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 May: Existential Psychology

Rollo Reese May was born April 21, 1909, in Ada, Ohio, the first son of the six chil- dren born to Earl Tittle May and Matie Boughton May. Neither parent was very well educated, and May’s early intellectual climate was virtually nonexistent. In fact, when his older sister had a psychotic breakdown some years later, May’s father attributed it to too much education (Bilmes, 1978)!

Modern existential psychology has roots in the writings of Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855), Danish philosopher and theologian. Kierkegaard, like later existentialists, emphasized a balance between freedom and responsibility. People acquire freedom of action through expanding their self- awareness and then by assuming responsibility for their actions. The acquisition of freedom and responsibility, however, is achieved only at the expense of anxiety. As people realize that, ultimately, they are in charge of their own destiny, they experience the burden of freedom and the pain of responsibility. 

Background of Existentialism

What Is Existentialism?

Although philosophers and psychologists interpret existentialism in a variety of ways, some common elements are found among most existential thinkers. First, ex- istence takes precedence over essence. Existence means to emerge or to become; essence implies a static immutable substance. Existence suggests process; essence refers to a product. Existence is associated with growth and change; essence signifies stagnation and finality.

Second, existentialism opposes the split between subject and object. Accord- ing to Kierkegaard, people are more than mere cogs in the machinery of an industri- alized society, but they are also more than subjective thinking beings living passively through armchair speculation. Instead, people are both subjective and objective and must search for truth by living active and authentic lives.

Third, people search for some meaning to their lives. They ask (though not al- ways consciously) the important questions concerning their being: Who am I? Is life worth living? Does it have a meaning? How can I realize my humanity?

Fourth, existentialists hold that ultimately each of us is responsible for who we are and what we become. We cannot blame parents, teachers, employers, God, or cir- cumstances. As Sartre (1957) said, “Man is nothing else but what he makes of him- self. Such is the first principle of existentialism” (p. 15). 

Fifth, existentialists are basically antitheoretical. To them, theories further de- humanize people and render them as objects.

Basic Concepts

Before proceeding to Rollo May’s view of humanity, we pause to look at two basic concepts of existentialism, namely, being-in-the-world and nonbeing.

1. Being-in-the-World

Existentialists adopt a phenomenological approach to understanding humanity. To them, we exist in a world that can be best understood from our own perspective. The basic unity of person and environment is expressed in the German word Dasein, meaning to exist there. Hence, Dasein lit- erally means to exist in the world and is generally written as being-in-the-world. The hyphens in this term imply a oneness of subject and object, of person and world. 

Many people suffer from anxiety and despair brought on by their alienation from themselves or from their world. They either have no clear image of themselves or they feel isolated from a world that seems distant and foreign. They have no sense of Dasein, no unity of self and world.

This feeling of isolation and alienation of self from the world is suffered not only by pathologically disturbed individuals but also by most individuals in modern societies. Alienation is the illness of our time, and it manifests itself in three areas: (1) separation from nature, (2) lack of meaningful interpersonal relations, and (3) alienation from one’s authentic self. Thus, people experience three simultaneous modes in their being-in-the-world: Umwelt, or the environment around us; Mitwelt, or our relations with other people; and Eigenwelt, or our relationship with our self.

Umwelt is the world of objects and things and would exist even if people had no awareness. It is the world of nature and natural law and includes biological drives, such as hunger and sleep, and such natural phenomena as birth and death. We can- not escape Umwelt; we must learn to live in the world around us and to adjust to changes within this world. Freud’s theory, with its emphasis on biology and instincts, deals mostly with Umwelt.

But we do not live only in Umwelt. We also live in the world with people, that is, Mitwelt. We must relate to people as people, not as things. If we treat people as objects, then we are living solely in Umwelt. The difference between Umwelt and Mitwelt can be seen by contrasting sex with love. If a person uses another as an in- strument for sexual gratification, then that person is living in Umwelt, at least in his or her relationship to that other person. However, love demands that one make a commitment to the other person. Love means respect for the other person’s being- in-the-world, an unconditional acceptance of that person. Not every Mitwelt rela- tionship, however, necessitates love. The essential criterion is that the Dasein of the other person is respected. The theories of Sullivan and Rogers, with their emphasis on interpersonal relations, deal mostly with Mitwelt.

