Emmy van Deurzen's Workshop for Therapy Challenges in Stratford upon Avon, July 2014, on love, hate and other emotions.

1. Love, Hate and Other Emotions
Existential Relationship Therapy in
Practice
Emmy van Deurzen
Therapy Challenges
Stratford July 2014

2. Facebook and LinkedIn: Existential Therapy
www.societyofpsychotherapy.org.uk
www.existentialpsychotherapy.net
www.emmyvandeurzen.com
www.dilemmas.org
www.nspc.org.uk

3. Emmy van Deurzen
PhD, MPhil, MPsych, CPsychol, FBPsS, UKCPF, FBACP, ECP, HPC reg
•Visiting Professor Middlesex University -UK
•Director Dilemma Consultancy
•Director Existential Academy
•Principal New School of Psychotherapy
and Counselling - London

4. 13 Books

5. Existential Perspectives on
Relationship Therapy: 2013
• Edited with Susan
Iacovou

6. Living with love and its shadows
• What is love?
• Why does it matter?
• How do we make love happen?
• What are its drawbacks and shadows?
• How to live with love?

7. What is Love?
• To be intent on knowing, respecting and valuing an other for
what they actually are and can be
• Letting them be and live as fully and freely as possible, keeping
their welfare at heart, as our own, in a dedicated, attentive
and uncompromising way . I-Thou. Cherishing. Challenging.

8. Love is not just a feeling
• It is an action, an attitude, an intention, a
movement, a way of being
• Love is the movement towards the other in the
spirit of care, affection, commitment, loyalty,
generosity, kindness, intimacy, tenderness,
attachment, trust and truth.

9. Love is a particular kind of
intentionality
• The world is not comprehensible, but it is
embraceable: through the embracing of one of its
beings. (Buber)
• Scheler: humanitarian feelings are always
accompanied by a hatred of the world. Humanity
is loved in general in order to avoid having to love
anybody in particular.
• Albert Camus, The Rebel, A. Bower, trans. (1956), p. 18
• There is not enough love in the world to
squander it on anything but human beings.

10. Shadows and drawbacks
• True love requires mutuality
• We cannot truly love unless we love ourselves first
• Risks inherent in loving: it is a very absorbing activity which takes
much energy
• Our good will and availability are taken advantage of
• Our hearts may be broken
• We will neglect others we do not love

11. People are confused about love
• Re-establish communication
• Mutual respect-support
• Friendship and love
• Understanding
• Alterity
• Collaboration
• Mutuality

12. Role of Existential Couple Therapist:
work in synergy
Therapist
Partner
A
Partner
B

13. Balancing pros and cons after
structural analysis
Pros Cons

14. The quieter you become
the more you are able to hear
Rumi
• Re-establish peace, calm and willingness to listen

15. Existential Couple Work: aims
• Focus on shared meaning and human and life issues
• Values of couple and how they provoke tension and
conflict
• See conflict and daily conflict resolution as a basis of
relationship
• Dialogue, understanding and respect as the
objective: creating a good space in the world
• Mutuality and reciprocity as a way of overcoming
isolation

16. Idealized images of romantic love

17. Christian Love

18. Love as an altar of self-sacrifice

19. Jaspers’ Loving Struggle

20. Existential couple work
• Teach dialogue and listening
• Allow each partner access to what the other partner
feels, dreads and hopes for in private
• Create a safe space where partners are able to speak
freely and with the confidence of being respected,
listened to and understood.
• Provide translation when they do not hear each other.

21. Love’s executioner or Love’s ally?

22. To understand love is to understand
life in all its paradoxes
• Conflict, opposition and change are core forces
• You can let it destroy you or let it teach you
• Relationships are about tension: fission or fusion
• Conflicts are not just with others but with ourselves
• Conflict does not have to lead to combat

23. The cycle of change
• Change happens naturally
• It is inevitable for renewal
• We try to prevent it to create stability
and certainty
• This is against nature: dams up the flow
of life
• Leads to fermentation and festering
• Rediscover change as a natural cycle

24. Evolution and development: larva, caterpillar,
chrysalis, butterfly

25. Relationships and people change
• Loss and transition are about breakdown of the
old:
• Instead of breaking down, push through the block
to the next level: breakthrough
• In the process we become stronger
• Relationships are tested: rupture or consolidate

26. Couples try to change each other by:
1. Secretly wishing for change
2. Getting angry and protesting
3. Getting upset, even suicidal
4. Demanding or imposing change by bullying
or seducing
5. Setting ultimata
6. Reasoning and trying to persuade
7. Arguing a personal case
8. Withdrawing and enduring
9. Getting support from others
10. Giving up

27. Female evolution has shifted power
balance

28. Disappointment about change

29. Negativity in depicting men

30. Not patriarchy or matriarchy: equality and
mutuality

31. Fairness and equality, not oppression and
exploitation

33. Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir: a different view
of relationship
a dangerous liaison, Seymour-Jones

34. "to maintain throughout all deviations from the main path a 'certain fidelity’,
de Beauvoir.
Necessary and contingent loves

35. Sartre’s lack.
• The existence of desire as a human fact
is sufficient to prove that human reality
is a lack. (Sartre, Being and Nothingness:87)
• We are nothing trying to be something.

