Existential psychotherapy says that all humans must quarrel with "four elemental anxieties":
• Death (the realization that your existence will eventually end).
• Isolation (the fundamental loneliness at the heart of human existence).
• Freedom and what it entails: being fully free makes us fully responsible for our existence.
• Meaninglessness (all our actions and beliefs have an inherent "absurdity" in them).
• Death (the realization that your existence will eventually end).
• Isolation (the fundamental loneliness at the heart of human existence).
• Freedom and what it entails: being fully free makes us fully responsible for our existence.
• Meaninglessness (all our actions and beliefs have an inherent "absurdity" in them).
Psychological dysfunction results from the individual's refusal or inability to deal with these normal existential anxieties.
In this sense, depression, loneliness, and anxiety are not "diseases" in themselves, but normal responses to basic—irremovable—anxieties about life and being. They become pathological only when they cause dysfunction to the individual's way of life.
In this sense, depression, loneliness, and anxiety are not "diseases" in themselves, but normal responses to basic—irremovable—anxieties about life and being. They become pathological only when they cause dysfunction to the individual's way of life.