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HOW WE LIVE
Finding Reasons to Live
Emmy van Deurzen
Facebook and LinkedIn: Existential Therapy
www.emmyvandeurzen.com
www.existential.academy
www.dilemmas.org
www.slideshare.net
Twitter: @emmyzen @existacademy
@therapytraining
Emmy van Deurzen
 MPhil, MPsych, PHD, CPsychol, FBPsS
•Visiting Professor Middlesex University -UK
•Director Dilemma Consultancy
•Director Existential Academy
•Principal New School of Psychotherapy
and Counselling - London
15
Books
Aim of existential dialogue
 Enable people to search for truth in their lives
 Help them live passionately and compassionately
 Finding inner authority: think for yourself
 Greater understanding of the human condition
 Purpose and direction: intentionality
 Paradox, dialectic: freedom, responsibility, life, death
 Find talents, strength, vulnerability
 Past, present, future, temporality
Different sorts of
psychotherapy
Diversity, Individuality,
Human Universals (Brown, 1991)
Science and philosophy
both important
Learning the facts
 Going beyond the findings of psychology
Positive
psychology
Hedonism versus virtue
ethics
Socrates and Plato
Using philosophy to get
out of the cave
Dare to explore the cave
and make new
discoveries?
Quest for Happiness
Multi dimensional
Existential Space
Physical space
Social space
Personal space
Spiritual space
Meaning not happiness
Baumeister (1991) Meanings of Life
 Baumeister concluded that there are four basic needs
for meaning:
1. Need for purpose (spiritual)
2. Need for value (social)
3. Need for efficacy (physical)
4. Need for self-worth (personal)
 It is the process of going in the general direction of
these four objectives that makes for a good life.
@Emmy van Deurzen 2015
Frankl’s way to
meaning
•Experiential values: what we take from the
world.
•Creative values: what we give to the world.
•Attitudinal values : the way we deal with
suffering.
We need COURAGE
Tillich’s Courage to Be:
 Courage is the universal self-affirmation of
one’s Being in the presence of the threat of
non-Being(Tillich 1952:163).
Integrating non being:
Paul Tillich: 1886-1965
Existential intelligence
 Embracing existence in its contradictions and rising to its
challenges
 Realizing that there is no such thing as a perfect human
being or everlasting happiness, or an ideal situation
 Learning to be resilient and flexible enough to negotiate
on-going paradoxes
 Facing existential challenges in a personal and creative
manner that allows for dialectic and surpassing
 Grappling with tensions, conflicts and dilemmas and
slowly learning to make sense of it
Project: active
transcendence
 Man is characterized above all by his going
beyond a situation and by what he succeeds in
making of what he has been made.
 This is what we call the project.
(Sartre, Search for a Method:91)
@Emmy van Deurzen 2015
Finding the purpose of life
IKIGAI
John Henry Fuseli’s the nightmare:
Suppression of feelings leads to dysfunction
and despair
loss of freedom: depression is often actually
about oppression or suppression
when we free ourselves: anxiety
pride
jealousy
anger-
despair
fear
sorrowshame
envy
hope-
desire
love
joy
Sadness
Low
Happiness
High
Anxiety
Excitement
Engagement
Depression
Disappointment
Disengagement
Compass of
emotions
evd 10
Resilience: how to deal
with adversity and crisis
Physical: safety, sleep, food,
comfort, survival, healing, repair,
recovery
Social: strong
relationships,
allow and
understand
emotions,
belonging,
caring, sharing,
support
Psychological: clear thinking,
making sense, analysis,
understanding, new perspective,
taking charge, responsibility,
character building
Spiritual:
review values,
new vision,
trust,
transcendence,
dialectic,
stronger beliefs,
meaning,
purpose
Making sense: using the
prefrontal lobes
Adaptability, flexibility
neurons, like us: making new
connections: organizing
Life is about learning
Spinoza: the universe is governed by
necessary laws which when
respected and understood allow us
freedom: determinism<>contingency
Sisyphus: Life as a futile
uphill struggle
There is but one truly serious philosophical
problem and that is … whether life is or is
not worth living. (Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus)
Meaning found not
despite but because of
adversity
Life’s events are grist for
the mill: nurturance
Classic solutions
 The un-reflected life is not worth living
(Socrates)
 It is not death that a man should fear, but he
should fear never beginning to live (Marcus
Aurelius: stoic).
