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Existential Approaches to Personality

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Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences

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Synonyms

Individual differences in existential psychology

Definition

Existential psychology emphasizes the role of fundamental aspects of the human experience, including mortality, the search for meaning, freedom, and individual choice.

Introduction

Existential psychology focuses on core aspects of human existence, such as death, isolation, and meaninglessness. Existential psychologists aim to reconstruct the inner world of human experience while exploring the more abstract issues associated with humanity’s place in the universe. The work of early existential philosophers including Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Martin Heidegger, who expounded on topics such as the anxiety inherent to the human condition, free will, and the concept of being, respectively, formed the starting point for existential psychology. These philosophical ideas were later integrated into facets of psychology by prominent figures such as Otto Rank and Viktor Frankl.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Rachel E. Menzies

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  1. Rachel E. Menzies
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Correspondence to Rachel E. Menzies .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Ilan Dar-Nimrod

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Menzies, R. (2020). Existential Approaches to Personality. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_1466

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