The Internal Diversity of the Existential Approach

The existential approach on the other hand is more problematic to define, but nevertheless, retains definite contours as a movement. Much of this chapter draws on the practitioners who have drawn on existential thinking in the development of therapeutic practice, but it could be argued that there is no single “existential psychotherapy” as such, and hence reviews of the field have taken to referring to the existential therapies (Cooper, 2003). Furthermore, existentially influenced practitioners are increasingly stretching their influence into areas of workplace coaching, supervision, and organizational development (e.g., Langdridge, 2012; Spinelli, 2010; van Deurzen & Hanaway 2012; van Deurzen & Young, 2009). The existential influence in psychology is broader than just psychotherapy; nevertheless, several features unify the spectrum of those who presume to call their therapeutic practice existential.

Primarily existential practitioners are philosophical in orientation (van Deurzen-Smith, 1984). They are interested in the ways in which a person's understanding of life influences and constructs his or her quality of living. In doing so they therefore draw on a rich philosophical background, biased most notably, but not exclusively, toward the mid-20th century “existentialists.” Ironically, very few of them were willing to be called by that name, but the term is widely accepted to include Martin Buber, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, to name but a few of them. According to Warnock (1970), the common interest that unites these philosophers is the interest in human freedom:

For Existentialists the problem of freedom is in a sense a practical problem. They aim above all, to show people that they are free, to open their eyes to something which has always been true, but which for one reason or another may not always have been recognized, namely that men are free to choose, not only what to do on a specific occasion, but what to value and how to live. (Warnock, 1970, pp. 1–2)

This boom in existential thinking in the 1940s and 50s was anticipated by earlier thinkers such as Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855), and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900). And they in turn reached further back to other philosophers of existential inclination (Plato, Aristotle, Saint Augustine, among others). What these earlier philosophers held in common with their 20th-century counterparts, and contemporary existential psychotherapists, was a thoughtful approach to the matters of everyday life.

From Socrates to Sartre and ever since, therefore, existential thinkers are concerned with how life is to be lived well. Their writings are therefore overtly psychotherapeutic, a theme developed by van Deurzen (1998) in contending that the etymology of the word psychotherapy leads to a literal translation of care for the soul, “for in ancient Greek the noun psyche means soul or life force and the verb therapeuo means to care for or to serve…to the notion of caring or looking after” (p. 134). Existential thinkers write and speak to challenge their audience, to change and awaken them. They address us directly about our “existence,” that is, the way in which we (you and I) as human beings emerge, stand out, and take responsibility for our living.

This chapter therefore draws from across the range of contemporary existential thought and therapy. While the author is most influenced by the ever-broadening British school of existential therapy (Adams, 2013; Langdridge, 2013; Spinelli, 2007; van Deurzen, 2012), the term existential approach will be used to denote concepts or practices derived from theorists and therapists from the existential tradition in its broadest sense.

The Diffuse Influence of Existential Thinking

There is a further reason, however, beyond its wide-ranging internal diversity, that makes a definition of the existential approach difficult to pin down: the surprisingly large swath of its influence in modern therapeutic psychology. It was once said of Carl Rogers that his impact on the fields of psychology, psychotherapy, education, and human relations could be variously described as “momentous, persuasive, indirect or elusive” (Thorne, 2003, p. 44). The same could be said of existential thinking; its influence is ubiquitous in therapeutic psychology, but often anonymous.

