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Existential Themes
in the HEP Tradition
List of Contents

Being, Becoming, Emergence and Potentialities, p.1

Existence and Essence, p. 4
Phenomenology and Ontology, p. 6
Freedom and Nothingness, p. 9
Authenticity, Choice and Responsibility, p. 11
Consciousness, Conscious Experience and Self, p. 13
The Individual Self, p. 15
Human, Human Nature, Humanistic, Human Potential, p. 18
Evolution: The Dialectic Dance of Ontology and Phenomenology, p. 21

From J. McNamara, lecture notes in mid 1990’s HEP teaching based on the
following:
Existential Psychology, 2nd ed., Ed. Rollo May, (1960/1969, New York, Random
House)
Humanistic, Phenomenological, and Existential Approaches, Hugh B. Urban;
Phenomenological-Existential Psychotherapy, Constance T. Fischer;
both in The Clinical Psychology Handbook, 2nd ed., Ed., M. Hersen, A.E. Kazdan,
A.S. Bellack (1991, Pergamon)
Ordinary Ecstasy: Humanistic Psychology in Action, 2nd ed., John Rowan,
(1976/1988, London, Routledge)
Elements of Human Potential, Neville Drury
Experiential Psychotherapy: Basic Practices, Alvin Mahrer PhD, (1989, Ottawa,
U. Ottawa Press)
Holonomy: A Human Systems Theory, Jeffrey Stamps (1980, Seaside, The
Systems Enquiry Series, Intersystem Publications)
Holistic Experiential Psychotherapy: Toward a Unified Psychotherapy Model,
K. Gordon (1993, A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of Independent Studies BA
Program, U. of Waterloo)
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BEING, BECOMING, EMERGENCE AND POTENTIALITIES

Being
May (pg. 19) defines Being as “the individual’s unique pattern of
potentialities”. Urban (pg. 209) defines Being as “what is actual or already
existent” (ie. intrinsic, given, inner nature; unique essential core). Plato,
Aristotle and Parmenides spoke of Being as a kind of changeless
ideational essence. Aquinas spoke of Being and “being this” as distinct.
Similarly Heidegger speaks of the irreducible distinction between Being
and beings.

Heidegger and Jaspers speak of Dasein (ordinary being) and Ek-sistenz

(authentic being). Heidegger also speaks of being-in-the-world and being-
toward-death as states or modes of being.

Heidegger and existential phenomenology speak of three modes of being-

in-the-world (umwelt - the biological world; mitwelt - the relational world;
eigenwelt - the world of self awareness and self relatedness). See also von
Uexkull in Holonomy. See also Kerry Gordon papers 3 and 4 in
“Applications to HEP” reading.

Heidegger suggests that as Dasein, simply by being there (or being here),
we are hurled (werfen) and fallen (Verlallen), dialectically, into the freedom
of Nothingness.

Becoming
Also known as emergence. Urban (pg. 209) defines becoming as “the
process of things coming into being” that were not available earlier ie.
actualization of potentialities (for Being). Rogers speaks of an “actualizing
tendency” as a “master motive organizer” of person. Maslow speaks of
“self actualization” Thus the existential form of a person’s Being is an
unfolding succession of potentialities transforming into actualities. This is
health and the imposition of “blind consistency” or regularity is ill health.
Becoming as the actualization of potentials has an intrinsic rhythm and
shape of its own - and is also subject to conscious exercise of choice and
will by various practices and disciplines, coupled with motivation to change
and to let go of defensive structures, thus going with the flow of one’s life.
Throughout all this becoming, it is human to retain a sense of unique
individuality and, in fact, for this to evolve into an increasing actualization
of complexity, flexibility, choice, spontaneity, discipline, power, gnosis, life
attunement.
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For Heidegger, Heraclitus, Bohm and Stamps, becoming, or emergence, is

the quintessential cutting edge of the phenomenal world. For Heidegger,
being-in-the-world is a condition of “processful emergence” that is neither
being nor world but a relationship of emergent evolution. (See K. Gordon,
papers 3 and 4, “Application to HEP”reading).

Heraclitus in affirming becoming as the hallmark of existence differentiated

from Parmenides’ focus on Being. Heraclitus’ statement “it is just the
opposite tension of the opposites that constitutes the unity of the one” is a
fundamental statement of the mystical theme of complementarity in the
existential phenomenological tradition. For Bohm becoming or emergence
is the definition of the relationship between implicate (unconscious,
essential) order and explicate (conscious, existential) order, and
constitutes the stuff of life.

In Stamp’s formulation of a “human systems theory” as Holonomy,

emergence is the fundamental characteristic of evolution (both individual
and collective). It is in emergence that the entropic third law of
thermodynamics is balanced by a negentrophic or morphic, order
generating tendency in life.

