The Existential Givens

Siebrecht Vanhooren (Manuscript MOOC)

Abstract:
Existential philosophers and psychologists have uncovered several existential givens which
are part of the human condition. These ultimate concerns are unavoidable and essentially
unsolvable. As life goes on, we weave these universal themes into our own life story. In this
paper we briefly introduce the following givens: embodiment, autonomy and relatedness,
freedom and responsibility, death and limitations, meaning and meaninglessness, and finally
Un-Knowing.
Existential philosophers and psychologists have uncovered several existential givens
which are part of the human condition. These ultimate concerns are unavoidable and
essentially unsolvable. They are part of what it means to be human. The way we respond
and relate to these existential givens makes each of us unique. As life goes on, we weave
these universal themes into our own life story (see section 4). Our personal victories reflect
these ultimate concerns, and so do defeat and despair. In counseling and therapy, we meet
our clients when their answers to the existential givens no longer work (see Existential
Practice). In meeting the existential layer of their life process, we help them to find new
ways of relating to these existential givens. In other parts of the course, we will explain and
explore these existential givens in more detail. In this section we will briefly introduce the
following givens: embodiment, autonomy and relatedness, freedom and responsibility,
death and limitations, meaning and meaninglessness, and finally Un-Knowing.
Embodiment
The first existential given is noticeable every moment of every day. Our existence is
an embodied existence. Our body represents existence in its most basic form. It is through
our body that we exist and through our body that we sense ourselves and the world around
us. Our body is our primary connection to what it means to be alive. Through our body we
experience what expansion and growth are, and through this same body, we experience
decay and finiteness. As Hoffman (2006) puts it: Embodiment is the experience of the
[existential] givens in our bodies (p. 18). It is through our lived body and our emotions that
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we experience what is important to us. We experience connection with other people

