How to go From Autopilot to Authorship: Taking Ownership of Your Journey
To be responsible, as Jean-Paul Sartre defines it, is to be “the uncontested author of an event or thing.” Authorship is a stand-in for the word creator, of which an author is one kind, and for whom the task is to fashion from the materials of their imagination a work that is complete and new. This imagination being the main tool applied, there can be no doubt that the author is the source from which the story originates. It is clear that several people are involved in the making and publishing of a book, from editor’s, proofreaders, cover designers, type setters and more. Each of these serves an important role in the process, but their roles are created in reaction to the author and defined in relation to the author’s original efforts.
Applying his notion of responsibility in a psychotherapeutic setting has benefits and risks. Doing so moves me towards a more internal locus of control when discussing issues and sets up an expectation that the client will shift to a similar orientation. And when more emphasis is placed on what a client can control and change, less time is wasted on issues that can be affected by neither the client or myself.
Of particular interest is the fact that the client is now allowed to approach the issue of suffering differently. To say that someone is responsible for their suffering runs the risk of being insensitive, but to say a client’s suffering is theirs, and that they alone are responsible for what they do with it moves them out of a helpless role and into a more active one. Challenging and often unfair, accepting responsibility for one’s suffering is still the best option for someone who intends to do something about it. A significant amount of suffering self-induced and unwarranted. It is a kind of suffering psychologically born in the aftermath of what has already occurred and added unto one’s burdens through the stories people tell themselves about what their suffering means.
When you focus on your role in events you understand that almost nothing in your life is the way it has always been or the way it must always be. This is true of life generally, and expands your possibilities once you realize it.
Admittedly, an emphasis on responsibility is most comforting to people who highly value individualism, partially because it ignores the reality of interdependence. In societies that are increasingly more complex, where accomplishing most tasks involves help from others, cordoning oneself off might be possible, but it would not be desirable. We need other people to survive and to flourish. We need other people to achieve our full potential. As the African proverb says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
There is the risk of veering too far on the side of responsibility assumption. This attitude becomes unhelpful when you begin to assume responsibility for things that you are not actually responsible for, which allows others to potentially take advantage of this and use you. For example, if a client complains about mistreatment from their family, and I am too quick to focus on the client’s role in the situation, I give the impression that the client’s concerns are illegitimate. It is possible for a client to remain the author of their feelings while also being shown respect and compassion for the difficult conditions under which their feelings arise. Conditions which they of course, are not the uncontested author of. Responsibility should not be heaped on an individual without considering the constant pressure that other people exert on them.
Most clients, at the time we first meet, are limited in their ability to assume responsibility for their lives. As it is in life, so it is in therapy. They must be encouraged to increase this capacity, and a large portion of success in therapy and in life is attributable to ones willingness to do this. One must always come back to their role in events, no matter how large or miniscule, no matter how many times they stray from it, because it is the only perspective from which change takes place.
Blonde as Becoming: Frank Ocean and the Time It Takes to Be
On July 10, 2012 Frank Ocean released what would go on to become his critically acclaimed album Channel Orange, subsequently changing his life with its massive success. Excitement about the release of the album was buffered not only by the content, but by the fact that just days before, Ocean released a letter to the public in which he openly talked about his first love being a man. Both the letter and the album were revelatory, and emblematic of Frank Ocean’s style of art, as well as the way he chose to communicate his art.
Frank Ocean’s current predicament is interesting because it highlights the relationship between the artist and their fans. It is a mutually agreed upon relationship in which the artist consents to make and share their art with fans in exchange for what the artist seeks, whether it be fame, fortune, or something else.
A figure as seemingly unique as Frank Ocean is still not immune to the pressures of fame. Indeed, his uniqueness may very well render him more susceptible to the trappings of fame, as society loves to ensnare rarities of all kinds, and observe them on societies terms before moving on to something else. So it comes as no surprise that three years later, many fans and individuals in the music industry seem ready to do just that—they seem ready to quit Frank Ocean after embracing him initially. Months of delayed promises of a new album, with little indication as to when it will arrive will do that to a fan base.
