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Rollo May, no doubt, can be called one of the key figures not only in American but also in world psychology. Until his death in 1994, he was one of the leading existential psychologists in the United States. Over the past half century, this trend, whose roots go back to the philosophy of Seren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre and other major European thinkers of the second half of the XIX and the first half of the 20th century, spread widely around the world. Existential psychology holds the view that people are largely responsible for who they are. Existence is given precedence over essence, growth and change are considered more important than stable and immovable characteristics, the process takes precedence over the result.

During his years as a psychotherapist, May developed a new concept of the human. His approach relied more on clinical experimentation than on armchair theory. A person, from the point of view of May, lives in the present, what is important for him first of all is what is happening here and now. In this one true reality, man shapes himself and is responsible for who he ultimately becomes. Insightful insights into the nature of human existence, which receive convincing confirmation in the course of further analysis, contributed to May's popularity not only among professional psychologists, but also among the general public. And it's not just that. May's works are distinguished by the simplicity and depth of the main provisions, cultivating a healthy pragmatism and rationality in the behavior of a particular individual.

Thinking about the fundamental differences between a mentally healthy, full-fledged person and a sick person, May came to the following conclusions. Many people, he believed, lacked the courage to face their destiny. Attempts to avoid such a collision lead to the fact that they sacrifice most of their freedom and try to avoid responsibility, declaring the initial lack of freedom of their actions. Unwilling to make a choice, they lose the ability to see themselves as they really are, and are imbued with a sense of their own insignificance and alienation from the world. Healthy people, on the other hand, challenge their destiny, value and protect their freedom, and live authentic lives that are honest with themselves and others. They are aware of the inevitability of death, but they have the courage to live in the present.

Biographical digression

Rollo Reese May was born April 21, 1909 in Ada, Ohio. He was the eldest of six children of Earl Title May and Matthew Bouton May. None of the parents had a good education and did not care about providing their children with favorable conditions for intellectual development. Rather the opposite. For example, when a few years after the birth of Rollo, his older sister began to suffer from psychosis, the father attributed this to the fact that she studied too much, in his opinion.

At an early age, Rollo moved with his family to Marin City, Michigan, where he spent most of his childhood. It cannot be said that the boy had a warm relationship with his parents, who often quarreled and eventually parted. May's father, being the secretary of the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association), constantly moved with his family from place to place. The mother, in turn, cared little about the children, paying more attention to her personal life: in her later memoirs, May calls her "a cat without brakes." May is inclined to consider both of his unsuccessful marriages the result of the unpredictable behavior of his mother and the mental illness of his sister.

Little Rollo repeatedly managed to experience the feeling of unity with wildlife. As a child, he often retired and rested from family quarrels, playing on the banks of the St. Clair River. The river became his friend, a quiet, serene corner where he could swim in summer and skate in winter. Later, the scientist claimed that the games on the river bank gave him much more knowledge than the school classes in Marin City. Even in his youth, May became interested in literature and art, and since then this interest has never left him. He entered one of the colleges at the University of Michigan, where he majored in English. Shortly after May took over the radical student magazine, he was asked to leave the school. May transferred to Oberlin College in Ohio and received his bachelor's degree there in 1930.

Over the next three years, May traveled throughout eastern and southern Europe, painting and studying folk art. The formal reason for the trip to Europe was an invitation to the position of an English teacher at Anatolia College, located in Greece, in Thessaloniki. This work left May enough time for painting, and he managed to visit Turkey, Poland, Austria and other countries as a free artist. However, in the second year of his wanderings, Mei suddenly felt very lonely. Trying to get rid of this feeling, he plunged headlong into teaching, but this did little to help: the further, the more stressful and less effective the work being done became.

“Finally, in the spring of this second year, I had, figuratively speaking, a nervous breakdown. It meant that the rules, the principles, the values ​​that I used to go by in my work and in my life, simply no longer worked. I felt so exhausted that I had to lie in bed for two weeks to recuperate and continue to work as a teacher. In college, I got enough psychological knowledge to understand that these symptoms mean that there is something wrong with my whole way of living. I had to find some new goals and objectives in life and reconsider the strict, moralistic principles of my existence” (May, 1985, p. 8).

From that moment, Mei began to listen to his inner voice, which, as it turned out, spoke about the unusual - about the soul and beauty. “It looked as if this voice needed to destroy my entire previous lifestyle in order to be heard” (May, 1985, p. 13).

Along with the nervous crisis, another important event contributed to the revision of life attitudes, namely, participation in 1932 in the summer seminar of Alfred Adler, held in a mountain resort town near Vienna. May was fascinated by Adler and managed to learn a lot about human nature and about himself during the seminar.

Returning to the United States in 1933, May entered the seminary of the Theological Society, not to become a priest, but to find answers to basic questions about nature and man, questions in which religion plays a significant role. While studying at the seminary of the Theological Society, May met the famous theologian and philosopher Paul Tillich, who had fled Nazi Germany and continued his academic career in America. May learned a lot from Tillich, they became friends and remained so for more than thirty years.

Although May did not initially seek to devote himself to the spiritual field, in 1938, after receiving a master's degree in divinity, he was ordained a priest in the Congregational Church. May served as a pastor for two years, but very quickly became disillusioned and, considering this path a dead end, left the bosom of the church and began to look for answers to the questions that tormented him in science. May studied psychoanalysis at the William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology while working at New York City College as a counseling psychologist. Then he met Harry Stack Sullivan, president and co-founder of the William Alenson White Institute. May was deeply impressed by Sullivan's view of the therapist as a cooperative observer and of the therapeutic process as an exciting adventure that could enrich both patient and therapist. Another important event that determined May's development as a psychologist was his acquaintance with Erich Fromm, who by that time had already firmly established himself in the United States.

May opened his own private practice in 1946; and two years later joined the faculty of the William Alanson White Institute. In 1949, at the mature age of forty, he received his first doctorate in clinical psychology from Columbia University and continued to teach psychiatry at the William Alanson White Institute until 1974.

Perhaps May would have remained one of the thousands of unknown psychotherapists, but he experienced the same life-changing existential event that Jean Paul Sartre wrote about. Even before receiving his doctorate, May experienced the most profound shock of his life. In his early thirties, he contracted tuberculosis and spent three years in a sanitarium in Saranac, upstate New York. There were no effective treatments for tuberculosis at that time, and for a year and a half May did not know if he was destined to survive. The consciousness of the complete impossibility to resist a serious illness, the fear of death, the painful expectation of a monthly x-ray examination, each time meaning either a sentence or an extension of the wait - all this slowly undermined the will, lulled the instinct of the struggle for existence. Realizing that all these seemingly completely natural mental reactions harm the body no less than physical torment, May began to develop a view of the disease as part of his being in this period of time. He realized that a helpless and passive attitude contributes to the development of the disease. Looking around, May saw that the sick who resigned themselves to their situation were fading before his eyes, while those who struggled usually recovered. It is on the basis of her own experience of fighting the disease that May concludes that the individual needs to actively intervene in the "order of things" and his own destiny.

“Until I had developed some sort of 'struggle', some sense of personal responsibility for being the one who had TB, I could not make any lasting progress” (May, 1972, p. 14) .

At the same time, he made another important discovery, which May then successfully used in psychotherapy. When he learned to listen to his body, he discovered that healing is not a passive but an active process. A person affected by a physical or mental illness should be an active participant in the healing process. May finally established himself in this opinion after his recovery, and some time later he began to introduce this principle into his clinical practice, cultivating in patients the ability to analyze themselves and correct the doctor's actions.

