If you find this useful, don't forget to hit 'love.' • Feist, J. & Feist, G. (2009). Theories of personality (7th ed.). USA: McGraw−Hill Companies • Tria, D. & Limpingco. (2007). Personality (3rd ed.). Quezon City, Philippines: Ken Inc. • Daniel, V. Object relations theory. Retrieved as of 2016 from https://www.sonoma.edu/users/d/daniels/objectrelations.html Other references: • Cervone, D. & Pervine, L. (2013). Personality: Theory and research (12th ed.). USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. • Cloninger, S. (2004). Theories of personality: Understanding persons (4th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. • Ryckman, R. (2008).Theories of personality (9th ed.). USA: Thomson Wadsworth

1. ROLLO MAY'S EXISTENTIAL-
ANALYTIC POSITION
Presented by:
Mary Anne A. Portuguez, MP, RPm

2. ROLLO MAY'S
EXISTENTIAL-
ANALYTIC POSITION

3. BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
Rollo May was born in Ohio in 1909, but grew up in Michigan. After graduating
from Oberlin College in 1930, he spent 3 years as an itinerant artist roaming
throughout eastern and southern Europe. When he returned to the United States,
he entered the Union Theological Seminary, from which he received a Master of
Divinity degree. He then served for 2 years as a pastor, but quit in order to pursue
a career in psychology. He received a PhD in clinical psychology from Columbia in
1949 at the relatively advanced age of 40. During his professional career, he served
as lecturer or visiting professor at a number of universities, conducted a private
practice as a psychotherapist, and wrote a number of popular books on the human
condition. May died in 1994 at age 85.

4. What is existentialism?
• The first tenet of existentialism is that existence takes precedence
over essence, meaning that process and growth are more important
than product and stagnation. Second, existentialists oppose the
artificial split between subject and object. Third, they stress people's
search for meaning in their lives. Fourth, they insist that each of us is
responsible for who we are and what we will become. Fifth, most
existentialists take an antitheoretical position, believing that theories
tend to objectify people.

5. What Is Existentialism?
• Existentialism: philosophy that focuses on people’s attempts to make sense of their
existence
• People assign meaning to life and take responsibility for their actions as they try to
live in accordance with their chosen values
• Dasein: a person exists in a particular place at a particular time
• A person can be conscious of, and responsible for, his or her existence, and can
therefore choose the direction his or her life will take
• Being: developmental process whereby the individual seeks to realize his or her unique
set of potentials
• ourselves are the source of change, as we struggle as individuals to realize our
potential

6. Alienation
(1) separation from nature
(2) lack of meaningful interpersonal relations
(3) alienation from one’s authentic self

7. Existentialism and Psychoanalysis
• Existential-analytic perspective: theoretical approach to
understanding human personality that combines elements of
existential philosophy with Freudian concepts
• Three modes of being-in-the-world:
• Umwelt: biological or natural environment in which human
beings exist
• Mitwelt: world of interrelationships
• Eigenwelt: unique presence in human beings of self-
awareness and self-relatedness

8. Balance

9. NONBEING
•Dread of not being; nothingness.
•Confronting nonbeing by thinking about

10. The Emergence of Anxiety
• Feelings of anxiety stem from loneliness and emptiness
• Anxiety signals an internal conflict
• Normal anxiety: painful feeling that emanates from a realistic threat to our
established values
• Neurotic anxiety: painful feeling that is produced by an excessive
reaction to a threat to our values

11. The Expansion of Consciousness
• The more conscious of our being we are, the more
spontaneous and creative we will be
• Allows us to be more capable of choosing our plans and
reaching our goals

12. Guilt
Guilt arises when people deny their potentialities, fail to
accurately perceive the needs of fellow humans, or remain
oblivious to their dependence on the natural world.

13. INTENTIONALITY
The structure that gives meaning to experience and allows people to
make decisions about the future.
Example:
Man (subject) > Object (Paper)

14. Care, Love, Will
• Care, it is a state in which something does matter.
• Love, delight in the presence of the other person and an affirming of
[that person’s] value and development as much as one’s own.
• Will, the capacity to organize one’s self so that movement in a certain
direction or toward a certain goal may take place.

15. Forms of Love
• Sex, a biological function that can be satisfied through sexual intercourse or some
other release of sexual tension.
• Eros, a psychological desire that seeks procreation or creation through an
enduring union with a loved one.
• Philia, an intimate nonsexual friendship between two people.
• Agape, “esteem for the other, the concern for the other’s welfare beyond any gain
that one can get out of it; disinterested love, typically, the love of God for man.”

16. Theory's Implications for Therapy
• Goal of therapy:
• To make lonely and empty people more aware of themselves and
their potential for growth through an expansion of consciousness
• To understand the person as a being-in-the-world

17. Evaluative Comments
• Comprehensiveness: broad in scope when compared to other humanistic
positions
• Precision and testability: imprecise and very difficult to test adequately
• Parsimony: fails to meet the parsimony criterion; too many redundant concepts
• Empirical validity: little empirical support
• Heuristic value: theory is proving to be stimulating to scholars in the humanistic
psychology movement and to members of the public, but not to researchers
within mainstream psychology
• Applied value: considerable influence on professionals in areas such as
education, pastoral counseling, family life, and religion