The relationship between Frank Ocean and his fans resembles other relationships in the sense that the qualities that initially attract us— Ocean’s uniqueness and commitment to doing things his own way—begin to repel us as the love bloom fades. Most if not all of that bloom has worn off after three years of waiting. Clearly Frank Ocean is working on his own time, and this is an absolute necessity for any artist deeply engaged in their craft. Rushing the work would produce unsatisfactory results for both Ocean and his fans. It would be a disappointment for Ocean because he will not have remained true to himself, and what becomes of an artist no longer capable of truth? They are no longer capable of art.
Frank Ocean’s current predicament is interesting because it highlights the relationship between the artist and their fans. It is a mutually agreed upon relationship in which the artist consents to make and share their art with fans in exchange for what the artist seeks, whether it be fame, fortune, or something else. Not every relationship is the same, and as a brief comparison, the singer Adele, under somewhat similar circumstances, has not been subjected to the same sort of questioning and heckling by her fans. Adele’s last album was released in 2011, and until October of 2015 she had not released any new music, apart from a song written and performed for a James Bond film in 2012. She had not performed live in three years. Rather than derision, her choices were respected and when she did release new music, it was treated like a godsend. Why has the same amount of patience and respect for privacy not been afforded to Frank Ocean?
The extent to which Frank Ocean’s reputation has changed for the worse, and whether he even cares what others think of him are all unknown at this point. From his previous actions one can surmise that Ocean is more concerned with his creative process than his fame. This is not to say that he does not care about fame at all, and he may even care a great deal about it. What I am saying is that Frank Ocean’s relationship to his art and the process by which he creates that art seem to be paramount, while his relationship to his fans is peripheral. At best, all we can do is guess about what motivations currently guide Frank Ocean, and not fully understanding the intricacies that underlie Ocean’s art because the most we have access to are his albums as finished products, which are not always equal to the sum of their parts. But we should know about the artist as an identity, one that history tells us exists independently of fans who wait patiently or not. Frank Ocean will release his album when he is ready to, and not a day sooner, regardless of those who complain—perhaps he will be better off for doing so.
Eight Shades of Hate: Takeaways from The Hateful Eight
Watching the The Hateful Eight, Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, I found myself arrested by the force with which the story was told. Hateful Eight centers on the relationships between eight people, known for and connected by their prior reputations more than anything else. On its surface, the film is about bounty hunter John Ruth’s mission to complete another successful hunt, but the actual meaning of the film is more complex.
The specter of race looms large in it, and Tarantino addresses the issue by setting the film only a few years after the events of the American Civil War. The ghost of that war hovers over and haunts the characters in the film, and apparently still haunt us today—a recent mass shooting at a church in Charleston, South Carolina testifies to the fact. Making a movie set in the late 1800’s both timely and appropriate. Samuel L. Jackson plays Major Marquis Warren, a decorated army veteran who is now himself a renowned bounty hunter. He is black, and the other characters are indignant over having to deal with his presence. To my mind, Warren represents the coming of a new negro, a phrase later taken up during the Harlem Renaissance which symbolized the kind of black person who outspoken in their refusal to accept the indignities of American society.
The encounter that plays out frightful and electrifying, but first there is a series of half-hearted attempts from the other characters to restrain their hostility towards Warren, mostly owed to his reputation as a man highly capable of killing. Tarantino writes Warren as a character whose intellectual prowess is subtly displayed, skillfully employed, and certainly surpasses his physical skills. This quality is established early on and reinforced throughout the film, not by making Warren appear superhuman, but by highlighting the other character’s failure to recognize him as human at all.
As could be expected from this director given his past proclivity, The Hateful Eight is littered with the N-word. Though it used often, the word feels less out of place in this film than it does in other films like Django Unchained or Pulp Fiction. The historical setting makes the harsh dialogue plausible, and the acting performances mostly make the use of the word believable. Not excusable, then or now, but believable that the N-word would be used by white men as a sort of power grab, to put Major Warren back in his place, and reassure themselves of their own. In similar fashion, the B-word is frequently directed at Daisy, the only prominent female character in the film, which seemed too illicit less powerful reactions from the audience. Why is this so? Why do we cringe at the on-screen use of the N-word but not the B-word, similarly used to dismiss and dehumanize?
Beyond race and gender, The Hateful Eight is a commentary on the overall idea of identity.