Eigenwelt refers to one’s relationship with oneself. It is a world not usually ex- plored by personality theorists. To live in Eigenwelt means to be aware of oneself as a human being and to grasp who we are as we relate to the world of things and to the world of people. What does this sunset mean to me? How is this other person a part of my life? What characteristics of mine allow me to love this person? How do I per- ceive this experience?

Healthy people live in Umwelt, Mitwelt, and Eigenwelt simultaneously (see Figure 12.1). They adapt to the natural world, relate to others as humans, and have a keen awareness of what all these experiences mean to them (May, 1958a).

2. Nonbeing

Being-in-the-world necessitates an awareness of self as a living, emerging being. This awareness, in turn, leads to the dread of not being: that is, nonbeing or nothingness.

Death is not the only avenue of nonbeing, but it is the most obvious one. Life becomes more vital, more meaningful when we confront the possibility of our death.

Anxiety

People experience anxiety when they become aware that their existence or some value identified with it might be destroyed. May (1958a) defined anxiety as “the subjective state of the individual’s becoming aware that his [or her] existence can be destroyed, that he can become ‘nothing’ ” (p. 50). At another time, May (1967) called anxiety a threat to some important value. Anxiety, then, can spring either from an awareness of one’s nonbeing or from a threat to some value essential to one’s ex- istence. It exists when one confronts the issue of fulfilling one’s potentialities. This confrontation can lead to stagnation and decay, but it can also result in growth and change.

The acquisition of freedom inevitably leads to anxiety. Freedom cannot exist without anxiety, nor can anxiety exist without freedom.

Normal Anxiety

May (1967) defined normal anxiety as that “which is proportionate to the threat, does not involve repression, and can be confronted constructively on the conscious level” (p. 80).

As people grow from infancy to old age, their values change, and with each step, they experience normal anxiety. “All growth consists of the anxiety-creating surrender of past values” (May, 1967, p. 80). Normal anxiety is also experienced during those creative moments when an artist, a scientist, or a philosopher suddenly achieves an insight that leads to a recognition that one’s life, and perhaps the lives of countless others, will be permanently changed.

Neurotic Anxiety

May (1967) defined neurotic anxiety as “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” (p. 80).

Whereas normal anxiety is felt whenever values are threatened, neurotic anxi- ety is experienced whenever values become transformed into dogma. To be ab- solutely right in one’s beliefs provides temporary security, but it is security “bought at the price of surrendering [one’s] opportunity for fresh learning and new growth” (May, 1967, p. 80).

Guilt

Anxiety arises when people are faced with the problem of fulfilling their potentiali- ties. 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 (May, 1958a). Just as May used the term “anxiety” to refer to large issues deal- ing with one’s being-in-the-world, so too did he employ the concept of guilt. In this sense, both anxiety and guilt are ontological; that is, they refer to the nature of being and not to feelings arising from specific situations or transgressions.

In all, May (1958a) recognized three forms of ontological guilt, each corre- sponding to one of the three modes of being-in-the-world, that is, Umwelt, Mitwelt, and Eigenwelt.

Intentionality

The ability to make a choice implies some underlying structure upon which that choice is made. The structure that gives meaning to experience and allows people to make decisions about the future is called intentionality (May, 1969b). Without in- tentionality, people could neither choose nor act on their choice. Action implies in- tentionality, just as intentionality implies action; the two are inseparable.

May used the term “intentionality” to bridge the gap between subject and ob- ject. Intentionality is “the structure of meaning which makes it possible for us, sub- jects that we are, to see and understand the outside world, objective that it is. In in- tentionality, the dichotomy between subject and object is partially overcome” (May, 1969b, p. 225).

