This book gives a comprehensive analysis of Existential Psychotherapy, which focuses on concerns rooted in the individual’s existence. These are inescapable concerns the individual has to confront: death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness. Yalom argues that existential psychotherapy is not a competing approach to any other technique; rather, a complementary one. We all have defense mechanisms to deal with these four issues. Still, every once in a while due to a ``boundary situation’’ in life (e.g. death or sickness, break ups, graduation, accidents) these defense mechanisms are shaken, and one has to face these four demons in their most naked form. Yalom puts it clearly “Most individuals remain unaware of the structure of their belief system until it fails to serve its purpose.”. Let me go in detail about these four dimensions of existence in more detail. Before that, I should warn you: I’m not an expert on psychology, these are my takeaways from the book.

Death

We are going to die. We know we are going to die. We do not want to die. How we deal with the idea of death has tremendous explanatory power for almost all our anxieties. In all cultures, people who face or challenge death receive the utmost respect from the society. Why do we fear so much about death and why do we value people who challenge death? Why are we doing our best to forget about this basic fact about our nature?

Yalom argues it’s not because we fear the annihilation, or the unknown about what comes after death, or not being able to live or exist anymore. It’s because deep down inside, we all know that we are not living the life for its full potential even though we have very short and limited time. He argues that the transient nature of life should augment the possible joy we feel in it.

We all have different kinds of defense mechanisms against death anxiety. They should sound so familiar to everyone. The first one is the belief in specialness, a narcissistic tendency. We are or try to be exempt from death. We chase after immortality projects: large sums of money or prestige, having a child, or creating a piece of art, or producing a long-lasting work. The second one is fusing with the ultimate rescuer. Here, we usually use our relationships with people and lose our authenticity so that we can transcend death with co-existence. Sometimes the fusing could be with a cause not with an individual. We become a devoted and nameless soldier of a cause so that we can be immortal with the cause (e.g. climate crisis).

The fear of death is only a side of a two-face coin. On the other side, we have a fear of life: the fear of having to face life as an isolated being, the fear of individuation, of “going forward,” of “standing out from nature.” Throughout life we go back and forth between these two ends: how much should we stand out and feel the isolation separated from the crowd, or the pack, or how much authenticity do we dare to lose leading the life we have by fusing with others? There’s a great book on this topic Denial of Death, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1974, reviews the work of Otto Rank and put the death at the center of the discussion on psychology. I highly recommend that one too.

What’s the solution? There’s no clear solution. Death anxiety, like any other kind of anxiety, is a part of our existence, we’ll never be free of it and it’s an essential force for growth and creativity. The only solution is to lead a life so that we have a sense of fulfillment, a feeling that the short time we have has been well lived. He gives a few other practical exercises. He suggests we can write an obituary for ourselves or imagine our death in detail. For another exercise, we can write eight things that make us who we are and one by one we imagine loosing that thing. Below I list my favorite quotes from the book related to death.

“No man enjoys the true taste of life but he who is willing and ready to quit it.”

“If you want to endure life, prepare yourself for death.”

“One cannot look directly at either the sun or death.”

“Contemplate death if you would learn how to live.”

“The dark background which death supplies brings out the tender colors of life.”

“That to philosophize is to learn how to die.”

Freedom

We are free to do almost always whatever we want. This freedom means we have the full responsibility for not only for our actions but also for our failures to act. Yalom argues that the assumption of this responsibility is the precondition for therapeutic improvement. Mature adulthood burdens us taking full responsibility for our actions and choices. Unfortunately, responsibility is a two-edged sword. The responsibility for making a decision to change or improve also means that we are also responsible for all the past failures of our lives – which could have changed long time ago. However, we usually avoid the responsibility or our freedom to act differently by experiencing our lives as innocent victims of events.