Potentialities
Urban (pgs. 207 & 209) suggests that the process of manifesting Being
through becoming/emergence is one of realizing inner potentials by
actualization. The inherent/innate tendency to this is called by Maslow “self
actualization” and by Jung “individuation”. When, what and how one
actualizes one’s potential involves some exercise of personal choice. An
act of conscious self aware choice that is authentically self consistent must
fully and expeditiously activate or permit the expression of Being as
realized potential. To realize one’s full potential with
appropriate timing and context is the goal of the humanistic-existential -
phenomenological tradition and what is meant in the Jungian tradition by
individuation. It involves attunement to the small inner voice and full range
of one’s immediate experience in the context of social, ecological and
transpersonal relationships such that one is historically consistent (a
“temporal whole”) and yet open to evolution and change. By historical and
cultural conditioning we can be blocked from realizing our full potential.
Dealing with these blocks, resistance, defenses is the stuff of a lot of
psychodynamic psychotherapy. Humanistic-existential-phenomenological
psychology tends to focus more on creativity, choice, responsibility, goal,
purpose, commitment as agents of self actualization of potential, rather
than trauma and defenses.
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The idea of potentials is the same as “inner nature”. Where does this come
from? There are various levels of nature, from persona (or ego mask,
neurotic) nature, through healthy, alive ego (ego self), to existential self (as
deep inner core of self awareness and responsibility), to transpersonal self
(as embodied collective and archetypal or spiritual elements). One can be
said to have an individual nature, a familial and cultural nature, a human
nature, an animal and biological nature, and an energetic/material nature.
Various existential-phenomenological thinkers (including Giorgi and
Stamps in Holonomy) postulate an MOH model of human nature. M stands
for mechanistic or material (atomic, energetic, molecular); 0 stands for
organismic (biological, entity based such that there is an organismic self
function); and H stands for human (with self consciousness, intentionality
sense of spirit and death etc.). What of all this is one’s inner nature? It
depends where one’s level of self awareness or consciousness is at. All
else is inner. Paradoxically as one evolves in awareness toward full self
realization of potential one tends to progress also down in and back
through organismic, biological, elemental, material atomic nature to a
sense of one’s self as pure unconditioned energetic self awareness with a
capacity for choice and initiation of action. Guenther says our inner nature
is a “deep dynamic invariance” and we are its “playful self experimentation”
as an “unfolding path of self realization”. The Sufi, Neoplatonic and
esoteric Christian traditions see our deepest inner nature as an experience
of holism, unity oneness, ontology, essence through the diverse
phenomenal manifestation of the one as the many.

For the humanistic tradition, inner nature tends toward a personalistic

choice/responsibility/conscious awareness theme. For the existential-
phenomenological tradition there is more of a predilection toward the
mystical elements of inner nature.

EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE

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Existence - means literally “to stand out, emerge”

Essence - means literally ‘immutable principles beyond given
existence”. Monotheistic religions, metaphysics,
western science and psychology, which
speak variously of drives, forces, conditioned reflexes, first
principles, prime movers, God, are all essentialist models.

Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, James revolted against Hegel’s pan rational

essentialism. Socrates and Augustine are also essentialist. The existential
point of view is expressed by Sartre as “existence precedes essence”. The
essentialist position implies non-transformational permanence rather than
the existentialist focus on human nature’s self creating power. Monotheistic
ideas of God (Islamic, Christian, Jewish) are essentialist. It has been by
death of (this) god that the idea of human self created divinity has emerged
into popular culture, being seen in its various forms as primary organizer of
experienced reality. Divinity as human creation does not preclude divinity in
itself. In fact it is precisely through this existential participation in divinity
that humans can know divinity for what it is, in itself. The problem of the
continuity/non-continuity of human and divine plagued Christianity and
Hinduism (ie. if contiguous, divinity must flow into humanity, leaving no
distinction). The Neoplatonist solved it paradoxically so that the “one” is
origin, while the “many” and the “all” are changes of state not place. Thus
we may say that humanity and divinity are existentially,
phenomenologically distinct while yet being ontologically, essentially one.

Sartre says “we are our choices”.

May says that within limits of given world there is no truth for a person
apart from conscious participation and relationship. (This, however, denies
the mystical transpersonal idea of knowing beyond personness and
humanness ie. transcendent experience). The problem with a model
involving forces, drives, conditioning is that it tends to abstractions, and
minimizes individuality and choice. HEP sees both, ie. paradoxical
interplay ie. experientially, existence precedes essence while essence
grounds experience in the transpersonal (providing context to content/text
and authorial meaning to chaotic flow of character’s life). In this
transpersonal model essence must be apprehended, seen, known by an
individual but the method is aperceptive, eg. Tilopa (non-doing) and Wu
Wei (non-intention) forms of experience. Existence involves exercise of
individual choice in permitting and calling specific experiences out of
potentialities. Essence involves surrender of choice into what is given,
received. In doing this the unique individual human dies as ego self and is
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reborn as self created, divine self - uniquely as a personified expression of

the many in the one. This “homo dei” is poetically paradoxical, like a bird
circling around itself, a wheel rolling out of its own centre.

Husserl bracketed existential questions to explore essence.

Hegel equated rational with real, reducing existence to essence.

Aquinas held double composition of existence and essence in which

complex forms of existence translate essence into actuality.

For Kierkegaard, existence and essence cannot be separated. Focus is

‘individual existence’ rather than ‘existence’.

Heidegger focused on human existence (Dasein), in which caring participation

(sorge) in things-as-they are (Seienden) confronted one with Being-toward-death
as the ontological ground of all existence, in the present moment, thus
manifesting authentic existence (Ek-sistenz), ie. ontology. Nothingness as the
ground of being is thus both ontological and essential.

For Santayana existence/experience is saturated with essences .

