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An existential crisis is a special condition that suddenly “covers” a person, dramatically changing his attitude towards his own life and everything that surrounds him. It cannot be said that he suffers from this. He simply begins to ask philosophical questions about the meaning of life and existence, about how correctly he is living and what kind of life he could have lived if he had turned in a different direction at a certain stage in his life. Today we will analyze in detail what an existential crisis is, why it occurs, how it manifests itself and how to get rid of it.
What is an existential crisis
An existential crisis is an anxious state of a person, accompanied by reflections on the meaning of life (individually and in the broad sense of all humanity), man’s place in the universe. The individual is tormented by the questions “Who am I?” and “why do I live?”, “what do I want?”, “what is my purpose?”
An existential crisis is based on the highest human needs, the spiritual level. This is a sign of personality development. Young people and middle-aged people face a crisis of identity and the meaning of life (existential). In the first case, a person gets to know himself for the first time and is looking for a place in the world; in the second, there is a reassessment of values, a rethinking of life and a new acquaintance with himself. In both cases, a crisis of the meaning and essence of life arises (from Latin existentia means “existence”).
An existential crisis is a form of personal crisis, therefore it is not necessarily caused by age. The search for an answer to the question of the meaning of life is determined by the development of personality. But if the thought about the essence of existence at least once overtakes every person, then not for every person this turns into a crisis. What factors influence this?
Liberty
Another ultimate given, much less obvious, is freedom. Usually freedom seems to be an unambiguously positive phenomenon. Doesn’t man long for freedom and strive for it throughout the entire recorded history of mankind? However, freedom as a primary principle gives rise to horror. In an existential sense, “freedom” is the absence of external structure. Everyday life harbors the comforting illusion that we are entering (and leaving) a well-ordered universe, arranged according to a definite plan. In fact, the individual bears full responsibility for his world - in other words, he himself is its creator. From this point of view, “freedom” implies a terrifying thing: we do not rest on any ground, beneath us there is nothingness, emptiness, an abyss. The discovery of this emptiness conflicts with our need for soil and structure. This is also a key existential dynamic. Next >>
Causes of the crisis
An existential crisis can only arise in conditions that are safe for a person, if primary needs are satisfied. That is, a person is fed, clothed, shod, healthy, protected - biological life is beautiful, there is no need to survive. Then the question arises about a higher level - the development of personality, organization and the meaning of human social life.
There is an interesting opinion according to which an existential crisis befalls those who have nothing to do, have a lot of free time, and have no real life problems to solve. By the way, very often a crisis does not develop because a person immediately switches from thinking about the essence of life to everyday needs and real social activity.
The existential crisis develops against the background of:
- depression and depressive tendencies of the individual;
- social isolation;
- lack of sleep and overwork;
- dissatisfaction with your own life, work, family, yourself;
- psychological trauma;
- loneliness;
- adaptation to work, study, change of usual conditions;
- awareness of the inevitability of death or a meeting with it (the death of a loved one, a fatal diagnosis);
- lack of goals in life and independence, living “with the flow”;
- disappointments in previous ideals and meanings;
- deterioration of health, difficulties in life;
- creative thinking;
- awareness of the transience of life and loss of strength;
- frustration.
An existential crisis forces a person to think about the usefulness of life. Accordingly, the risk group includes people who have not been able to fully realize themselves in society.
By the way, every participant in society is useful for society, unless we are talking about a dependent, a criminal, or an asocial type. But such individuals are rarely concerned with the question of the meaning of life. So any participant in society, any employee, is useful. The question is how much he himself evaluates his usefulness and the correspondence of reality to his capabilities and abilities.
Signs of a crisis
During an existential crisis, a person feels lonely in a broad sense (in the entire universe) and constantly thinks about the meaning of his existence. There are no characteristic signs of a crisis; the subject can either remain cheerful in public or withdraw into himself. However, at the internal level, an existential crisis is always accompanied by:
- anxiety;
- fear and tension;
- uncertainty;
- negative emotions (anger, resentment, irritation, sadness);
- inability to concentrate;
- apathy, loss of previous interests;
- indifferent attitude towards one’s appearance and condition.
An existential crisis is always experienced internally very hard. This is a negative, depressing state that provokes negative thinking. If you don’t fight this and don’t direct your thoughts in a positive direction, then the crisis will end in tears.
