moment / so he can get rid of grief greatly and become something better.