Aristotle
 Eudaimonia: the good life : virtue ethics, live in line with your
demon force
 Sift opinions between true and false
 Should benefit the community at large rather than only the
individual
 Philosophy teacher's discourse with the pupil (client) should
be a co-operative, critical one that insists on the virtues of
orderliness, deliberateness and clarity
Epicureans
The Epicureans seek to treat
human suffering by removing
corrupting desires and by
eliminating pain and
disturbance (ataraxia).
Adjust values retaining only
those that are attainable and
may bring pleasure.
Skeptics
Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360-275 B.C.)
Skeptics: the only way to stop
pain and suffering is to simply
not believe in or desire
anything.
So whilst Epicureans try to get
rid of false beliefs, the Skeptics
want to get rid of all beliefs.
Stoics: overcoming weakness
 Ordering of the self and soul
 Exercise of the mind
 Akrasia: lack of moral fibre and emotional
weakness
 Find that critical moment (kairos) for change
 Zeno: virtue is its own reward
Stoic goal
 For the Stoics the pupil's goal is to become his own
teacher and pupil
 In order to improve a person's life the soul must be
exercised everyday, for instance by the use of logic
and poetry
 The objective is wisdom, the only ultimate value and
virtue and leads to eudaimonia, the flourishing life:
wisdom, courage, justice, temperance
 The means: detachment and self-control : apathy
Reality of existence: to
be fully alive, aware
Kierkegaard’s breathing
 Personhood is a synthesis of possibility and
necessity.
 Its continued existence is like breathing
(respiration),
which is an inhaling and exhaling.
 (Kierkegaard, Sickness unto Death: 40)
Attunement
Starting from what you
love
Confucius: living is a
craft, we learn to perfect
Starting with little
sparks, building a fire
Discovering possibility
inside
Heidegger’s Ereignis:
re-owning
 Original thanking is the thanks owed for being.
That thanks alone gives rise to thinking of the
kind we know as retribution and reward in the
good and bad sense. (Heidegger 1954:141)
You have to own your
life: it is your work of art
Get perspective and find
purpose and direction
Discovering what
matters
Freud’s view
Work
Movement, engagement
and action
 Finding your own joy in work and living
Love
Buber’s encounter
 The interhuman: das Zwischenmenschlichen; the
in-between is where real communication takes
place.
(Buber, Between Man and Man, 1929).
 All actual life is encounter (ibid: 62)
 This is where truth is found.
Belonging, caring,
communication
Onto-dynamics
 Learning to live in line with the laws of
life
 Paradox, conflict, difficulty and
dilemmas are our daily companions
 When crisis comes we need to have
the courage to descend to rock bottom
 From there we can build something
better
@Emmy van Deurzen 2015
Potentiality is more than
actuality
 From project to action in our own lives.
 Plotting a route through the obstacles
 Potentiality of past as well as of the present and
future.
 Living in time: transcendence and evolution
Exploring our limits and our
possibilities. Understanding and
getting things in perspective
Ultimately we are intertwined with the
cosmic order: the implicate order of
the universe (Bohm)
Existential therapy
 To attend to the principle of life
 Solomon’s ‘thoughtful love of life’
 Vitality at all levels of life
 What is our interaction with nature, others, self
and the ultimate?
Multi dimensional time
 Past
 Present
 Future
 Eternity
 Timelessness
 Parallel universes
DESIRES FEARS VALUES
PHYSICAL life death vitality
SOCIAL love hate reciprocity
PERSONAL identity freedom integrity
SPIRITUAL good evil transparency
Human values
rediscovered.