Who exactly is Daisy and what does she mean to this film? Of the prominent characters, her story is the most underdeveloped. She is branded as a ruthless criminal, but we do not know to what extent this is true, and in a film where the relativity of truth is an important theme, this lack of explanation cannot be overlooked. Daisy seems to serve as a vessel for the other characters to act out their own pent-up anger towards women. Some of the characters consider her a devil, while others think her life is worth saving, and each character's belief about her fate doubles as a window into their definition of justice. Is it cold and dispassionate, or is it emotionally tinged?
These ideas about justice are also seen through the ways the characters interact with each other. John Ruth is the easy choice for an example of dispassionate justice, but even he falls short of this ideal. They all do, which may be the point—these American made figures cannot possibly live up to their own moral codes, and when it is a choice between them and the other, such codes are easily abandoned.
Beyond race and gender, The Hateful Eight is a commentary on the overall idea of identity. Flashbacks, and well-crafted dialogues highlight the fluidity of identity, and how quickly it can shift. The characters' behaviors, and perceptions of each other, as well as the viewer’s perception of them, changes at a dizzying pace. This pace does not set a new standard for Tarantino films, but in the past, the frenetic pace left some viewers confused, and others dissatisfied, and it is better executed in The Hateful Eight. By confining most of the film to a single room, Tarantino creates a world that is less open and sprawling, while maintaining his style as a filmmaker. The result is a film that operates well on multiple levels, at once being easy enough to follow, and at the same time complex and layered.
Will the audience understand the message? Will they understand that Tarantino is critiquing race relations in America on multiple levels? I fear that the humorous moments laced throughout the film will provide people with enough justification to gloss over the more serious aspects of the work. Especially people who still today harbor the same hateful attitudes as the film’s titular characters. More than anything, with The Hateful Eight, Quentin Tarantino deftly shrinks down a significant piece of the American experiment and places it into one room, serving as a metaphorical melting pot. He captures all the madness that is produced as result of this experiment called America, and the taste of redemption we get when this experiment functions as intended, however short and fleeting those moments may be.
Why You Don’t Want Your Ex to Date Anyone Else
Even in a long gone by now golden age of men who were dandies that proudly laid out their affections as well as their fleeces, and women who moved with gilded elegance, the idea that we meet the one and fall in love has been a pervasive myth. It does sometimes happen to be the case, that the first love is an enduring one. But for most people their endurance is tested in terms of how much disappointment, and consequently, how much pain they can bear throughout the course of several romantic relationships. It is not unusual that some romantic relationships end, and there are good reasons that we should want them to. What is unusual is that even when a relationship does end, and even when we no longer love a person, we sometimes refuse to accept the idea that our former beloved will go on to care for and eventually love someone else.
It feels good to be thought of and remembered by the ones we love, but it feels better to be remembered by the ones we don’t.
We harbor the wish that our exes continue to see us in a certain light. We want them to think of their time with us as a unique and singular experience that irrevocably changed them for the better. It is oddly gratifying to know that they are forlorn without us, but this wish only reveals something about our own state of mind. When a relationship ends, even one whose demise we welcome, both people enter a state of loneliness. In this painful space of separateness, we find ourselves yearning for our former foundation. Yes, there was rot, and it was filled with cracks, but it still provided something. When we diverge from the path of coupledom, we find ourselves not knowing what comes next. The feeling of being lost is what we are trying to avoid when we cling to our exes in one form or another.
We maintain a connection to an ex by trying to transform the romantic relationship into a friendship. An effort that usually fails because we have not given ourselves enough time and space to make sense of what happened and sort ourselves out. But in another sense, it “works” because sorting out and sense-making is the last thing a person wants to do when they are reeling from the pain of a breakup.
And even when we choose to expel a former lover from our life, we still want that person to think well of us. We want to feel special in their eyes even when they long ago lost the ability to spark the same reaction in ours. It feels good to be thought of and remembered by the ones we love, but it feels better to be remembered by the ones we don’t. It makes us feel especially unique and powerful. That I could reject a person and they could still hold me in the highest regard and still want me.
