Webb, J, Ph.D.
When people undergo a great trauma or other unsettling
event—they have lost a job or a loved one dies, for example—their
understanding of themselves or of their place in the world often
disintegrates, and they temporarily "fall apart," experiencing a type of
depression referred to as existential depression.
It's very hard to keep your spirits up. You've got to
keep selling yourself a bill of goods, and some people are better at
lying to themselves than others. If you face reality too much, it kills
you. ~ Woody Allen
When people undergo a great trauma or other unsettling
event—they have lost a job or a loved one dies, for example—their
understanding of themselves or of their place in the world often
disintegrates, and they temporarily "fall apart," experiencing a type of
depression referred to as existential depression. Their ordeal
highlights for them the transient nature of life and the lack of control
that we have over so many events, and it raises questions about the
meaning of our lives and our behaviors. For other people, the experience
of existential depression seemingly arises spontaneously; it stems from
their own perception of life, their thoughts about the world and their
place in it, as well as the meaning of their life. While not universal,
the experience of existential depression can challenge an individual’s
very survival and represents both a great challenge and at the same time
an opportunity—an opportunity to seize control over one's life and turn
the experience into a positive life lesson—an experience leading to
personality growth.
It has been my experience that gifted and talented
persons are more likely than those who are less gifted to experience
spontaneous existential depression as an outgrowth of their mental and
emotional abilities and interactions with others. People who are bright
are usually more intense, sensitive, and idealistic, and they can see
the inconsistencies and absurdities in the values and behaviors of
others (Webb, Gore, Amend, & DeVries, 2007). This kind of sensitive
awareness and idealism makes them more likely to ask themselves
difficult questions about the nature and purpose of their lives and the
lives of those around them. They become keenly aware of their smallness
in the larger picture of existence, and they feel helpless to fix the
many problems that trouble them. As a result, they become depressed.
This spontaneous existential depression is also, I
believe, typically associated with the disintegration experiences
referred to by Dabrowski (Daniels & Piechowski, 2009; Mendaglio,
2008a). In Dabrowski's approach, individuals who “fall apart” must find
some way to “put themselves back together again,” either by
reintegrating at their previous state or demonstrating growth by
reintegrating at a new and higher level of functioning. Sadly, sometimes
the outcome of this process may lead to chronic breakdown and
disintegration. Whether existential depression and its resulting
disintegration become positive or whether they stay negative depends on
many factors.
I will focus my discussion here on characteristics of
people, especially the gifted, that may lead them to spontaneous
existential depression, relate these to Dabrowski’s theory of positive
disintegration, as well as to other psychological theories, and then
discuss some specific ways to manage existential depression.
Background
A Polish psychiatrist and psychologist, Kazimierz
Dabrowski worked and wrote prolifically about his ideas in the years
from 1929 until his death in 1980, living part of his life in the United
States and in Canada, as well as in Europe. Nonetheless, he remains
largely unknown in North America, despite his many publications and even
though he was friends with prominent psychologists such as Maslow and
Mowrer. Although his theory of positive disintegration is highly
relevant to understanding existential depression—as well as many other
issues—I myself did not become aware of Dabrowski’s work until about 10
years ago.
But long before I knew about Dabrowski’s theory, I knew
about and understood existential depression. In fact, I knew it on a
personal level, for I have lived it. Like so many leaders in various
fields, particularly those men and women who have a deep passion for a
particular “cause”—whether connected to religion, government,
healthcare, the environment, or education—I experienced it because I saw
how the world was not the way I thought it should be or could be. There
were several periods in my life during which I was so “down” that it
was truly an effort to see any happiness around me. The result is that
now, whenever I think about existential depression, it rekindles within
me, bringing into conscious awareness thoughts and feelings that, most
of the time, I would rather ignore or avoid—thoughts of hopelessness and
despair for our world.
I have come to realize that once one becomes aware of
and involved in thinking about the many existential issues, one cannot
then go back to one's former life. As the saying goes, “Once you ring a
bell, you cannot unring it.” Like so many others, I continue to strive
to manage how these issues impact me, as well as the depression that
often accompanies them. In truth, this low-grade and chronic depression
is not necessarily a bad thing. After all, it reflects my underlying
dissatisfaction with the way things are, with the way I am, and with the
way the world is, and it leads me to continue striving to do better in
order to give my life meaning and to help others find meaning. But I
admit that sometimes I do envy people who have never experienced this
kind of depression.
Dabrowski’s ideas have given me a helpful cognitive
framework for understanding existential depression, as I am sure they
have similarly helped others. And although my relatively recent
discovery of Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration is new when
compared with my understanding of other theories in psychology, those
other theories are also useful and provide a foundation for
comprehending existential depression. After all, existential issues are
not new; existential thought appears in writings of many past centuries.
I first became aware of existential issues as a college
freshman when I was assigned to room with a student who was older than
I—in his mid thirties. Having been in the Navy, he was far more
experienced with many different kinds of people and many different ways
in which people choose to live their lives. He was a thoughtful
agnostic. I, on the other hand, had grown up in the Deep South in an
insular culture that had limited vision and rigid beliefs; my loving
parents were traditionally religious and tried to live conforming,
righteous, and conventional lives. My father, a dentist, made a good
living, and we attended church on Sundays. Until my college experience, I
thought that my family’s life was the way things were supposed to be; I
thought that everyone should share those same values, behaviors, and
world views.
My roommate, to whom I owe much gratitude, patiently
listened as I tried to persuade him of the validity and righteousness of
my limited views, after which he gently asked questions that required
me to think in ways I had not considered before. He quietly pointed out
the arbitrariness and meaninglessness of the many ways in which people,
including me, lived their lives, as well as the inconsistencies and
narcissistic grandiosity in many people’s beliefs. He introduced me to
Voltaire’s Candide and to philosophers like Sartre, Nietzsche,
and Kierkegaard. It was all quite a shock to me, because up to that
point, I had thought I had the world pretty well figured out.
In my coursework I was also exposed to some of the
well-known existential theologians—Paul Tillich (Protestant), Jacques
Maritain (Catholic), Martin Buber (Jewish), James Pike (Protestant), and
Alan Watts (Zen Buddhist)—all of whom were trying make sense of life
from a religious viewpoint. As I studied and learned, I began to see for
myself the hypocrisies and absurdities in the lives of so many people
around me, including my parents and myself, and I became quite
depressed. Fortunately, a kind and caring psychology professor allowed
me to meet with him for several sessions to talk about my angst and
disillusionment, or I might have imploded. Thanks to this professor, who
in many ways saved my life, I slowly began the process of learning to
manage my discontent and depression so that it could work for me rather than against
me. I changed my major to psychology, and in graduate school, I learned
that many others before me—certainly those who were introspective and
thoughtful idealists—had grappled with similar existential issues and
existential depression throughout the centuries.
While I was in graduate school, the humanistic psychologist Rollo May edited a book titled Existence: A new dimension in psychiatry and psychology
(1967). This book highlighted an entire area within psychology that
centered on existential issues. May became one of the most widely known
spokespersons on existential psychology, and the book continues to be a
classic. It was built on the writings of philosopher Martin Heidegger,
who emphasized phenomenology—the phenomena of being aware of one’s own
consciousness of the moment. Heidegger had written about Dasein, or “being there” in the moment with oneself and with how one perceives the world.
