By 张国宪 and Holly Showalter (based on the Chinese original by 张国宪)

 

“When the earthquake happened, how did you feel? How did you react physically and psychologically? How can the subconscious experience be brought into consciousness?

 

In May 2008 American Dr. Mark Yang, a graduate of Fuller School of Psychology, came to ZMIP to host a series of workshops on Existential Psychology. By chance, the earthquake in Sichuan Province occurred during his time with us. Here in Nanjing, more than 1000 kilometers away, we also experienced the shock, and the panic that came along with it.

 

One important feature that distinguishes Existential Psychology from other schools is a focus on the meaning of suffering and the value of life. What the earthquake aroused in our experience and our responses stimulated by the disaster became a heated topic of discussion. The immediate reaction to the earthquake was emotions run wild and a feeling of being lost, misplaced, as if we have lost touch with reality. We unconsciously sought reunification, yearning to make contack with the people around us and relatives far away, to reconnect and rebuild relationships with them.

 

When we encounter disaster, what we need most is relationship and companionship, the satisfaction of expressing care and sharing experience. It is good to mourn together, but to prevent an epidemic of panic, we shouldn’t let negative oppressive emotions spread. If we are conscious of prevention in ordinary life - if the residents in active earthquake zones take some simple and necessary measures to prepare, and remind themselves of the danger of earthquakes - the subconscious injury as well as the physical injury brought by the earthquake will be softened.

 

 

Existential psychology and humanistic psychology combine to form a third trend which has brought revolutionary changes to the practice of psychotherapy. Across the world, this third trend has profoundly impacted the field of psychology, though less so in our country where psychoanalysis has had the stronger influence; sufficient attention has not been given to existential psychology. In fact, existential psychology has already built a unique and effective system of thought and method in Western psychology. Development from psychoanalysis to existential psychology continues in spontaneous and innate ways.

 

Psychoanalysis emphasizes inner conflict and defense mechanisms and the injuries from childhood. Neo-Freudism began to pay more attention to culture and the personal and relational environment, but Existential Psychology goes even farther to emphasize not the inner drive, the pleasure-to-meaning, or Adler’s will-to-power, but will-to-meaning. During Victor Frankl’s experience in the concentration camp he lacked both food and safety, and his relatives died one by one, yet he succeeded in finding the will to live, through meaning. In effect, this turns Maslow’s Hierarchy on end. Meaning of life is found in suffering, in the freedom of will.

 

 

Is life meaningless? Sometimes life feels like we are slaves carrying bricks back and forth, back and forth. People choose suicide because they find that life is meaningless. Perhaps a person is famous, perhaps he or she is an ordinary person, but death is an obstacle (or barrier) that every person must face.

 

Even a very successful person, when threatened by illness and death, will wonder, “Have I finished my work? Have I done the things I should do?” Psychological research has found that when someone finds success as a young person he or she will be more likely to experience mid-life crisis later. Temporary success blinds him to his life destiny. To realize life is meaningless is the first step to spiritual health.

 

Zhi Mian Psychology and Existential Psychology have a similar concept about the fundamental understandings of life: the individual is limited, and the world is not absolutely safe. These two ideas are foundational to good counseling of depth. We Chinese have a proverb, “In life, eighty or ninety percent of things are not satisfactory.” This is true for an individual as well as for a community or nation.

 

The Tangshan Earthquake remains in our memories. Some damage caused by it has not been addressed or treated. Today the Wenchuan Earthquake is tearing the heart of every Chinese person. Facing this greatest trauma, what attitude should we carry? Every person should face life and death in every instant like a beautiful flower – knowing that after it blooms it will fall. Only a fake flower, made of plastic, can bloom forever. If we can sense that life is just like grass or a flower, realize that life is a struggle, and realize that the past will not come again, we can find the truth of life. After overcoming fear we will have courage to truly participate in life. With a new attitude, we will build life on a cornerstone. Acceptance is the beginning of change. (Rogers) “No matter where storms blow me, I will climb onto the bank as a master.” (Horace) We can then pursue a “unique” and “mysterious” life.

 

 

Traditional psychotherapy believes that therapists should build up a good relationship with the client in order to create trust and learn the client’s inner secrets. The notion embedded in this idea of treatment is that the key for therapy is to find truth. But for an existential psychologist the relationship rather than truth is the goal. One’s experience in the past does not dictate one’s psychological state in the present. Just discovering “why” cannot truly solve the problem; to know “how” is what’s really important.

 

Life is not a problem to solve. It is a mystery for you to touch and encounter. So existential psychologists pay attention to fostering relationship from the beginning to the end of the therapy process. At the beginning of a counseling session, signing a therapist-client contract can be very helpful; it shows that a kind of relationship exists. The client knows that someone is caring for him or her and he or she feels a sense of responsibility to the relationship and the process.

 

When the client is facing meaningless of life or experiencing trauma, he will feel flustered and depressed. At this time relationship and companionship is very important to the client. It can give the client comfort and is a natural therapy. At the same time, the relationship should support him or her to find meaninglessness within his or her own heart and then to find meaning again. Today as we face so many people injured both physically and psychologically by the Wenchuan earthquake, we should walk with them, experience with them, mourn with them, search for meaning with them, and find again the power in accepting reality and finding new relationships.