Existential Framework Research Articles

Existential Patriarchy

Abstract How does patriarchy affect one’s conception of personal freedom? Patriarchy raises this existential question, not just for women but for other identities such as marginalized men. Using Simone de Beauvoir’s thoughts on patriarchy and existentialism, the author argues that an existential framework for patriarchy gives greater insight into the ways patriarchy is interconnected with other oppressions, affects marginalized men and others who do not identify as women, and alters people’s conception of choice as they engage the world.

An existential perspective on post‐retirement decisions: The role of meaning in life and social identity

AbstractIn the context of the ageing workforce, late‐career development implies ongoing decisions during retirement regarding one's engagement in volunteering and bridge employment activities. While prior research has emphasized the role of the meaning of work in retirement decisions, it has not examined the roles that meaning in life and identity play in decisions made during retirement. Relying on the existential framework on meaning and career decision‐making, this article explores the role of social identities as retirees and as workers as critical self‐concept dimensions that may mediate the impact of meaning in life (search and presence) on their decisions to pursue bridge employment and to volunteer in retirement. Using an archival survey study relying on a time‐lagged design with a one‐year interval among 204 retirees, we found that retirees demonstrating a greater search for meaning in life exhibited positive identification with the worker social identity but negative identification with the retiree social identity. Additionally, worker social identity was positively associated with bridge employment; however, retiree social identity was negatively associated with bridge employment and positively with volunteering. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Assisting refugee survivors of torture and trauma: An existential perspective.

Consistent exposure to refugee narratives of trauma and torture can profoundly impact trauma therapists. This secondary analysis reanalyzed data from a narrative inquiry investigating the lived experiences of refugee trauma therapists. We aimed to explore emergent concerns through an existential lens to enrich understanding and provide additional insights into the lived experiences of these individuals. Participants in this purposive sample (N = 19) were therapists who had provided interventions to refugees for 2-34 years. Narrative construction, theory-guided data analysis, and memo writing were used to reanalyze data generated by semistructured interviews augmented by photo elicitation. The findings indicate that being forced to reevaluate familiar beliefs consequent to one's professional roles induced intense existential moments, described as "a dark night of the soul," "the paradox of life and death," "uncanny feelings of not being at home," and "a falling." Acknowledging the complexities of the field, an existential framework to assist refugee trauma therapists in metabolizing and living with the professional challenges they encounter instead of focusing on alleviating decontextualized symptoms of distress is recommended. Research to inform requirements of the space to enable refugee trauma therapists to share their concerns and facilitate transitions toward more authentic, nonevasive sense of "being-in-the-world" is suggested.

Психологическое благополучие и личностные ресурсы здоровья пожилых людей в контексте экзистенциального подхода

The article gives a theoretical confirmation and empirical evidence for the correlation of psychological wellbeing and personality health resources of older persons in the context of the existential approach. Personality resources related to the existential framework, which make possible for older persons to stay healthy, have been identified. The study has found that the elderly having a feeling of psychological well-being (existential fulfillment) have more pronounced: 1) urge to actualize personality resources (subjective orientation, self-change potential, viability), 2) inclination to highly assess their energy capacities, and 3) satisfaction with their living on the whole. The results demonstrate the perspectives of psycho-diagnostic assessment of personality health resources of older persons within the framework of the existential approach.

Albeshrs Habb Alhaseed: A Syntactic and Semantic Study

The act of writing, which we read in the prevalent identity discourse in the world of the self or woven by the speaking, writing ego generally, moves in two directions: one is declared and known, and the second is unknown and implied. This implied unknown is often realized in the individual's reference object in its relationship to the movement of time and history, along with the awareness of the human soul that connects the insides of the self and the outer life. This matter represents several aspects of what revolves in the sphere of the self or the ego as an existential framework whose features are explored through the process of the written act, syntactically and semantically, as required by the contexts of self-literary writing that display metaphorical images of the self as it enters the memory room, capturing the parts of the personality that reveal the development of the individual and gathering them in the narrative of the individual’s life. That is what makes this art distinctive, and by that, we mean the act of writing in written genres such as "Memoirs," "Biographies," and "Diaries." These genres are concerned with methods and techniques and are characterized by subtle differences between them in writing and weaving; they take on a special character and have particular connotations when compared to other genres classified in the category of self-writing or the system belonging to reference literature.