Other writers in May’s landmark book focused on the
applications of existential awareness to psychoanalysis and
psychotherapy, raising fundamental questions for therapists such as,
“How do I know that I am seeing the patient as he really is, in his own
reality, rather than merely a projection of our theories about him?” or
“How can we know whether we are seeing the patient in his real
world...which is for him unique, concrete, and different from our
general theories of culture?” (May, 1967, pp. 3-4). Or, said another
way, “…what is abstractly true, and what is existentially real for the
given living person?” (p. 13). As therapists, we have never participated
directly in the world of our patients, and yet we must find a way to
exist in it with them if we are to have any chance of truly knowing
them. We have experienced the world in our own way, with our own family
and our own culture. In our attempts to understand others, we generalize
from our own experiences and expect others to think, react, and be like
us. How can we see the world as our clients see it?
Although many early existential psychologists and
psychiatrists were neo-Freudians, they differed notably in focus from
Freud. Instead of concentrating on a patient’s past, pioneers such as
Otto Rank also focused on the “present time.” Karen Horney emphasized
“cultural approaches” and “basic anxiety from feeling isolated and
helpless.” And Harry Stack Sullivan highlighted the importance of one’s
experiences in interpersonal relationships in the “here and now,” as
well as what one has learned from one’s family environment. These
neo-Freudians believed that only by considering the present and a
person’s current experience could we understand that person. In
actuality, they were building off of even earlier concepts from
philosophers and theologians who had struggled with the meaning of
existence, as well as with how one’s perceptions color one’s
life—philosophers from as far back as Socrates in his dialogues and
Saint Augustine in his analyses of the self.
Existential Issues and Giftedness
It is well-known that many famous artists and musicians
have experienced existential depression (Goertzel, Goertzel, Goertzel,
& Hanson, 2004; Piirto, 2004). Eminent persons who have suffered
from this kind of depression include Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner,
Charles Dickens, Joseph Conrad, Samuel Clemens, Henry James, Herman
Melville, Tennessee Williams, Virginia Woolf, Isak Dinesen, Sylvia
Plath, Emily Dickinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Eleanor Roosevelt,
Abraham Lincoln, and Dag Hammarskjöld. In fact, the famous 17th century
gifted mathematician, physicist, and philosopher Blaise Pascal
(1623-1662) fully captured the experience of existential awareness when
he said, “When I consider the brief span of my life, swallowed up in the
eternity before and behind it, the small space that I fill, or even
see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces which I know not, and
which know not me, I am afraid, and wonder to see myself here rather
than there; for there is no reason why I should be here rather than
there, nor rather now than then” (Pascal, 1946).
Yalom (1980), who is perhaps the most widely read
current Western writer on existential psychotherapy, describes four
primary issues of existence (or "ultimate concerns")—death, freedom,
isolation, and meaninglessness. Death is an inevitable occurrence.
Freedom, in an existential sense, refers to the absence of external
structure—that is, humans do not enter a world that is inherently
structured. We must give the world a structure, which we ourselves
create. Thus, we have social customs and traditions, education,
religion, governments, laws, etc. Isolation recognizes that no matter
how close we become to another person, we will never completely know
that person and no one can fundamentally come to know us; a gap always
remains, and we are therefore still alone. The fourth primary issue,
meaninglessness, stems from the first three. If we must die, if in our
freedom we have to arbitrarily construct our own world, and if each of
us is ultimately alone, then what absolute meaning does life have?
People are most often affected by existential issues as
a result of their own experience of puzzlement from trying to
understand themselves and the world, which then generates feelings of
aloneness and existential depression. The people who worry over these
issues are seldom those in the lower reaches of intelligence or even in
the average range. In my experience, existential fretting, or for that
matter rumination and existential depression are far more common among
(though not exclusive to) more highly intelligent people—those who
ponder, question, analyze, and reflect. This is not surprising since one
must engage in substantial thought and reflection to even consider such
notions. People who mindlessly engage in superficial day-to-day aspects
of life—work, meals, home duties, and chores—do not tend to spend time
thinking about these types of issues. Brighter individuals are usually
more driven to search for universal rules or answers, and also to
recognize injustices, inconsistencies, and hypocrisies.
Other characteristics of gifted children and adults
also predispose them to existential distress. Because brighter people
are able to envision the possibilities of how things might be, they tend
to be idealists. However, they are simultaneously able to see that the
world falls short of their ideals. Unfortunately, these visionaries also
recognize that their ability to make changes in the world is very
limited. Because they are intense, these gifted individuals—both
children and adults—keenly feel the disappointment and frustration that
occurs when their ideals are not reached. They notice duplicity,
pretense, arbitrariness, insincerities, and absurdities in society and
in the behaviors of those around them. They may question or challenge
traditions, particularly those that seem meaningless or unfair. They may
ask, for example, “Why are there such inflexible sex or age-role
restrictions on people? Is there any justifiable reason why men and
women ‘should’ act a certain way? Why do people engage in hypocritical
behaviors in which they say one thing but then do the opposite? People
say they are concerned with the environment, but their behaviors show
otherwise. Why do people say things they really do not mean at all? They
greet you with, ‘How are you?’ when they really don’t want you to tell
them the details of how you are. Why are so many people so unthinking
and uncaring in their dealings with others? And with our planet? Are
others really concerned with improving the world, or is it simply all
about selfishness? Why do people settle for mediocrity? People seem
fundamentally selfish and tribal. How much difference can one person
make? It all seems hopeless. The world is too far gone. Things get worse
each day. As one person, I’ll never be able to make a difference.”
These thoughts are common in gifted children and adults.
As early as first grade, some gifted children,
particularly the more highly gifted ones, struggle with these types of
existential issues and begin to feel estranged from their peers. When
they try to share their existential thoughts and concerns with others,
they are usually met with reactions ranging from puzzlement to
hostility. The very fact of children raising such questions is a
challenge to tradition and prompts others to withdraw from or reject
them. The children soon discover that most other people do not share
their concerns but instead are focused on more concrete issues and on
fitting in with others' expectations. The result for these gifted
youngsters is conflict, either within themselves or with those around
them. But as George Bernard Shaw once said, “The reasonable man adapts
himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt
the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable
man.”
As they get older, gifted children may find that even
their families are not prepared to discuss and consider such weighty
concerns. They “may have to search far and wide to find others who share
their sometimes esoteric interests or even to find someone who laughs
at their sometimes quirky jokes. This challenge follows young gifted
adults into the workplace, where the entry-level positions that they
find themselves in can result in their being lost in the crowd, unable
to find others with whom they otherwise might feel a genuine sense of
connectedness” (Fiedler, 2008, p. 170).
Although they want to relate to others, gifted
individuals often encounter what Arthur Jensen (2004) has described as
an intellectual “zone of tolerance”—that is, in order to have a
long-lasting and meaningful relationship with another person, that
person should be within about plus or minus 20 IQ points of one’s
ability level. Outside of that zone, there will be differences in
thinking speed and depth or span of interests, which will likely lead to
impatience, dissatisfaction, frustration, and tension on the part of
each participant.