How do we embrace the freedom and the responsibility that comes with it? Yalom argues that it’s frightening to be one’s own father – to be the person in charge of fate. The first actionable thing is to think about our life situations and ask how we have created this situation in the first place. We will never be an objective observer of our own life predicament, still, thinking about our own role in things is a good start. The second thing to remember is the responsibility includes not only the choices we make, we are also responsible for our thoughts, feelings, and reactions to things. The last important thing to remember is that whenever we make a choice, life moves forward. The choice usually boils down to a simple yes or not. “I don’t know” seems like a choice but a choice to evade responsibility.

“Decisions are very expensive, they cost you everything else.”

“Things fade: alternatives exclude.”

“A major decision not only exposes one to the anxiety of groundlessness but also threatens one’s defenses against death anxiety. By facing one with the limitation of possibilities, decision challenges one’s myth of personal specialness. And decision, insofar as it forces one to accept personal responsibility and existential isolation, threatens one’s belief in the existence of an ultimate rescuer.”

Isolation

Existence is a lonely experience. No one will ever truly understand how it feels like to be you. We always need to use some form of a noisy communication channel to transmit our thoughts and feelings. No matter how close we are with partners, family, and friends, no relationship can bridge the gap between us and everything else. What does that grim picture entail?

First, understanding and accepting this fact about the relationships with people should bring us closer – almost like a comradeship. Ideally, we should accept people’s conditions as they are and do not use them to fill some void inside of us. Maslow’s Toward a Psychology of Being talks a lot about D-love (deficiency-based, void-filling) relationships vs B-love (selfless and accepting) relationships related to this topic, and I highly recommend that book too. Lastly, the isolation must be experienced before it can be transcended.

“Infantile love follows the principle ‘I love because I am loved.’ Mature love follows the principle: ‘I am loved because I love.’ Immature love says, ‘I love you because I need you.’ Mature love says, ‘I need you because I love you.’”

“Mature love is “union under the condition of preserving one’s integrity, one’s individuality…. In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two.””

“… loving is more difficult than being loved and requires greater awareness and acceptance of one’s existential situation.”

“Individuals whose major orientation is toward fusion are generally labeled “dependent.” They live, as Arieti puts it, for the “dominant other”” (and are likely to suffer extraordinary distress in the event of separation from the dominant other). They submerge their own needs; they seek to find out what the others wish and make those wishes their own.”

“We are all lonely ships on a dark sea.”

“the ability to be alone is the condition for the ability to love..”

Meaninglessness

There’s no external meaning in life. We are meaning-seeking creatures. How does a being who needs meaning find meaning in a universe that has no meaning? Meaning makes almost anything bearable or endurable. How do we create meaning? Is it possible to find a meaning that would transcend our inevitable death? Yalom warns us that the questions related to meaningless sometimes questions related to three previous issues in disguise i.e. death, the freedom, or the isolation anxiety can masquerade as meaninglessness.

Yalom argues that the search for meaning is paradoxical: the more we search for it, the less we find it. What’s the solution? Unlike the previous issues (death, freedom, and isolation) , which should be fought directly, the meaninglessness should be addressed indirectly. We must act and engage. That’s it. We can create the meaning backwards only if we live the life to its full potential – which reminds me of the bit from Steve Job’s commencement speech i.e. we only connect the dots backwards. Victor Frankl’s autobiographical book Man’s Search for Meaning is another good read on this topic.

“The question of meaning in life is, as the Buddha taught, not edifying. One must immerse oneself in the river of life and let the question drift away.”

“Irving Taylor suggests that creative artists who have worked with the greatest personal handicaps and the greatest social constraints (only think of Galileo, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Freud, Keats, the Bronte sisters, Van Gogh, Kafka, Virginia Woolf) may have had faculties of self-reflection so highly developed that they had a keener vision than most of us of the human existential situation and the universe’s cosmic indifference. Consequently, they suffered more keenly from a crisis of meaninglessness and, with a ferocity born of desperation, plunged into creative efforts.”