Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionIII. Humanistic/Existential
Theories- May: Existential
Psychology
(^368) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
362 Part III Humanistic/Existential Theories
consciousness so that they will be in a better position to make choices (M. H. Hall,
1967). These choices, then, lead to the simultaneous growth of freedom and respon-
sibility.
May believed that the purpose of psychotherapy is to set people free. He ar-
gued that therapists who concentrate on a patient’s symptoms are missing the more
important picture. Neurotic symptoms are simply ways of running away from free-
dom and an indication that patients’ inner possibilities are not being used. When pa-
tients become more free, more human, their neurotic symptoms usually disappear,
their neurotic anxiety gives way to normal anxiety, and their neurotic guilt is re-
placed by normal guilt. But these gains are secondary and not the central purpose of
therapy. May insisted that psychotherapy must be concerned with helping people ex-
perience their existence, and that relieving symptoms is merely a by-product of that
experience.
How does a therapist help patients become free, responsible human beings?
May did not offer many specific directions for therapists to follow. Existential ther-
apists have no special set of techniques or methods that can be applied to all patients.
Instead, they have only themselves, their own humanity to offer. They must establish
a one-to-one relationship (Mitwelt) that enables patients to become more aware of
themselves and to live more fully in their own world (Eigenwelt). This approach may
mean challenging patients to confront their destiny, to experience despair, anxiety,
and guilt. But it also means establishing an I-thou encounter in which both therapist
and patient are viewed as subjects rather than objects. In an I-thou relationship, the
therapist has empathy for the patient’s experience and is open to the patient’s sub-
jective world.
May (1991) also described therapy as partly religion, partly science, and
partly friendship. The friendship, however, is not an ordinary social relationship;
rather, it calls for the therapist to be confronting and to challenge the patient. May
believed that the relationship itself is therapeutic, and its transforming effects are in-
dependent of anything therapists might say or any theoretical orientation they might
have.
Our task is to be guide, friend, and interpreter to persons on their journeys
through their private hells and purgatories.Specifically our task is to help patients
get to the point where they can decide whether they wish to remain victims... or
whether they choose to leave this victim-state and venture through purgatory with
the hope of achieving some sense of paradise. Our patients often, toward the end,
are understandably frightened by the possibility of freely deciding for themselves
whether to take their chances by completing the quest they have bravely begun.
(May, 1991, p. 165)
Philosophically, May held many of the same beliefs as Carl Rogers (see Chap-
ter 11). Basic to both approaches is the notion of therapy as a human encounter: that
is, an I-thou relationship with the potential to facilitate growth within both the ther-
apist and the patient. In practice, however, May was much more likely to ask ques-
tions, to delve into a patient’s early childhood, and to suggest possible meanings of
current behavior.
For example, he explained to Philip that his relationship with Nicole was an at-
tempt to hold on to his mother. Rogers would have rejected such a technique because
it emanated from an external (i.e., the therapist’s) frame of reference. May, however,