First, there are numerous instances in which existential therapy, rather than standing alone, has been merged with other therapeutic approaches. Perhaps the first example of such occurred in 1929 when Ludwig Binswanger, a psychiatrist and lifelong friend of Sigmund Freud, first met Martin Heidegger and initiated the development of an approach designed to analyze a person's existential position via psychoanalytic methodology (Cohn, 2002). Three decades later, R. D. Laing's (1960) infamous early phenomenology of schizophrenia drew on a creative synthesis of existential concepts and developmental psychology (Laing, 1960; Laing & Esterson, 1964), and subsequently paved the way for contemporary psychological understandings of psychosis (Bentall, 2004). In the United States, the existential approach to psychotherapy achieved prominence largely due to the impressive translation into English, overseen by Rollo May, of various European scholars such as Binswanger (May, Angel, & Ellenberger, 1958). The explicitly labeled “existential psychotherapy” of May (1983) and Irvin Yalom (1980) integrated the influence of psychodynamic and humanistic psychotherapy with existential insight. Yalom drew attention to the collaborative potential of the existential approach in referring to it as the “off the record…throw-ins” (Yalom, 1980, p. 4) that made therapy work. His belief was that “the vast majority of experienced therapists, regardless of their adherence to some other ideological school, employ many of the existential insights I shall describe” (Yalom, 1980, p. 5).

Yalom's assertion is further borne out by an examination of the numerous approaches that carry existential assumptions implicitly without necessarily taking an existential title. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the close association of existential psychotherapy with the humanistic perspective (Sanders, 2012), Carl Rogers expressed his indebtedness to existential thought in noting “how accurately the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard pictured the dilemma of the individual more than a century ago, with keen psychological insight” (Rogers, 1961, p. 110), and how in Kierkegaard he found “deep insights and convictions which beautifully express views I have held but never been able to formulate” (p. 199). Aaron Beck, referring to the origination of cognitive therapy, acknowledged that European existential-phenomenological psychiatry had “substantially influenced the development of modern psychology in this group of psychotherapies” (Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979, p. 9). In addition, anyone schooled in existential thought would quickly recognize the phenomenology of awareness presented in Fritz Perls's introduction to Gestalt psychotherapy (Perls, Hefferline, & Goodman, 1951). Although these approaches may not be labeled existential as such, they nevertheless bear the mark, and thereby testify to the enormous but subtle influence of existential thinking on therapeutic psychology.

What is perhaps even more pertinent in the present context, however, is a similarly pronounced existential influence evident in positive psychology. Many prominent foci of the positive psychology movement are knowingly influenced by existential thinking. An example is the research conducted by Emmons and his collaborators. It is suffused with existential philosophy and insight. His work on strivings in human personality borrows the term “ultimate concerns” from existential theologian Paul Tillich (1957), and he even goes as far as to state that the central theme of the work can be summed up by this concept (Emmons, 1999). Similarly, his extensive research on gratitude acknowledges Heidegger's equivalence of “thinking” with “thanking” as an indication that gratitude “is not for the intellectually lethargic” (Emmons, 2007, p. 5).

Other areas of positive psychology also liberally draw on sources in the existential canon. From its outset, the posttraumatic growth literature has recognized existential themes in both theory and therapeutic outcome (Tedeschi, Park, & Calhoun, 1998; see also Tedeschi, Calhoun, & Groleau, Chapter 30, this volume), and one state-of-the-art volume on the subject quotes Nietzsche in its title (Joseph, 2011). Even more fundamentally, the continual dialogue in positive psychology circles concerning the relative costs and benefits of hedonic versus eudaimonic well-being (e.g., Biswas-Diener, Kashdan, & King, 2009; Kopperud & Vittersø, 2008; Vittersø & Søholt, 2011; Waterman, 2008; see also Huta, Chapter 10, this volume) mirrors a similarly vibrant discussion within the existential literature (van Deurzen, 2009).

It is therefore not the vagueness of the existential approach that makes it difficult to define, but rather the pervasive subtlety of its influence in psychology. Far from being absent from positive psychology, existential thinking can be found everywhere therein, and that is a good thing. Indeed, this chapter contends that paying greater attention to the existential dimensions of positive psychology enriches, expands, and deepens the field.