Gifted children and adults are often surprised to
realize that they are different. It is painful when others criticize
them for being too idealistic, too serious, too sensitive, too intense,
too impatient, or as having too weird a sense of humor. Gifted children,
particularly as they enter adolescence, may feel very alone in an
absurd, arbitrary, and meaningless world, which they feel powerless to
change. They may feel that adults in charge are not worthy of the
authority they hold. As one child described it, they feel “like
abandoned aliens waiting for the mother ship to come and take them home”
(Webb, Amend, Webb, Goerss, Beljan, & Olenchak, 2005, p. 136). This
alienation creates social and emotional issues for them with their age
peers, as well as with their teachers, which only adds to the
possibility of depression.
When their intensity is combined with
multi-potentiality—giftedness in several areas—these youngsters may also
become frustrated with the existential limitations of space and time.
Although they try to cram 27 hours worth of living into a 24-hour day,
there simply isn’t enough time to develop all of the talents and
interests that they may have. They have to make choices, but the choices
among so many possibilities feel unfair because they seem arbitrary;
there is no "ultimately right" choice. Choosing a college major or a
vocation is difficult when one is trying to make a decision between
passion and talent in areas as diverse as violin, genetics, theoretical
mathematics, and international relations. How can one be all that one
can be? In truth, one cannot be all that one “could” be in every area.
This realization can be very frustrating.
The reaction of gifted youngsters (again with
intensity) to these frustrations is often one of a righteous
indignation—they feel, “It isn’t right!” or “It isn’t fair!” But they
quickly discover that their anger is futile; they realize that it is
ineffective when directed at "fate" or at other circumstances which they
are not able to control. Anger that is powerless evolves quickly into
depression. It is a type of “learned helplessness,” a phrase coined by
psychologist Martin Seligman (1991). “I’m helpless; I can’t solve this.”
In such depression, people typically—and often
desperately—try to discover some sense of meaning, some anchor point
that they can grasp that will allow them to pull themselves out of the
mire and muck of injustice or unfairness. Often, though, the more they
try to struggle out of—or wallow in—their depression, the more they
become acutely aware that their life is brief and ultimately finite,
that they are alone and are only one very small organism in a very large
world, and that there is a frightening freedom and responsibility
regarding how one chooses to live one's life. They feel disillusioned,
and they question life's meaning, often asking themselves, "Is this all
there is to life? Isn’t there some ultimate and universal meaning? Does
life only have meaning if I give it meaning? I am one small,
insignificant organism alone in an absurd, arbitrary, and capricious
world where my life can have little impact, and then I just die. Is this
all there is?" Questions like this promote a sense of personal
disintegration.
Such concerns are not surprising in thoughtful adults
who are going through some sort of quarter-life or mid-life crisis.
However, it is startling and alarming when these sorts of existential
questions are foremost in the mind of a 10- or 12- or 15-year-old. Such
existential depressions in children deserve careful attention, since
they can be precursors to suicide.
Existential Issues and Dabrowski’s Theory
Dabrowski
implied that gifted individuals are more likely to experience
existential depression; several concepts within his theory of positive
disintegration explain why gifted children and adults may be predisposed
to this type of depression (Mendaglio, 2008b). Fundamentally, Dabrowski
noted that persons with greater “developmental potential”—an inborn,
constitutional endowment that includes a high level of reactivity of the
central nervous system called overexcitability—have a greater awareness
of the expanse of life and of different ways that people can live their
lives, but this greater developmental potential also predisposes them
to emotional and interpersonal crises. Persons with heightened
overexcitabilities in one or more of the five areas that Dabrowski
listed—intellectual, emotional, imaginational, psychomotor, and
sensual—perceive reality in a different, more intense, multifaceted
manner. They are likely to be more sensitive than others to issues in
themselves and in the world around them and to react more intensely to
those issues. To the extent that they have intellectual
overexcitability, they are more likely to ponder and question. Their
emotional overexcitability makes them more sensitive to issues of
morality and fairness. Their imaginational overexcitability prompts them
to envision how things might be. Overall, their overexcitabilities help
them live multifaceted and nuanced lives, but these same
overexcitabilities are also likely to make them more sensitive to
existential issues.
Dabrowski also emphasized the role of socialization,
which he called the “second factor,” as a key force influencing personal
development, though the amount of a culture’s influence varies with
each person’s inborn developmental potential. Nevertheless, the social
environment often squelches autonomy, and “adjustment to a society that
is itself ‘primitive and confused’ is adevelopmental [i.e., hinders
development] and holds one back from discovering individual essence and
from exercising choice in shaping and developing one’s self…” (Tillier,
2008, p. 108). Even so, when one becomes more aware of the scope and
complexity of life and of one’s culture, one begins to experience
self-doubt, anxiety, and depression; Dabrowski emphasized that all of
these—as discomforting as they are—are necessary steps on the path
toward heightened development. Thus, as one becomes more aware of “what
ought to be” rather than just “what is,” he or she experiences
increasing discomfort and disillusionment, often leading to a personal
disintegration that, according to Dabrowski, is a necessary step before
one can reintegrate at a higher level of acceptance and understanding—a
new level representing growth.
Reintegration at a higher level is not a certainty,
though. Whether or not one is in fact able to reintegrate depends on
what Dabrowski called the “third factor”—an inner force, largely inborn,
that impels people to become more self-determined and to control their
behaviors by their inner belief/value matrix, rather than by societal
conventions or even their own biological needs. This third factor allows
people to live their lives consciously and deliberately, acting in
accordance with their own personal values. The dynamic of the third
factor drives people toward introspection, self-education, and
self-development, and it allows them to reintegrate themselves at a
higher level so that they can transcend their surroundings in a highly
moral and altruistic fashion. Some individuals, however, may
disintegrate and fail to reintegrate at a higher level, or they may stay
at the same level as before. Of course it is desirable to reintegrate
at the higher level.
Dabrowski’s descriptions of integration and
disintegration are important but are also complex, so I will provide
only the highlights of those that are particularly relevant to
existential depression. In Dabrowski’s view, there are two types of
integration—primary and secondary—and four types of
disintegration—positive, negative, partial, and global.
Primary integration characterizes individuals who
are largely under the influence of the first factor (biology) and the
second factor (environment). These individuals experience the human life
cycle and may become very successful in societal terms, but they are
not fully developed human beings. Persons characterized by secondary
integration are influenced primarily by the third factor; they are inner
directed and values driven. As fully human, they live life
autonomously, authentically, and altruistically. Biological drives are
sublimated into higher modes of expression. Conformity and nonconformity
to societal norms are principled. Movement from primary to secondary
integration arises from positive disintegration. (Mendaglio, 2008b, p.
36)
Positive disintegration involves a two-step process.
