The Existential Psychology of Trauma

The utility of existentialism for psychologists

Link to the Original Essay

You will be hard-pressed to find someone who has not experienced some form of trauma or tragedy in their lives. Whether it is directly experienced by oneself, or by a loved one, those who have not fallen prey to the worst that Being has to offer are in the minority.

Two Ways of Interpreting Trauma and the Domino Effect

Traumatic events are accompanied by our interpretations of them, and our interpretations are not always consistent with one another. Specifically, we tend to interpret our past wounds in two generic ways: one which despairs over the trauma, and another which uses trauma as a springboard for personal growth.

Let’s give an example: I’ve personally been the victim of an indiscriminate physical assault. On some occasions, I have interpreted this event as one worth lamenting over. “This is how people are and I can’t take it.” I’d be lying if I said such a thought has never occurred to me — and I’d be doubly lying if I said such thoughts have, at times, made it hard for me to get out of bed in the morning.

But on other occasions, I’ve utilized this event — both in my thoughts and in my actions — to begin training in combat sports, which has been a profoundly empowering and cathartic endeavor. My training in combat sports has undoubtedly bolstered my personal growth and mitigated the degree to which despairing thoughts arise with respect to being assaulted.

In both economics and psychology, the Matthew effect is a salient concept that is directly applicable to the difference between despairing and empowerment. Usually, the Matthew effect is applied to the growth or decline of the wealth of individuals or groups of individuals (entities.)

In essence, the Matthew effect is the truism that, as you gain wealth you become more likely to gain more wealth, whereas if you lose wealth you become more likely to lose more wealth. For instance, when someone loses a job, they might begin to also lose good habits that had nothing to do with their job, like exercising or budgeting, making them more likely to lose out on more future opportunities. By contrast, when someone is given a raise at a job, they’re more likely to continue advancing in their careers.

So too with feelings of despair and feelings of empowerment. The more we despair, the more likely we are to trigger a domino effect of despair that extends beyond one initial instant of negative emotions. Likewise, the more we indulge in feelings of empowerment, the more likely a chain effect of positive emotion will ensue in the long run. Psychologists are only beginning to emphasize what existential philosophers have known for quite a long time.

Existentialism and The Matthew Effect

“Nihilism stands at the door: whence comes this uncanniest of all guests? Point of departure: it is an error to consider “social distress” or “physiological degeneration” or, worse, corruption, as the cause of nihilism. Ours is the most decent and compassionate age. Distress, whether of the soul, body, or intellect, cannot of itself give birth to nihilism (i.e., the radical repudiation of value, meaning, and desirability). Such distress always permits a variety of interpretations. Rather: it is in one particular interpretation, the Christian-moral one, that nihilism is rooted.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power: Book 1 Section 1

“Such distress always permits a variety of interpretations.” In 1888, Nietzsche, while living in Turin, Italy, had plans to travel back home to Germany to study the works of Soren Kierkegaard. Nietzsche had never gotten around to reading Kierkegaard, for he suffered from a permanent mental breakdown before getting to do so — which is a shame, because Kierkegaard’s Either/Or, is an exposition of what Nietzsche was thinking regarding “a variety of interpretations.”

The Ethical and Aesthetic Lives

In Either/Or, Kierkegaard makes the distinction between the “ethical life,” and the “aesthetic life.” Both are interpretations of existential distress — i.e., the fact that it is an intrinsic characteristic of being a human, to have tragedy and trauma befallen upon oneself. The aesthetic life consists of the forlorn interpretation, and the ethical life consists of the forthright life-affirming interpretation — both of which, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and existentialism as such, believe are interpretations available to all of us.

Despite my overly negative hitherto characterization of the aesthetic life, Kierkegaard makes a compelling case by essentially showing that the aesthetic life is extremely tempting. It doesn’t only consist of overt despair; rather, it also consists of hedonism, egotism, and self-indulgence.

Because life is so wretched, one now justifies such personal characteristics and indulges in them to an unlimited and self-destructive degree. In what way is this tempting? On the one hand, these behaviors are extremely effective at masking the pain accompanied by the intrinsic arbitrariness of Being. I don’t feel like doing anything.

“I don’t feel like riding the motion is too powerful; I don’t feel like walking-it is too tiring; I don’t feel like lying down, for either I would have to stay down, and I don’t feel like doing that, or I would have to get up again, and I don’t feel like doing that, either. Summa Summarum: I don’t feel like doing anything.” — Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or

These thoughts, and others, are way more common than many of us wish to think. We don’t like to think that our loved ones have such thoughts, but they almost certainly do. And so do we, and we don’t enjoy their company.

Hedonism, egotism, and self-indulgence, are easy ways out of not only experiencing these thoughts but more importantly, dealing with them. The psychoanalysts would have referred to this as a ‘defense mechanism,’ but existentialists believe such veiling of pain is an intrinsic human characteristic — rather than an element of pathology. Pathology, for existentialists, is the rule, not the exception, radically flipping the script on psychoanalysis.

The ethical life takes the rule and strives to be the exception. Forthrightness in the face of the intrinsically despairing qualities of Being characterizes the ethical life for Kierkegaard. And we avoid the ethical life at all costs. Why?

“The most bitter pain is obviously repentance, but repentance has ethical, not esthetic, reality [Realitet]. It is the most bitter pain because it has the complete transparency of the total guilt, but precisely because of this transparency it does not interest esthetically. Repentance has a holiness that eclipses the esthetic. It does not want to be seen, least of all by a spectator, and requires an altogether different kind of self-activity.” — Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or

To take responsibility for yourself; to be resolute in the face of your finitude, and the oft unavoidable tolerance of the inauthenticity of others and yourself; and to strive for “continual becoming,” as opposed to aesthetic Being, caving to despair. Such is what constitutes the ethical life for Kierkegaard. And from the perspective of existential psychology, the ethical life is the route to living a meaningful life, less plagued with unnecessary suffering. We would do well to heed the Matthew effect towards the ethical life, not the aesthetic life.