The Existential Emphasis on Tragedy

Nevertheless, in spite of the conceptual interpenetration of these respective approaches, we should anticipate some objections to the notion that existential psychotherapy in its fullest sense has much to offer the field of positive psychology, not the least of which would be the dour reputation of existentialism. Whereas positive psychology has addressed itself to the happy, good, and meaningful life, existential therapy has stressed the bleaker side of life, summed up in Yalom's (1980) four ultimate concerns of death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness. It has sometimes been argued that, in addressing the more unpalatable domains of human living, existential thinkers and therapists have in some way magnified, exacerbated, and perhaps even celebrated the suffering involved, leading one commentator to quip that this “is what earns existentialism its reputation for being depressive, despairing, and despondent [It] certainly attracts such personality types and often makes them worse” (Marinoff, 2003, p. 35). It was perhaps for good reason that Tillich (1952) dubbed existentialism “the courage to despair.” But he did not stop there; he called it “the courage to…despair…and to resist the radical threat of nonbeing by the courage to be as oneself” (Tillich, 1952, p. 140)—the courage to affirm oneself in the face of, and in spite of, despair.

It is a caricature to suggest that the existential approach is entirely gloomy. Among existential thinkers there are both optimistic and pessimistic inflections. In the domain of human relationships, for example, Sartre (1943) advocated a radically pessimistic view that arguably makes true human community nigh impossible, but others such as Martin Buber (1937, 1947) and Gabriel Marcel (1950, 1964) advocated more hopeful models of connection and commitment. Similar alternative positions can also be identified among existential thinkers as to whether meaning in life is found or created. In existential psychotherapy, this ambiguity is acknowledged by Yalom (1980) in naming his set of ultimate concerns; they could easily have been named in a more positive light. An existential approach is therefore not unanimously pessimistic, but neither is it avoidant of the tragic dimension of existence. On another occasion, Yalom (1989) phrased it as follows: “So much wanting. So much longing. And so much pain, so close to the surface, only minutes deep. Destiny pain. Existence pain. Pain that is always there, whirring continuously just beneath the membrane of life” (p. 3). It is therefore one of the contentions of existential thinking, and a fundamental tenet of its therapeutic practice, that directly facing the less glittering aspects of life can be a source of passion and courage in living. In writing of the sometimes painful process involved in this confrontation, May (1989) wrote that the client “should ordinarily go out more courageous after the interview, but courageous with the painful realization that his or her personality must be transformed. If the counseling has been more than superficial, he or she will feel shaken and probably unhappy” (p. 124). The existential approach suggests that a positive psychology can be found by exploring the difficulties of human living, not by avoiding them. This is not foreign territory for positive psychology; much of the psychology of hope (Snyder, 2000; see also Magyar-Moe & Lopez, Chapter 29, this volume), gratitude (Emmons & McCullough, 2004; see also Bono, Krakauer, & Froh, Chapter 33, this volume), and forgiveness (McCullough, Pargament, & Thoresen, 2001; see also Fincham, Chapter 38, this volume), for example, resonate with similar notions of human magnificence in the face of adverse circumstances. Positive psychology knows a thing or two about dealing with the darker side of life, an insight eminently compatible with an existential perspective.

Methodological Incompatibility

Perhaps a more fundamental objection to the confluence of positive psychology and existential thought lies in the perceived methodological differences that characterize the two fields. Positive psychology methodologically belongs to mainstream psychology, preferring empirical scientific methodology to establish the credibility of its field (Seligman, 2003). Existential psychotherapy on the other hand has historically preferred to analyze human existence by phenomenological methods and reflective practice, sometimes referred to as discovery-oriented research (Mahrer & Boulet, 2004).

This distinction, however, runs the risk of caricaturing both movements. Positive psychology embraces numerous phenomenological and hermeneutic research ventures (e.g., Krause, Evans, Powers, & Hayward, 2012), and existential research, although continuing to encourage phenomenological approaches, has broadened into a wider range of methodologies in recent years. Existential psychotherapists are prominent in researching therapeutic practice in the United Kingdom (Cooper, 2008), and several introductory texts include reviews of relevant empirical literature from mainstream psychology (Jacobsen, 2008; Langdridge, 2013). Furthermore, there is an increasing range of empirical psychology that addresses issues familiar to the existential tradition, such as death anxiety under the remit of terror management theory (TMT; Greenberg &Arndt, 2011), and several empirically based volumes on the human quest for meaning (Baumeister, 1991; Wong, 2012). The apparent methodological gulf between existentially informed research and positive psychology is therefore not as wide as initially perceived.

