0390435333.pdf

Feist−Feist: Theories of

Personality, Seventh

Edition

III. Humanistic/Existential

Theories

12. May: Existential
    Psychology

© The McGraw−Hill^361

Companies, 2009

Chapter 12 May: Existential Psychology 355

Later, as will begins to develop, it manifests itself as opposition, the first “no.”
The blissful existence of early infancy is now opposed by the emerging willfulness
of late infancy. The “no” should not be seen as a statement against the parents but
rather as a positive assertion of self. Unfortunately, parents often interpret the “no”
negatively and therefore stifle the child’s self-assertion. As a result, children learn to
disassociate will from the blissful love they had previously enjoyed.
Our task, said May (1969b, 1990b), is to unite love and will. This task is not
easy, but it is possible. Neither blissful love nor self-serving will have a role in the
uniting of love and will. For the mature person, both love and will mean a reaching
out toward another person. Both involve care, both necessitate choice, both imply ac-
tion, and both require responsibility.

Forms of Love

May (1969b) identified four kinds of love in Western tradition—sex, eros, philia, and
agape.

Sex
Sex is a biological function that can be satisfied through sexual intercourse or some
other release of sexual tension. Although it has become cheapened in modern West-
ern societies, “it still remains the power of procreation, the drive which perpetuates
the race, the source at once of the human being’s most intense pleasure and his [or
her] most pervasive anxiety” (May, 1969b, p. 38).
May believed that in ancient times sex was taken for granted, just as eating and
sleeping were taken for granted. In modern times, sex has become a problem. First,
during the Victorian period, Western societies generally denied sexual feelings, and
sex was not a topic of conversation in polite company. Then, during the 1920s, peo-
ple reacted against this sexual suppression; and sex suddenly came into the open, and
much of Western society was preoccupied with it. May (1969b) pointed out that so-
ciety went from a period when having sex was fraught with guilt and anxiety to a
time when not having it brought about guilt and anxiety.

Eros
In the United States, sex is frequently confused with eros. Sex is a physiological need
that seeks gratification through the release of tension. Erosis a psychological desire
that seeks procreation or creation through an enduring union with a loved one.
Eros is making love; sex is manipulating organs. Eros is the wish to establish a last-
ing union; sex is the desire to experience pleasure. Eros “takes wings from human
imagination and is forever transcending all techniques, giving the laugh to all the
‘how to’ books by gaily swinging into orbit above our mechanical rules” (May,
1969b, p. 74).
Eros is built on care and tenderness. It longs to establish an enduring union
with the other person, such that both partners experience delight and passion and
both are broadened and deepened by the experience. Because the human species
could not survive without desire for a lasting union, eros can be regarded as the sal-
vation of sex.