PHENOMENOLOGY AND ONTOLOGY

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Phenomenology
May (pg. 20) says that phenomenology is the endeavor to take the
phenomena as given, by clearing presuppositions and thus to experience
things as they present themselves, by openness and readiness to hear.
Thus experience rather than observe. Thus words, body, gestures,
feelings, subtle communications, psychic phenomena. Various terms are
used to define/describe phenomenological attitude eg. Stack Sullivan
“participant observer”; eg. Binswanger “presence”; eg. McLeod “attitude of
disciplined naiveté” eg. Wellech “ability to experience critically”; eg. May
“know your own constructs and be flexible so that you may listen in terms
of patient’s constructs and language”.

Husserl’s phenomenological method of bracketing affected Heidegger,

Sartre, Minkowski, Binswanger, Merleau-Ponty. The phenomenological
method deemphasizes (without eliminating) technique and diagnostic
categorization in favour of empathic attunement and experiential
facilitation.

Training is important in technique, diagnosis and in the phenomenological

method itself. Expertise in the phenomenological method is actually hard to
achieve. It has its mystical counterpart in the Six Precepts of Tilopa of non-
doing, and Wu Wei of nonintention. It requires a mental attitude of arising
(such as is practiced in Vipassana meditation). Ultimately the “technical -
objective” and the “understanding - subjective” are dialectic and
complementary.

Urban says that philosophically, phenomena are said to be observed via

senses and are distinct from objects and events themselves.

The Realist/Presentationalist position of Locke is supposed to be a “faithful

indication”. But is this naive realism? Plato’s Representationism model
suggests that the changing nature of the phenomenal world calls for us to
look beyond, for principles (“changeless ideas”) which we do not ordinarily
perceive(i.e. imperfect perception, we experience representations only).
The Phenomenalism position of Berkeley and Hume does not presuppose
a reality independent of human observers ie. reality is constructed out of
sense experience - of self and other ie. phenomena are real and all else is
idea, view, construct, abstractions, which lead to a perspectival model of
personal reality construction.
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Phenomenology therefore can be defined as the descriptive analysis and

interpretation of existences as they show themselves in the pure form of
conscious life (Husserl, Ortega y Gasset) by intuitive abstractions, given
equal independent validity to all categories of experience, seeking to
identify existential elements of experience so as to discover how the
external events/subjective awareness relationship generates meaning.

Adler (1924) initiated and formulated basis for application to personality

study. Followed by Rank (1945); Snygy and Combs (1949); Rogers (1951,
1961).

Core elements are focus on individual (rather than collective and

categorical) inner nature since principal determinant of behaviour is mind
by which people perceive, interpret and construe the world and themselves
(ie. give meaning and self definition). The person’s sense of self patterns
this construction, as well as defining desirable possible future events,
which then act as objective or goals. This takes personhood and motivation
beyond the realm of historical conditioning and drives by including creative
conscious choice, a cornerstone of existential and humanistic psychology
in the twentieth century.

Thus individuals, and therefore human behavior, must be studied from the
vantage point of the behaving individual (producing eg. phenomenological
research. See “Methodology in the Human Sciences”, pg. 203, D.
Polkinghorne). Thus a method of empathic understanding and self
disclosure re research perspective are important as is ideographic method
(ie. intensive studies of individual cases).

Accumulation of enough ideographic analysis can provide useful

nomotheitic descriptions of people in general but use is still limited as
individual case must be the unique guide.

See also Husserl and Phenomenological Method (pg. 537 Fischer) and
Methodology in the Human Sciences (pg. 203, D. Polkinghorne)

Ontology: Ontology means literally “knowledge of being”. Originally defined

in the seventeenth century and since widely used, but no commonly
accepted definition. Often part of metaphysical speculation. Initially
(Clauberg 1647) was study of “being as being”, and also (Wolf - 17th
century) “necessary truth” arrived at by deduction and incorporating
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principles of non contradiction and sufficient reason.

In scholastic thought it became part of general metaphysics with focus on

transcendental being. For Husserl ontology is the same as essence -
formal ontology concerns universal essence and material ontology
concerns regional essences which have formal basis.

Heidegger locates ontology within existence. Thus phenomenology

manifests ontology - if one can read and tune in via authentic and caring
participation in things as they are. Heidegger also suggests that by
accepting the finitude of being-toward-death as the ontological ground of
being, what makes existence possible is revealed, although direct
experience of Being is not possible within the experience of being. The
(ego) death experience of loss of (individual) beingness while still retaining
a capacity for conscious experience is thus an irreducible part of the way
to “directly” experience Being (ie. mystical, death and resurrection, NDE,
OBE, shamanic trance, samadhi etc. experiences). Also method of Wu Wei
(non-intentionality) and Six Precepts of Tilopa (non-doing), and Vipassana
(arising) meditation, yoga etc.