Tensions and paradoxes at all levels
World Umwelt Mitwelt Eigenwelt Uberwelt
Physical Nature:
Life/
Death
Things:
Pleasure/
Pain
Body:
Health/
Illness
Cosmos:
Harmony/
Chaos
Social Society:
Love/
Hate
Others:
Dominance/Sub
mission
Ego:
Acceptance/
Rejection
Culture:
Belonging/
Isolation
Personal Person:
Identity/Freedom
Me:
Perfection/
Imperfection
Self:
Integrity/
Disintegration
Consciousness:
Confidence/
Confusion
Spiritual: Infinite:
Good/
Evil
Ideas:
Truth/
Untruth
Spirit:
Meaning/
Futility
Conscience:
Right/
Wrong
Simone de Beauvoir
the Mandarins (625)
 ‘You can’t lead a proper life in a
society which isn’t proper, in which
every way you turn, you are always
caught’
 You can’t draw a straight line in a
curved space.
Therapy: finding the
space and time to face
oneself
Existential therapy helps
people refocus their
lives, to free themselves
:
steadiness, courage, persistence,
resilience, flexibility, clarity, direction,
purpose, understanding and meaning
New perspectives:
life as an adventure
 Learning to be you and living life well
Facebook and LinkedIn: Existential Therapy
www.slideshare.com
Project: active
transcendence
 Man is characterized above all by his going beyond
a situation and by what he succeeds in making of
what he has been made.
 This is what we call the project.
(Sartre, Search for a Method:91)
Time Zones
 Present: zone of activity, which includes all the other
zones of time
 Remote past: zone of the obsolete and of history,
including one’s own life myths
 Mediate past: zone of loss and regret
 Immediate past: zone of remorse or grief
 Immediate future: zone of expectation
 Mediate future: zone of wish and hope or dread and
anxiety.
 Remote future: zone of prayer and ethical action and
also of ultimate meaning of life.
Deliberate living
What does it mean in
practice?
 The person needs to talk, be listened to,
discover that they can fill the space, the silence.
Hold their own. Know things, understand
themselves, find out who they are, what their
talents are and where they want to go.
 They need to feel connected, understood, heard,
important, enabled, validated. They need a
sense of purpose and direction.
Existential intelligence
 Embracing existence in its contradictions and rising
to its challenges.
 Realizing that there is no such thing as a perfect
human being.
 Learning to be resilient and flexible enough to
negotiate on-going paradoxes
 Facing existential challenges in a personal and
creative manner that allows for dialectic.
Finding your talent, your
mission.
The right level of challenge
 To live a meaningful life and have goals and values
is not enough: you must also feel you are capable
of achieving these things.
 ‘It is necessary to find moderately difficult tasks to
maintain that middle ground between boredom (too
easy) and anxiety (too hard).’ (Baumeister 1991: 41)
@Emmy van Deurzen 2015
VALUES AND BELIEFS
 Values and beliefs are the basis of a personal
code of ethics which is about:
 how I want to live my life
 how I want to treat others
 how I want to be treated by others
 how I aim to evaluate my actions and those of
others
 how I feel about human existence as a result
@Emmy van Deurzen 2015
Reasons for therapy
 Lost, confused
 Traumatised
 Imprisoned in routines
 No sense of self, isolated
 Paralysed, scared
 Moral conflicts or dilemmas
 Conflicts with others
 Meaninglessness
We discover being
 We are part of change
 We impact on others
 We can create and contribute
 We can relate differently
 We can shape shift
 We can open up and blossom
 We can breathe and be and enjoy
 We can discover awe, transcendence, infinity
Growing strong
 We don’t
 have to be
 champions.
Imagination and dreams:
reconnecting
Play and freedom: joy
Beauty and awe:
gratitude
Learning to love your
life:
sleep, humor, safety,
comfort
No judgement:
understanding
Getting to know yourself
in past, present, future
Transcendence
Existential Therapy
 Working with philosophical methods,
amongst which phenomenology,
dialectics, maieutics, hermeneutics
and heuristic methods.
Limits of therapy:
ontonomy
 “Therapy when practiced well is a fine but delicately
balanced intervention in another person’s life. It requires a
devotion to truth and a merciless pursuit of right living.