Having become interested in the phenomena of fear and anxiety during his illness, May began to study the works of the classics - Freud and Kierkegaard at the same time [Soren Kierkegaard is one of the most mysterious and attractive thinkers of the second half of the 19th century. His ideas were not fully accepted by his contemporaries, brought up on the mundane progressivism of "positive" knowledge, as they opened a new page in the book of European culture and sowed the seeds of a tragic doubt about the rationality and stability of the world order. For the first time after a long break, Kierkegaard reminded man of the paradox, almost the "impossibility" of his existence, of the necessity of evil, with resistance to which morality begins. See more below, and also: Kierkegaard S. Fear and Trembling. M., 1993. About him: Shestov L. Kirkegaard and existential philosophy. St. Petersburg, 1908; The World of Kierkegaard: A Collection of Papers. M., 1994.], the great Danish philosopher and theologian, a direct predecessor of existentialism of the XX century. May highly valued Freud, but Kierkegaard's concept of anxiety as a struggle against non-existence touched him more deeply.

Shortly after returning from the sanitarium, May wrote down his thoughts on anxiety in the form of a doctoral dissertation and published it under the title The Meaning of Anxiety ( The Meaning of Anxiety, May, 1950). Three years later he wrote the book Man in Search of Himself ( Man's Search for Himself, May, 1953), which brought him fame both in professional circles and just among educated people. In 1958, with Ernest Angel and Henry Ellenberger, he published Existence: A New Dimension in Psychiatry and Psychology. Existence: A New Dimension in Psychiatry and Psychology). This book introduced American psychotherapists to the basic concepts of existential therapy, and after its appearance, the existentialist movement became even more popular. May's most famous work is "Love and Will" ( love and will, 1969 b) became a national best-seller and won the 1970 Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize for erudition in the human sciences. In 1971, May received the American Psychological Association Award "for outstanding contributions to the theory and practice of clinical psychology." In 1972, the New York Society of Clinical Psychologists awarded him the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for the book "Power and Innocence" ( Power and Innocence, 1972), and in 1987 he received the Gold Medal of the Association of American Psychologists "for outstanding work in the field of occupational psychology during a lifetime."

May has lectured at Harvard and Princeton, taught at various times at Yale and Columbia Universities, at Dartmouth, Vassar, and Oberlin Colleges, and at the New School for Social Research. He was an adjunct professor at New York University, chairman of the Council of the Existential Psychology Association, and a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Foundation for Mental Health. In 1969, May divorced his first wife, Florence De Vries, with whom they lived together for 30 years. Marriage to his second wife, Ingrid Kepler Scholl, also ended in divorce, after which, in 1988, he connected his life with Georgia Lee Miller, a Jungian analyst. On October 22, 1994, after a long illness, May died in Tiburon, California, where he had lived since 1975.

For many years, May was the recognized leader of American existential psychology, who advocated its popularization, but sharply opposed the desire of some colleagues for anti-scientific, overly simplistic constructions. He criticized any attempt to present existential psychology as teaching accessible methods of self-realization of the individual. A healthy and full-fledged personality is the result of intense inner work aimed at revealing the unconscious basis of existence and its mechanisms. By focusing on the process of self-knowledge, May in his own way continues the tradition of Platonic philosophy.

Fundamentals of existentialism

Existential psychology originates in the works of Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), a Danish philosopher and theologian. Kierkegaard was extremely concerned about the growing tendency to dehumanize man before his eyes. He strongly disagreed with the fact that people can be perceived and described as some kind of objects, thereby reducing them to the level of things. At the same time, he was far from assigning to subjective perception the property of the only reality accessible to man. For Kierkegaard, there was no rigid boundary between the subject and the object, as well as between the inner experiences of a person and those who experience them, because at any given moment in time, a person involuntarily identifies himself with his experiences. Kierkegaard sought to understand people as they live inside their reality, that is, as thinking, acting, willed beings. As May wrote: "Kierkegaard tried to bridge the gap between reason and feeling by drawing people's attention to the reality of direct experience, which underlies both objective and subjective realities" (1967, p. 67).

Kierkegaard, like later philosophers of existentialism, emphasized the equilibrium freedom and responsibility. People gain freedom of action through the expansion of self-awareness and the subsequent acceptance of responsibility for their actions. However, a person pays for his freedom and responsibility with a feeling of anxiety. As soon as he finally realizes anxiety as an inevitability, he becomes the master of his fate, bears the burden of freedom and experiences the pain of responsibility.

The views of Kierkegaard, who died in obscurity at the age of 42, significantly influenced two German philosophers - Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and Martin Heidegger (1899-1976), the first of whom outlined the main directions in the philosophy of the 20th century, and the second actually outlined the boundaries her competencies. The importance of these thinkers for contemporary humanitarian thought can hardly be overestimated. Among other merits, they own the copyright for the formation and development of existential philosophy exactly in the form in which it entered the circle of the main directions of modern intellectual history. With regard to the narrower field of psychology, Heidegger's writings had a great impact on the views of the Swiss psychiatrists Ludwig Binswanger and Medard Boss. Along with Karl Jaspers and Viktor Frankl, they made unsuccessful attempts to adapt the provisions of existential psychology to clinical psychotherapy.

Existentialism has penetrated into modern artistic practice thanks to the works of influential French writers and essayists - Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, with whose names the movement under consideration is often associated in the first place. Existentialism has made a large and varied contribution to recent theology and religious philosophy: the work of Martin Buber, Paul Tillich and others has already become one of the most influential in this field. Finally, the art world was also partly influenced by the existentialist complex of ideas, reflected in the work of Cezanne, Matisse and Picasso, who abandoned the restrictive standards of realistic style and tried to express the freedom of being in the language of their bizarre non-objectivity.

The first existentialists among psychologists and psychotherapists also began to appear in Europe. Ludwig Binswanger, Medard Boss, Victor Francl belong to the largest figures.

After the Second World War, European existentialism in all its various forms spread to the United States and became an even more vague concept, since it was raised to the shield by a very heterogeneous near-philosophical public, consisting of writers and artists, professors and college students, playwrights and clergymen, even journalists and secular wits. The number of followers, each of whom had his own understanding of the essence of the doctrine, reached such a level that it began to threaten the existence of existentialism as such. Recently, existentialism has lost its former popularity, which clearly benefited it, paradoxically strengthening its position both in philosophy and in related fields.

Principles of existentialism

Despite the continuing abundance of various interpretations of the concept of "existentialism", among them one can single out some common features inherent in all representatives of this trend without exception.

First, it is the idea that Existence(existence) preceded entities(essence). Existence means appearance and becoming, while essence means static matter that is not capable of changing on its own. Existence presupposes a process, essence refers to the final product. Existence is associated with growth and change, essence marks static and exhaustion. Western civilization, backed by the authority of science, has traditionally valued essence over existence. She tried to explain the surrounding world, including man, from the standpoint of his unchanging essence. Existentialists, on the other hand, argue that the essence of human beings lies in their ability to continually redefine themselves through the choices they make.

Secondly, existentialism does not recognize the gap between subject and object. May defined existentialism as "a persistent attempt to understand a person, expanding the field of his study beyond the line along which the crack between subject and object runs"(1958b, p. 11). We have already mentioned that Kierkegaard was skeptical about considering the person solely as a thinking subject. Quoting Kierkegaard, May wrote: "Only such a truth really exists for a person, which he himself produces by his actions." In other words, it is useless to seek the truth sitting at a desk; it can be known only by honestly accepting all the diversity of true life. At the same time, Kierkegaard did not support those who tried to make people only faceless objects, like machines. Each person is unique, and one cannot see in him only a cog in the mechanism of an industrial society.

Thirdly, people are looking for the meaning of their lives. They ask themselves (although not always consciously) the most important questions about being. Who am I? Is life worth living? Does it make sense? How can I fulfill my human calling? The propensity, if not to systematic reflection on this subject, then at least to the experience of such problems, is one of the universal properties of human nature.