It makes sense that people are dismayed when they find out their ex has a new romantic interest. They’re moving on, and if an ex is moving on then maybe we aren’t so important after all. Maybe we never were. Those kinds of thoughts are felt more than they are formulated, and they produce an aching sensation. Of course, we can’t avoid them forever, neither by turning towards the past we had with our ex or leaping into the arms of someone else without taking time for self-reflection. You can acknowledge the pain of having your ego bruised, by the mere thought of your ex caring for someone else as much as they once cared about you and accept that in all likelihood that is exactly what will happen. Their role in your story is finished for now, or forever, and all that any of us can do about it is get back to the relationship we are always in, which is with ourselves, and slowly start to rebuild.
Can Psychotherapists be Seen as Artists?
When approached and practiced in certain ways, psychotherapy can be elevated to the level of an art form. The fact that psychotherapy is still (and necessarily so) a private affair that is hidden from public consumption makes it more difficult to qualify or quantify its status as a form of art. But for the many who practice it and the few who get to observe it, there are differences between straightforward practitioners and artists in the trade.
Consider this—art is a realm of subjectivity, where often times consensus is king and the majority rules. The paintings of a Da Vinci and Picasso, or the designs of Frank Lloyd Wright still leave some cold. As do the writings of Baldwin, Morrison, or Rowling. But to a sizeable amount of people, their works represent titanic triumphs of human creativity. Whatever this sizeable number is, it represents mass approval, which is so often necessary for the triumph of art over obscurity, but of course a number is not all that art is. And this mass effect I speak of has lent its weight not only to the crafts of painting, architecture, or literature, but also to psychology, the study of the human mind.
To be clear, mass approval is not enough. The popularity of a thing does not mean that it is worthy of adulation. Art stirs something deep inside of us and brings it to the surface. Art disturbs, and is confrontational at times, but it also seeks pathways to deeper connection with oneself and with the world. The beauty of art lies in the way it makes us feel something that is deeply personal and at the same time relatable to all of humanity. How the artist achieves this effect differs based on their tools and the talents they possess, but the desired effect is always the same. To wake others up to themselves and get them to feel deeply.
It takes courage and a certain audacity to practice art
The psychotherapist does not use the brush of the painter, the instrument of the musician, or the charts, graphs, and measuring tools of the scientist. They use themselves—their presence, consisting of their body, heart, mind, and spirit, which allows them to forge an alliance with those they work with in hopes of bringing forth something new. The artist plays at God as they attempt to corral creation, and in a sense the psychotherapist does the same. The best are very intentional about their ambition.
At times the psychotherapists will fail: there will be clients who do not change or become better, and some who may become worse. To fail in the endeavor to create and bring forth something new in a person can be more devastating than errant brush strokes and misplaced musical notes. This is because a person expresses consciousness rather than simply being a product of consciousness. To work with another, knowing their potential and their limitations, and journey through the maze of their life with them takes courage and trust. Trust, in another and in oneself, is the bedrock on which creation takes place. Without it there is no sense of direction, no willingness to take risks, and no progress which can be made.
It takes courage and a certain audacity to practice art, because it requires a willingness to exist separate and apart from others. A distance that is necessary when one does not simply want to talk, but feels they truly have something to say. Whether or not the feeling is justified is a bargain which must be struck between the individual and society. Some psychotherapists have much to say about nothing. They regurgitate empty platitudes or vomit up their own insecurities, inappropriately praising themselves or judging others without having earned a right to do either. They move at a frenetic pace while accomplishing little of substance; they retreat into data and evidence whenever they are confused or unsure, signaling that they do not know how to practice the art of psychotherapy, but only how to follow the manual they were taught.
The client who comes before the psychotherapist may for the first time in their lives, as a result of their dissatisfaction, be open minded enough to have a real encounter with themselves. The approach of the typical psychotherapist is management and symptom reduction—to be able to give a pat on the back to the client as they walk out the door and assure them that they are okay without ever asking them to be better. The artist who practices psychotherapy seeks other things—connection, engagement, growth, and transformation in ways that are organic and unique to the individual they are working with at the time. Only art can do this. At its core the musician has there 12 notes to achieve this, the writer has there 26 letters, and the psychotherapist has their self. More than any theoretical background, use of the self is needed, a self that accepts life with its tensions and challenges, and helps others do the same.
What is the Purpose of Psychotherapy?
To tolerate life remains, after all, the first duty of all living beings. Illusion becomes valueless if it makes this harder for us.