 Expertise in bringing people out of the darkness of a
disappointed or bitter life into the light of a new vitality is hard
earned. It is a privilege and a pleasure when it works well.
 But that level of engagement with clients is also extremely
demanding and it can never be achieved by trotting out
stereotyped tricks from approved textbooks.”
― Emmy van Deurzen
Hard to do it alone
Minkowski’s idea of time
Present
Remote
Past
Mediate
Past
Immediate
Past
Immediate
Future
Mediate
Future
Remote
Future

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Reasons to live

  • 2. Finding Reasons to Live Emmy van Deurzen
  • 3. Facebook and LinkedIn: Existential Therapy www.emmyvandeurzen.com www.existential.academy www.dilemmas.org www.slideshare.net Twitter: @emmyzen @existacademy @therapytraining
  • 4. Emmy van Deurzen  MPhil, MPsych, PHD, CPsychol, FBPsS •Visiting Professor Middlesex University -UK •Director Dilemma Consultancy •Director Existential Academy •Principal New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling - London
  • 6. Aim of existential dialogue  Enable people to search for truth in their lives  Help them live passionately and compassionately  Finding inner authority: think for yourself  Greater understanding of the human condition  Purpose and direction: intentionality  Paradox, dialectic: freedom, responsibility, life, death  Find talents, strength, vulnerability  Past, present, future, temporality
  • 10. Learning the facts  Going beyond the findings of psychology
  • 14. Using philosophy to get out of the cave
  • 15. Dare to explore the cave and make new discoveries?
  • 17. Multi dimensional Existential Space Physical space Social space Personal space Spiritual space
  • 18. Meaning not happiness Baumeister (1991) Meanings of Life  Baumeister concluded that there are four basic needs for meaning: 1. Need for purpose (spiritual) 2. Need for value (social) 3. Need for efficacy (physical) 4. Need for self-worth (personal)  It is the process of going in the general direction of these four objectives that makes for a good life. @Emmy van Deurzen 2015
  • 19. Frankl’s way to meaning •Experiential values: what we take from the world. •Creative values: what we give to the world. •Attitudinal values : the way we deal with suffering.
  • 20. We need COURAGE Tillich’s Courage to Be:  Courage is the universal self-affirmation of one’s Being in the presence of the threat of non-Being(Tillich 1952:163).
  • 21. Integrating non being: Paul Tillich: 1886-1965
  • 22. Existential intelligence  Embracing existence in its contradictions and rising to its challenges  Realizing that there is no such thing as a perfect human being or everlasting happiness, or an ideal situation  Learning to be resilient and flexible enough to negotiate on-going paradoxes  Facing existential challenges in a personal and creative manner that allows for dialectic and surpassing  Grappling with tensions, conflicts and dilemmas and slowly learning to make sense of it
  • 23. Project: active transcendence  Man is characterized above all by his going beyond a situation and by what he succeeds in making of what he has been made.  This is what we call the project. (Sartre, Search for a Method:91) @Emmy van Deurzen 2015
  • 24. Finding the purpose of life IKIGAI
  • 25. John Henry Fuseli’s the nightmare: Suppression of feelings leads to dysfunction and despair loss of freedom: depression is often actually about oppression or suppression when we free ourselves: anxiety
  • 27. Resilience: how to deal with adversity and crisis Physical: safety, sleep, food, comfort, survival, healing, repair, recovery Social: strong relationships, allow and understand emotions, belonging, caring, sharing, support Psychological: clear thinking, making sense, analysis, understanding, new perspective, taking charge, responsibility, character building Spiritual: review values, new vision, trust, transcendence, dialectic, stronger beliefs, meaning, purpose
  • 28. Making sense: using the prefrontal lobes
  • 29. Adaptability, flexibility neurons, like us: making new connections: organizing
  • 30. Life is about learning
  • 31. Spinoza: the universe is governed by necessary laws which when respected and understood allow us freedom: determinism<>contingency
  • 32. Sisyphus: Life as a futile uphill struggle There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is … whether life is or is not worth living. (Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus)
  • 33. Meaning found not despite but because of adversity
  • 34. Life’s events are grist for the mill: nurturance
  • 35. Classic solutions  The un-reflected life is not worth living (Socrates)  It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live (Marcus Aurelius: stoic).
