The Four Existential Concerns of Adulthood

Researchers in the field of Developmental Psychology have historically focused most of their attention on childhood development. While this line of study has yielded great advances in our understanding of how children grow and learn, it has also come at the expense of our understanding of adult development. One needs only to look at the major established theories - those by Freud, Piaget, Bowlby, Vygotsky, and Bronfenbrenner, for example - to see this bias. Erikson's work on psychosocial development may be the most glaring exception, although I've described what I believe to be the problems with his theory here. Other thinkers who have explored adulthood, meanwhile, have either focused on select aspects of adult development (Kohlberg's stages of moral development) or specific circumstances we encounter in adulthood (Kubler-Ross' Stages of Grief). As a result, I've always felt a little shortchanged by the field of Developmental Psychology. I mean, we can't all be doomed to be the people we were in 12th grade forever. Can we?

Consequently, one goal I've had for this blog has been to gather all of my scattered thoughts on adulthood, mix in a few big ideas from some big-wig psychologists, and create a sort of personal theory on adult development. And yet, while I've so far managed to eek out a few posts on particular aspects of adult development (see posts on pain, identity, and differentiation of self), I've been uncertain as to how these ideas might fit into a more cohesive model. Recently, however, in paging through one of my beloved therapy references, 'Existential Psychotherapy' by Irvin Yalom, I may have chanced upon the theory that effectively captures all of the varied ideas I've been exploring. In his classic text, Yalom outlines what he considers to be the 4 ultimate concerns of humankind: 1) Death, 2) Isolation, 3) Meaningless, and 4) Freedom. As a psychotherapist, Yalom was primarily interested in how these existential concerns informed the therapeutic process. He believed that our psychological difficulties stem from an inability to reconcile ourselves with these existential concerns. In order to feel better, then, we need to make peace with these concerns. In reviewing Yalom's ideas with my current focus in mind, it has occurred to me that his concepts may be just as relevant to the process of adult development as they are to the clinical treatment of psychopathology. In fact, one could make the argument that adult development is simply what happens to us as a result of our negotiations with our existential concerns over the lifespan. Depending on how we respond to death, isolation, meaninglessness, and freedom, we either get stuck, or move forward to new levels of consciousness and functioning. But more on this link between existentialism and adult development later. First things first. Here's a description of the four ultimate existential concerns, according to Irving Yalom...

Death: Human beings are unique creatures in that we are conscious that we will eventually die. This awareness causes us a great deal of psychological pain and can lead to the development of pathology. Responding to this reality in a healthy and positive way, meanwhile, is one of the great challenges of adulthood, which I've already begun to write about here. Yalom believed death to the be the biggest of the four ultimate concerns. 

Isolation: We are all, ultimately, alone. We can use language and other symbols to describe our lives to others as best as we can, but no one will ever fully understand our individual experience. Responding to this unbridgeable gap in a healthy way, then, becomes another major challenge of adulthood, which I've written a little bit about here. The difficulties we experience in connecting with others often brings us to either cut off relations with friends and family, or develop unrealistically close, co-dependent relationships. Developing a healthy acceptance of isolation, on the other hand, can propel us towards new heights of emotional and relational functioning.

Meaninglessness: The universe has no inherent meaning other than that which we bring to it. All of this meaning that we create (our understanding of ourselves and our world, our values, our spirituality, our goals, etc) gets captured in our individual identities. Finding peace with the existential concern of meaninglessness, then, requires one to develop a healthy identity, which I've already written about some here. The goal is to develop an understanding of ourselves and the world that is accepting of the full picture, but also affirming of our own unique perspective.

Freedom: This is probably the most difficult and complex aspect of existentialism. Mainly because the word has a great many meanings, and engenders a great deal of political, philosophical, and religious debate. The main thing to consider for this post is that existentialists use the term in a very specific way. The existential concern of freedom refers to the reality that, as humans, we are all capable of a broad range of actions, and that experiencing this level of freedom, and the responsibility it brings, is an uncomfortable reality. While it may seem strange to some that 'freedom' is considered an existential concern (it is often assumed to be a desired state), if one considers some extreme examples - that we can, for example, gamble our life savings away in a game of poker, or try meth for the first time, or cross the median and drive headfirst straight into traffic - the anxiety we all experience in response to our existential freedom becomes more clear. Like I said, though, this is probably the most complicated of Yalom's four concerns, and worthy of a bit more attention than I can devote here. So keep an eye out for a full post on 'existential freedom' in the not so distant future.

Well. That's it for now. The four existential concerns. Pretty intense stuff. Next up, I'll be working on an interactive page for my model of existential adult development.