Yalom, Strenger, and the psychodynamics of inner freedom: A contribution to existential psychoanalysis.

Carlo Strenger was a unique person, for many reasons. One such reason was his ability to integrate the existential (humanistic) and psychoanalytic schools of thought into a seamless whole. Nowhere is this seamless integration more apparent than in Strenger’s treatment of inner freedom. In this article, I juxtapose Irvin Yalom’s seminal work on the four existential concerns in psychopathology and psychotherapy (death, responsibility, isolation, and meaning) against Strenger’s work on the psychodynamics of inner freedom. More specifically, I touch upon Strenger’s identification of three psychological processes that enable inner freedom: self-creation (the tendency of some people to create their own personality “from the ashes,” in the face of serious traumatic life circumstances), Sosein (active self-acceptance of one’s own mistakes through life), and the act of transcending the fear of insignificance (the ability to live life through one’s own eyes rather than through the eyes of historical accounts). Strenger’s illumination of these processes, I argue, construes inner freedom as a higher-order existential concern that underlies the four concerns discussed by Yalom. I then discuss the way I put these theoretical observations to use in my theoretical and clinical work, focusing on depression and suicidality. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Source: Psychoanalytic Psychology - February 7, 2022 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research