Existential Fear Research Articles

Fear or freedom? Visually impaired students’ ambivalent perspectives on physical education

With a growing interest in sport, fitness, and a healthy lifestyle, bodily practices are increasing in importance in our society. In the school context, physical education (PE) is the subject where these practices play a central role. But, the German language discourse shows in an exemplary manner that inherent body-related social normality requirements are articulated in didactic traditions and curricular requirements, and that these normality requirements have exclusionary potential for those students who do not fit into the norms. Against this background, this article seeks to understand children with visual impairments’ (CWVI’s) individual constructions of PE in a school specialized for CWVI in Germany. This interview study with eight CWVI focused on individual opportunities and challenges concerning central aspects in PE. The findings show that the CWVI draw ambivalent perspectives on PE that range from existential fears (e.g., fears of heights) to feeling free in working off energy. These aspects especially gain importance in connection to the body, when the general wish to learn and experience with the body seems to be disturbed by normality requirements – like doing certain movements in a pre-defined way – which lead to existential challenges for the CWVI. Further, the relationship between blind and visually impaired students in PE seems ambivalent. Within this special school setting, the segregation according to the external differentiation in “handicapped” and “non-handicapped” somehow leads to a kind of subsegregation at the blind and visually impaired school.

Thoughts on War: The Other Pillar of Judith Shklar’s Global Political Theory

ABSTRACT The article reconstructs Shklar's thoughts on war. It argues that these thoughts constitute a crucial pillar of her political theory. Of particular significance is the interpretation of her book Legalism, where Shklar criticised efforts to streamline the complex issue of the causes of war into a simple theory of power and aggression, and her work on Montesquieu, which ultimately allowed her to link thoughts on war and extraordinary cruelty to her interest in cruelty as an ordinary vice. In this way, the article answers the question about the relationship between Shklar's explicit cosmopolitanism and her negative political theory. It demonstrates that her thoughts on war were politically cosmopolitan, while allowing her to eschew the type of global ethics that underwrites just war theorising, she was critical of. The article makes a case for considering Shklar's work as a contribution to Global Political Theory, calling for the latter to look beyond the just war tradition to pursue its interests in both theoretical prescription and political reality. This because Shklar's thoughts on war successfully combined empirical analysis of world affairs with normative dismissal of human actions that place others in situations of existential fear.

Thinking about My Existence during COVID-19, I Feel Anxiety and Awe-The Mediating Role of Existential Anxiety and Life Satisfaction on the Relationship between PTSD Symptoms and Post-Traumatic Growth.

Background: The global outbreak of COVID-19set new challenges and threats for every human being. In the psychological field it is similar to deep existential crises or a traumatic experience that may lead to the appearance or exacerbation of a serious mental disorder and loss of life meaning and satisfaction. Courtney et al. (2020) discussed deadly pandemic COVID-19 in the light of TMT theory and named it as global contagion of mortality that personally affected every human being. Such unique conditions activate existential fears as people start to be aware of their own mortality. Objective: The main aim of this study was to test the mediating effect of existential anxiety, activated by COVID-19 and life satisfaction (SWLS) on the relationship between PTSD symptoms and post-traumatic growth (PTG). We also examined the moderated mediating effect of severity of trauma symptoms on life satisfaction and existential anxiety and its associations with PTG. Method: We conducted an online survey during the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak in Poland. The participants completed existential anxiety scale (SNE), life satisfaction scale (SWLS), IES-R scale for measuring the level of PTSD symptoms and post-traumatic growth inventory (PTGI). Results: The effect of PTSD on PTG was found to be mediated by existential anxiety and life satisfaction. We also confirmed two indirect effects: (1) the indirect effect of PTSD on PTG via existential anxiety and life satisfaction tested simultaneously; (2) the indirect effect of life satisfaction on PTG through severity of trauma symptoms. An intermediate or high level of PTSD level was related to less PTG when low and full PTSD stress symptoms strengthened PTG experiences. Conclusions: A therapeutic intervention for individuals after traumatic experience should attempt to include fundamental existential questions and meaning of life as well as the severity of PTSD symptoms. The severity of traumatic sensations may affect the relationship between life satisfaction and post-traumatic growth.