John Henry Newman: Bernard Lonergan's ‘Fundamental Mentor and Guide’

Abstract: Reason has reasons of which ‘reason’ knows nothing. It was this essential insight, along with the methodological prioritisation of a phenomenology of cognition and the recognition of the epistemological distinctiveness of judgment, that a young Bernard Lonergan gleaned from his study of John Henry Newman's Grammar of Assent. Given that the ‘later’, post‐Insight (1953) Lonergan enacted a more explicit transposition of his thought into a hermeneutical and existential framework, one might be tempted to assume that this coincided with a drift away from his tutelage under the nineteenth‐century Englishman. Indeed, an examination of the secondary literature detailing their relationship would suggest as much. Yet, in the hope of contributing to the regrettably sparse Newman‐Lonergan scholarship and proposing a modest recalibration therein, I argue that the more existential, hermeneutical, and committed to the philosophical turn to concrete socio‐historical subjectivity Lonergan grew, the more fruit his early Newmanian formation bore. By analysing Newman's proto‐Lonerganian anticipations in the areas of self‐appropriation, conversion, the relationship of subjectivity to objectivity, and the hermeneutical nature of consciousness, I will contend that Newman—a presciently continental mind writing as one untimely born into an analytical milieu—was the wellspring from which Lonergan never ceased to draw.

Carrying Death: A Qualitative Study of Women's Bodily Perceptions After Their Baby Died in Utero.

When a child dies in utero death becomes an integrated part of the mothers living body and this complex experience places a heavy existential and bodily burden on a woman experiencing stillbirth. This study uses a phenomenological approach with focus groups and individual interviews and data is discussed within a theoretical existential framework. Interviews of six women who experienced stillbirth within a range of 5years were performed in Denmark. The participants experienced the dissonance of carrying death in their living body, expressed heightened existential considerations, a sense of transgression and of feeling trapped in an unbearable situation, and an experience of both dislocation from their body and an extreme bodily awareness. The study generates new knowledge and understanding of the how stillbirth is experienced as incomprehensible and as a violent bodily invasion of death with deep existential impact.

Child and Adolescent Psychological Reactions to Climate Change: A Narrative Review Through an Existential Lens.

A narrative review was conducted on research surrounding children's and adolescents' experiences of emotional and mental health and wellbeing in relation to climate change; we also explored potential connections to existential themes. Children and adolescents represent a vulnerable group in relation to experiencing negative mental health impacts due to climate change. Further, this population experiences a wide range of emotions in relation to climate change, with most research reporting on worry and anxiety. Several studies that explored associations between such emotions and mental health outcomes found positive associations. Additionally, research suggests that there is an existential underpinning to how climate change is experienced by children and adolescents. Although important contributions have been made in recent years, knowledge gaps remain. An understanding of the psychological responses children and adolescents have in relation to climate change is needed to inform practice and policy. This may be supported by an existential framework.

Falling: An existential experience in early childhood

In this article, falling is considered as an existential bodily experience of the youngest children, aged one to three. No toddler can avoid falling; it is simply a condition of being bodily situated in the world. Active toddlers are falling toddlers, but even though the struggle with gravity appears to play a crucial role in the everyday lives of young children, it has been only a limited subject in early childhood research. Therefore, the authors examine the phenomenon of falling on the basis of empirical material collected in a focused ethnographic study carried out in two Danish nurseries. The findings are presented as a kind of typology, which includes analyses of five different fallings situations that were observed and videotaped in planned physical education activities. From an existential point of view, falling can be characterized as a negative experience with which the toddler must reconcile as a consequence of participating in movement activities. Even though it often starts as negative, falling seems to develop productive qualities, such as increased body consciousness or basic wakefulness. Physical active toddlers soon become experienced fallers, and this expertise makes it possible to use falling as a motor skill in playing situations or as a tool for communication. The authors use an existential framework to highlight and discuss the productive qualities of falling with the purpose of making it explicit for work in early childhood education.

Varieties of suffering in the clinical setting: re-envisioning mental health beyond the medical model.

In this paper, we argue for the need to rethink mental health beyond the medical model because much of human suffering cannot be diagnosed by the DSM-5. During the pandemic and post-pandemic, people have learned to accept the fact that no one is immune from suffering. Given the universality and complexity of human suffering, it is natural for people to wrestle with existential questions such as "Why struggle when all life end in death?" and "How can one flourish when life is so hard?" Existential positive psychology (EPP or PP2.0) was developed to address these existential concerns. After explaining the inherent limitations of the medical model and the need for EPP as an alternative vision for mental health, we provide illustrative clinical cases to demonstrate the advantages of this broader existential framework for both case conceptualization and interventions. According to EPP, mental illness is reconceptualized as both deficiency in knowledge and skills in coping with the demands of life and deficiency in meeting the basic needs for livelihood and mental health, the Soul's yearnings for faith, hope, and love. Finally, we introduce integrative meaning therapy as a therapeutic framework which can equip people with the needed skills to achieve healing, wholeness, and total wellbeing.

