Lectures on “Existential Psychology” by Hossein Dabbagh

The lecture series “Lectures on Existential Psychology,” taught by Dr. Hossein Dabbagh, was held over four sessions at the Existential Academy in July and August 2016.

Session One of the Lectures on Existential Psychology

Session One: In this session, I will try to examine the hidden dimensions of human existence by focusing on discussions in psychology and cognitive neuroscience. In my view, psychological and neuroscientific studies speak of three “prisons” for us humans. The first prison is that of our “implicit biases,” and the fact that our lives as humans are in accordance with some of our unconscious beliefs. These unconscious beliefs gradually turn into biases (such as racism) that, even when we recognize them as wrong, do not simply disappear from a person’s being.

The second prison is that of “emotions.” In this session, the status of emotions in human existence is discussed, and it is argued that the opposition between knowing through reason and emotion is mistaken. Neuroscientific studies show that our rational and emotional states are so intertwined that we cannot even employ our rationality without emotions and feelings. We live in the prison of emotions, and there is no escape or deliverance. Nevertheless, these same emotions muddy many of our judgments and must be constrained and refined. Emotions also help us act more quickly in everyday choices and decision-making. If our existence were pure rationality, many of our cost-benefit analyses might perhaps take forever!

The final prison is our “embodiment.” The mind and mentality of us humans cannot be considered separate from the human body and flesh. If we humans had a different body and flesh, we would have a different mind and mentality. Our embodied mind limits our beliefs about the surrounding world. Right-handed people do not necessarily think like left-handed people. It is as if we are also imprisoned within our own bodies.

Understanding these three prisons is a prelude to understanding our existential condition. Until we know with what psyche, brain, and mind we live, we cannot understand where many of our anxieties, apprehensions, fears, and psychological distortions come from.

Audio of Session One of the Lectures on Existential Psychology

Session One of the Lectures on Existential Psychology by Hossein Dabbagh | July 19, 2016

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Session Two of the Lectures on Existential Psychology

Session Two: Chekhov was right that people would become better if we showed them what they are like. To better understand ourselves, in this session we will examine one of the existential concepts we deal with on a daily basis: the concept of anxiety. We will begin with the metaphor inherent in the concept of anxiety as a force, and then address the types of anxiety. Rollo May, the American existential psychologist, divided anxiety into two types: normal anxiety and existential anxiety. For Rollo May, anxiety is like a force that comes toward us, assaults us, and sets something in motion. Essentially, the nature of emotions is such that they often assault us without our being aware of it. Normal anxiety is transient and even plays an evolutionary and preservative role. For example, Freud believed that civilization is the product of our primal anxiety and fear. On the other hand, in existential anxiety, the individual, in Rollo May's terms, arrives at a kind of conflict with themselves. If we assume we are faced with two "selves," in existential anxiety these two "selves" grapple with one another, as if one part of our existence rebels against the other part and declares it alien. Freud also believed that when one self makes an irrational demand of the other self, the individual experiences anxiety. In truth, a kind of self-alienation surges within the anxious individual; their existence is split in two, and an alien takes the place of the self. Existential states generally seep into us unconsciously and take up residence within our being to such an extent that they become one with our existence. This meaning of anxiety cannot be equated with fear. For this reason, existential anxiety can be interpreted in another way: one meaning can be traced back to the myth of Adam and Eve, and the idea that from the moment of his creation, Adam's existence was bound up with anxiety and his nature was infused with it. Another meaning of existential anxiety is intertwined with "death," "decay," "nothingness," and "non-being." We humans experience decay day by day and are no longer the person we once were. It is precisely in this sense that Kierkegaard considered anxiety to be the fear of nothing, and Tillich summarized the foundation of anxiety as the existential awareness of non-being. For the treatment of anxiety, turning to the teachings of the Greek philosophers (the Stoics and Epicureans) will be helpful. These philosophers believed that it is not events themselves that disturb us, but our feelings and opinions about them. They also invited us to turn to the concepts of contentment (ataraxia) and simplicity. Nietzsche was right that philosophers are the physicians of culture. We are in need of philosophical therapy to learn how to think correctly. Many of our anxieties stem from not thinking correctly. The exercises found in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) are also of great importance in this regard.

Audio of Session Two of the Lectures on Existential Psychology

Session Two of the Lectures on Existential Psychology by Hossein Dabbagh | 26 July 2016

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Session Three of the Lectures on Existential Psychology

Session Three: In the previous session, we said that emotions bring about maladjustment; they disrupt our psychological equilibrium and lead to anxiety. It may not be far wrong to say that existentialist philosophy also began with an anxiety: it is recounted that when Kierkegaard arrived at the thought that he was growing old and had added nothing to this world, he was stirred to live differently, to think differently, and to be different! The anxiety arising from aging and death might be considered the existential cause of existentialist philosophy. In truth, it is two “nothings” that constitute the bulk of our anxieties: “nothing at all” and “nobody at all.” The first is the anxiety of death, and the second is the anxiety of loneliness. Of course, there is disagreement among philosophers and psychologists as to which of these two is the primary source of our anxieties. In this session, we will speak about the anxiety of loneliness, and in the next session, about the anxiety of death. We will also show how “self-consciousness” and “embodiment” can explain these two anxieties for us.

