ROLLO REES
MAY
EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Psikologi Kepribadian
Kontemporer
2014
Background
• Hidup: 21 April 1909 – 22 Oktober 1994
• Dasar teorinya :
EXISTENTIALISM.
Kiergegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger.
Binswanger, Boss.
Jaspers, Frankl.
Sartre, Buber, Tillich.
• Penekanan pada keseimbangan antara FREEDOM and
RESPONSIBILITY
Existentialism
•Existence over Essence
Existence associated with growth and
change; Essence signifies stagnation and
finality
•Objective vs Subjective
People are both subjective and objectoive
and must search truth by living active and
authentic lives
•People search for some meaning to their lives
Existentialism
•Each of us is responsible for who we are
and what we become
•Existentialist are basically antitheoretical.
 Theories dehumanize people and
render them as objects.
Basic Concept: Three modes of Being in The
World
•Dasein = being-in-the-world = mengada-didunia
.
•Dasein: The basic unity of person and
environment
•Alienation in three areas:
• Umwelt : world of object and things
• Mitwelt: world of people
• Eigenwelt: one’s relationship with oneself
Basic Concept: Non Being
•Death is not the only avenue of nonbeing,
but it is the most obvious one
•Other form of non being i.e. addiction to
alcholo or drugs, promiscuous sexual
activity, and other compulsive behavior
 why??? Because it’s a threat to exist,
no possibility to growth and gain
meaningful life
ANXIETY
• “is the subjective state of the individual’s
becoming aware that his/her existence can
be destroyed, that he/she can become
nothing.”
• Anxiety and despair timbul karena alienasi.
• Alienasi terungkap dalam tiga area hidup :
keterpisahan dari alam, hubungan
antarmanusia yg dirasakan tidak bermakna,
keterpisahan dari diri yang autentik.
ANXIETY
•NORMAL ANXIETY : juga disebut
constructive anxiety, yang muncul karena
perkembangan dan perubahan diri dan
nilai-nilai diri.
•Definisi : “that which is proportionate to
the threat, does not involve repression,
and can be confronted constructively on
the conscious level.”
ANXIETY
•NEUROTIC ANXIETY : “a reaction
which is disproportionate to the
threat, involves repression and other
forms of intrapsychic conflict, and is
managed by various kinds of
blocking-off of activity and
awareness.”
GUILT
•“arises when people deny their potential,
fail to accurately perceive the needs of
fellow humans, or remain oblivious to
their dependence on the natural world.”
•Keterpisahan dari alam (Umwelt), sering
dengan akibat perusakan alam, yang
menimbulkan rasa salah ontologis atau
rasa salah keterpisahan.
GUILT
•Ketidakmampuan untuk mempersepsi
secara tepat dunia orang-orang lain
(Mitwelt) menimbulkan rasa salah tipe
kedua.
•Pengingkaran potensi-potensi diri kita
sendiri atau kegagalan mengembangkan
diri kita secara penuh menimbulkan rasa
salah tipe ketiga (kesalahan terhadap
Eigenwelt).
Forms of LOVE
•Sex (murni fungsi biologis, daya prokreasi,
untuk kelangsungan umat manusia, sumber
kenikmatan terdalam dan sekaligus kecemasan
terdalam).
•Eros (“a psychological desire that seeks
procreation or creation through an enduring
union with a loved one. Eros is making love, sex
is manipulating organs. Eros is the wish to
establish a lasting union, sex is the desire to
experience pleasure.”)
Forms of LOVE
•Eros “takes wings from human
imagination and is forever
transcending all technique, giving the
laugh to all the ‘how to’ books by gaily
swinging into orbit above our
mechanical rules.”
Forms of LOVE
•Philia (eros, the salvation of sex, is built on
the foundation of philia, that is, an intimate
nonsexual friendship between two people.
Philia cannot be rushed, it takes time to
grow, to develop, to sink its roots. “Philia
does not require that we do anything for the
beloved except accept him, be with him, and
enjoy him. It is friendship in the simplest,
most direct terms.”)
Forms of LOVE
•Agape (Just as eros depends on philia,
so philia needs agape. Agape is “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.” It is
altruistic love, spiritual love, it is
undeserved and unconditional.)
PSYCHOTHERAPY
•“Psychotherapy should make people
more human, that is, help them
expand their consciousness so that
they will be in a better position to
make choices. These choices, then,
lead to the simultaneous growth of
freedom and responsibility.”
PSYCHOTHERAPY
•How does a therapist help patients become
free, responsible human beings ?
•May did not offer many specific directions
for the therapist to follow.
•Existential therapists have no special set of
technique or method that can be applied to
all patients.
•Sooo ??
PSYCHOTHERAPY
•Instead, they have only themselves, their
own humanity to offer.
•They must establish a one-to-one
relationship (Mitwelt) that enables the
patient to become more aware of
themselves and to live more fully in their
own world (Eigenwelt). It means
challenging patients to confront their
destiny, to experience despair, anxiety, and
guilt.
PSYCHOTHERAPY
•But it also means establishing an I-thou
encounter in which both therapist and
patient are viewed as subjects rather
than objects. In an I-thou relationship,
the therapist has empathy for the
patients’s experience and is open to
the patients’s subjective world.
Ψ
REFERENSI
• Feist,J., Feist,G.J. (2009), Theories of Personality, 7th ed, Boston:
McGraw Hill.
• Hall,C.S., Lindzey,G.,Loehlin,J.C., Manosevits,M.(1985), Introduction
to Theories of Personality, New York: John Wiley & Sons.