Fourth, existentialists hold the view that each of us is primarily responsible for what he is and what he becomes. We cannot blame parents, teachers, superiors, God, or circumstances. As Sartre said, “Man is nothing but what he makes of himself. This is the first principle of existentialism." Although we are able to connect with others, connect with each other, and build productive and healthy relationships, ultimately each of us is alone at heart. We cannot freely choose our destiny, having only a chance to bring together the abstract “I can” with the concrete “I want”. At the same time, even disclaiming responsibility and trying to avoid choice ends up being our own choice as well. We cannot get away from responsibility for our “I”, just as we cannot get away from ourselves.

Fifth, existentialists generally reject the principle explanations phenomena underlying all theoretical knowledge. In their opinion, all theories dehumanize people, portray them as mechanical objects, dismember the unity of the individual. Existentialists believe that direct experience always takes precedence over any artificial explanations. When experiences are melted down into some kind of supra-existent theoretical models, they are separated from the one who originally experienced them, and, therefore, lose their authenticity.

Before proceeding to the presentation of the psychological views of Rollo May, we will briefly consider the two main concepts that create the ideological framework of existentialism, namely - being-in-the-world and nothingness.

being-in-the-world

To explain the nature of man, existentialists adhere to the so-called phenomenological approach. [Phenomenology is a trend in philosophy that, along with existentialism, played an important role in changing the European intellectual landscape in the 20th century. The founder of phenomenology is traditionally called the German theorist of knowledge Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), who considered it his main task to expel any subjective psychologism from the process of cognition. The basic principle of phenomenology is expressed in the famous slogan "back to things", which Husserl formulated in his classic work "Ideas to Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy" (1913). The consciousness of the individual, poisoned by metaphysics, must be freed from the burden of other people's judgments and directed towards the object as such. Despite the apparent differences in the approach to the object and in the assessment of psychology as a tool of cognition, phenomenology and existentialism are closely related and correlate as models of scientific and artistic description of the same patterns. Significantly, it is Husserl's student Martin Heidegger, a thinker less methodical, but much more aesthetically gifted, that embodies the direct connection of these trends.] According to them, we live in a world that can best be understood from our own point of view. When dogmatic scientists view people from an “external” position with the help of a system of abstract constructions, they forcibly adjust the living, changing principle and its existential world to a convenient and, if possible, unambiguous theoretical framework. The basic concept of the unity of the individual and the environment is expressed by the German term Dasein, which means "to exist there" and which became widespread with the beginning of the wide popularity of its author - Martin Heidegger. Literally Dasein can mean "to exist in the world" and is usually translated as being-in-the-world. The hyphens in this term indicate the unity of subject and object, personality and world.

Many people suffer from anxiety and despair caused by self-alienation and indifference to their inner world. They do not have a clear idea of ​​themselves and feel separated from the world, which seems distant and alien to them, the category of Dasein as the awareness of their being in the world remains inaccessible to them. Striving for power over nature, a person loses touch with it: the original unity turns into a conflict, a state of endless war with oneself. When a person blindly relies on the products of the industrial revolution, he forgets about earth and sky, that is, about the only real context of his being. The loss of orientation in the living space and the automatism of existence lead to a gradual alienation from one's own body. Learning new details about oneself as an object of scientific analysis, a person loses the ability to control such a complex mechanism and begins to rely on outside help - be it technology, medicine or psychiatry. The body is at the mercy of those who have information about its structure and functions, while the owner of the body is deprived of the right to manage his life. There is a surrender of oneself to the power of another's consciousness, which leads first to spiritual, and then to physical death. Recall that Rollo May began to recover from tuberculosis only after he realized that he was the patient and no one else, and that the only way to survive was to return to himself, interrupting the lethargic serenity of self-alienation.

The feeling of isolation and self-alienation affects not only pathologically restless individuals, but practically all the inhabitants of modern Western-type society. Alienation is the disease of our time, which has at least three distinct features: 1) separation from nature; 2) lack of meaningful interpersonal relationships; 3) alienation from one's true self. In other words, the world in which being is carried out is divided into three coexisting hypostases. The first of these is Umwelt[Mei uses the concept Umwelt somewhat bypassing the established tradition of its use and interpretation, which requires a little commentary. concept Umwelt was first introduced into scientific circulation by I. V. Goethe, based on the considerations of I. Newton about the nature of the “environment” ( Circumambient medium). Later, T. Carlyle again translated the word Umwelt into English, this time denoting it as Environment and implying the totality of natural and cultural phenomena that make up the human environment. In the German tradition Umwelt acquired conceptual significance in the works of the biologist J. von Uexkul, who at the end of the last century argued that the “environment” is constructed in the mind of the individual as a kind of primary reality, in relation to which nature is a kind of symbolic derivative. Uexkül's ideas about the dependence of the image of nature on the cultural setting of the perceiver anticipated both the later theses of phenomenology and the conclusions of modern biosemiotics, which considers the adaptation of the organism and the environment as a two-way communicative process.], or the environment, the second is Mitwelt(literally: "together with the world"), or the structure of relationships with other people, and the third is Eigenwelt, or the structure of a person's internal relationship with himself.

Umwelt- it is a world of objects and things that exist independently of us. This is the world of nature and its laws, it includes our biological urges, such as hunger or the desire to sleep, and such natural phenomena as birth and death. We cannot completely isolate ourselves from this world and must learn to live in it and adapt to its changing structure. Umwelt- it is that invisible wholeness with which, in particular, classical psychoanalysis deals with the instinctive, unconscious level of reactions. However, as is known, most of these unconscious reactions are the result of the hidden work of consciousness, carried out against the will of the individual, but having a distinctly cultural, and not natural, origin. This is where the sector of mutual intersection of spheres is formed Umwelt and Mitwelt, between which it is sometimes difficult and completely pointless to draw a strict boundary. However, if our relations with others are not qualitatively different from our relations with things, we find ourselves locked in our Umwelt, which in this case turns into a field of exclusion. We must treat other people as people, not as things. If we treat people as inanimate objects, then we live exclusively in Umwelt. Significant differences between Umwelt and Mitwelt found when comparing sex and love. The use of the other as an instrument of sexual satisfaction or reproduction is opposed by responsibility and respect for the other person, readiness for its acceptance and forgiveness. At the same time, not every interaction in the world Mitwelt necessarily implies love. A more general condition is respect for Dasein another person. The theories of Sullivan and Rogers especially emphasize the importance of connection between people and deal mainly with Mitwelt.

Man's relationship with himself is Eigenwelt. Many areas of personality theory do not pay due attention to this world. Meanwhile live in Eigenwelt means to be aware of oneself as a human being and to understand that there is an “I” in relation to the world of things and people, that is, to raise one of the key issues discussed by psychological science.

Healthy people live in Umwelt,Mitwelt and Eigenwelt simultaneously. They are able to adapt to the natural world, interact with others as if they were their own kind, and are clearly aware of the value of their own experience.

Nothingness

Being-in-the-world necessarily evokes an understanding of oneself as a living being who has appeared in the world. On the other hand, such an understanding leads to the fear of non-existence or non-existence. May wrote about this:

“In order to grasp the meaning of his existence, a person must first grasp the fact that he may not exist, that every second he is on the verge of possible extinction and cannot ignore the inevitability of death, the occurrence of which cannot be programmed for the future” (1958a, pp. 47-48 ).

May said of death that it is “the only non-relative but absolute fact of our life, and my consciousness of this fact gives my existence and everything I do every hour the quality of absoluteness” (1958a, p. 49). Death is not only the road by which non-existence enters our life, it is also the most obvious thing. Life becomes more important, more significant in the face of possible death.