First, the lower primary integration—which involves little, if any,
reflection—must be dissolved; subsequently, one must reintegrate to
create a higher level of functioning (Dabrowski, 1970). During the first
step of dissolution, individuals experience “…intense external and
internal conflicts that generate intense negative emotions. Such
experiencing may be initially triggered by developmental milestones,
such as puberty, or crises, such as a painful divorce or a difficult
career event or the death of a loved one. As a result, individuals
become increasingly conscious of self and the world. They become more
and more distressed as they perceive a discrepancy between the way the
world ought to be and the way it is…”(Mendaglio, 2008b, p. 27). The way
these persons view and structure the world is thrown into ambiguity and
turmoil, along with the internal guidelines that they have thoughtlessly
adopted from society to guide their daily behaviors. The external
structure that they are steeped with becomes contradictory or
meaningless when confronted with articulate, conscious individual
experience.
Because people can only stand conflict and ambiguity
for a relatively brief time, they will create a new mental organization
as they attempt to reduce their anxiety and discomfort. However, this
new mental schema may be only partially successful; these individuals
may find themselves aware of inconsistencies and pretenses within their
new way of thinking, though they may try desperately to convince
themselves otherwise. They experience, then, only the dissolving part of
the process—without reintegration at a higher level—leaving them with
negative disintegration and the accompanying conflicts and negative
emotions. Worse, they are unable to return to their previous unthinking
way of being (“the rung bell”). Some individuals, usually those with
substantial initial integration and limited potential to develop, will
fall back and reintegrate at their previous level; others find
themselves stuck in disintegration—a serious situation that Dabrowski
said could lead to psychosis or suicide.
According to Dabrowski, some people are in fact able to
complete both parts of the process—both disintegration and subsequent
positive reintegration. They develop an acceptance of their
self-awareness and self-direction in ways that allow them to select
values that transcend the immediate culture and are from then on focused
on more universal, humanistic, and altruistic values. They may select a
new vocation in which they can use their altruistic vision or a new
partner with whom they can share their important values. This
higher-level mental organization allows more of a sense of personal
contentment with a striving to continually improve, though these people
will likely still experience episodes of disintegration, discomfort, and
reintegration as their awareness continues to grow.
Other Psychological Theorists
There are
several other psychological theorists whose writings provide concepts
that support and/or extend Dabrowski’s concepts, particularly as they
relate to existential issues and depression. The psychologist George
Kelley (1955) noted that humans do not enter a world that is inherently
structured; we must give the world a structure that we ourselves create.
Thus, we create psychological constructs, largely through language, to
make sense out of our experiences of the world.
Man looks at his world through transparent templets
which he creates and then attempts to fit over the realities of which
the world is composed. (pp. 8-9)
Constructs are used for predictions
of things to come, and the world keeps on rolling on and revealing
these predictions to be either correct or misleading. This fact provides
the basis for the revision of constructs and, eventually, of whole
construct systems. (p. 14)
The Gestalt theorists, such as Fritz Perls, Ralph
Hefferline, and Paul Goodman, emphasized two central ideas: (1) we all
exist in an experiential present moment, which is embedded in webs of
relationships; (2) thus, we can only know ourselves against the
background of how we relate to other things—i.e., a figure-ground
relationship (Perls, Hefferline, & Goodman, 1972). They also pointed
out that humans have an inborn tendency to seek closure and, as a
result, have little tolerance for ambiguity. Similarly, the little-known
theorist Prescott Lecky (1969) hypothesized that humans are born with
an instinctual drive to seek consistency as a way of making sense of the
world around them, a notion that is similar to Leon Festinger’s (1957)
observation that humans will strive arduously to reduce the
uncomfortable psychological tension created by “cognitive dissonance”
that arises if we have an inconsistency among our beliefs or behaviors.
The neo-Freudian Alfred Adler stated that people, in
their attempt to gain mastery over their world, create “fictional
finalisms”—invented concepts that cannot be proven, yet people organize
their lives around them as though they are true (Hoffman, 1994). Since
ultimate truth is beyond the capability of humans, we create partial
truths about things that we cannot see, prove, nor disprove. Examples
range from the lighthearted (e.g., Santa Claus) to serious sweeping
philosophical statements (e.g., “We can control our own destiny” or
“There is a heaven for the virtuous and a hell for sinners”). These
fictional finalisms ameliorate our anxiety and help us feel more in
control of our world. We prefer the comfort of dogmatic certainty to the
chaos of questioning or of the insecurity and uncertainness of the
unknown. As Freud noted, “All fantasies to fulfill illusions stem from
anxieties” (1989, p. 16); these are attempts to feel in control of
ourselves and the world around us.
The existentialist theologian Paul Tillich (1957) made a
similar observation about humans, which prompted him to redefine God
and religion. According to Tillich, God was whatever a person was most
ultimately concerned with, and religion was composed of whatever
behaviors that person engaged in to achieve that ultimate concern. In
other words, a person’s God could be money, or religion, or power, or
control, or fame—whatever a person created in order to try to organize
his or her life.
All of these theorists would comfortably agree that
people seek groups and partners who share their beliefs, which often
leads to false but reassuring certainty. These groups might embrace
religious or political causes, for example—all of which might be
altruistic and benevolent, but yet all of which are likely to require a
certain amount of conformity and fitting in at the expense of our
individualism. Conformity can be comforting; being an individual,
particularly if one is challenging traditions, is often uncomfortable.
Dabrowski clearly believed that one cannot evolve into a fully developed
and authentic person without developing an individualistic, unique, and
conscious inner core of beliefs and values. He also understood that
this road was arduous and fraught with discomfort and pain. One must
first disintegrate before one can reintegrate at a higher level, and
that the process of subsequent incremental disintegrations and
reintegrations is likely to continue throughout one’s entire life.
A Journey into Existential Depression
Most of
us have grown up in families with predictable behaviors and traditions.
Family members are like planets in a solar system which have reached an
equilibrium regarding how they interact with each other. The rules of
interaction are reasonably clear, and family environment is predictable.
It is in such families that we acquire expectations of ourselves and
the world around us, and this is where we develop our values and beliefs
of how things “should be.”
However, our families are not always places of perfect
acceptance and happiness; children do things that displease their
parents, and parents do not satisfy all of the desires of their children
(nor should they, necessarily). When children’s feelings are hurt, they
begin to withdraw into themselves and put up protective barriers. They
are not as open as they once were; they are more evaluative and more
cautious—all part of the process of becoming an individual, separate
from parents and family.
As children grow, they become exposed to people outside
of the family, and they discover that others do not share the same
expectations, values, or behaviors. Questions arise. “Why? Which set of
values and behaviors is better? Which is right? How shall I choose?”
They see that some behaviors by others are entirely contradictory to the
ways in which they themselves were raised.
The brighter that people are, the more likely they are
to be aware of how their own belief/value system is inconsistent with
that of others. They may also see inconsistencies within their own
belief/value system—their values are out of sync with the way they feel!
