After a hesitant start, May gets untracked and gives a brisk, clear
popular introduction to existential psychology/psychotherapy. In
the briefest terms, EP subordinates all human psychodynamics and
therapeutic techniques to the "ontological context," the openended
encounter between existing persons. At the center of EP lies the
Heideggerian notion of Dasein (being-there), a free but death-bound
agent dwelling simultaneously in three nested spheres, the
Eigenwelt (inner world of the self), the Mitwelt (interpersonal
relations), and Umwelt (total environment). May's complaint against
Freud, and others whom he considers reductive thinkers, is that
they imprison the individual within the objectified, deterministic
structures of the Umwelt and so never do justice to the properly
human - though admittedly elusive - realm of subjectivity. Thus the
ego as psychoanalysis sees it is "weak, passive, and derived," at
times a mere epiphenomenon of the id. EP, by contrast, looks to the
experience of being, to the primeval, transcendent, irreducible
utterance of "I am" as the ground of everything that happens in the
mind. Materialistic psychologies equate the person with his or her
past, which must then be understood and exorcised before the
patient can proceed with normal, healthy living. EP argues that the
present and the future (one's existential commitments) shape the
past by deciding what features of that past a person can recall and
use, consciously or unconsciously, as motivating forces. May puts
EP in historical perspective with surveys of the thought of
Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and thumbnail sketches of Heidegger,
Husserl, Binswanger, etc. He acknowledges that EP's metaphysical
bias runs against America's Anglo-Saxon empirical grain, but he
makes a good case for it as a pragmatically broad and flexible
method. Despite some careless writing here and there, a solid,
stimulating presentation. (Kirkus Reviews)
"Clear, accurate, and interesting. There is no better short introduction to the existential approach to psychology." —Dallas Morning News Rollo May draws on the insights of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud, and other great thinkers to offer a helpful roadmap of the ideas and techniques of existential psychotherapy. He pays particular attention to the causes of loneliness and isolation, and to our search for stability in an age of anxiety.
"A brisk, clear, popular introduction to existential psychology/psychotherapy. . . [Rollo May] makes a good case for it as a pragmatically broad and flexible method. . . . A solid, stimulating presentation." —Kirkus Reviews
"With his vision of what man can be, Rollo May is the man of tomorrow. . . . For many years he has been one of psychology's persistent pioneers." — Psychology Today
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