Existentialism

Existentialism is not a method but a vision, a perceptual resolution of the human world into raw essentials.

Against this we have an opposing tendency: "Human kind cannot bear very much reality."

I want to look at existentialism under two categories though it belongs with neither of them. It belongs properly, perhaps, in the field of religion, but it is to be met with in philosophy and psychology.

Existentialism is both philosophy in a special sense and a valency. This doesn't quite coincide with theory and practice but it may be a helpful division into two parts.

Wittgenstein remarked that the purpose of philosophy was to show "the fly the way out of the fly-bottle." Though not a fashionable definition this should satisfy the existentialist that we deal with problems upon whose issue much depends.

Totally unfashionable would be the definition given by Marcus Aurelius:

To be a philosopher is to keep unsullied and unscathed the divine spirit within him.

This serves to restore a balance, in favour of the historic concerns of the search for wisdom, after the twentieth century's discovery of linguistic criticism.

Those who know Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy, or the shorter Wisdom of the West, will remember his great difficulty in focusing on (French) Existentialism as a form of philosophy at all.

Existentialism is not in itself any kind of goal of thought, or final destination: it is more like a station on the way, or perhaps a station waiting room.

It does not seem to be a position on which one takes a stand, affording a basis for unity with others of like persuasion. It is no vehicle for agreement. On the contrary, one may be locked in opposition, as for example the Christian existentialist with the Marxist existentialist.

Let us say that existentialism is a set of answers to certain philosophical problems when these are understood as the problems you must live with whether you are a philosopher or not. These are not conceptual problems but problems of living.

It takes me perhaps half of my life to reach the conclusion: I am alive. Most of the rest of my life passes before I recognize: I shall die.

There is also the problem of reaching a basis for a relationship to "Thou" - to the other person.

Such questions do not elicit 'answers' from people. The answers lie in what the questions do to people.

From my primitive memories of the 0-level chemistry syllabus I recall that valency describes the capacity of an element to combine with another.

Let us look at how this viewpoint combines with certain others, and at some of the practical consequences of such a viewpoint.

Existentialism has as much to say about the approaches to therapy as about the therapy itself. This is the therapy of backstage, of the staff room, of what you are left with when it's all over, of what you set out with.

One should not pretend that one doesn't exist, in the interest either of slick professionalism or scientific detachment. There is no science without the activity of scientists. Objectivity becomes much easier in the relaxation that sets in when one acknowledges one's own part.

The particular dilemma thus effectively solved has two well-known horns. The horn of detachment aspires to a purist methodology. On the other horn one must flounder around in an infinite flux of alternative realities. This is no better, and denies that one's self is real, and that there is such a thing as truth. (In actuality each one of us lives as if truth exists, no matter what lip-service one pays to ingenious relativistic ideas.)

Objectivity is not the product of methodological purity; in other words, is not the sorcerer's hat to be put on to make the apprentice temporarily something he isn't. Objectivity comes as a change of personality in the course of emancipation from the claims of the ego.

To the long-standing paradox, which has always fascinated me, of the participant-observer I should like to add another: detachment-through- involvement.

An initial position in therapy comes from an interest in "What is happening?" and "What do I do about it?" (diagnosis leading to action). But often action comes to consist in being with your client, listening searchingly (there is a special loss of self involved in listening), and thereafter simply knowing about this story, and bearing this knowledge. Thus one's presence - or those features of one's self over which one has no control - is what is effective. Healing occurs elusively, incidentally. To our chagrin we often don't