FREEDOM AND NOTHINGNESS

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Freedom
According to May (pg. 19), every human exercises freedom in
actualizing potentialities and thus takes responsibility for self. This self
expressive freedom is deeper than drives, forces and conditioning. It is the
“pattern of potentialities” of the individual, of whom the mechanisms and
drives are but one expression. In this sense, it has a transpersonal
dimension, as it is in some way beyond personal conditioning. It could be
said to be a basis of human nature eg. Nietzche’s description of humans
who define themselves by choosing certain values (eg. power, love) over
basic drives, such as pleasure, or even survival. Urban (pg. 213) suggests
that freedom is the premier human feature for existentialists. Freedom is
the conscious exercise of volition and choice in permitting and facilitating
the inherent enfoldment of inborn potentialities through the individual’s
lived life. Freedom is especially the power to exercise regulatory control
without outside interference. In this sense, all life is conditional and therapy
is then directed toward minimizing conditioning (“false self’ of Laing and
Janov) and maximizing authentic (“real”) self expression, through taking
responsibility for one’s life, by making choices in the “centre of our being”
(Tillich 1952). This freedom especially focuses on envisioning and
acknowledging the future as well as taking a stand against conditioning -
thus the anti authoritarian self referencing theme in humanistic psychology
(especially primal therapy) and the socio/political focus of eg. feminism,
‘60’s and ‘70’s counterculture, human rights groups, environmentalists etc.

‘~

Murray’s (1959) “ego”, Allport’s (1955) “proprium”, James’ and Jung’s

(early 20th century) “self”, are all terms referring to a central executive
function that organizes and defines perceptions and coordinates actions,
by exercising decision, and following through with disciplines focused, skill
and means, such that a sense of self is created (and maintained) so that
evolution and change take place, but are integrated in such a way that the
essential original unity is maintained and even deepened. James and Jung
both tend to the transpersonal or spiritual end of this spectrum of self
definition by the exercise of freedom of choice independent of social
conditioning.

Nothingness
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See especially Heidegger and Sartre. According to Heidegger (1844-1976)

there is first of all the Nothing (das Nichts). Human existence (Dasein
“being there”) comes from being hurled into the world and finding one’s self
in a fallen state (Verfallen). By an attitude of caring (sorge - ie. involvement
or compassion) one lives authentically. At the deepest level this involves
the angst of awareness of “radical finite nothingness” or finitude, a Being-
toward-death. This awareness of Being in the grasp of Nothingness,
provides for the address of Dasien to itself, and through a caring attitude to
the things-as-they-are,(Seienden), authentic existence (Ek-sistenz)
manifests. Thus Nothing is given ontological status as the core of the
phenomena of things-as-they-are and the ground of authentic existence.
Thus one may say that “the Nothing nots” (“Das Nichts nichtet”) and
through this, authentic Being is disclosed.

Sartre (1905-1980) says that humans and the world are merely given. The
radical freedom of this formlessness calls forth the creative power of
humanness which invents a nature for itself and gives meaning to
individual existence. Thus “existence precedes essence” and humanity is a
“noughting nought” such that humans negate the nothingness of the world.
In this sense humans are now seen to be what was seen to be divine, that
which creates the world. This creation by perception is contained in the
Biblical phrases “in the beginning was the word” and “the word was made
flesh”. It is elaborated in existential-phenomenological tradition especially
by Merleau-Ponty, but also gestaltists, in a sense. It is part of
postmodernism in its literary form. It is also part of the modern subatomic
physics paradigm. Neurophysiological research supports this (eg. we
neurophysiologically and psychologically “decide” what to see by
comparing sense data to what we have seen and what we expect to see)
as does the holographic paradigm. Sartre sees no inherent stable state of
being. Rather, for humans, life is “a project” of self creation out of
nothingness. Humans are not “en-soi” (existing in itself, as things are).
Humans are a “pour-soi” (for itself) in which the project of life involves
restless movement to something one is not, thus defining and creating
one’s nature. This is an endless project requiring constant exercise of
choice and thus angst. Humans long to be a pour-soi-en-soi. This is a
human ideal of the monotheistic God an awareness which is not a project
and is not threatened from without. Satre places Nothingness alongside
Being as a basic category in human existence.

AUTHENTICITY, CHOICE AND RESPONSIBILITY

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Rowan (pg. 13) relates authenticity to Laing’s idea of the “real self”, with its
focus on clearing illusion and conditioning (historical and social) so that
true, full, deep, self awareness and responsibility is possible. In this real
self there is the irreducible angst of freedom to be and choose what one is
in any given moment, including the choice to act and express in relation to
the world, and to actualize potential. This existential freedom is a basic
defining part of humanness. Wood (1971) says authenticity consists of “self
respect (awareness of subjectivity and freedom together with acceptance
of responsibility) and self enactment (one acts consistently with one’s
beliefs and owns one’s actions”. Thus we are “originators and subjects as
well as the source of meaning”. Alienation from the real self, from
existential angst and from the acceptance of responsibility for one’s world
is an existential definition of neurosis, and is the antithesis of authenticity.
In the process of self expression and the ensuing self evolution, one
becomes more authentic, culminating in Maslow’s peak experiences and
fully realized sell actualization, such that an individual becomes what
Rogers calls “a fully functioning person” characterized by spontaneity and
actualized potential. This is not like a journey with an end however. The
accomplishment is not reaching the end of evolution but accepting the
emergent nature of humanness, such that the individual is one with the
process. It can also be said that the further one moves along this
evolutionary spiral into full humanness, the more one realizes a sense of
changelessness and an unfolding of ‘what is’ such that the goal of
evolution is to accept one’s fate and become what one already is. In order
to accomplish this, however, one must go through the ego annihilation
experience of death and resurrection, in which it is impossible to endure
and achieve. Only by a ‘miracle’ does the ‘individual’ survive. The miracle
is accomplished by authentic full participation in the suffering of core
transformation, and creating something new out of nothing - thus to
surrender into, and return from, Sunyata as home dei.