  • 36. Aristotle  Eudaimonia: the good life : virtue ethics, live in line with your demon force  Sift opinions between true and false  Should benefit the community at large rather than only the individual  Philosophy teacher's discourse with the pupil (client) should be a co-operative, critical one that insists on the virtues of orderliness, deliberateness and clarity
  • 37. Epicureans The Epicureans seek to treat human suffering by removing corrupting desires and by eliminating pain and disturbance (ataraxia). Adjust values retaining only those that are attainable and may bring pleasure.
  • 38. Skeptics Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360-275 B.C.) Skeptics: the only way to stop pain and suffering is to simply not believe in or desire anything. So whilst Epicureans try to get rid of false beliefs, the Skeptics want to get rid of all beliefs.
  • 39. Stoics: overcoming weakness  Ordering of the self and soul  Exercise of the mind  Akrasia: lack of moral fibre and emotional weakness  Find that critical moment (kairos) for change  Zeno: virtue is its own reward
  • 40. Stoic goal  For the Stoics the pupil's goal is to become his own teacher and pupil  In order to improve a person's life the soul must be exercised everyday, for instance by the use of logic and poetry  The objective is wisdom, the only ultimate value and virtue and leads to eudaimonia, the flourishing life: wisdom, courage, justice, temperance  The means: detachment and self-control : apathy
  • 41. Reality of existence: to be fully alive, aware
  • 42. Kierkegaard’s breathing  Personhood is a synthesis of possibility and necessity.  Its continued existence is like breathing (respiration), which is an inhaling and exhaling.  (Kierkegaard, Sickness unto Death: 40)
  • 44. Starting from what you love
  • 45. Confucius: living is a craft, we learn to perfect
  • 46. Starting with little sparks, building a fire
  • 48. Heidegger’s Ereignis: re-owning  Original thanking is the thanks owed for being. That thanks alone gives rise to thinking of the kind we know as retribution and reward in the good and bad sense. (Heidegger 1954:141)
  • 49. You have to own your life: it is your work of art
  • 50. Get perspective and find purpose and direction
  • 53. Work
  • 54. Movement, engagement and action  Finding your own joy in work and living
  • 55. Love
  • 56. Buber’s encounter  The interhuman: das Zwischenmenschlichen; the in-between is where real communication takes place. (Buber, Between Man and Man, 1929).  All actual life is encounter (ibid: 62)  This is where truth is found.
  • 58. Onto-dynamics  Learning to live in line with the laws of life  Paradox, conflict, difficulty and dilemmas are our daily companions  When crisis comes we need to have the courage to descend to rock bottom  From there we can build something better @Emmy van Deurzen 2015
  • 59. Potentiality is more than actuality  From project to action in our own lives.  Plotting a route through the obstacles  Potentiality of past as well as of the present and future.  Living in time: transcendence and evolution
  • 60. Exploring our limits and our possibilities. Understanding and getting things in perspective
  • 61. Ultimately we are intertwined with the cosmic order: the implicate order of the universe (Bohm)
  • 62. Existential therapy  To attend to the principle of life  Solomon’s ‘thoughtful love of life’  Vitality at all levels of life  What is our interaction with nature, others, self and the ultimate?
  • 63. Multi dimensional time  Past  Present  Future  Eternity  Timelessness  Parallel universes
  • 64. DESIRES FEARS VALUES PHYSICAL life death vitality SOCIAL love hate reciprocity PERSONAL identity freedom integrity SPIRITUAL good evil transparency Human values rediscovered.