If we are not ready to face non-existence, calmly contemplating death, it manifests itself in many other ways. This includes alcohol and drug abuse, promiscuity and other types of compulsive behavior. Non-existence can also express itself in the blind adherence to the expectations of our environment, and in the general hostility that pervades our relationships with people.

Rollo May said: "We are afraid of non-existence and therefore we crumple our being." The fear of death often compels us to live in such a way that we constantly defend ourselves against it, thereby getting less out of life than we could get, calmly acknowledging the outcome of our non-existence. We avoid active choice because it is based on thinking about who we are and what we want. We try to get away from the fear of non-existence by clouding our self-consciousness and denying our individuality, but such a choice leaves us with a feeling of despair and emptiness. Thus, we avoid the threat of non-existence at the cost of narrowing the scope of our existence in the world. A healthier alternative is to face the inevitability of death and realize that non-existence is an inseparable part of being.

Anxiety

Before May published The Meaning of Anxiety in 1950, most theories held that high levels of anxiety indicated the presence of neurosis or some other form of psychopathology. Directly in the course of writing the book, May personally experienced constant anxiety about his future fate. Not sure of his recovery, he was also constantly weighed down by his disability, as well as the knowledge that his wife and young son were left without a livelihood. In The Meaning of Anxiety, May argued that the driving force behind human behavior in many cases is the feeling of fear or anxiety that appears in him every time the feeling of uncertainty, insecurity, and fragility of his being increases. The inability to recognize death helps to temporarily get rid of anxiety or fear of non-existence. But this deliverance cannot be permanent. Death is an unconditional component of our life, and, sooner or later, everyone will have to face it.

May defined anxiety as "the subjective state of a person who realizes that her existence can be destroyed, that she can become 'nothing'" (1958a, p. 50). We experience anxiety when we realize that our existence, or some of the values ​​identified with it, may be destroyed. In later work, he put forward another definition of anxiety - as a sense of threat aimed at values ​​that are important to a person. Anxiety, May wrote, is "fear caused by the threat to some values ​​that a person considers important for his existence as a person" (1967, p. 72).

So, anxiety can come both from the realization of the possibility of our non-existence, and from the threat to some vital values. It also arises when we encounter obstacles on the way to the realization of our plans and opportunities. This resistance can cause stagnation and decline, but it can also stimulate change and growth.

Freedom cannot exist without anxiety, just as anxiety cannot exist without the awareness of the possibility of freedom. Becoming more free, a person inevitably experiences anxiety. May quoted Kierkegaard as saying that "anxiety is the dizziness of freedom." Anxiety, like dizziness, can be both pleasant and painful, constructive and destructive. It can give us energy and zest for life, but it can also paralyze and panic us. Moreover, anxiety can be normal, so neurotic.

Normal anxiety

We live in an age of anxiety. None of us can escape its impact. To grow and redefine your values ​​is to experience normal or constructive anxiety. May defined normal anxiety as "proportionate to the threat, not causing suppression, which can be confronted constructively at a conscious level" (1967, p. 80).

As an individual grows and develops from infancy to old age, his values ​​change, and each time he climbs a new step, he experiences normal anxiety. “All growth consists in the abandonment of old values, which creates anxiety” (May, 1967, p. 80). Normal anxiety also comes in moments when the artist, scientist, philosopher suddenly achieve insight, the euphoria of which is accompanied by awe of the changes opening up in perspective. Thus, scientists who witnessed the first atomic bomb test in Alamogordo, New Mexico, experienced normal anxiety, realizing that from that moment the world had changed irreversibly.

Normal anxiety experienced during periods of growth or unpredictable change is common to everyone. It can be constructive as long as it remains proportionate to the threat. Otherwise, anxiety turns into painful, neurotic.

neurotic anxiety

May defined neurotic anxiety(neurotic anxiety) as "a reaction disproportionate to the threat, causing repression and other forms of intrapsychic conflict (intrapsychic conflict) and controlled by various forms of blocking (blocking-off) action and understanding" (1967, p. 80).

If normal anxiety is always felt when values ​​are threatened, then neurotic anxiety visits us if the questioned values ​​are in fact dogmas, the rejection of which will deprive our existence of the meaning. The need to realize one's absolute correctness limits the individual to such an extent that his needs ultimately come down to regular confirmation of the inviolability of the existing order. Whatever this order may be, it gives us a sense of illusory security "acquired at the price of giving up free knowledge and new growth" (May, 1967, p. 80).

Guilt

We have already said that the feeling of anxiety increases when we are faced with the problem of realizing our potentialities. When we deny possibilities, when we fail to correctly recognize the needs of those close to us, or when we neglect our dependence on the world around us, guilt (guilt) builds up (May, 1958a). The term "guilt", like the term "anxiety", was used by May when describing being-in-the-world. In this sense, the concepts described by these terms can be considered as concepts ontological, that is, related to the nature of being, and not to feelings that arise in special situations or as a result of some actions.

In the most general form, May distinguished three types of ontological guilt, each of which corresponds to one of the images of being-in-the-world: Umwelt,Mitwelt and Eigenwelt. Type of guilt corresponding Umwelt, is rooted in our lack of awareness of our being-in-the-world. The further civilization advances along the path of scientific and technological progress, the further we move away from nature, that is, from Umwelt. This alienation leads to the first type of ontological guilt that prevails in "advanced" societies, where people live in temperature-controlled houses, use mechanical transport to get around, and eat food collected and prepared by others. Our mindless reliance on others to meet our needs contributes to our ontological guilt. May called this type of guilt blame for separation(separation guilt) - separation of man and nature, which partly resembles the "human dilemma" of Erich Fromm.

The second type of guilt comes from our inability to properly understand the world of other people ( Mitwelt). We see other people only with our own eyes and can never quite determine what they really need. By our assessment, we commit violence against their true personality. Since we cannot accurately anticipate the needs of others, we feel inadequate in dealing with them. This leads to a deep sense of guilt felt towards everyone. May wrote that "it is not a matter of moral imperfection ... it is the inevitable result of the fact that each of us is an individual and has no choice but to look at the world with his own eyes" (1958a, p. 54).

The third type of ontological guilt is associated with our denial of our capabilities, as well as with failures on the way to their realization. In other words, this kind of guilt is based on a relationship with one's own self ( Eigenwelt). This type is also universal, because none of us can fully realize our full potential. It is reminiscent of A. Maslow's concept of human development loser complex(Jonah Complex), or fear of success.

Like anxiety, the feeling of ontological guilt can affect the state of the individual both positively and negatively. On the one hand, under certain conditions, it can contribute to a healthy understanding of the world around us, accepting it as it is, improving relationships with people and creative use of one's abilities. On the other hand, if we refuse to acknowledge ontological guilt, it becomes painful. Ontological guilt, like neurotic anxiety, causes unproductive or neurotic symptoms such as sexual impotence, depression, cruelty to others, inability to make choices, etc.

intentionality

The ability to make a choice presupposes the presence of some structure on the basis of which this choice is made. The structure in which we comprehend our past experience and accordingly imagine the future is called intentionality(intentionality) (May, 1969b). [The concept of intentionality as the orientation of consciousness to specific subject introduced the classic of phenomenology Edmund Husserl into scientific circulation. May's psychological interpretation of this term somewhat changes its original meaning, since it takes into account not only strictly reflected data of experience, but also all acts of the person's unconscious orientation to an object.] Outside this structure, neither the choice itself nor its further implementation is possible. An act implies intentionality, just as intentionality implies an act. These concepts are inseparable: "There is an action in the intention, and in any action there is an intention."

May used the term "intentionality" to bridge the gap between subject and object. Intentionality is “a structure that we, essentially subjects, need to see and understand the world around us, which is essentially an object. In the act of intentionality, the gap between subject and object is partly bridged” (May, 1969b, p. 225).