— Sigmund Freud
The psychotherapist is always listening. They listen to the stories people tell them; stories that double as half-truths they simultaneously tell themselves. Stories that the therapist may tell themselves just as often. Listening comes with the territory, and part of what makes someone a good therapist is the ability to do so. To an outside observer it might not look like much is going on between a client and a therapist. Just two people having a conversation, but beyond initial appearances, a complicated exchange is playing out between the client and the therapist.
It is only through facing the things in life that are most difficult and confusing for us that we make sense of them.
In a therapeutic dialogue both client and therapist are constantly testing one another, and constantly testing themselves. The client wants to know if someone the therapist, purported to be a professional helper, is really up to the task, which is a fair question because therapist do not always know. More than that, the therapist is not always sure of the client’s commitment either, and there is enough uncertainty and trepidation to make one ask, what is the purpose of all this psychological probing and is there an end goal to be reached once it’s all done?
It’s certainly a fact that people test one another, in therapy and in life, to find out whether or not it is safe enough, physically and psychologically, for them to be honest about who they truly are. and few situations engender this more than the unfamiliarity of finding oneself for the first time sitting on in a therapist’s office with the expectation that you simply open your mouth and start to share your thoughts and feelings with someone you just met. In order for anyone to do this, the therapist has to quickly convince the client of their skill and capability. Without this initial convincing, there is no reason for the client to be there, and their presence will certainly be short-lived. With it, the client feels safe enough for the work to begin.
What the client gains is a place to retreat from life when they need to. A place where they can get enough distance from the world to start learning about it—if you live long enough you know that it is difficult to be curious when you are being assailed on all sides by challenges, at which point surviving life’s harsh realities becomes the main goal, the only goal, and the lens through which all other choices are filtered. Therapists are there, one hour at a time, to pull the client out of their world, and more importantly, to pull out the parts of the client’s world that they struggle with the most. To push the client to confront the parts of life they are most confounded by.
It is only through facing the things in life that are most difficult and confusing that people begin to make sense of them. It is a process that must be repeated numerous times throughout their lives because new challenges require new answers regarding how they will be met and eventually overcome. In the end, there simply is no cure for life.
The psychotherapist acts, for some length of time, as a secular guide on the client’s journey, helping them learn how to confront their deepest anxieties and overcome their most stressful life events. Helping clients to become more skilled in the art of living is the psychotherapist’s purpose, and in carrying it out, clients themselves begin to develop their own, one that is not based on unearned confidence, but is carefully arrived at, with the proper motivation to pursue it.
On George Floyd & the Trial
Today marks the beginning of what will likely become another notorious case in American history; the trial of Derek Chauvin, the man accused of murdering George Floyd. The jury selection will begin tomorrow and from there the trial will proceed towards its unsavory end, on display for the entire country to see. The outcome of the trial will serve as a litmus test as to whether the events of the last year, and years before that, have altered the mind of the American republic enough to deliver a more just decision now. It will carry with it the weight of the question, what is the American attitude towards those who wield power dangerously?
A society that produces encounters where innocent citizens can be murdered for no good reason and families can be left without any earthly retribution is a society that must rethink itself.
Incredulous at it seems, a question that inevitably will be asked is whether or not Chauvin caused the death of Floyd. Conviction for the charge of second-degree murder which Chauvin faces hinges on the answer to this question. There will be now, as there were then, voices that proclaim Chauvin’s innocence and those that contest it, hence the need for a fair and judicious legal process. However, if one looks at and considers the thresholds that must be met for conviction, it is clear that Chauvin blasted through them. Second-degree murder entails causing someone’s death while committing third-degree assault, which is defined as the reckless infliction of the fear of serious bodily injury, or recklessly causing a fear of injury through the use of a deadly weapon. Recordings of the incident made it so that the use of imagination was not required to conjure up the sights and sounds of Floyd on the ground trapped underneath the force of Chauvin. The fear of Floyd was plainly visible.
Chauvin was negligent by any definition of the word, whether judged by the typical standard applied to an everyday citizen of this country, or the greater standard applied to those in positions of power and privilege, as was the case for Officer Chauvin. It seems that this principle, that those with greater power and freedom must willingly resign themselves to greater responsibility, works in reverse in many instances in America. Instead those with the most power operate with reckless impunity, housed inside of a psychological funhouse where every image they see is a powerful distortion of themselves and others which they unquestionably believe. The least of us suffer for these illusions.