Outwardly, there are two options for the manifestation of a crisis - a person is active, grabs hold of everything, tries to do a lot and try a lot; the personality withdraws into itself. The second option is more useful, but at the same time more dangerous. On the one hand, in order to understand the crisis, you need to recognize it and talk to yourself, find out what exactly made you doubt your significance and usefulness. Maybe you envied some couple and realized your loneliness, or the success you expected at work never came. But on the other hand, it is important not to get lost in the labyrinths of consciousness and subconscious, to find a constructive solution to overcome the crisis.
EXISTENTIAL CRISIS SITUATIONS
The word “existentialism,” familiar to many in philosophy, comes from the Latin ex(s)istentia - existence, and the concept of existentialism itself is revealed as a philosophy of existence that addresses the fundamental problems of human life - birth, death, freedom, love, etc.
Similarly, those trends in psychology that are called existential psychology or existential psychotherapy focus on problems that have their origins in the most fundamental foundations of human existence.
Existential approaches, like other psychodynamic models, make the main subject of their consideration the problems of a person’s inner life, considering the main ones to be those that arise from his collision with the givens of existence.
What are the givens of existence? This is how the outstanding existential psychotherapist Irvin Yalom describes the possibility of understanding this expression.
In a sense, the task of understanding the nature of the givens of our existence is not difficult. The main method of this understanding is personal reflection. Its conditions are simple: solitude, silence, time and freedom from everyday distractions that fill the everyday world of each of us. If we can step away from the everyday world, dive deeply into thinking about our “situation” in the world, our existence, our limitations and possibilities, if we get to the very basics, we will encounter the “deep structures”, the givens of our existence. This process of reflection can be initiated, “triggered” by some events, such as, for example, encountering someone’s death, or making important irreversible decisions, or the destruction of some fundamental meaning-forming models (schemes), in general, by what often referred to as “borderline” situations.
I. Yalom devotes his famous book “Existential Psychotherapy” to the consideration of four such primary problems - death, freedom, isolation and meaninglessness.
The problem of death
perhaps the most obvious of all, relates to the key existential conflict between the awareness of the inevitability of death and the desire to continue to be.
Another primary problem of human existence is the problem of freedom.
Typically, freedom is seen as an obviously positive concept, something that is fought for and dreamed about. In an existential sense, freedom is the absence of external structure. In contrast to ordinary experience, existentialists believe that human beings do not enter (or leave) a well-structured universe with its own pattern of structure. Rather, the individual is the author, responsible for his own world, way of life, choices and actions. Freedom in this sense means that there is no basis and we find ourselves in a situation of contradiction between our desire for basis and structure and our confrontation with the absence of this basis.
The third primary problem is existential isolation,
meaning not interpersonal loneliness or intrapersonal alienation from parts of one's self, but fundamental isolation from other beings and this world. No matter how closely we are connected with others, there is always a final, insurmountable distance, and we begin our existence alone and end it alone. Existential conflict is the tension between our awareness of our absolute isolation and our desire for contact, protection, our desire to be part of the larger world.
The problem of meaning
is another primary problem or fact of existence. Indeed, Yalom asks, if we must die, if we ourselves create our own world, if each of us is initially alone in this indifferent universe, what then is the meaning of our life? If it is not predetermined for us in any way, then each of us must create our own meaning in life? Existential dynamic conflict arises from the dilemma of a meaning-seeking being in a meaningless universe.
Existential crisis situations are situations that affect the very foundations of human existence and turn him to the problems of life and death, freedom and responsibility, loneliness and relationships with this world, searching for and finding the meaning of one’s existence.
They can arise as the development of a psychological conflict or crisis of a person, when the conflict problems of his life that he experiences begin to affect the very foundations of his existence, moving, so to speak, into the “existential dimension”, for example, dissatisfaction with work turns a person to the problem of the meaning of his life.
Many psychologists associate the occurrence of psychological crises with disturbances in the self-realization of the individual, in its full functioning, in its self-actualization. So, for example, the midlife crisis (this name is very arbitrary, since in reality it is located in a wide age range from about 35 to 45 years) is also sometimes called a crisis of the meaning of life precisely because it is subjectively experienced primarily as a loss of meaning, a feeling of meaninglessness of his life, usual activities, goals, etc. A person begins to feel psychological, emotional discomfort, and since it does not have a clear causal explanation in his eyes, the individual often strives to get rid of it, gain a sense of meaning in his life, and increase the possibilities of self-realization through changing one’s living space, some life circumstances (change of job or profession, the emergence of new intimate relationships, the destruction of a family, etc.), sometimes eventually becoming convinced of the truth of the saying “you can’t escape yourself.”