May used one simple example to illustrate this thesis: a person (subject) is sitting at a desk and sees a sheet of paper (object) in front of him. A person can write something on this sheet, fold it into a paper airplane for his grandson, or draw a picture on it. In all three cases, the subject (person) and the object (sheet of paper) are the same, but the person's actions are different, they depend on his intentions and on what meaning he attaches to his experience. In this case, meaning is a function of the properties of both the personality itself (the subject) and the environment (the object world).

Intentionality is not always fully conscious. It "lies below the level of immediate awareness and includes spontaneous, bodily elements and other characteristics usually called 'unconscious'" (May, 1969b, p. 234).

Care, love and will

“Care is a state in which something has the meaning» (May, 1969b, p. 289). To truly care means to consider the other person as a truly close being, to accept their pain, joy, regret or guilt as your own. Caring is an active process, the opposite of apathy.

Care and love are not the same thing, but often the former entails the latter. To love means to care, to see and accept the unique personality of another person, to pay active attention to his creative development. May defined love as "the delight in the presence of another person and the recognition of his values ​​and his development no less important than his own values ​​and the development of his own personality" (1953, p. 206). When there is no care, there can be no love - there can be only empty sentimentality or a quickly passing sexual attraction.

Caring is also a source of will. May defined will as "the ability to organize one's self in such a way that movement takes place in a certain direction or towards a certain goal" (1969b, p. 218). He made a distinction between will (will) and desire (wish), the latter for him is a simple " imagination game with possibility that something will be done or happen. May insisted that “'will' requires self-consciousness, 'desire' does not. "Will" implies some possibility and/or choice, "desire" does not. "Desire" gives warmth, content, fantasies, childish play, freshness and soil for "will". "Will" gives "desire" a direction and a sense of maturity. "Will" protects "desire", allows it to realize itself, despite the fact that the risk is sometimes very great.

Unity of love and will

May argued that modern society suffers from an unhealthy separation of love and will. The concept of love is associated with sensual attraction, identified with sex, while the concept of will is attributed the meaning of stubborn determination in achieving goals and realizing any ambitions (the so-called “will to power” is a textbook example in this case). Meanwhile, this representation does not reveal the true meaning of these two terms. When love is seen as sex, it becomes temporary and uncommitted; the will disappears and only desire remains. When the concept of will is narrowed down to the will to power, the effect of self-alienation of the subject arises. Paying attention only to his own needs, he quickly loses passion and fervor. Real caring gives way to pure manipulation.

Love and will "are not automatically combined in the process of biological growth, but must be part of our conscious development" (May, 1969 b, p. 283). In fact, there are biological reasons for the separation of love and will. The moment we first come into the world, we are in harmony with the universe ( Umwelt), with Mother ( Mitwelt) and with itself ( Eigenwelt). “In early childhood, when the mother nurses us on her breast, all our needs are met without any conscious effort on our part. This is our first freedom, our first Yes"(May, 1969b, p. 284).

Then, when the will begins to develop, it manifests itself as disagreement, as the first no. The carefree existence of early infancy is now opposed by the emerging will of late infancy. This "no" should not be seen as a statement directed against the parents, but as a positive statement of one's "I". Unfortunately, parents often take "no" in a negative sense and therefore trap children's attempts at self-affirmation in the bud. As a result, children begin to separate the will from the carefree feeling of love that they previously enjoyed so much.

Our task, May said, is to unite will and love. It's not easy, but it's possible. Neither love without care, nor will that serves exclusively selfish purposes, are suitable for the union of love and will. For a mature personality, both love and will mean striving outside, towards another person. Love and will together provide a sense of caring for one's neighbor, help to understand the need for choice, imply action, and require responsibility.

Obviously, love is more than sex, although sex is one of the dominant manifestations of love. May identified four types of love in the Western cultural tradition: sex, eros, philia, and agape.

Sex

Sex - it is a biological function that is realized through sexual intercourse or with the help of some other way to relieve sexual tension. Although in modern Western society attitudes towards sex have become much easier, “sex is still the generative energy, the force that ensures procreation, the source of both the greatest pleasure and the deepest anxiety for human beings” (May, 1969b, p. 38).

May believed that in ancient times, sex was taken for granted, like the way we perceive food or sleep. In modern times, sex has become a problem. At first, in the Victorian period, Western culture completely denied the sexual side of life, when talking about sex was considered unacceptable for a well-mannered person. Then, starting in the 1920s, people try to get out of the grip of these prohibitions; the topic of sex receives a new impetus for development, becomes open again. Until the 1980s, Western society was so much concerned with the problem of sex and sexual relationships that in the end, sex again began to be perceived as quite ordinary. However, the rapid spread of AIDS in recent years has rekindled the flames of sexual anxiety that had been extinguished. May noted that our society has gone from a period when the presence of sexual relations aroused feelings of anxiety and guilt in a person, to a period when the absence of these relations causes similar consequences. Modernity is making its own adjustments, and now he might say that the threat of HIV infection has again linked sexual behavior with anxiety for many people.

Eros

Sex and eros are often confused with each other. However, if sex is a physiological need that is satisfied by relieving tension, then Eros is a mental phenomenon - a kind of attraction that is generated and realized in a long-term union of two loving people. Comparing sex and eros, May wrote:

“Unlike sex, eros takes wings from the human imagination and always goes beyond any technique, laughs at all instruction books, circling merrily in an orbit that goes far beyond the mechanical rules that determine the physical operation of organs” (1969b, p. 74 ).

Erotic relationships are built on the basis of tenderness and caring attitude. They lead to the establishment of a long-term alliance with another person, in which both partners experience admiration and passion, which contributes to their mutual personal development. Eros is love that moves two people together to build strong relationships, particularly in marriage. Since the human race could not survive without the desire for lasting relationships, it can be considered that eros comes to the aid of sexual relations.

Philia

Eros, which comes to the aid of sex, originates in philia(Philia) - close friendship, not having a sexual orientation. Philia love is not rushed, it needs time to grow, develop, take root, as, for example, in the case of slowly developing love between brothers and sisters or between old friends who have known each other all their lives. “In a love-philia relationship, we don’t have to do anything for the sake of a loved one, except to accept him as he is, be close to him and enjoy his company. It is friendship in the simplest, most direct sense of the word” (May, 1969 a, p. 31).

Harry Stack Sullivan attached great importance to the period of early adolescence and emphasized that this creative time is characterized by an acute need for comrades, that is, for someone who would be more or less like you. According to Sullivan, camaraderie or philia is a necessary quality in healthy erotic relationships in early and late adolescence. May, who studied with Sullivan at the William Alanson White Institute, agreed with him that it was philia-love that created the possibility of eros-love. The gradual, effortless development of true friendship is a necessary condition for the long-term union of two people.

Agape

Just as eros depends on philia, so philia needs agape. May defined agape (agape) as "respect for the other, concern for the well-being of the other with no self-interest in mind, unselfish love, the perfect example of which is God's love for man" (1969b, p. 319).

Agape is altruistic love. This love is spiritual, sublime, but at the same time carrying with it the risk of becoming like God. It does not depend directly on the behavior or any properties of another person. In this sense, it is always undeserved and unconditional.

According to May, healthy adult relationships combine all four types of love. They are based on sexual satisfaction, the desire to create a strong and lasting union, sincere friendship and selfless concern for the well-being of another person. But the path to such true love, unfortunately, is far from easy. It requires a special quality of maturity - self-confidence and the ability to reveal yourself. “It requires at the same time tenderness, acceptance and affirmation of the personality of another person, liberation from feelings of rivalry, sometimes - abandoning oneself in the name of the interests of a loved one, as well as such ancient virtues as mercy and the ability to forgive” (May, 1981, p. 147).