The crimes committed without consequence by Chauvin and the like, whose chief concern should be upholding the law, range from the mundane to the murderous. One thinks of Jeronimo Yanez, the officer who murdered Philando Castile in 2016, who was acquitted of any and all charges and received a buyout from his police department. Or Timothy Loehmann, the officer who murdered twelve year old Tamir Rice in 2014, and was also acquitted of any and all charges. I do not know Yanez or Loehmann, just as I do not know Castile or Rice, but a society that produces encounters where innocent citizens can be murdered for no good reason and families can be left without any earthly retribution is a society that must rethink itself. It must reconsider its entire way of doing business and ask what exactly is its chief business—is it the perpetuation of the free market, the importation of democracy, or some other lofty ideal? Perhaps it should settle for the protection of its citizenry.
The second question to be answered is whether or not Chauvin’s actions were reasonable. Again, looking honestly at that term we can only answer negatively. Reasonable implies fairness, sensibility, moderation, and nothing of the like was contained in the actions of Chauvin. The acts of kneeling on a man's neck for nine minutes while ignoring his pleas for relief, his crying out for his mother, and even the sensation of his body giving up on itself as he went limp do not function within the realm of reason. These are the actions one reads about in books outlining the barbarism of past days and witnesses in films of the Tarantino type, with violence at times so hyperbolic it becomes a caricature of itself.
George Floyd may have had drugs in his system at the time of his death, and this is being trotted out as an actual cause of death instead of the actions of Chauvin, and being used to defame Floyd. But what is the likelihood that Floyd, even in an intoxicated state would have rapidly declined and spontaneously succumbed to his condition without the intervention of Chauvin? The assertion seems ludicrous, as does the assertion that the officer was so fearful of the threat that Floyd posed that he had no other choice but to react the way he did. I am aware of several pieces of anecdotal evidence of black people behaving drunkenly and belligerently and living to tell the tale. I am unaware of any anecdotes about white people behaving in the same way and not living through it, and that is what troubles the conscience.
Questions that should be raised and debated, especially in the medical field and other related fields, is how do we treat the chemically intoxicated in this country? How should we treat them? Should a person’s being sufficiently intoxicated, or even insufferably intoxicated essentially become a license to do grave bodily harm to them, or even a license to kill? There exists in my mind an easy answer to the question, which is no, intoxication should not be met with excessive force, but how to clarify what that means and how to not merely teach, but actually infuse that ethos into our way of thinking is not something I can pretend to know for now.
In the meantime, consider the kinds of things the thousands who organized and protested over the last year will want to know—such as why it seems an accepted norm in this country for police officers to violate citizens' constitutional right to life and get away with it? There are laws in this country that are sacred when one considers the fact that the ink with which they were written is doused with the blood of countless martyrs to the cause of freedom and liberty. No one should be able to trample on those rights easily.
Chauvin’s case will test the resolve of the American legal system’s beliefs. I am not at all interested in the question of whether or not the American legal system has the power to punish—it is clear that it does. I am interested in whether or not this system will continue to err on the side of protecting those, who through their own actions, do not warrant the level of protection they receive. This question is not purely rhetorical or theoretical; it is an urgent issue, and the answer must be worked out to perfection. Another instance of acquittal on all charges would be a disaster, proving once again the presence of a body politic that is chiefly concerned with the preservation of power for the few who wield it at the expense of the many who do not.
What the Four Givens of Existence can Teach Us About Mental Health
The architects of Existentialism did not succumb to the idea of human beings existing as the center point of the universe, with dominion above and beyond all else. Nor did they conceive of humans as being in a state of perpetual progress that was preordained and inevitable. Man is neither a being made in the image of God, with its implied superiority in comparison to all others nor is man destined for greatness in any field. Humankind is in all likelihood the result of an evolutionary process that if not completely random, is certainly a dispassionate one that curries no favor for any one particular group.
