Irvin Yalom’s Existential Psychotherapy has a chapter that’s been ringing in my ears ever since I first read it. Meaning and motivation feel like abstract and enormous areas to explore in therapy. Indeed, every concept in psychotherapy tries to organize the endlessly complex experience of life. It’s quite the task. And death! How does death show up in life? We’re all afraid of it, but we tend not to think about every day because it’s too frightening. So how does this core anxiety show up when it’s stored so deep inside? Yalom has an answer that clicks for me.
The drive to be special
Yalom posits in his chapter “Death and Psychopathology” that individuals are driven by two forces to soothe death anxiety. Each person lives on a spectrum between these two poles. In the first mode, the individual believes “deeply in his specialness and personal inviolability.” The person is driven to demonstrate a belief in their omnipotence – they are staunchly independent and individualist. To them, this is what a full life means, and it assuages an unconscious fear of death. For those living in this way, to be dependent or to be still is an equivalent of death. This way of living is adaptive because it allows development of a sense of mastery and control, however it makes stillness and interdependence uncomfortable. Life becomes doing. Just existing in inaction is intolerable. For someone inflexibly stuck at this individualistic, omnipotent end of the spectrum, they may develop “aggression, delusions, expansive and euphoric dieas of grandeur, paranoid syndromes, and depressive compulsive character structures.”
The drive to merge
On the other end of the spectrum is the drive to fuse. Yalom calls this living for a fantasy of “an ultimate rescuer.” The individual seeks to “merge with another whom one perceives as the dispenser of protection and meaning in life.” This “dominant other” is the salve for death anxiety. Death is the ulimate loneliness. It’s frightening. So the use of a “ultimate rescuer” to feel better is an easy trick for the mind. But, when the fantasy collapses and this ultimate rescuer – whether a parent or a partner or any individual – fails, the person is adrift and overwhelmed. Those stuck far on this end of the spectrum are “more likely to feel inadequate, to be more anxious, hostile, fatigued, confused, and depressed.”
Someone driven for specialness “lusts for power” while a person driven for merger “longs for submission.” Beneath both of these drives is the fear of death. We’re all afraid of death. Of course, there are many reasons why someone may be staunchly independent and fear closeness. There are many reasons why someone may freely remain in a relationship that taxes their selfhood. Thinking about these two life engines can help you dip your toe into exploring your relationship with death and the meaning of life. This isn’t intended to pathologize you, it’s simply information about what drives you and what you fear, at a deeper level.
What pushes anyone to do anything in life? What is in your engine? What is making you go?