Related to this there is also a perceived difficulty in operationalizing what advocates of existential therapy actually do. Positive psychology tends to be attentive to the kind of predictable, replicable results that lend themselves to the design of technical interventions. Positive psychologists are not cautious about adapting their findings into short instructional manuals, a good recent example being the 21-day “emotional prosperity” program developed on the basis of gratitude research (Emmons, 2013). In contradistinction, existential psychotherapy is ambivalent about the notion of objectivized techniques. It is chary of alienating a person from his or her lived experience by the prescription of a set of objectivized skills, and it suspects that a technical approach to therapy may somehow violate the way in which the client chooses to emerge in the session (Cohn, 2002).

Nevertheless, there are several examples of existential therapists working hard to put what they do into words without necessarily naming them techniques as such. From the outset, Yalom (1980) adopted a practical onus in his elaboration of the approach and more recently condensed his profound therapeutic insight into a series of pithy chapters for would-be therapists (Yalom, 2009). Even practitioners in the British school, while acknowledging the inherent ambiguity therein, have creatively framed the practice of existential psychotherapy in terms of the skills involved (van Deurzen & Adams, 2010). It may be difficult to put what existential practitioners do into words, but it is not impossible, and this possibility clears the way for further consideration of the contribution of existential thought to positive psychological practice.

Positive Psychology and Existential Thought in Practical Collaboration

The gap between theory and practice, so it is said, is much greater in practice than it is in theory. Largely due to their investment in figuring out everyday concerns, existential thinkers have abjured any clear-cut division between the theoretical and the practical. Their writings are littered with references to the sheer practicality of good thinking. Sartre rhapsodized that “the truth drags through the streets” (cited in Kearney, 1994, p. 3) and Kierkegaard (1849/1989) insisted that his writing was “like a physician's lecture beside the sick bed” (p. 35), delivered with the aim of assisting the patient. In other words, their philosophy was intended to be lived. This section addresses some specific ways in which an existential approach can collaborate with positive psychology in practice, with special reference to the burgeoning psychology of character strengths and virtues.

Conclusion

The existential approach, therefore, although not being a positive psychology as such, demonstrates a variety of overlapping concerns with the movement of positive psychology. It arguably has a deep awareness of its own roots in human history and can therefore act as one of the many voices that prevent positive psychology from becoming superficial psychology. Its huge stress on human freedom also maintains the notion that living the good life is a choice that cannot be coerced, and therefore stands against any sense of the good life becoming a proscribed oppressive demand. In short, whereas the existential approach is not positive psychology, positive psychology in its most dynamic forms is almost always to some extent existential.

Summary Points

• Taking an existential perspective can be exceptionally fruitful for both the theory and practice of positive psychology.
• Contrary to popular opinion, the existential approach is not inherently pessimistic, nor is it methodologically irreconcilable with positive psychology.
• Positive psychology is already existential; it frequently draws on existential thinkers, themes, and terminology.
• Recognizing and acknowledging this existential emphasis can add depth and clarity to various aspects of positive psychology.
• The psychology of strengths and virtues offers a major area of mutual interest for both positive psychology and existential thinking.
• Although endorsing the study of virtue in psychology, the existential perspective would be critical of separating virtuous traits too far from their original historical and philosophical context.
• The existential approach is not averse to using philosophical history in a therapeutic manner to inspire the development of similar virtue in people today.
• An existential approach can therefore make a considerable positive contribution in various therapeutic and workplace contexts, including individual and couple psychotherapy.
• By emphasizing philosophical rigor, the existential approach acts as one of the many voices that prevent positive psychology from becoming superficial psychology.

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