Tension and discomfort arises. They may experience an
approach-avoidance conflict about such awareness. On the one hand, they
want to become more aware of these inconsistencies and absurdities in
order to be fair and consistent and to learn better ways of being, yet
on the other hand, they want to avoid such awareness because it makes
them uncomfortable and challenges them to examine themselves—not always a
flattering activity—as they try to live a more thoughtful, consistent,
and meaningful life. These individuals adopt one or a combination of
basic coping styles first described by the neo-Freudian Karen Horney
(1945): (1) moving toward—accepting society’s traditions; conforming;
working the system to become successful, (2) moving away from—rejecting
traditional society via withdrawal; being nontraditional and arcane, and
(3) moving against—rebelliously rejecting society; being angry and
openly nonconforming.
As these people gain more life experience, their
perspectives shift. They recognize that Socrates was right when he said,
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Yet examining life can be
discomforting. For many, certain life milestones are awakening
experiences—for example, birthdays (turning 21, 30, 40, etc.) and
anniversaries; school and college reunions; weddings and funerals;
estate planning and making a will. People find that they want to change
their way of living so that they are not simply playing out the roles
that others expect of them, but it is difficult to give up old
traditions and habits, as well as the connectedness that these customs
and practices offer.
People find that whenever they challenge or violate a
tradition, it makes others uncomfortable. We want people to be
predictable, even if it means that they are behaving in illogical and
nonsensical ways. Most people vacillate in their thinking and behaviors;
they can see how they might be and how they actually are, but making a
leap forward to change is difficult. They may also find themselves
feeling angry because they feel powerless to make the changes that they
see as needed.
As people grow older, the developmental challenges that
they encounter make them progressively more aware of existential issues
and increase the likelihood of existential depression. Erikson (1959),
Levinson (1986), and Sheehy (1995, 2006) have described a series of
adult life stages, each of which has developmental tasks associated with
it. A blended summary of the relevant adult stages is as follows:
Age 18-24 “Pulling up roots” – Breaking away from home Age 25-35 “Trying 20s” – Establishing oneself as an adult; making career choices; coming to grips with marriage, children, society Age 35-45
“Deadline decade” – Authenticity crisis; realization that it is the
halfway point in one’s life; re-evaluation of oneself and one’s
relationships; making choices about pushing harder vs. withdrawing vs.
changing one’s life Age 45-55 “Renewal or resignation” – Further
redefinition of priorities; changing or renewing relationships; roles
change; children leave home; parents age or die; physical changes in
self; further realization of own mortality Age 55+ “Regeneration”
– Acceptance/rebellion at prospect of retirement; friends/mentors die;
evaluation of life’s work; new relationship with family; physical
changes; self-acceptance or rejection
Although most people go through these stages during the
ages listed above, it is my experience that gifted adults usually
encounter these life stages earlier and more intensely than others. As
they grope with these issues, they are likely to experience related
problems involving marital rapport and communication, expectations and
relationships with their children, dissatisfaction with co-workers, and
discontent with themselves. In Dabrowski terms, they experience
disintegration, with existential depression as a main component.
It is evident, then, that being bright does not
necessarily mean that one will be content, happy, and successful—and
certainly not during periods of disintegration. More than 30 years ago,
psychologist May Seagoe (1974) composed a table in which she listed
characteristic strengths of gifted children on one side, and then on the
adjacent side, she listed possible challenges or problems that are
likely to arise from those very strengths. Table 1 is a similar table
for gifted adults.
These strengths and associated difficulties lead most
gifted adults to experience at least some existential conflicts that
they struggle with throughout their life (Jacobsen, 2000; Streznewski,
1999). Four of these conflicts occur with particular frequency and serve
as underpinnings for personal disintegration, creating significant
anxiety and depression for the individuals who struggle with them. They
are:
- Acceptance of others vs. disappointment and cynicism
- Acceptance of self vs. excessive self-criticism and depression
- Necessity of feelings vs. the efficiency of logic and rational approaches
- Finding personal meaning vs. tangible achievements
To reach positive reintegration, one needs to reach
some resolution, or at least a level of comfort, concerning ways to
manage (not to satisfy) the issues listed in the bulleted items above.
Learning to Manage Existential Issues and Depression
How
does one learn to manage existential issues? First, people must
undertake to know themselves. Gifted adults commonly have the experience
of being “out of sync” with others but not understanding how or why
they are different. Jacobsen (2000) describes how people came to her in
her clinical practice with a vague sense that they were different;
others had told them repeatedly that they were “too-too”—that is, too
serious, too intense, too complex, too emotional, etc. However, as these
gifted adults came to understand that such behaviors were normal for
people like themselves, their anxiety about it lessened.
Along with knowing oneself, it is important to come to
grips with three truths pointed out long ago by the philosopher Arthur
Schopenhauer (2004). He emphasized the importance of knowing and
developing ourselves, stating that: (1) what we have as material goods
are temporary, transient, and not able to provide us with lasting
comfort; (2) what we represent in the eyes of others is as ephemeral as
material possessions, since the opinions of others may change at any
time; besides, we can never know what others really think of us anyway;
and (3) what we are is the only thing that truly matters. Polonius, in
Shakespeare’s Hamlet, says, “This above all: to thine own self be
true,/And it must follow, as the night the day,/Thou cans't not be false
to any man.” Certainly, knowing oneself, including our weak areas, is
important. Knowing our thought patterns is also important. As Yalom
(2008) noted, “Inner equanimity stems from knowing that it is not things that disturb us, but our interpretations of things” (p. 113). What is our self-talk as we look at the world and at situations in our world?
Next we should understand how we relate to others. Many
years ago, Luft and Ingham (1955), recognizing that all of us have
“blind spots” when it comes to how we see ourselves, developed a simple
matrix which they called Johari’s Window as a tool to help people
understand themselves, their blind spots, and their relationships with
others. To use Johari’s window, a person is given a list of 55
adjectives and instructed to select five or six that describe his or her
own personality. Peers of that person are then given the same list, and
they each choose five or six adjectives that describe the subject.
These adjectives are then put in the appropriate “window” below. The
person discovers which of the adjectives match what others have listed,
as well as which adjectives they listed that others did not. The results
can be extremely helpful in gaining self-understanding, including how
one is seen by others.
It is not enough, though, to simply know oneself. We
must also accept ourselves and find ways to nurture ourselves. Below are
some guiding principles I have found to be helpful and have shared with
others:
- Your life focus should be on principles and values rather than people.
- Developing yourself will likely require self-focus and probably
some narcissism, but know that there is a difference between healthy
narcissism and pathological narcissism.
- Your development will likely involve periods of disintegration
and reintegration as you move toward increasingly positive
disintegration.
- Your journey will probably make you and others around you uncomfortable.
When people experiencing disintegration know what they
might expect, as in the list above, the experience itself is not so
intimidating or frightening. There is hope that the individual will
reintegrate in a positive way, though the experience will be
uncomfortable for a time. In addition to this understanding, there are
several coping strategies that can be helpful, as well as other
behavioral styles that may appear helpful but really are not.
Coping Styles and Strategies
Coping with an ongoing awareness of existential issues
and the accompanying low-grade depression can be distressing, and few
people can directly confront their existential depression for very long.
As Yalom (2008) wrote, quoting François de La Rochefoucauld from the
1600s, “You cannot stare straight into the face of the sun, or death.”