Freedom and destiny

We have seen that the unification of the four types of love requires both the revelation of one's own personality and the affirmation of the personality of another. But that's not all. You need to approve your freedom(freedom) and resist your destiny(destiny). Healthy people are able not only to achieve freedom, but also to meet their fate with dignity.

Definition of freedom

Defining the concept freedom, May said that "the freedom of the individual is in her ability be aware of your predestination» (1967, p. 175). The word "predestination" in this phrase refers to what May called destiny in his later writings. In this case, freedom is born from the awareness of the inevitability of our fate: the understanding that death is possible at any moment, that we are born men or women, that we have some weaknesses characteristic of us, that, based on the impressions of early childhood, we tend to behave in a certain way in the future, etc.

Freedom is a willingness to change, even if the exact nature of that change remains unpredictable. Freedom "implies the ability always keep several different possibilities in mind, even if this moment we don't quite understand how we should act» (May, 1981, pp. 10-11). This circumstance often leads to an increase in anxiety, but this is a normal anxiety that healthy people readily meet and which is quite manageable.

May distinguished between two types of freedom - freedom of action and freedom of being. He called the first existential freedom, second - essential freedom.

existential freedom

May insisted that existential freedom(existential freedom) not to be confused with existential philosophy or existential psychology. It is the freedom to do something - the freedom to act. Most middle-class American adults enjoy a great deal of existential freedom. They can travel freely to any state, freely choose their acquaintances, vote for their representatives in parliament, and do many other things freely. At a more primitive level of explanation, existential freedom can be identified with the ability to move freely around the supermarket hall in order to make a free choice from the thousands of product options offered. existential freedom, thus, there is freedom to act according to one's own choice.

Essential freedom

Meanwhile, freedom of action does not yet ensure freedom of being. Sometimes it seems that in reality existential freedom even makes it difficult to achieve essential freedom(essential freedom). May cited several instances of prison and concentration camp inmates talking enthusiastically about their "inner freedom." Perhaps solitary confinement or other restriction of freedom of action helps a person to more clearly imagine his fate and develop in himself the freedom of being. In this regard, May asks the following question: "Only then can we get essential freedom when our everyday existence meets with obstacles?" (1981, p. 60).

He himself answered this question in the negative. It is not necessary to be imprisoned in order to achieve essential freedom, that is, the freedom of being. Fate itself is our inner prison, and the realization of this fact encourages us to think more about the freedom of being, and not about the freedom of action. “Does not fate, which is the basis of our life, keep us imprisoned under the supervision of loneliness, severity, and sometimes cruelty of the world around us, and does this not force us to try to look beyond the ordinary? Isn't the inevitability of death... a concentration camp for all of us? Doesn't the fact that life is both a joy and a burden push us to think about the deeper side of being? (May, 1981, p. 61).

Fate

May defined destiny as "the structure of limitations and abilities that are the 'data' of our lives." Fate is "the structure of the universe, manifesting itself in the structure of each of us" (1981, pp. 89-90). The ultimate fate of all living things is death, but on closer examination, our fate includes other biological properties, such as the level of intelligence, gender, physical strength and size of our body, genetic predisposition to certain diseases, etc. Various psychological and cultural factors also contribute to shaping our destiny.

"Destiny is our 'concentration camp' which nonetheless determines our essential freedom."

Fate is what we are moving towards, our only end station, our goal. This does not mean total predestination and doom. Within the boundaries determined by fate, we have the right to choose, and this freedom allows us, if necessary, to resist our fate and change it. At the same time, it is impossible to change everything, no matter what we want. We cannot achieve success in any work, overcome any disease, build a relationship with any person exactly according to our ideas. Life always makes its own adjustments. “Fate cannot be ignored, we cannot simply erase it or replace it with something else. But we can choose how we respond to our destiny, using the abilities bestowed on us” (May, 1981, p. 89).

May believed that the concepts of fate and freedom, as well as love-hate, life-death, are not mutually exclusive, but complementary, existing inextricably linked as one of the reflections of the greatest paradox that is human life. “The paradox is that freedom owes its vitality to fate, and fate owes its importance to freedom” (May, 1981, p. 17). Freedom and destiny are thus merged into one, one cannot exist without the other. Freedom without fate is licentiousness and permissiveness. Strange as it may seem, at first glance, permissiveness, leading to anarchy, in the end entails the complete destruction of freedom. Thus, there is no freedom without fate, just as fate without freedom loses all meaning.

Freedom and destiny breed each other. By defying fate, we gain freedom. Striving for freedom, we choose our own path, which one way or another passes through the space limited by our destiny.

The power of the myth

In his book The Invocation of the Myth ( The Cry for Myth, 1991), May insisted that the people of modern Western civilization have an urgent need for myths. There is a shortage of viable, that is, truly compelling myths, and many turn to religious cults, drugs, and pop culture in a vain attempt to find meaning in their lives.

Of course, May adheres to the modernist concept of myth, according to which myth is not a lie and a product of primitive superstitions, but rather a system of conscious and unconscious ideas and beliefs, with the help of which people explain to themselves the phenomena of personal and social life. [From the end of the XIX century. the revival of interest in myth went in all areas of humanitarian knowledge and artistic practice. The interpretation of myth as a source of human spiritual life, which was shared by F. Nietzsche and Z. Freud, T. Mann and E. Cassirer, K. G. Jung and L. Levy-Bruhl, has become widespread. “They began to consider mythology not as a way to satisfy the curiosity of primitive man (as the positivist “theory of survivals” of the 19th century imagined the matter), but as a “holy scripture” closely connected with the ritual life of the tribe and to a large extent ascending to it, the pragmatic function of which - regulation and support of a certain natural and social order (hence the cyclic concept of eternal return), as a prelogical symbolic system, akin to other forms of human imagination and creative fantasy ”(Meletinsky E.M. Poetics of myth. 2nd ed. M., 1995 pp. 8.). - Note. ed.]

“Myths are like floor beams in the construction of a house, they are invisible from the outside, but they form a structure that holds the house, and thanks to them people can live in this house.”

Myths are stories that hold society together; “they are essential to keeping our soul alive and bring new meaning to our complex and often meaningless world” (May, 1991, p. 20). Since ancient times and in various cultures, people have found the meaning of their lives with the help of myths, whose knowledge was often the main sign of belonging to a particular culture.

May believed that people communicate with each other on two levels. The first is the language of rational reasoning, and at this level the idea of ​​impersonal truth obscures from us the personality of the person with whom we communicate. The second level is communication through myths, and here the general impression made by the conversation is much more important than the formal accuracy of statements. We use myths and symbols to go beyond the ordinary situation, to achieve self-understanding, to identify ourselves with something, to reach a new level of concreteness.

May agreed with Freud that the story of Oedipus is a myth of great importance for our culture, since it describes the main features of the existential crises that each of us experiences sooner or later. These include birth, departure or expulsion from the parental home, sexual attraction to one of the parents and hostility towards the other, the assertion of one's independence and the search for a soul mate, and finally death. And the myth of Oedipus is of such importance to us precisely because in it all these stages are presented in their entirety. Like Oedipus, we are separated from our father and mother and driven by an urgent need to know who we are. However, our struggle for self-identification is difficult and can even lead to tragedy, as happened with Oedipus when he demanded that he be told the truth about his origin. Upon learning that he killed his father and married his own mother, Oedipus gouged out his own eyes, thereby depriving himself of the ability to see, which is equated with knowledge and understanding.

But such a narrowing of his world by Oedipus did not lead to a complete denial of consciousness. At this point in Sophocles' tragedy, Oedipus again retires into exile, which May saw as a symbolic expression of self-isolation and ostracism. We then see Oedipus as an old man, having a hard time with his tragedy and accepting responsibility for killing his own father and marrying his own mother. His reflections at the end of his life brought him peace and understanding, gave him the strength to face death with joy and humility. The main themes of the Oedipus story - birth, exile and separation from loved ones, self-identification, incest and parricide, the pressure of guilt and, in the end, conscious reflection on one's life and death - affect each of us and endow this myth with powerful healing energy.

