The core idea of existentialism is that we exist and then, subsequently, we create meaning through our decisions, behaviours, and relationships. It is primarily concerned with what it means to be here now, each person responsible for the life they have. Jean Paul Sartre (1946 [translated edition 2007]) proposed that we are ‘condemned to be free’, indicating that the possession of freedom can be unsettling: Having options can often create anxiety rather than comfort. Even doing nothing is still a choice that can potentially carry meaning. Søren Kierkegaard (1844 [translated edition 1980]) proposed that existential anxiety is not a result of mental or physical illness, but instead is the natural result of facing the freedom and uncertainty of being alive. Sartre (1943 [translated edition 1956]) differentiated between living authentically and living in bad faith. Living authentically means for a person to recognise and accept that they are fundamentally free and responsible for their choices throughout life. Sartre believed that we create ourselves through our actions, and to live authentically is to accept this self-creation rather than hide from it. He believed that a person needed to live authentically to claim authorship and responsibility over their own life. However, he considered that some people will deliberately restrict themselves in order to avoid the responsibility of freedom: They may hide within a fixed role, a fixed character, a fixed diagnosis, a fixed past, a fixed moral identity. Living in bad faith becomes an anxiety management strategy. Sartre argued that bad faith is a kind of self-deception that allows a person to decide that they have limited or no choice in their behaviour. Over time, this restricts a person’s openness to different possibilities and experiences, thereby affecting their life narrative and identity structure. Moreover, it closes down the future to the possibility of change. Bad faith diminishes a person to a simplified identity, like a label, so that the person does not fully inhabit their lived reality. Living authentically allows for a more fluid engagement with life and the recognition that the self that can be complex and ambiguous. However, living authentically does not mean taking responsibility for everything regardless of the cause: For instance, if a person has experienced moral injury or trauma, living authentically refers to the person accepting responsibility for how they live in relation to what happened, not for the actual event that was likely beyond their control. Simone de Beauvoir (1947 [translated edition 1976]) proposed that authenticity involves a person recognising their own freedom but also the freedom and vulnerability of others, so authenticity is not just focussed upon the self. She emphasised that freedom is always relational. Individualism can become irresponsible: In her view, existentialism promotes responsibility, a recognition of others, and a disapproval of oppression and objectification.
It should be noted that Sartre’s concept of bad faith can be legitimately protective in some instances, at least in the short-term, such as when experiencing the effects of trauma or abuse which can, understandably, cause a person to feel helpless. There are constraints upon individual freedom, of which trauma is perhaps the most severe example. Constraints produced by trauma include nervous system dysregulation, threat-based perception and a fear mindset, survival adaptations to protect the self, dissociation, shame, guilt, and self-blame. Such responses are produced by a body that has experienced danger, so these constraints upon freedom are internal. Sartre emphasised the difference between a situation that may develop, which is often beyond a person’s control, and how they exist and behave in relation to that situation. Existential freedom is not freedom from constraint, as life situations constantly provide constraints upon choice, but instead it is freedom within those constraints: Thus, freedom represents how a person acts and reacts in the context of everyday events, laws, and social obligations and expectations. It constitutes the options remaining once constraints have been recognised. These limitations on freedom Sartre called facticity, the acceptance that life is an interaction with facts that can impede and obstruct. De Beauvoir stated that freedom is not equal amongst people: They can be constrained socially, politically, economically, or relationally. She believed that factors such as oppression, violence, gendered power, poverty, and institutional structures can all limit people’s freedoms and restrict what they can become. These are external constraints upon freedom. Therefore, freedom exists in the context of where power is situated within society and how it is used. Irvin Yallom (1980) stated a clear difference between existential freedom and behavioural freedom. A person will still have responsibility for how they live and will be confronted with existential questions regarding identity and personal values even if their behaviour is restricted by social structures. If internal and external constraints are not recognised, it can lead to the person becoming blamed by others for their circumstance or having their life experiences dismissed. However, while people are often genuinely constrained, they are always more than the events that have happened to them.
Opinions differ as to whether all life events have meaning. Viktor Frankl (1946, updated 2006) believed that meaning always exists but that it may not always be apparent and has to be discovered. Each situation presents the possibility of meaning which may be found through a person’s responses, including creative work, their values and stance toward life, and their relationships and the emotional support they receive. Friedrich Nietzsche (1887 [translated 1974]) proposed that the universe does not possess any inherent meaning. Instead, people must create values and meaning for themselves through their engagement with the events that occur throughout their life. Modern existential therapies usually focus upon finding personal meaning rather than universal meaning. So, a person might consider what meaning they can find in an event or how it affects their life narrative and world view. While diverging on crucial points, these contrasting theories agree that meaning does not appear passively, but is an endeavour requiring commitment, reflection, and responsibility.
Belief in the existence of God will greatly influence whether a person considers there to be a universal external meaning. Existentialism splits into two perspectives regarding the existence of God: Theistic and atheistic. Kierkegaard defined theistic existentialism as God existing beyond rational logic, with belief requiring a leap of faith. In his view, faith is a risk, containing the possibility of being wrong. Faith is an existential act because God is not an objective certainty. If God was a provable fact, then the presence of God would constitute knowledge, not an act of faith. Faith is a personal commitment regardless of doubt and in the absence of guarantees. Kierkegaard considered faith to be an orientation of a person’s life, not simply an agreement to God’s existence. His emphasis was less concerned with whether the existence of God could be certified, and instead focussed upon how a person lives their life in relation to God. Paul Tillich (1957) argued that doubt is not the opposite of faith but is a part of it: Faith is meaningful because it represents an existential orientation of the self, even if certainty may seem impossible to achieve. Gabriel Marcel (1962) differentiated between life problems which can be rationally solved and life mysteries which can only be experienced with participation. Marcel suggested that God was a reality experienced through continued fidelity and relational trust; a relationship that builds rather than a proposition to be proven. Martin Buber (2000) considered that God is known through encounter: Faith emerges through a relationship with God not through objective reasoning. A person may experience a profound certainty, but this is existential, not empirically demonstrable. It is arguable that, if God were to be an objective fact of reality, then freedom, risk, responsibility, and faith would all become obsolete.