Человек и его экзистенциальные страхи в картинах мира

The paper attempts a philosophical and anthropological interpretation of fear. Fear is viewed from a historical perspective, i. e. in changing world pictures (mythological, religious, philosophical, scientific), existential fears are highlighted accordingly, which are represented as fear of time, fear of space, fear of the loss of Self, fear of the incomprehensibility of life. In each of the forms of existential fear, the emphasis is on its rational and irrational aspects. In the mythological tradition, this is primarily a fear of returning to Chaos or a fear of time. The philosophical picture of the world attempts to structure space, thereby establishing certain boundaries (ontological and axiological) that cause a person to fear space. In the religious picture of the world, there is a shift in emphasis on the person of Almighty God, there is a fear of losing one’s self. In the scientific picture of the world, there is a fear of the incomprehensibility of life. There is a fear of your thoughts, because you lose control over space, time and life.

Die Rolle von persönlichen Ressourcen bei der Stressbewältigung

Stress reactions can be a result of occupational and everyday stress, which are perceived individually. The insufficient compensation of stress can lead to various diseases. Personality traits play an important role in this. Stress reactions can lead to health problems and diseases. Therefore it is important to reduce stress. The aim of this study was to examine the role of personality traits in dealing with stress perception and coping. The questionnaire on Differential stress inventory (DSI) differentiated 217 subjects into 5 types of DSI. The survey compared these 5 types along their personality traits via the Freiburg Personality Inventory (FPI-R). The DSI types showed significant differences in the expression of the personality traits. This applies the everyday stress, professional and private interactions with other people and the existential and future fears. People with pronounced physical disorders in the FPI showed physical and/or emotional-cognitive stress manifestation as well as a sense of helplessness. Life satisfaction is negatively related to stressors, for example through everyday life. The survey revealed the importance of personality traits in coping with job strain. Occupational health diagnostics should be integrated in occupational health care and prevention. The occupational physician or the prevention team appear here to be significant, as they see workers falling through the classic family doctor model. In the prevention team, personality traits can be supplemented by psychologists. Personal resources can be imparted or reinforced to prevent physical disorders.

Reading Hebrews in a Time of Pandemic: Heroism and Hope in the Face of Fear

Despite its well-known difficulties, the epistle to the Hebrews offers resources for reflection in a time of pandemic. Covid-19 has, in its own way, exposed how the existential fear of death can be crippling in its dominance and yet also provoke heroic actions. In the midst of its catastrophic effects for individuals and societies there has also been a demand for some signs of hope that might sustain efforts to find a better future. To read Hebrews in this setting is to be reminded that some of its major themes resonate with the experience of the pandemic’s broad characteristics. It deals with its recipients’ perceived bondage to the fear of death. It claims that this fear has been overcome through the heroic death of Christ, whose pattern of life is to be emulated in the heroism of his followers. It sets these topics within an overall message of hope, in which God’s action in the exalted Christ is seen as both a ‘word against death’ and the promise of a better world. The article explores further the potential appropriation for present-day readers of Hebrews’ treatment of each of these topics—fear of death, heroism and hope.

Fantastische Technik im Mittelalter? Zu (Glücks-)Rädern in zwei mittelhochdeutschen Artusromanen

Recent works in the field of German medieval literature argue that the category of ›the fantastic‹ needs to be defined in demarcation to the medieval category of ›the marvelous‹, and, thus, the focus of text analyses should lay on forms and functions of ›fear/fright‹. Following up on this concept, the article analyses the motif of the wheel (of fortune) in two Middle High German Arthurian verse novels and asks whether it can be considered to be a fantastic element. It is pointed out that the (evil) marvelous is integrated into a concrete and dualis-tic religious meaning where it is linked to existential fear. By contrast, the fan-tastic keeps unnatural and strange things unexplained and enigmatic. Here, fright is realized in a more congealed, pictorial way and stays in the back-ground whereby the occurrences seem to be left in fantastic ambiguity and in-explicability. Therefore, valid systems of classification are subverted.Publisher's note: This article was originally published as part of issue 8.1. This has been updated to note that this article is part of issue 7.2.