  • 65. Tensions and paradoxes at all levels World Umwelt Mitwelt Eigenwelt Uberwelt Physical Nature: Life/ Death Things: Pleasure/ Pain Body: Health/ Illness Cosmos: Harmony/ Chaos Social Society: Love/ Hate Others: Dominance/Sub mission Ego: Acceptance/ Rejection Culture: Belonging/ Isolation Personal Person: Identity/Freedom Me: Perfection/ Imperfection Self: Integrity/ Disintegration Consciousness: Confidence/ Confusion Spiritual: Infinite: Good/ Evil Ideas: Truth/ Untruth Spirit: Meaning/ Futility Conscience: Right/ Wrong
  • 66. Simone de Beauvoir the Mandarins (625)  ‘You can’t lead a proper life in a society which isn’t proper, in which every way you turn, you are always caught’  You can’t draw a straight line in a curved space.
  • 67. Therapy: finding the space and time to face oneself
  • 68. Existential therapy helps people refocus their lives, to free themselves : steadiness, courage, persistence, resilience, flexibility, clarity, direction, purpose, understanding and meaning
  • 69. New perspectives: life as an adventure  Learning to be you and living life well
  • 70. Facebook and LinkedIn: Existential Therapy www.slideshare.com
  • 71. Project: active transcendence  Man is characterized above all by his going beyond a situation and by what he succeeds in making of what he has been made.  This is what we call the project. (Sartre, Search for a Method:91)
  • 72. Time Zones  Present: zone of activity, which includes all the other zones of time  Remote past: zone of the obsolete and of history, including one’s own life myths  Mediate past: zone of loss and regret  Immediate past: zone of remorse or grief  Immediate future: zone of expectation  Mediate future: zone of wish and hope or dread and anxiety.  Remote future: zone of prayer and ethical action and also of ultimate meaning of life.
  • 74. What does it mean in practice?  The person needs to talk, be listened to, discover that they can fill the space, the silence. Hold their own. Know things, understand themselves, find out who they are, what their talents are and where they want to go.  They need to feel connected, understood, heard, important, enabled, validated. They need a sense of purpose and direction.
  • 75. Existential intelligence  Embracing existence in its contradictions and rising to its challenges.  Realizing that there is no such thing as a perfect human being.  Learning to be resilient and flexible enough to negotiate on-going paradoxes  Facing existential challenges in a personal and creative manner that allows for dialectic.
  • 76. Finding your talent, your mission.
  • 77. The right level of challenge  To live a meaningful life and have goals and values is not enough: you must also feel you are capable of achieving these things.  ‘It is necessary to find moderately difficult tasks to maintain that middle ground between boredom (too easy) and anxiety (too hard).’ (Baumeister 1991: 41) @Emmy van Deurzen 2015
  • 78. VALUES AND BELIEFS  Values and beliefs are the basis of a personal code of ethics which is about:  how I want to live my life  how I want to treat others  how I want to be treated by others  how I aim to evaluate my actions and those of others  how I feel about human existence as a result @Emmy van Deurzen 2015
  • 79. Reasons for therapy  Lost, confused  Traumatised  Imprisoned in routines  No sense of self, isolated  Paralysed, scared  Moral conflicts or dilemmas  Conflicts with others  Meaninglessness
  • 80. We discover being  We are part of change  We impact on others  We can create and contribute  We can relate differently  We can shape shift  We can open up and blossom  We can breathe and be and enjoy  We can discover awe, transcendence, infinity
  • 81. Growing strong  We don’t  have to be  champions.
  • 85. Learning to love your life: sleep, humor, safety, comfort
  • 87. Getting to know yourself in past, present, future
  • 89. Existential Therapy  Working with philosophical methods, amongst which phenomenology, dialectics, maieutics, hermeneutics and heuristic methods.
  • 90. Limits of therapy: ontonomy  “Therapy when practiced well is a fine but delicately balanced intervention in another person’s life. It requires a devotion to truth and a merciless pursuit of right living.  Expertise in bringing people out of the darkness of a disappointed or bitter life into the light of a new vitality is hard earned. It is a privilege and a pleasure when it works well.  But that level of engagement with clients is also extremely demanding and it can never be achieved by trotting out stereotyped tricks from approved textbooks.” ― Emmy van Deurzen
  • 91. Hard to do it alone
  • 92. Minkowski’s idea of time Present Remote Past Mediate Past Immediate Past Immediate Future Mediate Future Remote Future