Corporate Social Responsibility, Benefits beyond Legitimacy: A Symbiotic Framework

The 21st-century social and political environment has continued to evolve and heightens the demand for organisations to provide accountability for the sustainability operations of their businesses. Accordingly, organisations are committing to diverse strategic efforts to provide disclosures on their social and environmental actions to the society and environment where they operate. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has received support and criticism since its emergence in the corporate realm. This paper aims to portray CSR as beyond mere symbolic legitimacy and propose a corporate-society symbiotic existential framework. The research approach is a critical literature analysis and conceptual framework development. The results show that the corporate and the society co-exist in a reciprocal relationship. Thus, the implication is that some CSR may be more than symbolic legitimacy with potential benefits derivable from committed transparent and pragmatic CSR, which can encourage companies to shift away from symbolic CSR tendencies. The paper recommends the need for organisations to operationalise CSR practices and policy as this has a propensity to enhance corporate legitimate standing, which will assist in reducing business risks and enhance the potential for profit in the long run. In addition, this discourse may be helpful for business schools in their academic studies about CSR and legitimacy theory and would also assist in CSR regulatory initiatives. The value of the paper hinges on the proposed novel framework for corporate-society symbiotic existence, which provides an agenda for future research study and expansion therein. This framework may lead to multiples of modelling in future CSR and corporate governance studies and may also assist in narrowing the gap between legal and normative CSR.

Conceptualising eco-anxiety using an existential framework

There is a lack of conceptual clarity regarding the nature of distress caused by confrontations with climate change as a generalised or global phenomenon (distress often labelled ‘eco-anxiety’). However, existing literature has suggested that existential concerns might be central to the experience. This article explores and conceptualises the experience of eco-anxiety through semi-structured interviews with 15 self-selecting adults. Data were analysed using thematic analysis, which utilised an existential framework – consisting of the concerns of death, meaning, isolation, and freedom/responsibility – in a theory-driven analysis of interview transcripts. Participants’ experiences were conceptualised by four themes derived from the existential framework and six subthemes. Climate change was equated with death or loss and associated with guilt, anger, isolation, powerlessness, and chronic uncertainty about what to do as well with challenges to meaning in life. The study indicates that distress about climate change is a diverse and distressing phenomenon that can be appropriately conceptualised through an existential lens. Implications of this are discussed for climate and clinical psychology.

Postmodernist orientations in education

Postmodernist education aims to train social agents capable of diagnosis, intervention and change of the existential framework. From the perspective of postmodernist education, education must determine the subjects to be in a continuous problematic state, a state in which to constantly ask questions and seek answers. The paradigm of postmodernist education emphasizes the usefulness of knowledge: what will you do after graduation?; how will you use what you have learned?; how will you improve your life by applying what you know? In this sense, postmodernism advances the idea that it is necessary to introduce new technologies in school in order for education to keep pace with the continuous socio-economic transformation and rapid digitalization of culture.

The call of the unlived life: On the psychology of existential guilt.

This paper examines the psychology of existential guilt with Martin Heidegger and Rollo May’s conceptualizations as the point of departure. The concept of existential guilt describes preconditions for responsibility and accountability in life choices and the relationship to the potential given in the life of a human. It might also be used as a starting point to examine an individual’s relationship to the potential offered in their life and life context and, in this way, the hitherto unlived life of an individual. The following questions are discussed in contexts of identity development, perfectionism, and current cultural shifts in conceptualizations of selfhood: How can humans relate to the fact that only limited parts of who they might be can ever be actualized? Moreover, how can they relate to the fundamental ambiguity and “groundlessness” in the contexts of life where choices are made? There are striking parallels between the role of exploration in the Eriksonian approaches to healthy identity development and the ontological groundlessness that stands out as a premise for existential guilt. There are also parallels between identity fore-closure and normative identity styles and “falling” into das Man in the existential framework. Perfectionistic ideals easily become an objectivization – and closure – of possible alternatives and choices. In contemporary theories of constructions of selfhood, the dangers of alienation from the community on the one hand and escape into what might become totalitarian collectivism on the other is pointed out. The contextualization of personal responsibility offered through the concept of existential guilt might address both dangers. It provides a perspective on how personal responsibility is embedded in contexts of human relationships, relationships to nature, and the finitude, freedom, uncertainties, and suffering that is given through human existence. Existential guilt can wake sorrow and regret over opportunities overlooked and lost. However, most of all, it can be seen as a drive toward repair in the relationship toward both oneself and the other. It takes the form of receptivity, an openness to a life not yet lived, and creative use of imagination.

Becoming a person: How long-distance walking can lead to personal growth – A cultural and health-related approach

Long-distance walking is an activity that has been practiced across cultures and ages. More recently, it has been associated with notions of mental health, and it has been suggested that long-distance walking may have psychotherapeutic effects. There is still, however, a lack of clarity regarding several central questions, including what long-distance walking is, and why it may be beneficial to mental health. In this article, we provide an overview of understandings and cultural expressions of the long-distance walk, and we provide a new definition, reaching across these various understandings and expressions. Next, we discuss the different explanations given regarding the therapeutic aspects of the long-distance walk, and suggest a new approach, leaning on an existential framework. Finally, we discuss the implications that the knowledge on long-distance walking has for notions of therapeutic interventions more generally.