For Heidegger authenticity is the keystone of transforming Dasein (simply

being thrown here in a fallen state) into fully realized human potential (Ek-
sistenz)

Authenticity requires an attitude of caring, compassionate participation

(sorge) in things-as-they are (Seienden). Authenticity requires full, honest,
direct “discourse”, awareness of temporality, living in the moment and not
being distracted by petty, social conditioning.

Authenticity requires the taking of full responsibility for the choice one
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exercises in one’s life. May (pg. 13) agrees with Satire “we are our choices
within the limits of our given world” and in relation to our essence (inner
nature) as well as drives and forces. However existentialism insists that
ultimately “the mechanism has meaning (only) in terms of the person”.
Thus it is by our choices that we activate our potential, define perceived
reality and create or attribute meaning.

Rowan (pg. 13) quotes May (1967) and Mahrer (1978) saying there is no
inevitable process of growth, there is only choice.

The fundamental focus of existential-phenomenology is of finding oneness

in a being-here state of (fallen) freedom. Inevitably implies choice as the
quintessential human response to this awesome condition.

May (pg. 19) says individual responsibility resides in the existential

freedom of being thrown into the world of Dasein (being here) with inherent
self actualizing tendency in regard to inner nature of potentials. The
choices one exercises in regard to these potentials define one’s sense of
self in the world and self as an instance of becoming. This awesome
responsibility of self creation and self definition is a divine characteristic
that creates and gives meaning to individual human life.

Rowan (pg. 18) says the experience of contacting the “real” self involves a
sense of responsibility for self expression and self existence.

Rowan (pg. 22) says in a paradoxical manner, letting go into the surrender
of total presence [as in Wu Wei (non doing) and Six Precepts of Tilopa
(non intention)] and listening without preconceptions, invites the self arising
nature of unfolding reality as it emerges from sunyata (the fertile void). If
one can accept responsibility for this, one embraces one’s fate ie. this
unfolding story is my story, my life, my Iebenswelt, my world - the life I find
myself in. Again, paradoxically, full surrender to the received nature of
one’s life as of a character in a story leads to the transformational
experience of identification with the author of the story ie. through the
received nature of character to the originating, patterning nature of author.

Drury (pg. 44) speaks of the idea of taking responsibility for one’s actions
as a key gestalt precept. It has been popularized in the gestalt prayer “I do
my thing and you do yours, if by chance we find each other it is beautiful”.
The essential point in gestalt is to be aware of what and how one
experience one’s existence in the moment, and taking responsibility for
this. One’s self awareness and honesty are cornerstones of responsibility.
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CONSCIOUSNESS, CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE AND SELF

Urban (pgs. 210-211) says that humanistic-existential-phenomenological

psychology considers conscious experience to be a “primary characteristic
of humanness”. James (early 20th century) considers consciousness to be
“inherent yet invariably personal; changing yet sensibly continuous; and a
vehicle for selective choice on the basis of relevance of incoming and
potential experience for accomplishing personal ends”. Functionalists
Dewey and Angell emphasized centrality of consciousness, as did
humanistic psychologists Allport and Murray.

“Experience” is the key for phenomenologists (eg. Rogers 1951, Sullivan

1953) and existentialists (eg. Binswanger 1956 and May 1961).
“Awareness” is used by Perls (1973). Experience is the collectivity of the
persons impressions or apprehensions (usually conscious) of the world of
occurrences or lived happenings, either external, bodily or psychic.
Experience is cumulative (ie. memory), multiple, varied and rapidly
changing (stream of consciousness eg. James Joyce).

Infants are born into a duality - into a world of “booming confusion” and yet
required by humanness and ego development to create constancy,
certitude, order and stability. This is predicated on an inherent drive, plus
affective and instrumental relationships, initially with mother, but continuing
throughout “a lifetime of personality development” (E. Erikson). The
inherent drive has been called the tendency to “self actualization” (Maslow)
or “individuation” (Jung), and results in a fully conscious entity, capable of
functioning ecstatically in the paradox of this duality as it becomes
dialectical ie. recognition of the complementarity in this dualistic struggle is
achieved. A characteristics of the self actualized person, whose
accomplishment of full human consciousness, is marked by mystical or
peak experience, with its key focus of experience of divinity.

Reality is said to be created (especially by phenomenologists) as the

experiential organization of phenomena according to personality.

Adler (1927), Rogers (1959), Sullivan (1953) and others identify conscious
experience as the capacity for attention and awareness; perception and its
categorization into described identified experiences; thought (including
abstract conceptualizing, memory and anticipation or foresight);
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interpersonal cohesion (via projection, empathy, altruism, social interest).

“Conscious experience” thus is equal to “ego” in this sense.

Existential writers such as May, Engel, Ellenberger (1958) and Von Uexkull
speak of modes of being in the world as patterns of interaction developed
by people to organize the complexity of their experience. These modes are
umwelt (“world around” = biological); mitwelt (“with world” = relational); and
eigenwelt (“own world” = self awareness and self relatedness). It is
eigenwelt that uniquely characterizes humans, though in the MOH model,
all modes are part of human experience.