The Man of the Crowd: Edgar Allan Poe and the City

The Man of the Crowd: Edgar Allan Poe and the City

Fostering Existential Maturity to Manage Terror in a Pandemic.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has created an environment in which existence is more fragile and existential fears or terror rises in people. Objective: Managing existential terror calls for being mature about mortality, something with which palliative care providers are familiar and in need of greater understanding. Methods: Using a case to illustrate, we describe existential terror, terror management, and existential maturity and go on to outline how existential maturity is important for not only the dying and the grieving but for also those facing risk of acquiring COVID-19. Results: Next, we describe how essential components in attaining existential maturity come together. (1) Because people experience absent attachment to important people as very similar to dying, attending to those experiences of relationship is essential. (2) That entails an internal working through of important relationships, knowing their incompleteness, until able to "hold them inside," and invest in these and other connections. (3) And what allows that is making a meaningful connection with someone around the experience of absence or death. (4) We also describe the crucial nature of a holding environment in which all of these can wobble into place. Discussion: Finally, we consider how fostering existential maturity would help populations face up to the diverse challenges that the pandemic brings up for people everywhere.

The Self and its World: A Neuro-Ecological and Temporo-Spatial Account of Existential Fear.

The current international crisis situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is having a strong psychological impact on our subjectivities. We are constantly threatened by the danger of i) being infected, ii) infecting other people, and (iii) by the loss of social relation. Departing from these premises, we here aim to investigate the psychological and neurodynamics of this complex phenomenon. First, we discuss about recent psychological and neuronal findings on fear and its disorders, related to an unbalanced intero-exteroceptive processing and emotional regulation. Secondly we move to the psychological and neuronal dynamics of self and others characterized by a temporo-spatial alignment with the world. Due to the neural overlap of emotion and self and the deep-reaching neuro-ecological layers of self, emotional feelings like fear and anxiety cannot be detached and dissociated from the world; they signify the world–brain relation, and, more specifically, our self-other relation. The deepest neuro-ecological and neuro-social layers of self are threatened by the loss of subjectivity, which is manifest in our loss of body and thus the fear of dying, and the loss of intersubjectivity that surfaces in our fear of infecting others, which reflect the intimate anchorage of the self with the world. In our opinion the pandemic of COVID-19 deeply affect our sense of self and its spatio-temporal neuronal dynamics providing the prerequisites for the manifestation of fear and existential anxiety, thus disrupting the brain-world relation with significant repercussions on our psyche and on our daily lives.

ЧЕЛОВЕК В ЭПОХУ ТЕХНОЛОГИЙ: ЦИФРОВОЙ МИР В ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННОМ ОСМЫСЛЕНИИ Х. КАМПОСА ГАРСИИ

The article conceptualizes the problem of the place and the role of technology in the life of humanity and its significance in today’s society. The analysis is based on the plays written in the 2000’s by Jesus Campos Garcia, one of the most beloved modern Spanish playwrights. Campos Garcia’s theatre is always closely linked to relevant socio-cultural problems and represents the playwright’s comprehensive introspection towards how specific the influence of modern technology – primarily digital technology – on modern life is; his self-consciousness. An exemplary work in this respect is his existential drama “Naufragar en Internet” (1999) followed by Campos Garcia’s essay “La tecnología como metáfora” (2004), in which, early into the era of active computerization he addresses the questions of the correlation between the real and the virtual; the influence of technology on everyday life and the opening up of possibilities; the existential fears and aspirations of humanity – the fear of non-existence, thirst for immortality, etc. – reflected in modern technology. The present topic is further developed in the playwright’s later works (“d.juan@simetrico.es” 2008; “...y la casa crecía”, 2016).