State personhood and ontological security as a framework of existence: moving beyond identity, discovering sovereignty

The concepts of ‘self’ and ‘identity’ are often implicitly conflated in constructivist research, limiting our understanding of important theoretical issues. The Ontological Security Studies (OSS) literature provides one example of this, often reducing a concern with ‘security of the self’ to a matter of identity, thereby limiting OSS’ analytical reach. This article draws from the writings of Laing and Giddens to make the case for keeping ‘self’ and ‘identity’ analytically distinct. Understanding ontological security as a multidimensional framework meant to affirm the self’s existence, it proposes to see ‘identity’ as just one dimension of ontological security, and to conceptualize ‘self’ in terms of personhood. Such a reading allows us to grasp the discursive and ritualistic institution of sovereignty as an existential framework on which the personhood, and therefore ontological security, of all states depends. Thus, OSS would benefit from considering ontological security beyond identity. Beyond this, the article shows that distinguishing more clearly between ‘self’ and ‘identity’ illuminates the debate on state personhood in IR, indicating that paying more attention to these key concepts would be helpful for constructivist research more generally.

The death of a company: an ethical assessment

The process that leads to the closing down of a company requires a deliberative action and a strong sense of governance from managers. Research on the process of organisational death is scarce, and it is often thought that managers may wish to postpone the death and eventual demise of their company. We argue that such behaviour is a dismissal of managers' responsibilities. Drawing on the case of 'Glue', we discuss whether the decision to close down a company can be ethically justified. We adopted a procedural, context-bound and existential framework and the results unveil some of the specific traits of what is involved in the decision to let a company die. Explaining managers' behaviour in terms of authentic existence enables us to understand how managers cope with the death of a company. Furthermore, we suggest that sometimes closing down is the most responsible option that conciliates the interest of different constituents.

THE SALUTOGENIC EFFECTS OF AWE TOLD EXISTENTIALLY

Feelings of awe can generate well-being. The typical explanation of this is that an otherwise self-absorbed individual now experiences something so vast that it forges a humble new perspective of self. Self-absorption is replaced by altruistic characteristics that result in a sense of well-being. However, the observations of Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Carl Rogers provide an existential framework for understanding the human being in relation to the world and well-being within that framework. And such a framework offers a different perspective on how the experience of awe produces well-being. Existentially understood, incongruence is the anti-thesis of well-being. Incongruence is developed by a hyper-focus on external conditions of worth. Rather than a remedy to self-absorption, the experience of awe offers the remedy of self-absorption, towards congruence. This article will explore key observations by each existentially principled thinker to display this framework in order to comprehend how awe produces well-being within it.

Ubuntu Philosophy as a Humanistic–Existential Framework for the Fight Against the COVID-19 Pandemic

Ubuntu has been identified by several scholars as a philosophy that provides a framework to fight health disasters such as COVID-19. Ubuntu refers to the African worldview of seeing oneself through others. It refers to the pattern of interconnectedness between people in the form of a philosophy or worldview. Ubuntu explores concerns about cosmic and global context of life. This article stipulates that Ubuntu can provide ways to deal with challenges that emerge with the COVID-19 pandemic. Ubuntu fosters the integrated components of humanity as it appreciates the biological, psychosocial, spiritual, and environmental aspects of life. The article explores several themes such as self-awareness and societal responsibility, holism, spirituality, health promotion, food security, social justice and human rights, generosity, sharing, and teamwork. Others have advanced that Ubuntu is a philosophy to adopt in the fight against epidemics, and we seek to broaden the debate by exploring Ubuntu axiological and ontological humanistic–existential themes. Finally, the article calls for the adoption of Ubuntu philosophy in psychological and social work interventions in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

La unidad de la Iglesia : su desarrollo en la eclesiología-biográfica de John Henry Newman (II)

The article, second part that continues what was published in Theology 133, of De- cember 2020, pp. 77-94, closes the presentation of the doctoral thesis which has been defended by its writer in December 2016, at the Faculty of Theology Santa María de los Buenos Aires belonging to the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina, which is under Friar Dr. Jorge A. Scampini op.'s direction. Its title is «The Church's unity. Its development within the biographical-ecclesiology by John Henry Newman», is being justified by two topics: developing unity and biographical ecclesiology. The current thesis aims, on the one hand, to outstrip a static concept of the Church unity which has been dominating in the Catholic ecclesiology since the catholic Counter-Reformation and has also prevented the communication and dialogue between the different churches. On the other hand, it also aims to discover the development of the idea of unity within the existential framework of Newman's life, thus showing the similarities and paradoxes that have been established in the two confessional periods during which the author (an Anglican-Catholic) has lived.