Albert Camus (1942 [translated edition 2005]) explained the atheistic perspective. He considered that the universe presents no guarantee of providing meaning. We may long to have an external meaning but some consider the universe to be silent. Camus described this situation as ‘the absurd’. He proposed that the appropriate response to an apparent external meaninglessness was to utilise freedom and a passion for lived experience. For him, living well was a revolt against meaninglessness. This is the standpoint of atheistic existentialism, which proposes that people are inherently alone and that we create our own meaning. Sartre argued that people have no pre-determined purpose: Instead, humans are responsible for developing meaning through their own values and choices. Consequently, Sartre framed his understanding of existentialism as explicitly humanist. Humanism is a perspective that places human agency and responsibility at the centre of living. It emphasises reasoning, empathy, and self-determination in order to encourage personal growth, authenticity, and autonomy. For many who adhere to atheistic existentialism it represents a form of humanism that is founded in realism: So, Camus recognised the importance of ethical responsibility, solidarity with others, and dignity but placed them within the context of suffering and eventual death. Existentialism, whether incorporating a belief in God or not, emphasises that people build meaning within their lives. However, for theistic existentialism this meaning is oriented toward subjective experiences of God and developing an awareness of an external value system, while atheistic existentialism places meaning totally in human freedom in the perceived absence of any outward presence.
Yalom suggested that people live with four ‘ultimate concerns’: Death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness. However, for many people the repetition of everyday life can push these concerns into the background, as they may rely on routines, social roles, and belief systems to suppress existential anxiety. Times of crisis disrupt the everyday assumptions that support the feeling of continuity, that tomorrow will be the same as today. These assumptions would normally provide psychological protection and stability: Assumptions that the world is relatively safe, that life is meaningful, that the self is worthy and deserving, that the future is predictable. Traumatic events can cause a collapse of what Ronnie Janoff-Bulman (1992) called ‘the assumptive world’. However, a severe crisis reveals what was always true: That life was never guaranteed to be stable. After trauma, a person may consider the world and their sense of self to be permanently changed. This is not just fear or distress: It represents an existential rupture that has severed them from their past. Moreover, a severe crisis exposes how little control a person actually possesses and how a life can be redirected without consent. Such a crisis increases the existential anxiety that Kierkegaard had described, as a person becomes aware of life’s unpredictability, their own lack of control, and ultimately, their own mortality. Yalom considered that trauma also increases existential isolation, which is the recognition that no one can fully share or remove a person’s suffering. Following a traumatic experience, a person may feel alone, detached from others, and feel that they have difficulty being understood. This isolation often represents a fundamental existential change. Trauma can send a person to a different reality that those without the experience can struggle to understand. Emmy van Deurzen (2012) suggested that trauma destabilises in multiple ways: Trauma impacts upon the body and reduces feelings of safety, it can impair relationships and alter a person’s identity, and it can provoke a crisis of meaning and a collapse of values. Frankl believed that suffering can become meaningful depending upon the person’s response. Tedeschi and Calhoun (2004) developed the theory of post-traumatic growth which suggested that trauma can lead to a deeper appreciation of life, a stronger character, altered values, and an increased awareness of existential themes. However, post-traumatic growth is unlikely to remove suffering, although it may help to make the effects of trauma more manageable by integrating the experiences into a meaningful life narrative. Post-traumatic growth is not inevitable and does not occur for some. Tedeschi and Calhoun emphasised that the absence of growth is not a failure and is not a moral necessity. Suffering does not require that meaning subsequently emerges. Ultimately, existentialism offers honesty, endeavouring to obtain or build meaning without illusions, which can present a kind of hope when life is bleak and meaning appears to have been lost.
References
de Beauvoir, S. (1976) The Ethics of Ambiguity. Translated by B. Frechtman. New York: Citadel Press.
Buber, M. (2000) I and Thou. Translated by R.G. Smith. London: Continuum.
Camus, A. (2005) The Myth of Sisyphus. Translated by J. O’Brien. London: Penguin.
van Deurzen, E. (2012) Existential Counselling and Psychotherapy in Practice. London: Sage.
Frankl, V.E. (2006) Man’s Search for Meaning. Revised and updated edn. Translated by I. Lasch. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Janoff-Bulman, R. (1992) Shattered Assumptions: Towards a New Psychology of Trauma. New York: Free Press.
Kierkegaard, S. (1980) The Concept of Anxiety. Translated by R. Thomte. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Marcel, G. (1962) The Mystery of Being, Volume 1: Reflection and Mystery. London: Harvill Press.
Nietzsche, F. (1974) The Gay Science. New York: Vintage.
Sartre, J.-P. (1956) Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology. Translated by H.E. Barnes. London: Methuen.
Sartre, J.-P. (2007) Existentialism Is a Humanism. Translated by C. Macomber. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Tedeschi, R.G. and Calhoun, L.G. (2004) ‘Posttraumatic growth’, Psychological Inquiry, 15(1), pp. 1–18.
Tillich, P. (1957) Dynamics of Faith. New York: Harper & Row.
Yalom, I.D. (1980) Existential Psychotherapy. New York: Basic Books.