primarily through our body. Our body also sends us signs when we dont respect our
existential givens. When we overestimate ourselves and dont recognize our limits, our body
will let us know. Even when we dont find a purpose in life, our body will react or give up
(Frankl, 1946/2006). It is through our body that we notice if a situation makes sense to us or
not (see section 7). Through our body, we can sense that we are alive.
Bugental (1999) puts the embodied here and now experience at the heart of the
existential practice. He calls it the living moment. Focusing on the living moment in
counseling and therapy provides a direct pathway to the core of our existence. Existence is
not to be found in the past, nor in the future, nor in our life story. Life is here and now. One
of the great paradoxes of life is that when we listen to our body in the here and now we
might transcend our individuality, feel connected to something universal and tap into the
Un-Known.
Autonomy and relatedness
Otto Rank, who has been called the father of humanistic and existential psychology,
called the tension between autonomy and relatedness one of the fundamental core issues of
human lives (Kramer, 1997). Ultimately, we are unique individuals and we can never
encounter a person like us in our life. No-one has exactly the same life experience, and being
fully aware of our uniqueness can overwhelm us with a fundamental feeling of existential
loneliness. The experience of existential loneliness can easily lead to despair because we
seem to disappear if we dont feel connected. We cant bear our existence without
connection. Recent theories about suicide among youngsters have asserted that connection
with others is fundamental in preventing suicide (Van Tricht & Brunfaut, 2016).
Balancing our need to be unique with our need to belong, we can either get stuck in
our loneliness or we can lose our own voice by adjusting to others. The way we try to cope
with this dynamic in the outer world reflects how we shape our relationship with ourselves.
Troubled relationships with significant others in our early years often manifests in a troubled
inner relationship later on. It is no coincidence that psychotherapeutic change in our inner
relationship also has consequences for our other relationships.
Erik Erikson, a developmental psychologist, described how our capacity to become
more relational also enhances our capacity to become more autonomous and vice versa
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(Dalby, 2006). In a way, we can become free by becoming more connected both to others
and to ourselves. As we will explain later, living an authentic life does not simply mean
becoming more autonomous. It also means being fully interconnected with the world.
Freedom and responsibility
The existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre had quite radical views on freedom (van
Deurzen, 1997). For Sartre, freedom is not a blessing, but a curse. In the end, we are not only
fully responsible for the choices we make but also for the choices we dont make. We are
responsible for our ignorance and indifference towards the worlds problems too. For Sartre,
we must also take responsibility for the consequences of our choices and our indifference.
Choice and responsibility are fully interconnected. Choice is the question which is
always being posed by life, at any moment of the day and in every situation: what will you
do? The word respons-ibility (in Dutch: ver-antwoord-elijk) implies that life is constantly
demanding a response from us. What is your answer to this particular situation? What is
your attitude? Interestingly, choice and responsibility are closely connected to our meaning
in life. Viktor Frankl (1946/2006) argued that people often ask themselves the wrong
question when it comes to meaning in life: the question isnt whether life has meaning or
not. Instead, it is life itself which asks us: what do you want to mean for life?
The Sartrerian approach is quite dazzling: there seems to be no way to live without
feeling guilty at the end of lifes path. Indeed, the question isnt whether or not we are
guilty; the question is rather how we cope with our freedom, responsibility and guilt. Some
of us limit our freedom because we feel too responsible. In order to avoid guilt, some of us
have a hard time making choices and dont take risks in life. Others might feel so guilty that
they stop caring and take risks all the time.
By becoming more aware of how we shape our lives by making choices and by taking
responsibility for our own actions or indifference, we become more aware of our
fundamental freedom within our limitations.
Death, finiteness, and limitations
Our freedom is not unlimited. In fact, the experience of limitations is an existential
given itself. Our limitations are most concretely experienced in the finiteness of our human
life. Yalom (1980) puts the finiteness of life at the center of his theory. For Yalom, the basic
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problem of humankind is not the fact that we have a tendency to deny death. Being
constantly aware of the fact that we will die might paralyze some of us, but, at the same
time, denying death might block one of the most powerful sources of life energy. Knowing
that our time on earth is finite can help us to value our life. The awareness of death can help
us to be fully aware of the present moment. It can enrich our existence and it can vitalize the
present moment. Being aware of our limited time might help us to savor more fully so-called
trivial aspects of life, such as a nice cup of coffee, or the sound of a singing bird in
springtime.
It is no coincidence that people who lived their lives to the fullest are less anxious of death at
the end of their lives (the opposite is also true).
In a way, death as a paradoxically vitalizing limitation of life also symbolizes the
many limitations we meet during our lifetime. Our physical limitations, our lack of finances,
our lack of time, our lack of mobility, etcetera, are all examples of how we encounter this
existential given during our daily life. Every boundary situation can challenge us to
reconsider who we are, and to find new meaning in life. In this way, coming up against our
limits can allow us to rediscover our freedom in how we want to live our life.
Meaning and meaninglessness
One of the most essential drives in our lives is that we want to matter to others.
Viktor Frankl (1946/2006) discovered that we long for meaning. Current research has largely
confirmed Frankls hypotheses (e.g. Hicks & Routledge, 2013; Wong, 2012). We need
meaning to survive on the one hand, but, on the other hand, we also become more resilient
towards lifes storms when we experience meaning in life (e.g. Vanhooren, Leijssen &
Dezutter, 2016).
Existential thinkers and psychotherapists have been divided over the question of
whether or not life has an ultimate meaning. Or in other words: whether the meaning of our
lives has to be discovered or created. There is consensus over the fact that there is a great
deal in life that seems meaningless and that we nonetheless experience a need to make
sense of it. Contemporary researchers such as Steger (2012) have concluded that higher
levels of meaning have consistently been associated with higher levels of well-being,
psychological and physical health. Conversely, absence of meaning has been associated with
pathology. Martella and Steger (2016) have distinguished at least three aspects of meaning
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in our lives. First, there is our need to understand our life story (coherence), second, we
need something like a goal in life (purpose), and third, we need the feeling that our existence
matters (significance). The experience of whether our life matters transcends the purely
intellectual level. Meaning is a body-mind experience (Greenberg & Pascual-Leone, 2001),
and at the same time it is also an interpersonal experience. A recent study revealed that
personal growth and feeling interconnected with others were the two main sources of
meaning among adults in the Western world (Delle Fave et al., 2013).
Un-Knowing
Finally, we add an existential given which has been central in existential and personcentered practice (Hoffman, 2009; Rogers, 1980; Schneider, 2013; Schneider & Krug, 2010;
Spinelli, 2006; Tillich, 1952/2000; van Deurzen, 1997; Vanhooren, 2014). Life is basically uncontrollable. We dont know when we will die, we dont know what the consequences of our
choices will be. Essentially, we dont know how much we matter to others, and maybe we
underestimate our significance in life. Many people live with a sense that they have
everything under control, and their lives seem to develop as they have planned until life
takes over. It is not only that traumatic experiences confront us with the fact that basically
we just dont know what will happen, but also pleasant surprises and unexpectedly positive
twists and turns in life prove that we are not always at the steering wheel of our own
existence.
The Un-Known often surprises us in unpleasant ways. People can experience a loss of
meaning when things dont work out as planned. The Un-Known can overwhelm us with
angst as we lose control. It is the Un-Known which makes us frightened of dying and of
making choices (Tillich, 1952/2000). But the Un-Known has also another side. The Un-known
can bring us relief. Faced with what we cant understand we might experience awe,
interconnection and transcendence. Throughout the centuries, religious and mystical people
have tried to grasp, to understand, or to build a personal relationship with the Un-Known.
Scientists have been driven by the same kind of fascination to unravel the mysteries of life.
As despair might arise from our encounter with the Un-Known, so can hope. Being
open to the unexpected helps us to face our existential givens and to live a creative and
courageous life (Tillich, 1952/2000).

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