The Nature of Travel, Self-Actualization, Existential Therapy, and Humanistic Psychology | A. of I.

"Become who you are."

--Pindar, a Greek poet (522 - 440 BC)

from Academy of Ideas: Existential Psychotherapy:

Death, Freedom, Isolation, and Meaninglessness

"If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you're needing is not to be in a different place, but to be a different person."

--Seneca, Letters from a Stoic from Academy of Ideas:

Stoicism: Letters from a Stoic and the Wisdom of Seneca

"Travel won't make a saner man of you. For this we must spend time in study and in writings of wise men to learn the truths that have emerged from their researches and carry on the search ourselves for the answers that have not yet been discovered. "

--Seneca, Letters from a Stoic from

Academy of Ideas: Stoicism: Letters from a Stoic and the Wisdom of Seneca

"A man who examines the saddle and bridle and not the animal itself when he is out to buy a horse is a fool; similarly, only an absolute fool values a man according to his clothes, or according to his social position, which after all is only something that we wear like clothing."

--Seneca, Letters from a Stoic from Academy of Ideas: Stoicism: Letters from a Stoic and the Wisdom of Seneca

Becoming who you are is not a guarantee, but a difficult and arduous task requiring self-knowledge, commitment, and courage.

Treatment for psychological afflictions of this sort (such as cases of anxiety and depression), according to existential psychotherapy, involves self-reflection, philosophical explorations, an expansion of awareness and an acceptance of the human condition.

"One who fails to live as fully as one can experiences a deep, powerful feeling which I refer to here as 'existential guilt' ... Existential guilt is a positive, constructive force, a guide calling oneself back to oneself."

--Irvin Yalom from Academy of Ideas: Existential Psychotherapy: Death, Freedom, Isolation, and Meaninglessness

Humanistic Psychology: the individual, far from being a play thing of deterministic forces, has the capacity to change and direct their life, and fulfill the innate human desire to live fully and realize one's highest potentials. 

The meaning of life: "The most urgent question of all."

--Carl Jung from Academy of Ideas: Existential Psychotherapy: Death, Freedom, Isolation, and Meaninglessness

"What on a lower level had led to the wildest conflicts and to emotions full of panic, viewed from the higher-level of the personality now seem like a storm in a valley seen from a high mountain top. This does not mean that the thunderstorm is robbed of its reality; it means that instead of being in it, one is now above it."

--Carl Jung from Academy of Ideas: Existential Psychotherapy: Death, Freedom, Isolation, and Meaninglessness

"Becoming an individual entails a complete, a fundamental, and eternal, and insurmountable isolation."

--Hellmuth Kaiser from Academy of Ideas: Existential Psychotherapy: Death, Freedom, Isolation, and Meaninglessness

Many people cower from the task of becoming an individual, preferring instead to alleviate their feelings of loneliness via conformity and immersion in the masses. 

Academy of Ideas

http://www.youtube.come/user/academyofideas

Episodes:

Stoicism: Letters from a Stoic and the Wisdom of Seneca

Existential Psychotherapy: Death, Freedom, Isolation, and Meaninglessness

This post is a migration of quotes originally uploaded to the homepage on March 11, 2019. The homepage has since been revamped.