May's views on the meaning of myths can be compared to Jung's idea that the collective unconscious in myths are archetypal structures in human experience that lead to universal images that lie outside our personal experiences. Like archetypes, myths can contribute to our psychological growth if we embrace them and allow ourselves to see them as a new reality. At the same time, if we deny the universality of the myth, considering it just an outdated and unscientific explanation of the world, we risk falling into alienation, spiritual apathy and inner emptiness - the main components of mental pathology.

Psychopathology

According to May, not anxiety and guilt, but a feeling of emptiness and apathy are the main diseases of our time. When people deny their destiny or deny the positive meaning of a myth, they lose the purpose of life, they lose their direction of movement. Without purpose and direction, people become weak and prone to various manifestations of self-protective and self-destructive behavior.

A person cannot stay in a state of emptiness for a long time, and if he does not develop, does not move forward towards any goal, then he does not just stop in place, since suppressed possibilities are transformed into morbidity and despair, and sometimes into destructive actions (May, 1953, p. 24).

Many people in modern Western society experience a sense of alienation from the world ( Umwelt), from other people ( Mitwelt) and especially from themselves Eigenwelt). They are aware of their powerlessness in the face of natural disasters, growing industrialization and lack of dialogue with their own kind. They feel their insignificance in a world where man is becoming more and more dehumanized. This feeling of insignificance leads to apathy and limited consciousness.

In May's understanding, psychopathology is "the inability to take part in the affairs, feelings and thoughts of other people and share their experiences with others" (May, 1981, p. 21). A mentally unbalanced person lacks the skills to communicate with the outside world, he denies his fate and in the process of this denial loses his freedom. He reveals many neurotic symptoms in his behavior, not striving to regain his freedom, but wanting to get even further away from the very possibility of achieving it. Symptoms narrow the phenomenological world of the individual to the extent that it is easy for her to cope with it. An internally unfree person creates for himself a harsh reality in which he does not have to make a choice.

Symptoms may be temporary, as in the case of stress-induced headaches, or they may be relatively permanent and stem from early childhood experiences.

Psychotherapy

Unlike Freud, Adler, Rogers, and other personality theorists who drew on a wealth of clinical experience, May did not found a school with many ardent followers and a well-defined methodology. Nevertheless, he wrote extensively on the subject of psychotherapy.

As noted above, May did not consider anxiety and guilt to be the main components of mental disorders and, therefore, did not see the goal of therapy in assuaging these feelings. He believed that it was wrong to focus psychotherapy on curing a patient from a specific disease or solving his specific problem. Instead, he set the task of therapy to make people more human, to help them expand and develop their consciousness, thereby pushing them to the possibility of free choice. The possibility of choice, in turn, leads to an increase in freedom and, at the same time, responsibility.

May argued that "the purpose of psychotherapy is to set people free". “I believe,” he wrote, “that the work of the psychotherapist should be to help people gain the freedom to realize and realize their potential” (1981, pp. 19-20). May insisted that the therapist who focuses on the patient's symptoms is missing something more important. Neurotic symptoms are only ways to escape from their freedom and indicators that the patient is not using his possibilities. As the patient becomes freer and more human, his neurotic symptoms tend to disappear, neurotic anxiety gives way to normal anxiety, and neurotic guilt is replaced by normal guilt. But these are all side benefits, not the main objective therapy. May strongly believed that psychotherapy should first and foremost help people experience their existence and that "any subsequent recovery from symptoms should be a by-product of this process" (May, 1967, p. 86).

How does the therapist help patients become free and responsible people? May did not offer specific recipes by which therapists could carry out this task. Existential psychologists do not have a well-defined set of techniques and methods applicable to all patients. Instead of using general techniques, they address the patient's personality and its unique characteristics. They must establish a trusting human relationship with the patient ( Mitwelt) and with their help lead the patient to a better understanding of himself and to a fuller disclosure of his own world ( Eigenwelt). This may mean that the patient will have to be challenged to a duel with his own destiny, that he will experience despair, anxiety and guilt. But it also means that there must be a one-on-one human meeting in which both therapist and patient are persons, not objects. “In this interaction, I must be able to feel, in a sense, the same as the patient feels. My work as a therapist must be open to his inner world” (May, 1967, p. 108).

According to May, therapy incorporates elements of religion, science, as well as trusting interpersonal relationships, ideally reminiscent of friendship. Friendship, however, is not a simple social interaction; rather, it requires the therapist to be ready for resistance on the part of the patient and the need to push him into action. May believed that human relationships were in themselves healing and that their transformative effect did not depend on what the therapist said or what views he had. adheres to.

“Our task is to be guides, friends and interpreters for people during their journey through their inner hell and purgatory. More precisely, our task is to help the patient get to the point where he can decide whether to continue to be a victim ... or to leave this position of a victim and make his way further through purgatory with the hope of reaching heaven. Often our patients, approaching the end of the road, are obviously frightened by the possibility of deciding everything on their own or using their chance to complete the enterprise they have so bravely begun” (May, 1991, p. 165).

May shared many of the philosophical views of Carl Rogers. Central to the approach of both researchers was the understanding of therapy as a human encounter, that is, a close human relationship that can help the growth of both the patient and the therapist. In practice, however, May was much more inclined to ask questions, delve into the patient's early childhood experiences, and offer possible explanations for his current behavior.

Philip case

Although May worked as a psychotherapist for many years, he did not leave descriptions of the exact techniques and techniques. However, the case of Philip, a patient with inappropriate manifestations of anxious behavior, mentioned by May, can serve as an illustration of the existentialist approach to psychotherapy (May, 1981). Philip, a middle-aged man who had been married twice, both times unsuccessfully, suffered from neurotic anxiety, which amounted to a lock on his own worthlessness and the doom of any of his actions to failure. Deeply worried about the unpredictable, eccentric behavior of his beloved Nicole, he nevertheless did not dare to break off relations with her, because he himself paralyzed his will, fearing to violate unconscious, deeply rooted prohibitions. Nicole's actions caused Philip to develop a sense of duty towards her, tying and repelling at the same time. What matters in this relationship is that Nicole's apparent need for Philip's presence obliged him to take care of her.

Philippe's tormenting affection for the uncontrollable Nicole was an exact copy of his relationship with his relatives in early childhood, when a certain sense of duty develops towards the latter, healthy at its core, but sometimes taking on ugly forms. During the first two years of Philip's life, the main inhabitants of his world were only two people: his mother and sister, who was two years older than Philip. The mental state of Philip's mother bordered on schizophrenia. Her behavior towards her son fluctuated between tenderness and cruelty. The sister was definitely schizophrenic and later spent some time in a psychiatric hospital.

Thus, Philip had to learn from early childhood to adapt to two completely unpredictable women. Of course, he must inevitably have been left with the impression that he must not only protect himself from women, but also be faithful to them, especially considering their deplorable state. Hence the perception of life not as a free development of the personality, but as a test requiring constant guarding or duty. The story of Philip can be used to illustrate how neurotic anxiety blocks the development and productive actions of an individual. Philippe could have found a different way of dealing with Nicole. There is no doubt that Philip's attitude towards his beloved repeats his childish ways of relating to his mother and sister.

May took Philip's case as an example unconscious intentionality: Philippe felt he had to take care of Nicole despite her unpredictable and "crazy" behavior. Philip did not notice the connection of his actions with childhood experiences with an unpredictable mother and a mentally deranged sister. He became addicted to his unconscious belief in the need to take care of "crazy" and unpredictable women. Naturally, such intentionality made it impossible for him to establish a new relationship with Nicole.