Care, Love, and Will

To care for someone means to recognize that person as a fellow human being, to identify with that person’s pain or joy, guilt or pity. Care is an active process, the opposite of apathy. “Care is a state in which something does matter” (May, 1969b, p. 289).

Care is not the same as love, but it is the source of love. To love means to care, to recognize the essential humanity of the other person, to have an active regard for that person’s development. May (1953) defined love as a “delight in the presence of the other person and an affirming of [that person’s] value and development as much as one’s own” (p. 206). Without care there can be no love—only empty sentimental- ity or transient sexual arousal. Care is also the source of will.

May (1969b) called will “the capacity to organize one’s self so that movement in a certain direction or toward a certain goal may take place”

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Union of Love and Will

Our task, said May (1969b, 1990b), is to unite love and will. This task is not easy, but it is possible. Neither blissful love nor self-serving will have a role in the uniting of love and will. For the mature person, both love and will mean a reaching out toward another person. Both involve care, both necessitate choice, both imply action, and both require responsibility.

Forms of Love

May (1969b) identified four kinds of love in Western tradition—sex, eros, philia, and agape.

1. Sex - Sex is a biological function that can be satisfied through sexual intercourse or some other release of sexual tension. Although it has become cheapened in modern West- ern societies, “it still remains the power of procreation, the drive which perpetuates the race, the source at once of the human being’s most intense pleasure and his [or her] most pervasive anxiety” (May, 1969b, p. 38).

2. Eros - Eros is 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 last- ing union; sex is the desire to experience pleasure. Eros “takes wings from human imagination and is forever transcending all techniques, giving the laugh to all the ‘how to’ books by gaily swinging into orbit above our mechanical rules” (May, 1969b, p. 74).

Eros is built on care and tenderness. It longs to establish an enduring union with the other person, such that both partners experience delight and passion and both are broadened and deepened by the experience. Because the human species could not survive without desire for a lasting union, eros can be regarded as the sal- vation of sex.

3. 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. Examples of philia would be the slowly evolving love between siblings or between lifelong friends. “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” (May, 1969a, p. 31).

4. Agape - Just as eros depends on philia, so philia needs agape. May (1969b) defined agape as “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” (p. 319).

Agape is altruistic love. It is a kind of spiritual love that carries with it the risk of playing God. It does not depend on any behaviors or characteristics of the other person. In this sense, it is undeserved and unconditional.

In summary, healthy adult relationships blend all four forms of love.

Freedom and Destiny

A blend of the four forms of love requires both self-assertion and an affirmation of the other person. It also requires an assertion of one’s freedom and a confrontation with one’s destiny. Healthy individuals are able both to assume their freedom and to face their destiny.

Freedom Defined

In an early definition, May (1967) said that “freedom is the individual’s capacity to know that he is the determined one” (p. 175). The word “determined” in this defini- tion is synonymous with what May (1981) would later call destiny. Freedom, then, comes from an understanding of our destiny: an understanding that death is a possi- bility at any moment, that we are male or female, that we have inherent weaknesses, that early childhood experiences dispose us toward certain patterns of behavior.

Freedom is the possibility of changing, although we may not know what those changes might be. Freedom “entails being able to harbor different possibilities in one’s mind even though it is not clear at the moment which way one must act” (May, 1981, pp. 10–11). This condition often leads to increases in anxiety, but it is normal anxiety, the kind that healthy people welcome and are able to manage.

Forms of Freedom

May (1981) recognized two forms of freedom—freedom of doing and freedom of being. The first he called existential freedom; the latter, essential freedom.

1. Existential Freedom -  should not be identified with existential philosophy. It is the freedom of action—the freedom of doing. Existential freedom is the freedom to act on the choices that one makes.

