4. The Existential Current in Psychology and Philosophy as the Theoretical Foundation of Crisis Psychology

The existential orientation in psychology and philosophy plays an important role in the theoretical foundation of crisis psychology. Existentialism emphasizes profound questions about the meaning of life, free will, choice, death, and human destiny. These themes are closely connected with understanding and overcoming crises and traumatic events. Here is how the existential orientation can serve as a theoretical foundation for crisis psychology:

1. Understanding meaning and meaninglessness: Existentialism deals with questions of the meaning and meaninglessness of existence. In a crisis situation, people may encounter profound doubts about the meaning of their lives; exploring this theme can help to understand their emotional state and to guide the process of their recovery.

2. Freedom and choice: Existentialism emphasizes free will and individual choice as fundamental aspects of human nature. In a crisis situation, patients may feel constrained or deprived of control. An approach grounded in existentialism can help them to recognize their own decisions and their responsibility for their own lives.

3. Death and mortality: Existentialism draws attention to the problem of death and mortality. In crisis psychology, especially in the case of the loss of a loved one, understanding death and the process of mourning can help people cope with loss and learn to live with it.

4. Authenticity and truthfulness: Existentialism calls for authenticity, that is, for being true to oneself and to one’s own feelings. This aspect can help clients of crisis psychology accept their emotions and lived experiences without judgment or evaluation.

5. The meaning of life: Existentialism also deals with questions about the meaning of life. In a crisis situation, people may search for new goals and meanings in their lives, and the existential approach can help them in this search.

Why exactly has this orientation in psychology been chosen as the theoretical paradigm (foundation) of crisis psychology? Crisis psychology considers the human being in a situation of crisis in the very foundations of his existence, at that stage of his life path when questions arise before him: “Who am I?”, “What do I live for?”, “What is the meaning of my life?” These are not the questions that a child begins to ask at the age of four or five and stops asking at fourteen or fifteen. It is difficult to find a better illustration, a more telling example, than the spiritual searchings of Count Leo Tolstoy. Of course, one could portray them as the lived experiences of an intellectual. However, these very same questions, explicitly or implicitly, consciously or unconsciously, arise in a person during periods of the collapse of basic illusions. And the collapse of basic illusions is itself a consequence of the traumatic events of a person’s life.

The truth was that life is meaningless. Is there in my life any meaning that would not inevitably be destroyed by the death that awaits me? Leo Tolstoy, “A Confession”

The great writer posed questions to himself and finds no satisfactory answers. The heroes of his novels — Anna Karenina, Andrei Volkonsky, Natasha Rostova — struggle painfully to understand the meaning of life. And only Pierre Bezukhov, having traveled the path of suffering and personal growth, comes close to an answer to the existential question “What do I live for?” We have established that the subject matter of crisis psychology is the state of a person in a crisis situation. But what, then, is the subject matter of existential psychology? It is not so simple to give an exhaustive answer to this question. An analysis of the available literature has not fully clarified it. As a first approximation, one could answer this question as follows: “Existential psychology studies the problem of being as refracted through: a) the problem of fate and death; b) the problem of guilt and loneliness; c) the problem of the meaning of life and responsibility.” More briefly, the subject matter of existential psychology can be formulated as follows: existential psychology studies the meaning of human existence and the conditions of its acquisition, change, and loss. When, then, does an ordinary person begin to reflect on the meaning of his existence? As a rule, on the threshold of his non-being. In everyday life, situations arise that force a person to reflect on his life. Often, he simply does not understand what is happening, why he has ended up where things are bad for him, why this has happened to him — a person who has led a righteous way of life. After all, he has deceived no one, has never broken the rules of the road. So what has happened? He cannot verbalize his vague suspicions about a world that is not arranged to satisfy his needs and desires. There arises this situation of incomprehension and uncertainty about one’s own life, in those events of the life path that are themselves indeterminate and indescribable. We call such events crisis events. During such periods of life, the collapse of basic illusions occurs. During such periods of his life, a person, as it were, draws back the curtain behind which non-being becomes visible, marked by loneliness, guilt, alienation, fate, and death. Thus, existential psychology attempts to describe human life in concepts that it has borrowed from existential philosophy.

Thus, the existential orientation in philosophy and psychology provides a theoretical foundation for understanding the emotional and psychological aspects of crisis situations. It helps us to view crises as an opportunity to reconsider the meaning of life, to accept responsibility for our own actions, and to choose new paths of development. The existential approach can be a useful instrument for therapists and psychologists working with people in crisis states.