Coexistence and Violence: The Case for Equality of Opportunity in Sri Lanka

Equality of opportunity reflects the availability of opportunities to all individuals in a society to enable them to advance their interests on an equal footing. This article discusses the concept of equality of opportunity in the Sri Lankan context. It explores Sri Lanka’s post-Independence socio-political and constitutional history and examines the nexus between the denial of formal and substantive equality of opportunity and the emergence of violent conflict. This article presents a case for making formal and substantive equality of opportunity integral to advancing sustainable coexistence and ensuring the non-recurrence of violent conflict in Sri Lanka. It analyses Sri Lanka’s commitment to equality of opportunity in its formal constitutional framework and socio-political practice. First, it analyses Sri Lanka’s constitutional framework and the formal guarantees of equality of opportunity. Second, it critically evaluates the extent to which these guarantees are realized in practice and problematizes the ostensible gap between formal law and socio-political practice. Finally, it explores some of the major structural factors that motivate the denial of formal and substantive equality of opportunity in Sri Lanka: entitlement complexes, existential fears, and institutional decay. The article concludes that equality of opportunity can be formally and substantively guaranteed only through a multi-pronged approach of constitutional, cultural, and institutional reform. Such reform is crucial to facilitate meaningful coexistence in Sri Lanka and to ensure the non-recurrence of violent conflict.

Emotional Concept <I>WAR</I> Within the Ukrainian Military Subculture

The aim of the article is to characterize the emotional concept WAR within the Ukrainian military subculture. The study of the emotional concept WAR is carried out from the standpoint of a comprehensive psycholinguistic approach based on the integration of discourse analysis and psychoanalytic interpretation. Selection of a research approach to concept WAR study as to the problem of professional markedness of emotional language is due to the growing interest for the emotional sphere of consciousness and its impact on the speech activity. An analysis of three successive stages of the emotional concept WAR formation has to be carried out to achieve the aim: 1) obtaining information and formation of primary concepts of emotions; 2) generalization of available information and creation of a general classification system of knowledge; 3) the formation of individual emotional knowledge. It has been proven that the specificity of the emotional concept WAR within the Ukrainian military subculture is the assimilation of altruistic motives and motives of neglect. At the heart of such conglomerate there are, on the one hand, a willingness to sacrifice, a need to give and a sense of responsibility, and on the other hand, an awareness of undervaluing of sacrifice, the fear of being rejected. Dominant motifs in the concept WAR are mental pain and moral suffering, they have a high level of intensity. The motif of neglect acts as means of tacit reproach from a person who is in need of love, care, attention and who tries to get them by invoking people’s sense of social duty. Filling the concept WAR with such senses has a certain pragmatic aspect, which is associated with the existential semantic content and with the corresponding fears that arise from the unconscious: death, sense of live, loneliness, freedom. When a person feels himself neglected then existential fears recede into the background and the realization of his mortality becomes secondary.

Lud-in-the-Mist as Memento Mori

This essay of practical literary criticism explores how Hope Mirrlees’s fantasy novel Lud-in-the-Mist draws upon biblical and medieval narrative traditions to develop a fantasy tale whose Christian theology is smuggled in as sweetly and subtly as the novel’s fairy fruit. Through my analysis, I argue that Mirrlees uses symbolism and allegory to develop an aesthetic theology aimed at addressing her own and her protagonist’s existential anxiety about death. In the course of that theological tale, she represents faith as an antidote to existential fear and sacramental ritual as a means of reconciling the spiritual and material, the divine and the human, both of which have become estranged at the novel’s start. In that regard, her story about the return of Catholic sacramentalism to the bourgeois town of Lud-in-the-Mist adumbrates her own turn to Catholicism in the years after the novel’s publication, suggesting for Mirrlees’s enigmatic biography an earlier and more gradual turn to religious conversion than has hitherto been described in scholarly accounts of her evolution as a religious thinker.