Philip's story is one of caring for others. He got Nicole a job at his company, one that she could do at home and earn enough to live comfortably. In addition, when Nicole gave up her latest fling and the "crazy" idea of ​​moving to the other side of the country, Philippe gave her several thousand dollars. Needless to say, before meeting her, he felt obliged to take care of his two previous wives, and even earlier - of his mother and sister, thereby implementing the same behavioral model. Despite the fact that the scheme of life that Philip adhered to ordered him to take care of women, he never really knew how to take care of them.

Philip's psychological problems stemmed from his early childhood experiences with an unstable mother and a schizophrenic sister. These impressions were not cause his pathologies, that is, it cannot be said that only they brought his psyche to such a state. But they made Philip learn to adjust to his world by holding back his anger, developing a sense of apathy, and trying to be a "good boy." Recall that, from May's point of view, neurotic symptoms are not an inability to adapt to the world, but a suitable and necessary adaptation for a person, allowing him to protect his Dasein(being-in-the-world). Philip's behavior towards his ex-wives and towards Nicole is a denial of his freedom and an attempt to protect himself by avoiding meeting his fate.

While conducting psychotherapy, May, in particular, explained to Philip that his relationship with Nicole was an attempt to continue the relationship with his mother. Carl Rogers would reject such a technique because it comes from an external (that is, the therapist's) belief system. May, on the contrary, believed that such explanations are an effective impulse for the patient to realize what he is hiding from himself.

In working with Philip, May also used another method: he invited Philip to mentally talk with his dead mother. At the same time, Philip spoke for himself and for her. Representing his mother in this dialogue, for the first time he was able to identify himself with her, to see himself through her eyes. As a mother, he said that she was very proud of him and that he had always been her favorite child. Then, in the role of himself, he told his mother that he liked her courage, and recalled the case when her courage saved his eyesight. After the end of this mental conversation, Philip confessed: "Never in my life could I have imagined that something like this would happen."

May asked Philip to bring some of his childhood photos. Philip then began to mentally talk to "little Philip". When this conversation took place, "little Philip" said that he had overcome the problem that bothered adult Philip the most, namely, the fear of being abandoned. "Little Philip" became a friend and companion of the adult Philip, helped him cope with loneliness and calm the feeling of jealousy towards Nicole.

Philip did not become a different person as a result of treatment, but he began to better understand and understand some aspects of his personality that had always been inherent in her. Awareness of new opportunities allowed him to move forward and feel freer. The end of treatment was for Philip the beginning of “unification with his childhood self, which he had until then kept in prison in order to survive at a time when life seemed to him not happy, but dangerous and threatening” (May, 1981, p. 41).

Chapter Summary

In his concept of man, May especially emphasized the uniqueness of the individual, free choice and the teleology of behavior, that is, its conscious target aspect. Like other existentialists, May believed that: 1) existence (existence) precedes essence (essence), that is, it is more important that people do, not what they there is; 2) people combine the features of both the subject and the object; this means that they are both thinking and acting beings; 3) people strive to find answers to the most important questions regarding the meaning of life; 4) freedom and responsibility always balance each other, so none of them can be present in a person separately from the other; 5) rigid theories of personality tend to dehumanize a person and turn him into an object or subject for research.

Existentialists used phenomenological approach to the study of personality, insisting that a person can best be understood from his own point of view. The unity of man and his phenomenological world is expressed by the term Dasein(being-in-the-world).

There are three forms of being-in-the-world: Umwelt- our relationship with the world of external objects or things, Mitwelt- our relationships with others and Eigenwelt- relationship with self. Healthy people live in all these three worlds at the same time.

If a person is aware of his being-in-the-world, he is also aware of the possibility non-existence(nonbeing), or non-existence(nothingness). Life becomes more significant for us when we face the fact of the inevitability of death or non-existence.

Recognition of non-existence contributes to the development of feelings anxiety, which increases if a person understands that he is endowed with freedom of choice and is burdened with responsibility for his actions. Normal anxiety each of us experiences. It is proportional to the threat, and we are able to deal with it constructively on a conscious level. neurotic anxiety disproportionate to the threat, causes suppression and self-defense reaction.

Feeling guilt, like the feeling of anxiety, is normal for a person. People experience guilt as a result of: 1) separation from the natural world; 2) the inability to accurately judge the needs of others; 3) denial of one's own capabilities.

- Intentionality - it is a fundamental structure that gives meaning to a person's experiences and allows him to make decisions about the future. Intentionality involves active action, not just passive desire.

how love, so will evoke attitude care and demand responsibility. Love means delight in the presence of another person and the assertion of his values ​​along with his own, the will generates a conscious decision to act. May identified four types of love: 1) sex, which is a physiological function; 2) Eros striving for a long-term union with a loved one; 3) philia- friendship that does not have a pronounced sexual orientation; 4) agape, or altruistic love that does not require anything in return.

May believed that freedom comes to a person when he confronts his destiny and understands that death or non-existence is possible at any moment. Exist freedom of action, which many have, but a deeper, rarer kind of freedom is freedom of being. A person can be internally free, even if he is physically in prison.

Following Fromm, May believed that the destruction of myths as a cultural basis played a role both in social upheavals and in the fact that a person feels loneliness and alienation from the world.

Since psychopathology is the result of alienation from nature, from other people and from oneself, the goal of psychotherapy, according to May, is to help people expand their consciousness so that they become able to make choices and live in peace and understanding with nature, with other people and with myself.

Existential psychology deserves high praise for its ability to organize and use everything that is beneficial to personal development, but as a scientific system it has not gained much importance either in the context of new theoretical directions or in the field of creating practical methods.

Key Concepts

Will(Will). The ability to organize one's "I" in such a way that there is movement in a certain direction or towards a certain goal. Will requires self-consciousness, implies some possibility and/or choice, gives direction and a sense of maturity to desire.

intentionality(Intentionality). A structure in which we comprehend our past experience and imagine the future accordingly. Outside this structure, neither the choice itself nor its further implementation is possible. An act implies intentionality, just as intentionality implies an act.

neurotic anxiety(Neurotic anxiety). A response out of proportion to the threat, causing suppression and other forms of intrapsychic conflict, and driven by various forms of blocking-off action and understanding.

Normal anxiety(Normal anxiety). A reaction that is proportionate to the threat, not causing suppression, which can be countered constructively on a conscious level. Normal anxiety, according to May, is the condition of any creativity.

ontological guilt(guilt). May identifies three types of ontological guilt, corresponding to the hypostases of being-in-the-world. Umwelt, or "environment", corresponds to the separation guilt prevailing in "advanced" societies, caused by the separation of man and nature. The second type of guilt comes from our inability to properly understand the world of other people ( Mitwelt). The third type is based on relationships with one's own "I" ( Eigenwelt) and is associated with our denial of our capabilities, as well as with failures on the way to their realization. Ontological guilt, like neurotic anxiety, causes unproductive or neurotic symptoms such as sexual impotence, depression, cruelty to others, inability to make choices, etc.

freedom(Freedom). The state of a person who is ready for change is in her ability to know about her predestination. Freedom is born from the awareness of the inevitability of one's fate and, according to May, involves the ability to "always keep several different possibilities in mind, even if at the moment we are not entirely clear how exactly we should act." May distinguished between two types of freedom - freedom of action (freedom of action) and freedom of being (freedom of being). The first he called existential freedom, the second - essential freedom.

Fate(Destiny). A structure of limitations and abilities that are the "data" of our lives. Fate includes biological properties, psychological and cultural factors, without meaning total predestination and doom. Fate is what we are moving towards, our final station, our goal.

Anxiety(Anxiety). Fear caused by the threat to some values ​​that a person considers important for his existence as a person. May identifies two types of anxiety: normal and neurotic.

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