Eigenwelt & Gegenwelt

[Dharmavidya]

This is a paper that I wrote nearly 20 years ago on existential and phenomenological ideas in psychotherapy.

[Tharakesh]

Thank you for posting this. I work in an addiction recovery center. Almost all of the clients I have worked with describe the initial use of their drug to be liberating, a feeling of transcending self. Unfortunately this feeling of liberation is quickly replaced with feelings of imprisonment and dependecy on the drug. A question that came up for me after reading this piece; How does one know when one is existing in an authentic way?

[Dharmavidya]

Thank you Tharakesh. I think this is a really interesting question. Yesterday we held a day on Buddhist psychology theory as part of our psychotherapy course programme and during it Caroline read a report from one of the British psychotherapy magazines in which a client looked back on psychotherapy that he had had many years before. The interesting thing was that he now thinks that his therapy was basically destructive even though, as he says, if you had asked him about it at any time in the 20 years following completion he would have described it as highly effective. At that time he would have said that it had transformed him into an authentic person who knew his own mind. His former symptoms of phobia in crowds vanished and he was able to make new decisions about his career with confidence. If the case had been picked up in psychotherapy research it would certainly have come out as a success. However, the cost was that it had wrecked his relations with his family, especially his mother and it took another few decades before reconciliation became possible. This damage to his social position was, as it were, the other side of the coin, of his independence. Leaving aside the question of assessment of the particular form of therapy that he received, upon which there could be any number of views, the questions that such a case raises about authenticity seem to be important ones that are not amenable to simplistic answers. Authenticity certainly has something to do with being and feeling like the author of one's own story, but it is also about doing what one thinks one should do and it is not possible to extricate this from the conditions into which one is born. Buddhism does have quite a bit of rhetoric about living an unconditioned life, but it also has quite a bit about respecting the social dimension of one's situation.

Quite apart from that, perhaps it is easier to say when one is not acting authentically than it is to say when one is. Indeed, there could even be a suggestion that introspection could be destructive to authenticity since it introduces self-concern and self-conscious manipulation. On the other hand, inauthentic action could also be unconscious and habitual. In one of Paul Bowles' short stories, I remember, there is an encounter between a young man and a young woman and he says to her, "Why did you lie to me?" and she says "I always lie." Is she being authentic? One of the things that I find fascinating is the multi-layered-ness of human communication. If I say what I do not mean, but I know that you, the listener, know that I do not mean what I say, is that an example of authenticity? At the simple level it is the stuff of jokes and sarcasm. The layers can, however, multiply up, especially when sanctioned by the culture. American culture, for instance, is less tolerant of this kind of thing than most European cultures, and European less than Middle Eastern, I suspect.

It would be interesting to have other people's observations.

[Mick Presnell]

I studied existentialism and phenomenology for many years, partly because I thought it was the closest Western philosophy version of Buddhism. So I enjoyed your article very much! It's a very lucid account.

My views have changed somewhat. Although a sense of certainty about one's convictions was important for earlier versions of existentialism, I tend to favor the existentialism of Merleau-Ponty than Sarte or Camus. He emphasized ambiguity of meaning than certainty. In this view we aren't authentic because we know the uncompromised conviction of our experiences but because we make commitments knowing that we aren't certain of it. Awareness of the situation (consciousness of it) and the humility of acknowledging our uncertainty about existence was more important than "being who I am" or a strong conviction that "my story is my own." This seemed to me closer to the spirit of Buddhist "no self" than the typical views of authenticity.

[Dharmavidya]

Dear Mick - Thank you for pointing this out. I agree wholeheartedly. The experience of phenomenology - of Husserl as well as Merleau-Ponty - was, I think, of repeatedly trying to ground philosophy in something indubitable and finding that it cannot be done and this experiment is of great importance. It does, as you say, correspond with the notion of non-self, that we cannot ground ourselves within ourselves, and with the Pureland notion of a bombu paradigm of life. It suggests what philosophers sometimes call externalist epistemology (truth does not primarily come from within) and the importance of engagement with what is other. This emphasis on 'alterity' is something that popular spirituality seems to resist, but I think that it is indispensable if we are to find a sound interpretation of Buddhism that is also capable of underpinning a constructive life in this world. This all relates to the What is Buddhist About Engaged Buddhism debate too.

[Robert Sadler]

Excellent paper.
Most people I have known, including myself, are not truly living life due to fears, conscious or otherwise, which tend to inhibit actions as well as the decision making process.
Most fears are learned by experience or taught to us by society at large. The fact that these fears have little or no bearing upon the current situation, which is new and unique, is often difficult to overcome.
I agree that the psychotherapist is a "paid friend". Often this is because some individuals literally have no one they feel they can trust to confide in. Over time, this can cause problems when either party forgets that this is a business transaction, and the relationship becomes "fuzzy", opening the possibility of creating more harm than good.
Existing in an authentic way is difficult at best. Desire to exist authentically can in itself create a barrier.
Over all , I enjoyed your paper. It has inspired me to take a second look at my own brhaviour to myself and those around me.
Thank you for sharing this with us.

[Dharmavidya]

Thanks Robert. I particularly like your comment that "Desire to exist authentically can in itself create a barrier." Being authentic is not generally so much a matter of wanting to be authentic as of having something that one authentically does care about. I like the fact that in the Eightfold Path the term that is commonly translated as 'right' as in right thought, right effort and so on actually means 'wholehearted'. The outcome of Buddha's approach is that one lives a wholehearted life, which is pretty much what we mean by authentic. Similarly, the term shraddha that is commonly translated as faith really means 'heart-commitment'. Warm wishes. Namo Amida Bu.