How do people try to manage these complex and often painful issues? Some
coping styles are clearly less adaptive than others, especially when
they involve narrowing of thought and high activity levels. Some
frequent but not-so-effective styles are:
- Becoming narcissistic. Some individuals deal with painful
issues in their life through narcissism. Their thought pattern is
something like this: “I can protect myself (temporarily) from having to
confront my own mortality by convincing myself of my own importance and
that what I am doing is extremely important to the world.”
- Knowing the “truth.” Likewise, some individuals convince
themselves that they are “right” and know the “truth.” Religions often
facilitate such an attitude. Their thought pattern goes something like
this: “If I can convince myself that I know the ‘truth’ about life and
the universal meaning of existence, then I can gain comfort.” Often,
this illusion is accompanied by an intolerance for others’ questions,
beliefs, or style of living.
- Trying to control life, or at least label it. Another
strategy is control. “Perhaps if I organize myself and my thinking in
controlled, logic-tight compartments, then I can control life.” Labels
help, because they give an illusion of control. If I have power over
things around me, then I have power over my life and my destiny.
- Learning to not think. Still another pattern is to be
non-thinking. “Sometimes it is simply less painful if I choose to just
not think about things that matter, and certainly to avoid using
critical thinking skills. I will selectively ignore areas of my life.”
This allows blind spots to develop or exist.
- Learning to not care. I have known children and adults
who have convinced themselves not to care; it is less painful that way.
Unfortunately, many times this “numbing of the mind” is accomplished via
alcohol, drugs, or other addictions.
- Keeping busy. Some individuals avoid facing difficult
personal issues by keeping busy. Their inner voice tells them, “If I
stay frantically busy in a hypomanic fashion, then I don’t have time to
think about things, or about the meaning of my behaviors.” Sometimes
these people are “trivial pursuers” in that they focus on possessing,
creating, or developing minutiae or pleasant pastimes with little regard
to whether their efforts are trivial or harmful. Others seem to have a
compulsion to utter or to act to overcome their “horror vacui”—their
fear of empty space or time, during which they might be forced to face
their issues.
- Seeking novelty and adrenaline rushes. The psychologist
Frank Farley (1991) has described a type “T” personality, in which the
“T” stands for thrills through risk taking and seeking stimulation,
excitement, and arousal. Some of these people may develop
addictions—substance abuse, gambling, sexual addiction, and others. In
some respects, type “T” behaviors are beneficial because, by pushing the
limits of tradition, these individuals can promote creative behaviors.
On the other hand, type “T” behaviors can easily become a substitute for
authentic close relationships or for meaningful self-examination.
Other coping styles are more adaptive. They help
maintain a personal balance that increases the likelihood of
successfully managing disintegrations and existential issues. These
include:
- Coming to know oneself. An individual must "separate the
wheat from the chaff" when it comes to his or her values and perception
of the world. One’s unique characteristics and personality must be
recognized, valued, and accepted. External mores and externally based
perceptions and understandings of the world—the chaff—must be winnowed
from one's own—however flawed and undeveloped—sense of the world.
- Becoming involved in causes. People who get involved
with causes are almost always idealists. “When I am in a cause with
others, whether the cause is academic, political, social, or even a
cult, I feel less alone.” Sometimes, though, existential issues lead
individuals to bury themselves so intensively in causes that they
neglect to look at themselves.
- Maintaining a sense of humor. It has been said that if
you push a tragedy far enough, it becomes a comedy. The everyday
tragedies that we experience in our lives can be burdensome, but through
comedy, we get a sense of relief and perspective. While life’s
absurdities can be frustrating and distressing, finding humor in them
(oftentimes by imagining them pushed to extremes) can prompt a more
pragmatic—and sometimes realistic—view of things. Being able to laugh at
a situation is a valuable asset; being able to laugh at oneself is even
more important. Thus, a sense of humor can ameliorate our feelings of
hopelessness about existential issues.
- Touching and feeling connected. One potent way of
breaking through the sense of existential isolation is through touch. In
the same way that infants need to be held and touched, so do persons
who are experiencing existential aloneness. Touch is a fundamental and
instinctual aspect of existence, as evidenced by mother-infant bonding
or "failure to thrive" syndrome. Often, I have "prescribed" daily hugs
for youngsters suffering existential depression and have advised parents
of reluctant teenagers to simply say, "I know you may not want a hug,
but I need a hug, so come here and give me a hug." A hug, a touch on the
arm, playful jostling, or even a "high five" can be very important to
such a youngster because it establishes at least some physical, tangible
connection. Hugging and touching is very important in all cultures.
Regrettably, our society seems increasingly wary about people touching
each other.
- Compartmentalizing. It is not so much events that
disturb us, but our interpretations of those events—our “self-talk.”
Intense negative self-talk about a situation or one’s life can easily
spread into “all or none” or “always” or “never” thinking that results
in stress spilling over into all areas of a person’s life—for example,
“I’m never going to feel happiness again!” or “I always feel alone. I’m
never going to find anyone I can relate to, and that’s catastrophic!”
The extent to which individuals are miserable depends heavily on their
self-talk and whether they can learn to compartmentalize or section off
the stress and, at least temporarily, quarantine that area. Some people
have found it helpful to visualize putting the stress inside a box or
“Worry Jar,” then shutting the lid and placing it on a shelf until they
are ready to look at those worries again (Webb, Gore, Amend, &
DeVries, 2007). They simply plan to deal with the issue at a later time,
or they set aside a designated “worry time” just for that issue. Just
because people are upset in one area of their life does not mean that
they should be miserable about everything. Too much
compartmentalization, however, can also result in problems. Sometimes
people wall off their feelings so thoroughly that they have difficulty
being “present” in the here and now, or they may intellectualize the
problem into a compartment but never actually deal with the issue or the
self-talk that created it in the first place. Some individuals develop
such tight compartments that they cannot see how their behaviors and
beliefs are actually contradictory—for example, environmental concerns
juxtaposed against admiration for a gas-guzzling vehicle.
- Letting go. People who are intense often try to impose
their will on the world around them in virtually all areas yet find
themselves unsatisfied or unhappy with the outcome. Some years ago,
there was a popular movie, My Dinner with Andre (1981), which featured
two friends sharing their life experiences over an evening meal at a
restaurant. In the film, Gregory, a theater director from New York and
the more talkative of the two, relates to Shawn his stories of dropping
out of school, traveling around the world, and experiencing the variety
of ways in which people live, including a monk who could balance his
entire weight on his fingertips. Shawn, who has lived his life
frantically meeting deadlines and achieving, listens avidly but
questions the value of Gregory's seeming abandonment of the pragmatic
aspects of life. There is no resolution, but the film raises the
question of how much one needs to try to control life versus whether it
is better to just let go and flow with life.
- Living in the present moment. Living in the present
(Dasein) is to be aware of what is happening to you, what you are doing,
and what you are feeling and thinking. You look at situations as they
are, without coloring them with previous experiences. You are not
influenced by fears, anger, desires, or attachments. Living in such a
way makes it easier to deal with whatever you are doing at the present
moment. People in disintegrative states often focus heavily on the past
or on the future, which looks so bleak to them, rather than living in
the present.