If existentialist philosophers disagree on many matters, they share at least one thing, and that is that “the human being is ruthlessly alone.” Psychologists and philosophers (Rollo May and Irvin Yalom) speak of several types of loneliness: physical loneliness; non-physical loneliness; interpersonal loneliness, intrapersonal loneliness, and existential loneliness. In interpersonal loneliness, isolation occurs and the individual becomes separated from others. In intrapersonal loneliness, although the individual is not isolated, the various parts of their being drift apart (what Freud called Isolation). It is as if the individual suffocates themselves and becomes “alienated” from themselves. By eliminating themselves, the individual can no longer discern what they believe, because they see all their moments as dependent on others.

But existential loneliness: at the depth of all separations lies a deeper and more fundamental loneliness that relates to our connection with existence. This loneliness persists despite connection with others and oneself. Existential loneliness is like a valley that points to separation from being. As an example, it suffices to contemplate the existential phenomenon of death. In Heidegger’s terms, death is the loneliest existential human experience, which no one is able to share with another.

Erich Fromm (in the books The Art of Loving and Escape from Freedom) believes that becoming aware of existential loneliness is the source of all human anxieties and creates the most fundamental apprehension for the human being. The apprehension of loneliness emerges when we realize that we enter this world alone and leave it alone. In the meantime, however much we try to draw close to one another, we realize that “union is impossible; there is always a distance.” We try to connect with others, but at the same time we notice that we are still alone and can never become one with ourselves or with others.

Existential loneliness teaches us that, in Heidegger’s terms, we are “uncanny” in this world, or in Camus’s terms, “strangers.” When the individual (Dasein) becomes entangled in the apparent, everyday, and misleading world and loses their existential situation, then anxiety (about death) makes them aware of loneliness. As Martin Buber noted, existential loneliness is always present and diffused in the air. It is we who sometimes turn off our receivers. Nevertheless, we are compelled to create a world for ourselves; to keep busy and practice heedlessness. It is as if a theater is underway, but suddenly the curtains rise and loneliness seeps in, and the tragic nature of life assails us. The cost of our growth and development after being separated from the mother’s womb is loneliness. If the fear of loneliness were constantly in the realm of our consciousness, we could not live a normal life. Loneliness must be properly repressed so that we may have comfort.

Now, with this introduction, what is to be done? If nothing eliminates our loneliness and we are ultimately alone in our solitudes, what is the solution and what should we do? First, we must not panic! It is true that each of us is like a solitary ship caught in a dark and foggy sea, but at least we are all alone together and we are all caught in this terror together. It is enough to see the lights of each other’s ships and to touch one another’s loneliness.

Audio of Session Three of the Lectures on Existential Psychology

Session Three of the Lectures on Existential Psychology by Hossein Dabbagh | August 2, 2016

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Session Four of the Lectures on Existential Psychology

Session Four: In the previous session, we spoke about nothingness (loneliness). In this session (as the final session), we will speak about nothingness or death. One can scarcely find a thinker who, throughout their intellectual life, has not been gripped by this weighty intellectual problem. From Plato and Aristotle to Hume, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, Freud, and Camus... when they contemplated death, they shared at least one commonality: that there is no escape from death! In Heidegger's terms, death is the most certain possibility that occurs for us in life! Many people, in harmony with existential philosophers, have undergone the experience that death is one of the most fundamental anxieties. In truth, one of the most important consequences of death-awareness and death anxiety is the feeling of homelessness and alienation that envelops us. In this session, I will try to emphasize and focus on the liberating aspect of death-awareness. I will argue that, as it happens, contemplation on death-awareness is one of the facets of existential therapy; that is, death-awareness can help us understand anxiety and, by creating a broad transformation in our perspective, reduce its level. We humans, from childhood, establish a metaphor between sleep and death and gain a primal understanding of death. It is this very primal understanding that makes us anxious; anxious that we now "exist" but a day will come when we do not. It is as if death sits somewhere, watching us, but suddenly intends for us, and after that, there is no longer any escape or recourse from it. This awareness of the inevitability of death and the desire for the continuation of life creates an existential conflict for us and places us in a boundary situation. Hegel was right that the history of philosophy is the account of humanity's confrontation with death. Philosophizing and engaging in philosophy can prepare a person for death and teach them how to die. The secret is that the thought of death is redemptive. When we learn what it is to live well, we will learn how to die well, and vice versa. It was not without reason that Augustine believed that in the confrontation with death, a person is born. Life and death are so intertwined that one is understood under the shadow of the other. The colors of life are only discernible against a black background. Socrates' famous saying that "the unexamined life is not worth living" must be understood in this sense: when someone has not properly understood the meaning of life, it is as if they are dead, and "do not pray over one who, in my judgment, has not died." One who does not experience a good life cannot face death. Our human terror of death is the terror of dying alongside unlived lives. Psychologists have also shown us that when satisfaction with life is greater among people, the experience of death is less troublesome. Death anxiety has an inverse relationship with the degree of life satisfaction. Nietzsche said that what becomes ripe and mature desires death. It is the unripe person who looks upon death with terror. A human being endures in the face of death only if they have lived life to the fullest. A final point is that the thought of death and death-awareness brings about "de-identification," meaning it reveals the superfluous aspects of a person's character. The individual realizes what matters do not belong to them and what their true self is; it changes and shapes the individual's perspective on life and the structure of their life.

Audio of Session Four of the Lectures on Existential Psychology

Session Four of the Lectures on Existential Psychology by Hossein Dabbagh | 9 August 2016

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