Another possible way for an existential crisis to arise is through external events that, perhaps unexpectedly for a person, bring him face to face with the fundamental questions of his life. A classic example of this kind of situation is the experiences of the hero of L. N. Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace” Andrei Bolkonsky, which arise in him under the influence of his injury: a strong desire to live, childhood memories, a feeling of indifference, replacing each other, suddenly give rise to a new feeling for Bolkonsky compassion, intimacy, love for others, for all people and a new understanding and meaning of life.
Existential experiences always, to one degree or another, affect the problems of the authenticity of a person’s existence - his need to “be honest with himself” and “live his own life.” Feelings of unfulfillment of this arise in him when he refuses some possibilities of his existence, limits them, allows others to control him, resigns himself to unfavorable circumstances, etc.
What does it mean to “be yourself”? Here the positions of modern psychologists largely converge. So, for example, R. May, characterizing a healthy, fully functioning personality, uses the following concepts: spirituality as the unconditionality of human nature by the existential space of his existence; personal freedom as an opportunity to realize one’s “I”, build one’s own “personal models”; individuality as the ability to be yourself and accept yourself; social integration as the ability to adapt, adapt to society, live in this world and interact with it without losing one’s individuality.
In fact, any of us, in the living space of our existence, constantly in one way or another solves the problems of our own place in this world, our freedom and lack of freedom, understanding what is happening and our own life, etc. However, we do not always feel the “existential pulse” of these problems, in mainly under the influence of some events or circumstances. In special cases, they can give rise to existential crises - critical life situations, which actually represent, albeit short-term, an interruption of the usual flow of life, the restoration of which in its previous or changed form requires intense internal work of the individual to live through them.
How to overcome
All researchers come to the conclusion that the crisis of existence can only be overcome by recognizing that the meaning of life lies in living the present moment. A person does not have a given mission and there is no objective meaning of existence, but everyone creates a subjective meaning of their life. Accordingly, to overcome the crisis you need to find your personal meaning in life.
What could it be:
- Job;
- creating a family or developing a family;
- giving birth and raising children;
- creation;
- social activity, charity;
- transferring your experience, training the younger generation;
- finding love, building relationships;
- faith;
- animal care;
- other.
The media, family, stereotypes, attitudes and beliefs received from other sources during socialization help to argue for the fact of a person’s existence.
The feeling of total loneliness is the second element of an existential crisis. You can overcome it only by recognizing that even the highest level of empathy will not allow you to understand and feel another person. The inner world of each person is unique, yes, it sometimes causes a feeling of loneliness, but you need to learn to use it. Successfully overcoming a crisis involves accepting one’s uniqueness and uniqueness. If you highlight a specific feature in this, develop it and use it in self-realization and the realization of the meaning of life, then the crisis will be resolved successfully.
It is necessary to overcome the crisis and find a purpose in life, otherwise the state will turn into despondency, passivity, and indifference to oneself and one’s life. Gradually, addictions, deviations, degradation and self-destruction will join this. Often a protracted crisis ends in suicide (since there is no point, then why wait for death).
Existential isolation
The third ultimate reality is isolation. This is not isolation from people with the loneliness it generates, and not internal isolation (from parts of one’s own personality). It is the fundamental isolation—both from other creatures and from the world—that lies behind every sense of isolation. No matter how close we are to someone, there is always one last insurmountable gap between us; each of us comes into the world alone and must leave it alone. The existential conflict generated is a conflict between perceived absolute isolation and the need for contact, for protection, for belonging to a larger whole. Next >>
Afterword
The search for the essence of life is associated with human self-realization. Indeed, no one will like to hear that he is useless or that his existence and death will not change anything. Sublimation has a positive effect, that is, self-expression in creativity, for example, in music, poetry, prose, drawing.
Each person at some point tries to argue for his existence, someone says that “everything is God’s plan,” someone gives birth to children and sees the meaning of their life in prolonging the human race, and someone creates new medicines. There are, of course, unique people who insist that they were sent by higher powers, who constantly contact the individual, saying that he must convey something important to the whole world or simply knows how to heal. But this story often ends in psychiatry.
Pointlessness
The fourth ultimate reality of existence is meaninglessness. We must die; we ourselves structure our universe; each of us is fundamentally alone in an indifferent world; What then is the meaning of our existence? Why do we live? How should we live? If nothing is initially destined, then each of us must create our own life plan. But can this own creation be strong enough to withstand our life? This existential dynamic conflict is generated by the dilemma facing a creature seeking meaning, thrown into a meaningless world. Next >>
