SEVEN PAPERS ON EXISTENTIAL ANALYSIS ... - Wagner College

the death of a parent or child, being married, being divorced from one's spouse, being
confirmed or graduated, falling in love, or religious conversion. Then there are the
unaccountable, dramatic transformations which seem to defy explanation that are generally
referred to as psychotic process.
Undoubtedly, all of these distortions of existence affect one's physiology, including
neurophysiology, but none of them can be explained causally solely in terms of changes in the
chemistry of the brain and nervous system. Developmentalism has dominated psychology since
Freud introduced his theory of psychosexual stages in 1905 (6). Basing his modification of Freud's
theory of psychosexual stages on the principle of epigenesis in embryology, Erik Erikson further
encouraged the developmentalist perspective with his psychosocial theory. Similarly, Jean
Piaget and, later, Lawrence Kohlberg extended the account of human psychological
development to include cognitive and moral life. Essentially, the developmentalist view claims
that change in human life is continuous, seamless, without breaks. Following the claim of
Newtonian physics that nature does not make leaps but rather flows (natura non facit saltum),
developmentalism in psychology must reject the view that change can be sudden and
complete, that what one was an instant ago can suddenly be gone, a thing of the past. What
happens in the physical world (if, indeed, that is the way things happen, a claim that quantum
physics challenges) need not be replicated in the psychological realm, however, assuming that
we make the distinction between the physical and the psychological.
Without giving the view presented here a name, I would say there is very good evidence
that the important existential changes in life occur tout court, all at once, globally, entirely
transforming the individual's existence. Existential change is not a matter of development but
one of abrupt transformation. Existence and world, being coterminous, change at once. On the
other hand, it is usually the case that we only slowly come to know and fully appreciate what
has happened in such moments of change, but that does not imply that the changeover was
not sudden, "in the twinkling of an eye." Like the person who has lost a limb in an accident or
someone who sees that she is no longer young, change has occurred in existence, irrevocably.
But the change may not be fully fathom for weeks or months (sometimes, never). Often enough,
disbelief interferes with full realization and comprehension of what has occurred and this is all
that is registered.
At times of existential vulnerability, the individual's world can be expected to change.
Some of these changes are normative, for example, in terms of physical development or
revolutions in the cultural institutions to which the individual is beholden. My favorite examples
here are, in the physical realm, pubarche and menopause, and in the cultural realm, legally
significant anniversaries (reaching age 18 or 21 in the West), being pronounced guilty of a crime,
being awarded a degree, being diagnosed with a physical or mental illness. Other examples,
which are purer in the sense that they are more easily identifiable as existential in nature are the
boy's recognition that he is no longer a boy but is now a man, a girl's experience of now being a
woman, the assumption of a different theoretical orientation, religious conversion, or falling in
love with someone.
he resulting changeover is holistic. The world changes and the existence of the individual
as clearing is modified fundamentally. The clearing effected by a human being and what is
illuminated are the same. Heidegger's term Lichtung was first applied to this, the essential feature
of existence (Da-sein). A lot of mischief has been brought to play with the term Lichtung, which
in idiomatic German means a glade or clearing. The English word 'glade' best resonates with
Heidegger's usage. Like a clearing, a glade is a rural phenomenon. Both refer to a bright area
within an otherwise dark forest. But the word 'glade' was also applied to brightness elsewhere,
even in the sky, where it referred to such natural events as the aurora borealis, the tail of a
comet, or the brightened area around a streak of lightning. In a glade, what was in the dark has
now become visible. What was there to be seen is now seen, thanks to the lightening effect of
the clearing.