Modes of Narrative Integration of Experiences of Contingency in Highly Sensitive Children: a Qualitative Pilot Study

Abstract Narrative integration of experiences of contingency describes the ways (modes) in which people assimilate the uncontrollability—or contingency—of life, while accepting, acknowledging and tolerating the existential fears accompanying these experiences, thus keeping contingency open. Contingency is defined as events being ‘possible (or not impossible) and also not necessary at the same time’. Experiences of contingency, caused by the interplay between life events, one’s worldview and ultimate life goals, disrupt one’s life story, challenging one’s basic needs for understanding, coherence and meaning. The different modes of narrative integration are studied in six highly sensitive Dutch children, aged between 6 and 12 years old. A practice-based model by Kruizinga et al. (2017) is compared to a theoretical construct of religious philosophical contingency constructed by Wuchterl (2011; 2019). Practical and theoretical differences are discussed. This study confirms the findings by Kruizinga et al. (2017). Four modes of dealing with contingency are identified: Denial, Acknowledging, Accepting and Receiving. In mode four, Receiving, people transcend themselves (self-transcendence). Contrary to Wuchterl’s theory, vertical transcendence is not a prerequisite for narrative integration of contingency, or for keeping contingency open. We conclude that the model of narrative integration of experiences of contingency by Kruizinga et al. is a valid tool for further research. Possible applications in the field of spiritual care are discussed.

105 A presentation resembling transient global amnesia with underlying tako-tsubo cardiomyopathy and multifocal ischaemic stroke (with restricted diffusion in the left mesiotemporal lobe)

IntroductionWe present a case of a 65 year-old female with a presentation resembling transient global amnesia (TGA) with investigations revealing a Tako-tsubo cardiomoyopathy and multifocal punctate areas of restricted diffusion consistent with ischaemic stroke.MethodsSingle case report.ResultsA 65 year-old female presented altered behaviour with anterograde amnesia consistent with an episode of TGA. There was no clearly identifiable stressor to provoke this episode. The TGA-like symptoms persistent for 12 hours before the patient made a full recovery.During the presentation the patient complained of chest pain with elevated troponin. Cardiac investigation was notable for mild left ventricular dilation with mid- and apical hypokinesis on transthoracic echocardiogram and a normal coronary angiogram consistent with Tako-tsubo cardiomyopathy. Magnetic resonance imaging of the brain revealed multifocal infarcts including punctate foci of restricted diffusion within the left mesiotemporal lobe.ConclusionThis case is notable as it is rare to have a combined presentation with TGA-type symptoms with Tako-tsubo cardiomyopathy and multifocal ischaemia stroke.1 This is the first clinical case presentation involving the aforementioned triad and mesiotemporal lobe restricted diffusion. We hypothesise that the Tako-tsubo cardiomyopathy acted as the triggering event and the mesiotemporal lobe involvement caused the TGA-like symptoms thereby accounting for the clinical presentation and investigation findings. As mesiotemporal/hippocampal restricted diffusion may be seen with transient global amnesia,2 this case is of special interest mechanistically although we cannot exclude the alternative hypothesis that the episode of TGA resulted in the Tako-tsubo cardiomyopathy which subsequently caused the cardioembolic shower.ReferencesStollberger C, DeCillia N, Finsterer J. ‘Tako-tsubo cardiomyopathy with transient global amnesia and cerebellar embolic stroke triggered by existential fear.’Neurol Neurochir Pol 2018; 52(3):394–396.Enzinger C, Thimary F, Kapeller P, Ropele S, Schmidt R, Ebner F, Fazekas F. ‘Transient global amnesia: diffusion-weighted imaging lesions and cerebrovascular disease.’Stroke 2008;39(8):2219–2225.

