Vaida Mažonaitė, Paulius Skruibis

The aim of this research was to examine the relationship between depression and existential motivation. The Test of Existential Motivation (TEM – Längle & Eckhardt 2000) was used in this study. The psychometric characteristics of the test had been checked and they were found to be good. The test consists of four subtests corresponding to the four existential motivations – man‘s relationship with the world, it‘s reality and possibilities; life, the present relationships and feelings; being oneself as a unique, autonomous person; and meaning – circumstances and activities, enabling one to seek perfection. It was found that depressed people‘s existential motivation is lower than that of those without this diagnosis – statistically significant differences in assessment of the subtests and the entire test were found.

Keywords: depression, existential motivation, Test of Existential Motivation (TEM), psychometric characteristics

IMPACT OF MEANING IN LIFE ON PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL BEING AND STRESS AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Aisha Bano

The present study aims to explore the impact of meaning in life on psychological well-being and stress among university students. Viktor Frankl’s paradigm provided the theoretical foundation for this study.  A sample of 560 university students was recruited from Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad, Pakistan. Data was collected using the Existence Scale (Längle, Orgler, & Kundi, 2003), Warwick-Edinburg Mental Well-Being Scale (Parkinson, 2006), and Stress Scale (Levibond & Levibond, 1995). Results of linear regression analysis revealed a high perception of meaning in life will lead to high psychological well-being and low stress among university students. In this research sample, t-test showed no statistically significant differences between men and women with respect to the meaning in life variable.

Key words: existential, meaning, psychological, stress, well-being

How do we know whether we are taking appropriate action in education?

Eva Maria Waibel

How do we know what matters in education and in school? For us as educators? For others, for example for children under our care? Are we ever in the position to decide, what is ‘right’ for others? How do we know whether our educational acts and approaches are ‘right’? And how can we help children, to find out for themselves what is ‘right’ for them? This leads to the question: Who or what is the appropriate yardstick for our values?

How certain can answers be? Which authorities can provide us with reliable information? Two paths lead to sustainable answers: on the one hand, components of ethics and on the other hand the concept of inner accordance, in other words, of conscience. Both play a major role in education. The article fundamentally approaches these questions, starting with ethics and general values, followed by inner accordance, which is reflected upon in ‘personalised’ values, and ends by drawing conclusions for educational practice.

Keywords: Value, Person, Legality, Morality, Existential Pedagogy

“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad” (Epicurus) – existential consequences of mental illnesses

Klaudia Gennermann

Illness, as a difficult to define concept, is often understood in contrast to health. In order to look at this blurred and integral phenomenon it requires a detailed view on mild, severe and chronic illnesses and their existential consequences. Following a description of the psychosomatic and social aspects of illnesses, the special qualities of mental illness are elaborated and seen in the light of their existential consequences and developments.

Keywords: illness – health, psychosomatics, society, norm, mental illness, stigmatization, diagnosis

The unfavourable prognosis
Personal handling and finding existential hold in case of life-threatening diagnosis

Barbara Kernmayer

Obtaining an unfavourable prognosis represents a sudden threat that sets different mechanisms of fear in motion. The article deals with options of personal response, with psychodynamics and handling processes while referring to the four fundamental motivations, coping reactions and existential analytical psychotherapeutic approaches. Integration of fear and acceptance of the factual are the main approaches to address crisis.

Keywords: unfavourable prognosis, psychodynamics, coping reactions, mechanisms of fear

Life with the diagnosis cancer

Christina Strempfl

This thesis deals with existential topics in connection with cancer. This illness is mostly perceived as a borderline experience of existence, as a confrontation with death. It is about the process of finding a way to accept and integrate this illness and all the entailed anxiety in order to become free again for life. At first the diagnosis of cancer blocks the view on life, because the question arises how to carry on living with the prospect of death so close. It is depicted which personal existential opportunities there lay in this shock for again plucking up the courage to enter into a relationship with oneself und life along with the resultant anxiety and vulnerability.

The necessary personal process is described for arriving at a confident and relaxed life together with the illness, where death and parting are no longer experienced as destructive.

Keywords: anxiety, cancer, existential shock, death, confidence

Dialog with my body
Experiences and reflections on an existential analytical pain therapy

Rupert Dinhobl

Intention of this article is to outline a processual pain therapy against the background of the Personal Existential Analysis according to Längle, on the basis of experiences with pain patients in a suicide prevention station (psychiatry, Christian-Doppler-Klinik, Salzburg). It is remarkable how well the basics of our existential analytical therapy can be implemented in pain therapy.

Keywords: pain, pain therapy, Personal Existential Analysis

Accepting chronic disease as an existential challenge

Elisabeth Petrow

To learn to accept a chronic disease is often a lifelong process, which can begin with a profound shock from encountering a limit situation (Jasper’s “Grenzsituation”). The conscious and determined handling of this situation and the changes in life resulting from the illness can enable the afflicted person to come into one’s own existence.

Keywords: acceptance, suffering, limit situation (Grenzsituation), biographical integration

To be able to do what we want, we must want what we are able to do.
Tasks and work in disease management for chronic diseases

Joachim Schmidt

The ancient concept in the title, which was handed down to us from the Stoicism, expresses a dilemma people face when confronting the challenges in their lives: what one wants to do does not correspond with what one is capable of, but must be brought in line in the end. This is always the case, but emerges as a main task in life particularly when dealing with impairments and disabilities. Disease management is “work on oneself” and must again and again be accomplished and lived anew in coordination with the course of the disease. In the following, a working model is sketched and explained.

Keywords: acceptance, biography, identity, disease management, fate

WHY NOT GOING INSANE WITHOUT HASSLE
Dementia-patients and their care-giving relatives

Christine Schnaiter

Many people over 60 years suffer from a progressive disturbance of memory, concentration, orientation and mental abilities. This leads to a reduced capability to deal with everyday life and in the advanced stage to “dementia”. The most common form is Alzheimer’s disease. Most people with dementia are cared for at home by family members. That is a constant burden to partners and family, who therefore need support. Self-help-groups for relatives are an important forum to get information and counselling and to talk about problems and experiences. Existential Analysis can make an important contribution. With the four fundamental motivations, the theory of values and the concept of life’s meaning, a good framework can be created to allow both the families and the patients a better quality of life and life management.

Keywords: dementia, Existential Analysis, support, quality of life, care-giving relatives

„Give me ten million dollars and I find you a cure“

Rudolf Wagner in a conversation with Gerald Fischer

In this discussion about rare diseases, pulmonary hypertension, the shock of diagnosis, mobilization of resources and visible success – for the own daughter and in European health care policy – a person directly concerned provides an insight.

Keywords: accepting, rare chronic disease, interest representation, lobbying, self help

Images of a path
Psychotherapy of a mentally handicapped woman
Working with an existential analytical art therapy

Elisabeth Koch

This article describes the treatment of a 50-year-old, mentally disabled woman, with an optimal combination of art therapy and Existential Analysis. As a non-verbal form of expression, art therapy complements Existential Analysis especially in the experience of movement and being moved, bodily perception, retrieving emotion and experiencing values. It opens up space for skills, which is also space for an encounter with yourself and others.

Keywords: mental handicap, case description, art therapy, Existential Analysis