The objectifying tendency of consciousness to regard itself (ie. awareness

of being aware) gives rise to a sense of self. Devin (1960) suggests this is
exclusively human. James (circa 1900) was an early definer of self as the
“stream of conscious experience differentiating me from not me”. Rogers
(1951, 1959) speaks of “self concept” as “an organized configuration of
one’s being and functioning”. This self concept is self construed and the
basis of the individual’s perceptual frame of reference. It is consistent over
time and includes developmentally evolved forms of the self or personality.
The self is thus “not only a product but a producer” of conscious
experience (Combs, Avila, Purkey 1971).

The suppression or denial or distortion of any aspect of conscious

experience leads to disease - mental and/or physical ill health. Each family,
each region, each culture has its own patterns of permitting and denying.
Neurosis and personality are shaped by this conditioning (Jung 1964;
Fromm 1955, 1956; and Maslow (1962). Authenticity is then the drive to full
and congruent conscious self experience eschewing roles; illusions, self
deception. By attempting to be fully aware of conscious experience (via
therapy, meditation, body work, cleansing etc), transformation of neurosis
and egoic clinging into self actualization and peak experiences occurs,
such that the full meaning of one’s life is revealed. In this accomplishment
it is the very neurotic, traumatic distortions that turn out to be the
individual’s unique lens through which they view the world and the gifts
they bring to the evolution of humanity and divinity - ie. transformed
neurosis is genius. People are thus led to “the awareness of the multiplicity
of forces acting on them, to realize their competence and capability, to
comprehend the range of available opportunities and possibilities and to
accept the responsibility associated with living” (Frank l962, 1969).
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THE INDIVIDUAL SELF

Individual and individual conscious experience and individual choice are

the cornerstone of the humanistic-existential-phenomenological tradition,
especially in its psychological adaptation. The individual as an agent with
free choice, is the creator of a constructed, appropriated reality. This
responsibility has been previously attributed to a monotheistic God. In this
case however the reality is not, a priori, a generalizable reality - it is the
unique individual’s reality. However, according to Heidegger it is through
the appropriation of phenomena (by the exercise of free choice to
participate in the angst of life) that reveals the ontological essence of
human existence. It may also be said that this ontological essence reveals
and embodies divinity, through individual experience.

Thus the search for explanations of human behaviour must be through

individual experience, because each is singular, with a unique set of inborn
potentialities (inner nature) and environmental opportunities. Tillich (1952);
Allport (1955); Murray (1984); Maslow (1968) all expressed this variously
in psychology, the latter two acknowledging that each individual includes
characteristics which are species constant, but to which each individual
relates uniquely.

This unique individuality contains an enormous complexity of intentions,

values, patterns and styles of behaving. Despite this, there is an ongoing
sense of individual, organized, unified selfhood. Allport (1961) sees
“integration” and an “inherent pressing” for unification of self and life;
Rogers sees an “underlying organizing principle”; Adler an “innate
movement toward self consistency” leading to a “unique lifestyle”; Murray
(1959) sees a “temporal whole” with consistency over time.

This model of individuals as temporal wholes with unity of self and life over
time, involves the notion of Being and becoming, such that the individual’s
self actualizing tendency provides for the emergence of innate potentials of
inner nature, in a way that manifests both a continual unfolding self
transcendence, while yet retaining an unchanging unique sense of self.
Even through the midlife mystical death and resurrection experience, the
change can be said to be one of state not place, form of existence not
essence. Similarly through puberty. The ego self that dies in the mystical
death and resurrection experience is in fact, in retrospect, a false, illusory,
unreal, conditioned self that peels away like a chrysalis revealing the true
self. Similarly, according to Campbell quoting Schopenhauer, upon
reviewing one’s life through all the changes, complexity and chaos that has
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happened, it is possible to construe an ongoing story line and an unfolding

drama that has the quality of a unified piece of music or a work of art, even
though when we are going through it, it seems chaotic and unstructured.

According to May (pgs. 33-35) the Self is the central autonomous

organizing principle such that true autonomy/freedom/individuality can only
be located in the centred self. Myself (which is congruent with my essential
being) is the centre in which I know myself as the one observing,
experiencing, responding, behaving, knowing. The centred self as the
basis of being is the foundation of authentic, healthy ego and identity.

This human capacity for self awareness led James (early 20th century) to
propose the self as “a stream of thought derived from conscious
experience, comprised of those experiences related to one’s self as
perceptually differentiated from externals, thus giving rise to personal
identity”. Rogers (1951, 1959) “self concept” refers to the awareness of “an
organized configuration of perceptions (experiences) of one’s being and
functioning”. This is a frame of reference for all other observations. This
existential perspective says that in this sense the self is not only a product
but also a producer of experience, because is serves as the framework for
seeking opportunities and future experience ie. the self as definer of
personal reality. There are many variations on this theme [idealized
(Rogers 1951); stable (Snygy & Combs 1949); mutable (Zurchen 1972);
social (Arkoff 1968); real and unreal (or alienated) (Laing ‘60’s and Janov
‘70’s)].