- Learning optimism and resiliency. Optimism significantly
affects how people respond to adversity and difficulty. Although there
is a genetic predisposition toward optimism or pessimism, and even
toward depression, depression is greatly influenced by how an individual
has learned to react to what happens in his or her life. Though people
can do little about their genetics, their reaction to situations,
including their self-talk, will determine their optimism and resiliency.
- Focusing on the continuity of generations. For some,
focusing on the continuity of generations—children and grandchildren—is
comforting; for others, it is disturbing because they see the world as
being so full of difficulties that they worry over what their children
will face. Nevertheless, age does bring perspective such that one no
longer “sweats the small stuff.” And most people, as they get older,
find that they have wisdom that they can share with younger people,
which helps them feel connected with at least some of humanity. Some
have even written an ethical will to pass their values, ideals, and life
philosophy on to their children and grandchildren (Webb, Gore, DeVries,
& McDaniel, 2004). Most people, as they enter their later life,
find ways to resolve existential issues, including the thought of dying,
and come to reach some sense of peace and contentment.
- Being aware of “rippling.” Recently, I sat with a friend
who was dying of lung cancer, and we talked about rippling—how the
influence of his life had rippled out widely to affect the lives of
people, many of whom he did not even know. I recalled Yalom’s (2008)
statement that, “Of all the ideas that have emerged from my years of
practice to counter a person’s death anxiety and distress at the
transience of life, I have found the idea of rippling singularly
powerful” (p. 83). “Each of us creates—often without our conscious
intent or knowledge—concentric circles of influence that may affect
others for years, even for generations” (p. 83).
A Personal Coat of Arms
In the Middle Ages, families often had a coat of arms,
depicted by a shield containing symbols to represent and highlight
different aspects of that family’s tradition and heritage. A picture of a
sheaf of grain might symbolize that the family owned land; a sword
could depict family members who fought valiantly. Below is an exercise
to help individuals depict what is important to them—what they would
want their coat of arms to look like if we used such things today.
“Your Personal Coat of Arms” is an exercise shared with
me many years ago by a colleague that helps people think about the key
values they use to guide their life and the decisions they make. This
exercise can also help them decide which areas are core values for them
and which are simply a veneer of convenience or tradition.
Figure 1 shows an escutcheon that is subdivided. Here are the instructions for filling out your Personal Coat of Arms:
- First, title your shield by putting your name on the top.
- In each section of your shield, put the following:
- Choose one word that describes you, and draw a picture that represents that word in one panel of the shield.
- Draw a symbol to represent the social or political cause that you have done the most for in your lifetime.
- List two things that you have been struggling to become better at, and write them in one panel of the shield.
- Draw a picture or note a major fantasy of what you yearn to do or would do if you had no restrictions.
- Select three words that you would like people to use to describe you, and write or symbolize them in one panel of the shield.
- Draw something to represent what caused the greatest change in your way of living.
- Draw or symbolize the most important person in your life.
Now consider how central this coat of arms is in
your daily life. Do you use your coat of arms only to protect you, or
does it also represent something that you aspire to?
Roles and Role Stripping
You probably noticed that much of what you wrote on
your Personal Coat of Arms had to do with your roles in life—perhaps as
parent, student, musician, friend, spouse, helper, entrepreneur,
adventurer—and roles certainly provide structure to our lives. But this
raises some important questions. How much of your identify and
self-worth come from the roles that you play? Do you define your roles,
or do they define you? Are the roles simply irrelevant traditions and
confining rituals, or do they give your life meaningful substance? Are
these roles how you want to live your life?
A solid sense of self cannot be built on roles. To do
so increases the likelihood of disintegration, because at some point,
all of our roles will be stripped from us. There will come a day when we
will no longer be a teacher or a business owner or musician or a
husband or a wife. We will no longer be someone’s child; our parents
will die, leaving us as orphans. I can substitute new roles for the ones
I have lost, but those may become lost, too. As I lose the roles that
organize my existence, I will find myself having to confront provocative
questions. What would I be like without my roles? What value would I
have? As I substitute new roles, are they truly ones that I want to
select?
Some years ago, a colleague in psychology introduced me
to a role-stripping exercise as a way of focusing thought on these
issues. It goes as follows:
- Identify the five most central roles in your life (mother, son,
teacher, civic leader, etc.), and write them on a piece of paper.
- Rank these roles, with “1” being the most central to your life’s activities.
- Take role “5” and consider how it structures and fits into your life. Now throw it away. You no longer have it in your life.
- Take role “4” and contemplate how it structures and fits into
your life. Now throw it away. You no longer have it in your life either.
- Continue discarding roles, one at a time with due
consideration, until only one role is left. This is your central role,
the one around which most of your life is focused.
- Now discard that role. What of you is left? Who are you without your roles? What value do you have?
After the role-stripping exercise, consider once again
how much your roles define you versus how much you define your roles.
You may wish to contemplate what others would be like without their
roles. What value would they have? Perhaps you might ask family members
and co-workers how they perceive your major roles. Their ideas might be
different! You may then decide to temporarily take “time out” from each
of your roles so that you can enrich or enhance other roles. Or you may
resolve to develop a new role or invent a new tradition for yourself or
your family.
Interpersonal Relationships
Over the course of our lives, each of us develops a
persona—a façade that we put up for the world to protect ourselves from
others until we know that we can trust them well enough to lower that
façade. Behind this façade is where we cope with our own internal
existential issues, but it is also our façade that keeps others at a
distance and fosters our existential aloneness because it hinders them
from truly knowing us. This façade usually represents our lifestyle, and
behind the mask are our values; however, both lifestyle and values are
matters that we can choose to adopt or to discard. There are three
underlying existential facts. They are: (1) we are basically alone, (2)
we will die, and (3) we need others. Interpersonal relationships are
basic to human existence, yet we spend so much of our lives in
superficialities that we often give too little focus to meaningful
relationships. Here are some questions to consider:
- Do you have at least one person with whom you can be accepted without your roles?
- Are your relationships with others primarily authentic, or are they mostly roles?
- Do you need to be in control of others as much as you are, or can you release some of that control?
- Does your logic and analytical ability interfere with your ability to give and receive affection?
Existential isolation is eased to a degree if people
simply feel that someone else understands the issues that they are
grappling with. For example, even though your experience is not exactly
the same as mine, I feel far less alone if I know that your experiences
have been somewhat similar.
Many people have written about how important it is that
a person not be allowed to die alone, and hospice centers across the
country make sure that someone is present at the moment of death.
Anxiety about death is not a disease; it is simply a byproduct of life.
It seems that death—the final moment in our life as we know it—is a
topic that people avoid except in the abstract. However, we need to
think and talk about death if we are to live our lives well.
In our aloneness, particularly as we contemplate no
longer being in this world and no longer existing, we do need others. We
never outgrow our need for connectedness. Establishing relationships
with others typically goes through a sequence of three successive steps:
(1) inclusion/exclusion—“Am I a member of this group, or am I on the
outside?” (2) control—“Where do I fit in determining what we are going
to do? Am I the leader, the follower, the worker, etc.?” and (3) mutual
caring—“Do others really care about my concerns, and do I care about
theirs?” (Schutz, 1958). However, these three steps can actually
interfere with close relationships with others.
