Abstract
Existentialism and Depressive Realism (DR) share some important concerns, most notably meaninglessness, absurdity, death, self-deception and free will/freedom. Within existential philosophy and therapy there is an understanding of the difficult givens of being human. However, because these difficulties relate to our freedom and possibilities, existentialism, unlike DR, can offer a positive and hopeful response. Unlike DR, most of which seems to affirm an essentialist view of ‘truth’ and ‘reality’, existentialism prioritizes our ‘way’ of ‘being’ over an essential human nature, which leads to an openness to individual human experience, likely to include positive elements.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
John Pollard has been an integrative counsellor for 20 years and graduated from the Philosophy Department at Essex University in 1993. He wrote the chapter on ‘Authenticity and inauthenticity’ for Existential Perspectives on Human Issues: A Handbook for Therapeutic Practice (Emmy Van Deurzen and Claire Arnold-Baker [Eds.], 2005).