2. Essential Freedom -Freedom to act, to move around does not ensure essential freedom: that is, freedom of being. In fact, existential freedom often makes essential freedom more difficult. For example, prisoners and inmates in concentration camps often speak enthusiastically of their “inner freedom,” despite experiencing very limited existential freedom. Thus, physical confinement or the denial of liberty seems to allow people to face their destiny and to gain their freedom of being. In 1981, May (1981, p. 60) asked: “Do we get to essential freedom only when our everyday existence is interrupted?” May’s own answer was “no.” One need not be imprisoned to attain essential freedom, that is, freedom of being. Destiny itself is our prison—our concentration camp that allows us to be less concerned with freedom of doing and more concerned with essential freedom.

What Is Destiny?

May (1981) defined destiny as “the design of the universe speaking through the de- sign of each one of us” (p. 90). Our ultimate destiny is death, but on a lesser scale our destiny includes other biological properties such as intelligence, gender, size and strength, and genetic predisposition toward certain illnesses. In addition, psycholog- ical and cultural factors contribute to our destiny.

Destiny does not mean preordained or foredoomed. It is our destination, our terminus, our goal. Within the boundaries of our destiny, we have the power to choose, and this power allows us to confront and challenge our destiny. It does not, however, permit any change we wish. We cannot be successful at any job, conquer any illness, enjoy a fulfilling relationship with any person. We cannot erase our des- tiny, “but we can choose how we shall respond, how we shall live out our talents which confront us” (May, 1981, p. 89).

The Power of Myth

For many years, May was concerned with the powerful effects of myths on individ- uals and cultures—a concern that culminated in his book The Cry for Myth (1991). Myths are not falsehoods; rather, they are conscious and unconscious belief systems that provide explanations for personal and social problems. May (1991) compared myths to the support beams in a house—not visible from the outside, but they hold the house to- gether and make it habitable.

May’s concept of myths is comparable to Carl Jung’s idea of a collective un- conscious in that myths are archetypal patterns in the human experience; they are av- enues to universal images that lie beyond individual experience (see Chapter 4). And like archetypes, myths can contribute to psychological growth if people will embrace them and allow them to open up a new reality. Tragically, many people deny their universal myths and thus risk alienation, apathy, and emptiness—the principal in- gredients of psychopathology.

Psychopathology

According to May, apathy and emptiness—not anxiety and guilt—are the malaise of modern times. When people deny their destiny or abandon their myths, they lose their purpose for being; they become directionless. Without some goal or desti- nation, people become sick and engage in a variety of self-defeating and self- destructive behaviors. 

May saw psychopathology as lack of communication—the inability to know others and to share oneself with them. Psychologically disturbed individuals deny their destiny and thus lose their freedom. They erect a variety of neurotic symptoms, not to regain their freedom, but to renounce it. Symptoms narrow the person’s phe- nomenological world to the size that makes coping easier. The compulsive person adopts a rigid routine, thereby making new choices unnecessary.

Psychotherapy

Unlike Freud, Adler, Rogers, and other clinically oriented personality theorists, May did not establish a school of psychotherapy with avid followers and identifiable tech- niques. Nevertheless, he wrote extensively on the subject, rejecting the idea that psy- chotherapy should reduce anxiety and ease feelings of guilt. Instead, he suggested that 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 (M. H. Hall, 1967). These choices, then, lead to the simultaneous growth of freedom and respon- sibility.

May believed that the purpose of psychotherapy is to set people free. He ar- gued that therapists who concentrate on a patient’s symptoms are missing the more important picture. Neurotic symptoms are simply ways of running away from free- dom and an indication that patients’ inner possibilities are not being used. When pa- tients become more free, more human, their neurotic symptoms usually disappear, their neurotic anxiety gives way to normal anxiety, and their neurotic guilt is re- placed by normal guilt. But these gains are secondary and not the central purpose of therapy. May insisted that psychotherapy must be concerned with helping people ex- perience their existence, and that relieving symptoms is merely a by-product of that experience.

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Feist, Jess & Feist, Gregory J. 2008. Theories of Personality, 7th Edition. The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Publish in the United States of America.

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