Rowan (pgs. 13-15 and 18) says the key element of self for humanistic-
existential-phenomenological psychology is self awareness and capacity to
differentiate self from other. This implies consciousness and intact ego
functioning. The experience of authentic or real self is a goal of this
tradition. The real self is not conditioned by neurotic historical distortion,
psychodynamic defense, or social mores imposing artificial, unnatural
codes of conduct.

Wood (1971) defines authenticity as self respect (awareness of subjectivity

and freedom with acceptance of responsibility) and self enactment (one
acts consistently, consistent with one’s beliefs and owning one’s actions).
Alienation is the opposite of authenticity. The authentic self is then fully
functioning, actualizing potentials in an age and stage specific manner.
Rowan (pg. 31) says the real self lies beyond all self images or self
concepts. This leads to an idea of self that is transpersonal or mystical.

Drury (pg. 33) quotes Maslow’s idea of self actualization as the culminating
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need of a hierarchy of needs (starting with physiological considerations up

through personal and social to transpersonal). Self actualization is defined
by Maslow as “the full use and exploitation of talents, capacities [and]
potentialities”. Self actualizaters tend to be spontaneous independent,
relate deeply, have a democratic nature, are creative and rise above social
conditioning and tend to mystical experiences. Rowan (pgs. 18 and 30)
suggests mystical self actualization is characterized by Maslow’s peak
experience - a transformative ecstatic experience of choiceless awareness
of the paradoxical unity in all phenomena. Thus it is seen that the self is
both personal and universal, and that the historical eqoic self is a mask of
roles and defenses and conditioning. In this core peak experience of self
there is paradoxically selflessness. Rowan (1983) distinguishes stage 1
basic existential self actualization from stage 2 peak experience of self
actualization.

Note:
Heidegger’s and Von Uexkull’s welts - umwelt, mitwelt, eigenwelt;
life-world and being-in-the-world.
Relation of being and becoming to self.
Jung’s self/ego axis as the engine of individuation of self.
Brookes phenomenological Jungian ideas of self.
Archetypal psychologies’ deconstruction of self as a monotheistic
limitation to the essentially polytheistic nature of human
consciousness.

HUMAN, HUMAN NATURE, HUMANISTIC, HUMAN POTENTIAL

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Urban (pg. 206, 207, 208), Fischer (pg. 539) and Drury (pg. 36) speak of
humanness, human nature and of being human. The key point made is
regarding the distinctiveness of humans. Distinguising characteristics are
variously listed, with self awareness and freedom to choose what one will
become as the leading edge.

Distinctive human characteristics include conscious awareness of existing

in a state of becoming a self aware entity that struggles to render this all
intelligible, and to choose to act responsibly, thus creating oneself and
one’s world by actualizing inborn potentialities in relation to opportunities
presented by the environment and thus, reciprocally, shaping one’s
environment. A crowning human characteristic is the capacity to transcend
the present by envisioning future possibilities through formulating intention
and purpose. To be authentically human is to become open to experience
accepting the freedom of one’s fate and taking responsibility for developing
one’s emerging identity, thus fashioning one’s sense of self within a
commitment to other people and one’s life. In all of this complex mix of
conscious self actualizing becoming, meaning is created for oneself in
one’s life, within a context of freedom and taking responsibility.

In the humanistic-existential-phenomenological tradition, the following are

given as a common set of emphases for humanness. The distinctive
character of humans as a species and the uniqueness of each individual,
means that human nature can only be studied through individual, means
that human nature can only be studied through individual human
experience. Each individual human is characterized by innate potentialities
which (by conscious choice, openness to one’s fate and interaction with
one’s environmental opportunities) become actualized, creating an
organizationally complex, yet integrated and self consistent, individuaIity,
which however, has the characteristic of plasticity and heterostasis, such
that activity and change are the norm. In humans, being and becoming are
dialectically related through the dynamic heterostatic unfolding tendency to
actualize potentials.

Humans are further distinctive in that this seems to be an inherent drive

toward individuation, moving toward full self actualization via existential
self responsibility and mystical peak experiences. In this context,
awareness of death and having a ritualized relationship with death seems
historically to mark the most significant evolutionary separation from other
primate species. This could then be said to mark the beginning of an
acknowledgment of the sacred dimension of life, through a dawning
awareness of something not manifest yet present, from which an essential,
vital part of our humanness comes and to which it returns after death. This
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awareness of a ritualized relation to spirit via awareness of death, seems

distinctively human. It could also be said that this awareness of death as
the basis of the self actualizing tendency, is associated with, and defines,
the element of consciousness and conscious experience in humans ie. the
capacity to be humanly aware and to be aware of being aware (ie. to be
self conscious) and to form intention.

Human consciousness contains three levels in the MOH model - with (H)
human (species specific) (0) organismic (biological) and (M) mechanistic
(energetic) characteristics created by the holonomic, morphic, evolutionary
tendency in life, such that all levels of evolutionary order contain within
them characteristics of preceding levels. Within this generic, basic model,
however, a key defining characteristic of humanness is the unique,
invariably personal nature of human consciousness.

Thus human consciousness has characteristics of a sense of self

continuity, both structurally and temporally; a capacity for memory and
forming abstract concepts; a capacity for foresight and planning; a capacity
for symbolization and creative expression (eg. as art, music, poetry); a
capacity for love, empathy, altruism and social responsibility.

