In truth, this low-grade and chronic depression is not necessarily a bad thing. As the saying goes, “Once you ring a bell, you cannot unring it.” Like so many others, I continue to strive to manage how these issues impact me, as well as the depression that often accompanies them. I have come to realize that once one becomes aware of and involved in thinking about the many existential issues, one cannot then go back to one’s former life. The result is that now, whenever I think about existential depression, it rekindles within me, bringing into conscious awareness thoughts and feelings that, most of the time, I would rather ignore or avoid-thoughts of hopelessness and despair for our world. There were several periods in my life during which I was so “down” that it was truly an effort to see any happiness around me. Like so many leaders in various fields, particularly those men and women who have a deep passion for a particular “cause”-whether connected to religion, government, healthcare, the environment, or education-I experienced it because I saw how the world was not the way I thought it should be or could be. In fact, I knew it on a personal level, for I have lived it. Although his theory of positive disintegration is highly relevant to understanding existential depression-as well as many other issues-I myself did not become aware of Dabrowski’s work until about 10 years ago.īut long before I knew about Dabrowski’s theory, I knew about and understood existential depression. Nonetheless, he remains largely unknown in North America, despite his many publications and even though he was friends with prominent psychologists such as Maslow and Mowrer. I will focus my discussion here on characteristics of people, especially the gifted, that may lead them to spontaneous existential depression, relate these to Dabrowski’s theory of positive disintegration, as well as to other psychological theories, and then discuss some specific ways to manage existential depression.Ī Polish psychiatrist and psychologist, Kazimierz Dabrowski worked and wrote prolifically about his ideas in the years from 1929 until his death in 1980, living part of his life in the United States and in Canada, as well as in Europe. Whether existential depression and its resulting disintegration become positive or whether they stay negative depends on many factors. Sadly, sometimes the outcome of this process may lead to chronic breakdown and disintegration. In Dabrowski’s approach, individuals who “fall apart” must find some way to “put themselves back together again,” either by reintegrating at their previous state or demonstrating growth by reintegrating at a new and higher level of functioning. This spontaneous existential depression is also, I believe, typically associated with the disintegration experiences referred to by Dabrowski (Daniels & Piechowski, 2009 Mendaglio, 2008a). They become keenly aware of their smallness in the larger picture of existence, and they feel helpless to fix the many problems that trouble them. This kind of sensitive awareness and idealism makes them more likely to ask themselves difficult questions about the nature and purpose of their lives and the lives of those around them. People who are bright are usually more intense, sensitive, and idealistic, and they can see the inconsistencies and absurdities in the values and behaviors of others (Webb, Gore, Amend, & DeVries, 2007). It has been my experience that gifted and talented persons are more likely than those who are less gifted to experience spontaneous existential depression as an outgrowth of their mental and emotional abilities and interactions with others. While not universal, the experience of existential depression can challenge an individual’s very survival and represents both a great challenge and at the same time an opportunity-an opportunity to seize control over one’s life and turn the experience into a positive life lesson-an experience leading to personality growth. For other people, the experience of existential depression seemingly arises spontaneously it stems from their own perception of life, their thoughts about the world and their place in it, as well as the meaning of their life. Their ordeal highlights for them the transient nature of life and the lack of control that we have over so many events, and it raises questions about the meaning of our lives and our behaviors. When people undergo a great trauma or other unsettling event-they have lost a job or a loved one dies, for example-their understanding of themselves or of their place in the world often disintegrates, and they temporarily “fall apart,” experiencing a type of depression referred to as existential depression. If you face reality too much, it kills you. You’ve got to keep selling yourself a bill of goods, and some people are better at lying to themselves than others.
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