Rather than take a medical perspective, one can consider the issue from a philosophical perspective, which is what Existentialism aims to do. Life is a series of ongoing exchanges of meaning and profundity with human beings serving as the transmitters of these messages, but amidst the rabble there exists certain limitations. Humankind as it is constituted in the past, present, or future is never an inevitability, but certain conditions of life are constituted as such and exist outside of time. Irvin Yalom has dealt with and written about And then some a morning these conditions, calling them the givens of existence; I will restate and reappraise them here.
These givens of existence are matters of ultimate concern for human beings and in many ways affect how we choose to live our lives. Freedom is the first given, and I speak about it in terms that extend beyond an individual’s ability to act out their wishes. Freedom refers to a lack of solidity in all of the structures that human beings create and are thrown into. Lack of structure points to a world without external laws or moral codes to govern our behavior and dictate to us how we should think, feel, and behave. Every system is constructed, and consequently is untenable in the final calculation. The very laws that govern the universe have been revealed to be open to clarification and re-interpretation as the scientific process continues on.
Recognizing the groundlessness of existence turns out to be a dizzying experience rather than one that brings relief. To understand that there are no external rules that govern life and that the rules one follows are arbitrary is to acknowledge that one is free to choose whether or not to continue to follow those rules. The consequences of either choice fall squarely on the shoulders of each man or woman and cannot be handed over to fate or social forces, however large a shadow they cast. Stress and anxiety often accompany this realization, and maladaptive behaviors can arise in an attempt to cope.
One also deals with isolation as a given of existence, not in the sense of being lonely without the company of others or having to endure punishments such as exile or solitary confinement. Existential isolation cuts to the core of what it means to be isolated; no matter how close we get to others there is still a final unbridgeable gap that we can never close. No matter how badly we want to know and understand someone, and despite all the energy and effort we may devote to this endeavor, we can never get at the heart of another human being. Worse than that, we cannot fully understand ourselves, and if we fail at this then we cannot help but fail at the task of understanding the other. We seek merger with someone or something greater than ourselves as a means of achieving wholeness, but we shrink from this same merger out of fear of being overwhelmed and obliterated by the other. Successfully relating to others is a process of continuously finding healthy ways to balance this tension.
Though life is a process of becoming it is also a process of unbecoming and death is the biggest step in the latter process. Death is something that every individual must contend with and as such is an obvious given of existence. Every single person who lives will one day cease to be in a physical sense and eventually in a psychological sense as well. The difficulty is not the end result, but in knowing what one would rather not know, and having to find a way to live with a force that is indifferent to us, that for centuries we have imbued with layer upon layer of meaning.
Each of these givens of existence build upon and inform the final given which is meaninglessness. Because there are no external structures that exist outside of time or human invention and because humans are capable of and free to constitute the world in numerous ways, there can be no inherent meaning which applies to everyone in the same way. Tension lies in the fact that human beings are creatures obsessed with making meaning out of their experiences. We derive meanings where there are none and create them if we have to and this is a task we take up repeatedly throughout our lives as a way of making sense of things so that we can live effectively.
It is important to approach these givens of existence carefully, absorbing and understanding them slowly, little by little until one is strong enough to bear the burden of these conditions. They are each in their own right difficult to comprehend, and doing so can lead to radical shifts in the way one engages with life. But understanding one’s terrain is much more useful than having no real grasp of the lay of the land.
Why I Am an Existential Therapist
Life, it seems to me, lends itself to certain possibilities. Possibilities which themselves take on an air of inevitability - that perceptive persistent state in which choice and free will are at first subsumed and at last obliterated. I was born and just as quickly as I began to bloom I also began to be pruned and peppered for ends neither freely chosen nor wholly my own, if at all, barreling towards them until I would finally reach some unsatisfying conclusion.
Existentialism, a philosophy dealing with freedom, authenticity, meaning, and even the inevitability of death, the ultimate human concerns.
Having arrived, and realizing how little of my life was of my own choosing, I started to examine the whole affair in order to understand where I was, and if necessary to uproot myself. Some things have been said about what it feels like, this unshackling, this untethering, but very little about how frightening and arduous a task it is to really do it; to really choose for yourself. At times you wonder if you've gone crazy, a word I am less and less convinced describes anything substantial, least of all what one is actually going through. But if empty words are the cost of breaking with some old way of life that is ordered but agonizingly dull and predictable, then so be it.