Cancer survivor’s experiences and concerns during and after adjuvant treatment: An interview study

Background, aims and objectives: Early detection and improved treatment possibilities have led to a rising number of long-term cancer survivors who have receiving adjuvant treatment. Moreover, the timeline from discovering cancer until treatment is initiated is very short. This entails sudden changes in their everyday life and many crucial decisions related to their treatment. We know little about how cancer survivors experience their adjuvant course of treatment and the following months after its completion. The aim of this study was thus to explore such experiences during this specific period of time. Methods: The study is based on a phenomenological-hermeneutic design using qualitative semi-structured interviews to achieve a deeper understanding of cancer survivors’ experiences. Eleven patients who had ended their adjuvant treatment in a Danish Oncological Outdoor Clinic participated at the time of their first control, approximately after 3 months. Results: Our main findings show that the patients, as a starting point, were grateful for the fast treatment procedure. Some explained how this helped them to keep their existential fears and worries at bay. However, others found it extremely difficult to keep up emotionally and cognitively and their existential concerns were further reinforced because of the fast treatment process. Those who experienced an emotional and cognitive challenge also described being in a state of shock and feeling ‘paralysed by the news’ of cancer. Conclusion: Our conclusions point to how existentially, emotionally and cognitively challenged cancer survivors are and how profound and challenging their experiences are during this particular period of time. Importantly, cancer survivors experience a great deal of fear and worries of recurrence; being told that they are free from cancer is not experienced as being free from fears and worries.

Independent Theatre as a Manifestation of Identity. Study Case: Minorities’ Theatre

Abstract Theatre as an institution and form of contemporary art encourages freedom and creativity, attracts free spirits and visions and it should be a physical and spiritual space in which you can find and express your identity at the same time. If in the state system decisions on the budget are taken at a political level and those on the repertoire have to take into account a whole organizational scheme and a large audience, in the independent space, tolerance, acceptance of differences, encouragement of minorities of any kind to express themselves through art, as long as there are talent and ideas that can be transposed in a scenic way, the debate of the taboo subjects for the society should be a priority. Even if financially the independent artists are working on truly desirable projects and with funding that sometimes comes from the state, the constraints that are reflected on the final product are not as large as in the state system, there is no repertoire to be respected. Of course, the productions in the independent environment have to attract audiences, but performances and experiments are getting faster to the public. In Romania, political theatre, community theatre, the theatre that militates for important causes needs courageous artists, artists who use their imagination, their creativity, their critical voice for causes that few believe in. The intimacy that independent spaces can offer to the artists and to the public to create a bond and to reveal their existential fears, aesthetical and ethical principles to which they adhere, makes these spaces a fertile ground for original artistic projects such as Giuvlipen.

The emotional politics of limerence in romantic comedy films

‘Limerence’ describes the intensity of emotions often felt during the pair-forming stage of a romantic relationship, a period that is also the primary focus of many romantic comedy films. This article asks how filmmakers have used depictions of limerence to highlight spaces in which its potential for both disruption and loving care could be brought to political spheres. I look at a series of millennial romantic comedies that express emotional upheaval, vulnerability, and openness to change as qualities of relevance to both a romantic and political selfhood. These ‘political romcoms’ reveal a range of dynamic relations between notions of character competence, moral fibre, personality and deservedness, and invite investigation of complex emotions that modify a more generalised positive affect associated with romantic comedy cinema: humiliation as a comic device and the existential fear of rejection.

Surviving and thriving in the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Digital skills for education and society

This concise article maintains that, in times of structural and persistent crisis, Europe needs to effectively tackle the multiple challenges and existential fears by cultivating a strong and dynamical digital skills ecosystem, based on collective values and the fundamental liberal principles of co-creation, co-evolution, and collective intelligence, over against the obsolete principles of optimisation and top-down administration and control. This will arguably result in upgrading humanism (humanism 2.0) and democracy (democracy 2.0), and in boosting responsible innovation and, therefore, adaptiveness, as well as in translating technological progress into inclusive and sustainable economic growth, and risks into creative opportunities for all citizens.