16 March 2024
Whereas Sigmund Freud was a leader in what is known as the first wave of psychotherapy, Carl Rogers (1902-1987), was amongst the vanguard of the second wave. As the second wave opposed a psychopathological focus, Rogers turned, like Abraham Maslow (1908-1970), Viktor Frankl (1905-1997), and many others, toward what was positive and aspirational about human beings (Seligman & Reichenberg, 2014). That change in focus is sometimes referred to as a humanism—I believe, accurately—and preceded positive psychology.
Both Frankl and his cultural contemporary, George Steiner (1929-2020) were Jews deeply wounded and affected by the Nazi death camps.
Steiner [was] not a psychologist but a [multinational] cultural historian perhaps best described by a British newspaper as a polyglot and polymath. His importance to this project is his unrelenting insistence that it is the responsibility of the generations who come after the death camps to account for these and to do better (Steiner, 1958/1977). This is the darkest side of humanity; an ability to be coerced, dogmatized, and brainwashed into acts of unspeakable cruelty but—this is also a dimension (or cluster of dimensions) of the self—and in agreement with Steiner, one that must be accounted for if we are to prevent yet another (seemingly compulsive) repetition of history.
(Chalykoff, 2023, p. 9)
Steiner kind of broke my heart. That break came with his observation of our necessarily revised vision of humanity, post-1945:
We come after, and that is the nerve of our condition. After the unprecedented ruin of humane values and hopes by the political bestiality of our age. […] We cannot act now, be it as critics or merely as rational beings, as if nothing of vital relevance had happened to our sense of the human possibility, as if the extermination by hunger or violence of seventy million men, women, and children in Europe and Russia between 1914 and 1945 had not altered, profoundly, the quality of our awareness. We cannot pretend that Belsen is irrelevant to the responsible life of the imagination. What man has inflicted on man, in very recent time, has affected the writer’s primary material—the sum and potential of human behaviour—and it presses on the brain with a new darkness. Moreover, it puts in question the primary concepts of a literary, humanistic culture. The ultimate of political barbarism grew from the core of Europe…Barbarism prevailed on the very ground of Christian humanism, or Renaissance culture and classic rationalism. We know that some of the men who devised and administered Auschwitz had been taught to read Shakespeare and Goethe, and continued to do so.
(Steiner, 1977, pp. 4-5)
What you are currently holding, dear reader, is my first response to Steiner’s epistemic challenge: to maintain awareness of Thanatos while still seeking to embrace humanism.
As one can see from their lifespans, Aaron Antonovsky (1923-1994) and George Steiner (1929-2020) shared themes, years, and sometimes foci. The first half of those years saw the rise and popularization of existentialism, which peaked after WWII (Audi, 1998). It is rare that freedom, as a source of neurosis, arises in my practice but meaning, within life and death, arises often. That said, I advocate rational rejection of Sartre et al.’s nihilism (“n. 1. Metaphysics. A doctrine that nothing exists, is knowable, or can be communicated” (Morris, 1975, p. 887). In contraposition I would argue that existence exists, is knowable, and can be communicated well. The accountability emphasized by Steiner and Antonovsky go to the heart of logos*.
Antonovsky’s research appeared in the second half of the 20th century.
…Aaron Antonovsky (1923-1994) wanted to understand how and why 29% of his tested Holocaust survivors had positive emotional health. In the process of untangling this, he created a concept used in mental hygiene called salutogenesis (salus, Latin for health + genesis, Greek for birth). Salutogenesis has one major premise and three ancillary premises. The major premise is that stress must violate one’s sense of coherence before it can cause harm. The three ancillary premises define one’s sense of coherence: comprehensibility: the conviction that life makes sense, is orderly, and predictable; manageability: the belief that you have the resources to keep your life under control; and meaningfulness: a take on life as interesting, satisfying, and worth caring about.
(Chalykoff, 2021, p. 1)
Salutogenesis is interesting in itself, its origins, and its implications. The primary implication comes from the major premise that stress must violate one’s sense of coherence in order to foster chaos (do harm). When paired with resilience* salutogenesis becomes a volitional issue, a matter of choices i.e., we can choose to improve, or we can choose not to improve our lives.
More precisely, as the APA definition of resilience indicates, cognitive flexibility is a key component of healthier responses to injustice, misfortune, and the tedium of administrivia. And as the APA further argues, our views and engagements with life are also flexible. If we maintain an active awareness of that flexibility, we can change our perspective on challenges that arise. We can also change our capacity to meet those challenges. This is human agency.
Antonovsky’s criterion, the violation of one’s sense of coherence, is a necessary condition of agency. And this is fascinating because, within that criterion, are both order and chaos,* perhaps the two most fundamental conditions of life on Earth. And when we look at the meaning of chaos we find disorder, confusion, and infinity. Compare those three words to the definition of nihilism, as above, A doctrine that nothing exists, is knowable, or can be communicated. Nihilism is, in itself, a violation of a sense of coherence i.e., if there is nothing, that nothingness is (ironically) defined as disorder, confusion, and infinity. The takeaway here is the very human need of ordered coherence, and that we have choices about our own cognitive, emotional, and behavioural flexibility/rigidity.
To be continued next week.
Dan Chalykoff is a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying). He works at CMHA-Hamilton and Healing Pathways Counselling, Oakville, where his focus is clients with addiction, trauma, burnout, and major life changes. He writes to increase (and share) his own evolving understanding of ideas. Since 2017, he has facilitated two voluntary weekly group meetings of SMART Recovery. Please email him (danchalykoff@hotmail.com) to be added to or removed from the Bcc’d emailing list.
Definitions
Chaos “n. 1. Any condition or place of total disorder or confusion. 2. Often capital C. the disordered state of unformed matter and infinite space supposed by some religious cosmological views to have existed prior to the ordered universe. 3. Obsolete. A vast abyss or chasm. [Latin, from Greek, khaos, empty space…]” (Morris, 1975, p. 225).
Logos, n. account of, understanding of. Meaning. More fully, n. 1.a. Cosmic reason, affirmed in ancient Greek philosophy as the source of world order and intelligibility. b. Reason or an expression of reason in words or things. [Greek, logos, speech, word, reason.] (Morris, 1975, p. 767).
Resilience, “n. the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands. A number of factors contribute to how well people adapt to adversities, predominant among them (a) the ways in which individuals view and engage with the world, (b) the availability and quality of social resources, and (c) specific coping strategies. Psychological research demonstrates that the resources and skills associated with more positive adaptation (i.e., greater resilience) can be cultivated and practiced” (American Psychological Association, 2024).
References
Audi, R. (Ed.) (1998). The Cambridge dictionary of philosophy. Cambridge University Press.
Chalykoff, D. R. (2023, April 21). Final Paper: The Self Instantiated: Claire Nuer. (Unpublished).
Chalykoff, D. R. (December 1, 2021). Coherence and salutogenesis. https://understandings.ca/2021/12/01/coherence-salutogenesis/
Morris, W. (Ed.) (1975). The Heritage illustrated dictionary of the English language. American Heritage Publishing Co, Inc.
Seligman, L. & Reichenberg, L. W. (2014). Theories of counseling and psychotherapy: Systems, strategies, and skills. Pearson Education Inc.
Steiner, G. (1977). Language and silence: Essays on language, literature, and the inhuman. Atheneum.
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