Chapter 11 May: Existential Psychology 351Choice also implies action. Without action, choice is merely a wish, an
idle desire. With action comes responsibility. Freedom and responsibility are
always commensurable. A person cannot have more freedom than respon-
sibility, nor can one be shackled with more responsibility than freedom.
Healthy individuals welcome both freedom and responsibility, but they real-
ize that choice is often painful, anxiety-provoking, and difficult.
May believed that many people have surrendered some of their ability
to choose, but that capitulation itself, he insisted, is a choice. Ultimately,
each of us is responsible for the choices we make, and those choices define
each of us as a unique human being. May, therefore, must be rated high on
the dimension of free choice.
Is May’s theory optimistic or pessimistic? Although he sometimes
painted a rather gloomy picture of humanity, May was not pessimistic. He
saw the present age as merely a plateau in humanity’s quest for new symbols
and new myths that will engender the species with renewed spirit.
Although May recognized the potential impact of childhood experiences
on adult personality, he clearly favored teleology over causality. Each of us
has a particular goal or destiny that we must discover and challenge or else
risk alienation and neurosis.
May assumed a moderate stance on the issue of conscious versus
unconscious forces in personality development. By their nature, people have
enormous capacity for self-awareness, but often that capacity remains fallow.
People sometimes lack the courage to face their destiny or to recognize the
evil that exists within their culture as well as within themselves. Conscious-
ness and choices are interrelated. As people make more free choices, they
gain more insight into who they are; that is, they develop a greater sense of
being. This sharpened sense of being, in turn, facilitates the ability to make
further choices. An awareness of self and a capacity for free choice are hall-
marks of psychological health.
May also took an intermediate position on social versus biological influ-
ences. Society contributes to personality principally through interpersonal
relationships. Our relations with other people can have either a freeing or
an enslaving effect. Sick relationships, such as those Philip experienced with
his mother and sister, can stifle personal growth and leave us with an inabil-
ity to participate in a healthy encounter with another person. Without the
capacity to relate to people as people, life becomes meaningless and we
develop a sense of alienation not only from others but from ourselves as
well. Biology also contributes to personality. Biological factors such as gen-
der, physical size, predisposition to illnesses, and ultimately death itself,
shape a person’s destiny. Everyone must live within the confines of destiny,
but those confines can be expanded.
On the dimension of uniqueness versus similarities, May’s view of
humanity definitely leans toward uniqueness. Each of us is responsible for
shaping our own personality within the limits imposed by destiny. No two of
us make the same sequence of choices, and no two develop identical ways
of looking at things. May’s emphasis on phenomenology implies individual
perceptions and therefore unique personalities.