Handling Existential Crises
There is no one given therapeutic method in modern psychology known to coerce a person out of existential despair; the issue is seldom, if at all, addressed from a medical standpoint.
Peter Wessel Zapffe, a Norwegian philosopher, provided, in his work The Last Messiah, a fourfold route that he believed all self-conscious beings use in order to cope with the inherent indifference and absurdity of existence, comprising Anchoring, Isolation, Distraction, and Sublimation:
- Anchoring is the "fixation of points within, or construction of walls around, the liquid fray of consciousness". The anchoring mechanism provides individuals with a value or an ideal that allows them to focus their attentions in a consistent manner. Zapffe also applied the anchoring principle to society, and stated "God, the Church, the State, morality, fate, the laws of life, the people, the future" are all examples of collective primary anchoring firmaments.
- Isolation is "a fully arbitrary dismissal from consciousness of all disturbing and destructive thought and feeling".
- Distraction occurs when "one limits attention to the critical bounds by constantly enthralling it with impressions". Distraction focuses all of one's energy on a task or idea to prevent the mind from turning in on itself.
- Sublimation is the refocusing of energy away from negative outlets, toward positive ones. The individual distances him / herself and looks at their existence from an aesthetic point of view (e.g. writers, poets, painters). Zapffe himself pointed out that his written works were the product of sublimation.
Intense vipassana meditation will usually bring about a set of experiences, referred to as the dark night of the soul by Western spiritual traditions, that resemble the typical symptoms of an existential crisis. During the "dark night", meditators become severely discouraged in regard to practice and life in general, although continuing meditation is the only known form of overcoming this difficult stage.
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