Here are some exercises you may find helpful for improving your relationships with others:
- Set aside five to 15 minutes of special time each day to let someone else be in control.
- As an exercise, convey and receive affection nonverbally.
- Touch other people more often, and regularly.
- Identify the “imperfections” in each of your relationships. How
would your relationships change if you stopped trying to change these
imperfections?
- Increase your self-disclosure, because self-disclosure promotes reciprocal self-disclosure in others.
- Offer others empathy, even when you are frightened or angry.
- Express gratitude to someone to whom you have never before expressed it.
These exercises should open the door to improved
relationships with others. They help people connect in new ways and
become more aware of their behaviors in relationships, including some
that may be hampering the relationship.
Self-Management
I have already noted the importance of accepting
oneself as valuable apart from one’s roles and separate from others’
evaluations. But learning to do this requires that people learn to
manage themselves. This involves them becoming more aware of
themselves—their roles, their coat of arms, their relationships—and then
learning to manage their self-talk about all of this. If they allow
themselves to explore as they do this, they may be able to discover
parts of themselves that do not fit with their roles.
Here are some things to try that will facilitate
your learning more about yourself, as well as learning new
self-management skills:
- Meditate for five to 15 minutes per day.
- Become aware of your self-talk. Then, measure the amount of
your negative self-talk as compared with the amount of your positive
self-talk.
- Minimize your self-control in selected situations.
- Be aware of “HALT” and its relationship to depression and
cynicism. HALT stands for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, and Tired—all of which
are conditions that predispose people to feeling overwhelmed. Nietsche
said, “When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long
ago.”
Life Meaning
Part of the human condition seems to be to search for
meaning. Throughout history, countless great works of literature have
focused on this theme. Victor Frankl, in his 1946 book Man’s Search for
Meaning, showed us that even in dire circumstances, such as a
concentration camp like Auschwitz, there is a great human need to find
meaning. Frankl himself, imprisoned and in desperate circumstances in
Auschwitz, searched for and found meaning in his relationships with
others and with loved ones, even though they were separated.
Unfortunately, the people who need meaning the most are
usually so busy achieving that they have little or no time to search
for it. Without meaning as an anchor, people are particularly at risk
for disintegration and existential depression. Frantic efforts at
achievement and control end up collapsing because they are hollow
underneath. Are you just playing roles, or are your relationships real?
Can you conclude that your life has purpose and meaning? Have you
developed values and beliefs that go beyond your roles? What if you
could start over? What would you do differently? Can you trust that
there is some unity or harmony in life and that your life can fit in
somehow? These are important questions to resolve if one’s life is to
have meaning.
Meaning develops first from a deep, conscious,
accurate, and authentic understanding of oneself. Second, meaning then
arises from understanding oneself in relation to the world at large—that
is, the sense of how one’s life fits in relationship with the universe.
And third, meaning grows from authentic relations with others, which
allow expression for the first and a context for the second. It is
through our personal relations that we can express ourselves as the
unique individuals we are and how we can understand our practical
grounding within the universe.
Since, ultimately, you will be the one who has to give
your life meaning, what meaning do you give your life? Here are some
suggestions that might help you begin the process:
- If you were to write a “last lecture”—a speech that you would give
if you knew you would die tomorrow—what would you say? Carnegie Mellon
professor Randy Pausch (2008), dying at age 47, did just that.
- What have you learned thus far about the meaning of life that you could share with others?
- Recall and locate five works of art—stories, poems, music,
paintings, and/or other forms of art that have had meaning for you.
Share these with a friend or a family member. In what ways have they
helped you find meaning?
- Describe what you see as your greatest accomplishment. Does it
relate to the goals you set for yourself? To your purpose in life?
- Remember that great ideas and accomplishments, including yours,
may not be valued or recognized until long after your life has ended.
- “What can you do now in your life so that one year or five
years from now, you won’t look back and have…dismay about the new
regrets you’ve accumulated? In other words, can you find a way to live
without continuing to accumulate regrets?” (Yalom, 2008, p. 101).
Conclusion
A conclusion about existential issues and existential
depression is impossible because they are like a möbius strip that
continues seamlessly and endlessly. Yet we do need to help ourselves and
our bright youngsters cope with these difficult existential questions.
We cannot do anything about death; our existence is finite. However, we
can learn to accept those aspects of existence that we cannot change. We
can also feel understood and not so alone, and we can discover ways to
manage freedom and our sense of isolation so that they will give our
lives purpose. We can keep creating and developing ourselves, we can
keep working for positive and healthy relationships, and we can keep
trying to make a difference in the world, thereby creating meaning for
ourselves. Although we cannot eradicate the basic underlying bricks of
the existential wall, we can learn from Dabrowski that growth through
the discovery of authenticity within ourselves and the expression of our
authentic selves through authentic relationships may serve as a salve
to soothe these realities of our existence.
In coping with existential depression, we must realize
that existential concerns are not issues that can be dealt with only
once, but will probably need frequent revisiting and reconsideration. We
can support others and help them understand that disintegration is a
necessary step toward new growth and meaning—it can eventually be
positive. And finally, we can encourage these individuals to give
meaning to their own lives in whatever ways they can by adopting the
message of hope as expressed by the African-American poet Langston
Hughes in his poem Dreams.
Dreams
Hold fast to dreams,
for if dreams die,
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams.
For if dreams go,
Life is a barren field
Covered with snow.
About the Author
James T. Webb, Ph.D., ABPP-CL, has been recognized as
one of the 25 most influential psychologists nationally on gifted
education, and he consults with schools, pro grams and individuals about
social and emotional needs of gifted and talented children. In 1981,
Dr. Webb established SENG (Supporting Emotional Needs of Gifted
Children, Inc.), a national nonprofit organization that provides
information, training, conferences, and work shops, and he remains as
Chair of SENG’s Professional Advisory
Committee.
Dr. Webb was President of the Ohio Psychological
Association and a member of its Board of Trustees for seven years. He
has been in private practice as well as in various consulting positions
with clinics and hospitals. Dr. Webb was one of the founders of the
School of Professional Psychology at Wright State University, Dayton,
Ohio, where he was a Professor and Associate Dean. Earlier in his
career, Dr. Webb was a member of the graduate faculty in psychology at
Ohio University, and subsequently directed the Department of Psychology
at the Children’s Med i cal Center in Dayton, Ohio where he also was
Associate Clinical Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and
Psychiatry at the Wright State University School of Medicine.
Dr. Webb is the lead author of five books and several DVDs about gifted children. Four of his books have won “Best Book” awards.
- Guiding the Gifted Child: A Practical Source for Parents and Teachers
- Grandparents’ Guide to Gifted Children
- Misdiagnosis and Dual Diagnoses of Gifted Children and Adults: ADHD, Bi polar, OCD, Asperger’s, Depression, and Other Disorders
- Gifted Parent Groups: The SENG Model, 2nd Edition
- A Parent’s Guide to Gifted Children