I’m told I was born without a heartbeat or a pulse, by way of unforeseen complications during my mother’s pregnancy. That the first thing to wrap itself around me was not a warm blanket given by some nurse or orderly reeling from a night of dealing with birth and death and all of the excrements of life, and it was not the weary arms of my mother. Death covered me, prematurely yes, but it covered me all the same. I assume I lay quiet and breathless as seconds stretched into the ether, serving out a death sentence that at best would be reduced to a charge of brain damage and a lifetime of silent “if onlys.” I’d be incredulous if I had not seen faded pictures of the whole ordeal pressed into the yellowed pages of my family’s photo albums, themselves remnants of the past.
Somehow, I survived all of that, and the irreversible damage that was predicted never did set in. Eventually my lungs filled with the sweetness of air as I began to breathe, my heart started to beat, the cascading wires attached to my body were removed, and I was not plucked away too soon. This story has always stayed with me.
My interest in existentialism paired with my choice to become a clinical social worker led me to existential psychotherapy
As a child I wondered if I was special for surviving: I wanted to believe it, though I truly did nothing to accomplish the feat. My body wanted to live so it did; the rest is a mystery to me. Perhaps others knew it better and could explain it best back then, but all of those faces and most of those memories are lost now. More meaningful than the mystery or the facts involved was how the experience affected me, by which I mean it provided me with an early sense of my situation, which gradually grew into an awareness of the situation for us all. I was alive, but this did not have to be the case; it was not a guarantee, or a promise, or the fulfillment of some far off prophecy; it was the outcome of incalculable events, more innumerable than I could begin to understand.
Awareness being no guarantor of anything, least of all progress or change; I was not well equipped to deal with the conditions of my life that at times practically begged to be faced, and I was not well equipped precisely because no language that is given and not freely chosen can contain within it the power a man or woman needs to work out life’s problems in their own way. So I began, earnestly, to find my way through the use of philosophy and the deep introspection that accompanies it, and ultimately through existentialism, a philosophy dealing with freedom, authenticity, meaning, and even the inevitability of death, the ultimate human concerns. It did not ask me to shrink in the face of my responsibilities or to abdicate them to some force outside myself, but to accept them as my own, and more strangely than that, to accept myself as my own and value myself accordingly. It readied me for the challenge of trying to find answers to the questions about life that have perplexed humans for as long as our ancestors have walked under the warmth of African suns. It allowed me to meet, on neutral terms, the pervasive loneliness that ached inside of me and was reflected back in the eyes of the men and women in my community. It heightened my senses, and at the risk of romanticizing, brought to life, for the first time in a long time, a necessary intensity, an urgency to live while I can. It opened me up to the world and all the beauty and terror that lie therein.
My interest in existentialism paired with my choice to become a clinical social worker led me to existential psychotherapy - a dynamic method of therapy that was created out of the core principles of existential philosophy and fashioned to meet the needs of clients suffering with mental disorders. It provided a framework that aligned with me personally and professionally and connected me to a lived tradition that includes clinicians, writers, philosophers, activists, artists, and more.
I choose to work existentially because those same aches and pains that have plagued me have plagued us all. Because for the deeper problems of life there is no manualized method or simple solution that will banish from our sight for forever and ever, the pain and confusion and awe of living. We each must contend with our fair share of struggle and strife as we try to meet life on its own terms, and try we must, since the only way out is through (I’ve yet to find another). If somehow, in trying, I can sit with others compassionately, and bear witness to the fineness and the folly of the journey each human must undertake, then perhaps some growth and healing can be had for us all.
Why I Write
The simplest answer is that I have to, but that’s no answer at all, so an explanation might be helpful to anyone reading.
Writing has always been important to me, even before I understood it as an art form. Whether shared or not, it’s something that has been necessary for me to do in order to understand myself and the world I am living in, and to communicate my thoughts and feelings to others.
All of which is now an important part of the work I do as a therapist.
Apart from the necessity of self-expression, I write because I want to help people understand themselves and the world they live in. I want to illuminate for others the opportunities they have for happiness, meaning, creativity, growth, and re-invention.
I write to explore and discover and share my perspective on the things that matter to me including existentialism, science, philosophy, art, culture, history, and my own lived experience.