All this is contained within a sense of (unique) self - the basic frame of
reference for experiencing life and creating meaning, thus being not only a
product but a producer of experience, This self has both an ongoing
stability and a heterostatic tendency to change and evolve toward full self
actualization. In this sense, humans are said to be self regulatory by the
capacity to exercise choice and take action in relation to inborn
potentialities and environmental opportunities. Thus humans are said to be
especially proactive and self initiatory, rather than reactive and conditioned.
Thus humans are said to possess directiveness and goal orientation, with
purpose and intention based on a sense of future possibilities

Finally, the existential model of human nature identifies four particular

characteristics of humans requiring the exercise of this self initiating, self
determining, self regulatory activity. First, the meanings of one’s existence
are never settled once and for all and the ongoing self questioning of “who
am I that this life should happen to me in this way” provides an
evolutionary engine for change. Secondly, to be human means that one
exercises choice and takes action, and to find meaning in one’s actions,
however much restricted by environmental opportunities and hampered by
incomplete self awareness and knowledge of consequence. Third, to be a
person is to be related to others, whether or not they are present and one
comes to be and know oneself only through this relatedness. Fourth, to be
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a person is to be an embodied subject, a unity that cannot be understood

as the epiphenomenalistic union of two separate substances - mental
(spiritual) and physical (material). Further, the possible modes of being and
dimensions of the human world are co created by that world and the
embodied human.

EVOLUTION THE DIALECTIC DANCE OF ONTOLOGY AND

-

PHENOMENOLOGY
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The evolutionary tendency in the human condition provides for an

unfolding path theme in individual existence. This can be seen as the
dialectic dance of ontology and phenomenology. Martin Heidegger, a
German philosopher bridging the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is a
most cogent exponent of this theme. His work forms the theoretical,
referential basis of existential/ phenomenological psychology, which is one
of the core traditions in holistic experiential psychotherapy. What follows is
a very brief summary of his model.

HEIDEGGER OVERVIEW
Focus: Human Existence (Dasein) (Being There)

Quest: Rediscovery of authentic Being (Ek-sistenz)

Method: Caring (Sorge) and authenticity

By experiencing the angst of the freedom of being where and as one is

(Dasein, phenomenon) one discovers the radical finite nothingness of
Being-toward death. By an attitude of caring one live this authentically, by
discovering oneself in direct relationship to the things-that-are and by
direct, original, genuine thinking and discourse (not subject to petty
particular requirements of daily life or the crowd). The fulfillment of Dasein
is the re-discovery of authentic being, grasping and reflecting the nature of
one’s essential finitude. This means living aware of time as past (an
ongoing awareness of having been thrown into the world of emotion and
Being-toward-death) future (by means of caring, developing human
potentials present in the now), and present (this means being devoted to
the things-that-are). In the process of manifesting authentic being, one
becomes aware of nothingness in which nothing is experienced as
ontological, the ground of Being, and yet actively challenging Being.
Authentic experience is based on being open to nothingness and Being-
toward-death, by exercising the human freedom to choose. The authentic
word is revelatory in that the thinker pronounces Being and the poet
names the Holy as a function of human freedom. By accepting the Angst of
nothingness and Being-toward-Death, and consciously exercising caring in
accepting the participation in things-as-they-are, via authentic experience
and discourse in all-time-as-now, Being is disclosed and revealed and
mythologized.

DYNAMICS
The development of ontology and phenomenology as played out in the
human evolutionary process is the subject of much of holistic experiential
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psychotherapy work. What follows is a piece on this dialectical relationship,

as it sets up, energizes, motivates and maintains this evolution.

Ontology is the meaning hidden in phenomenology and is discovered by

experiential in searching. Stick to the phenomena and follow the thread of
self by means of authenticity. Every ego state has within itself the
dialectical means of its own contradiction. By following one’s desire nature,
this dialectical self annihilation is played out via chaos, symptom, suffering.
By facilitating and deepening the experience of symptom, deeper layers of
self are revealed. Thus the experiential in searching of phenomena (ego)
for ontology (self) follows a dialectic, initiatory path on which movement is
of a quantum nature, muddling around in one layer until ego annihilation on
that layer occurs (i.e. victim stance is dropped in favour of ownership,
character becomes author and chaos resolves into the strange attractor of
the meaning which organizes that layer into phenomena). The resulting
peace and clarity is enjoyed as sunshine in a water meadow and the riches
of that level accrue to the pilgrim. Also responsibilities to self and other.
Then night falls, a thunderstorm arrives and the wolves howl, once again,
at the door. The pathologized challenge leading to the next layer of reality
is presented and the Totentanz begins again. There are probably seven
layers, levels, stages, realms corresponding to the seven chakras and
other models of consciousness. For human beings there is a dialectical
movement of spirit down into matter, masculine into feminine, inner
becomes outer and vice versa. Interpenetration and union without loss of
distinction is the key. Thus passion (either positive or negative) is the motor
of movement and the very desire nature that initiated our personal, historic,
human story is what will return us to paradise with the gift of knowledge of
self. It is, in fact, that very yearning for self knowledge which, via sexual
and conflictual engagement, drives us out of our Edenic, paradisiacal
oneness with spirit/ontology into the dualistic world of phenomenal
suffering and labour and via dialectic experiential in searching returns us to
our essential selves in the dream time.
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