36. The Look: Sartre’s Other
• The Other looks at me and as such
he holds the secret of my being, he
knows what I am. Thus the profound
meaning of my being is outside of
me, imprisoned in an absence. The
Other has the advantage over me.
• (Sartre, Being and Nothingness:363)

37. Sartre’s possession
• Thus the lover does not desire to possess
the beloved as one possesses a thing; he
demands a special type of appropriation.
He wants to possess a freedom as a

38. Competitive relationships
• Domination: sadism.
• Submission: masochism.
• Withdrawal: indifference.

39. Cooperative relationships
• Mutuality: reciprocity-equality
• Generosity: giving of oneself
• Collaboration: working together (sparring partners)

40. Relationship is essential to freedom
• “A man alone in the world would be paralyzed
by...the vanity of all of his goals. But man is not
alone in the world” (Pyrrhus and Cinéas, 42),
• The other, as free, is immune to my power
• Common commitment to a shared goal
• I can only be truly free to pursue my cause if I can
persuade others to join it.

41. Simone de Beauvoir the second sex,
the woman in love identifies
• The supreme goal of human love, as of
mystical love, is identification with the loved
one. The measure of values, the truth of the
world are in his consciousness: hence it is not
enough to serve him. The woman in love tries
to see with his eyes.

42. Couples may have different views of
love and life

43. What does it mean to live as a couple?

44. Space in the relationship
Physical space
Social space
Personal space
Spiritual space

45. Four dimensions and couples
• Physical: how do we divide physical space? How do our
bodies relate to each other? Sex? Cuddles? Comfort?
Possessions? Nature? Cosmos?
• Social: how do we relate to other people together?
How are we situated in public life? Cultural pursuits?
Friends? Family?
• Personal: how do we define ourselves in relation to
each other? Do our private worlds connect? Intimacy?
Loyalty?
• Spiritual: what are the values we adhere to as a
couple? Personal beliefs? Religion? What ideas are
important? Can we challenge each other?

46. Rules for good relationships
• Respect each other’s authority & responsibility
• Make as many demands as contributions
• Give as much appreciation as criticism
• Agree on how time and money are spent
• Be fair to self and other
• Agree on values and objectives for future
• Let conflict and controversy be your guide
• Teach and learn from each other
• Be loyal and make relating a priority
• Have good physical connection
• Communicate regularly
• Be yourself as well as together
• Have a joint narrative and ideal

47. Your struggles develop your strengths
Mohandas Gandhi

48. Your future is as bright as your
willingness to engage and learn

49. Loving your Life
• Loving your fate and destiny in all its
manifestations
• (Nietzsche’s Amor Fati)

50. How to create value in life?
• Through committed and engaged action
• Step by step
• Diligently proceeding no matter what
challenges come on your path
• Steady progress comes from undaunted focus
on your project
• Flexibility and finding joy in the process rather
than aiming for success or happiness

51. Existential therapy is about a
different way of life
A psychology for life, not just for
pathology or happiness
Existential couple therapy: how to live
together to make life worthwhile

52. What is Love?

53. Childhood
• Yum
• Yuck
• We like what feels of value, pretty, pleasant,
interesting and good
• We dislike what feels wrong, dangerous,
unpleasant and bad

54. Different types of love and their
shadows
• Narcissism (self love) : solipsism
• Need love (child/physical need) : addiction
• Infatuation (obsessive): blindness
• Erotic love (Eros/sensual love): objectification
• Romantic love/emotional love: possessiveness
• Companionship/community (Philia): betrayal
• Neighbourly/hospitality (Xenia): hubris
• Maternal/parental love (Storge): smothering
• Divine/Mystical/Unconditional love (Agape) :sacrifice

55. Helen Fisher’s stages
• Lust : mating (1.5-3 years)
pheromones/amphetamines: pleasure centre.
• Attraction: specific focus of mate
• Attachment: bonding: oxytocin/vasopressin

56. Robert Sternberg’s triangular theory
• Intimacy: bonding
• Commitment: permanence
• Passion: sexual attraction and romance
• Rubin:
• Attachment,
• Caring
• Intimacy.

57. Sternberg’s overview

58. Existential Love
• Love is an action (Fromm)
• Not just a feeling
• We need to work at it
• It demands commitment, dedication,
devotion, caring, loyalty, understanding,
freedom
• Seeing and knowing the other and letting be
• I/Thou rather than I/It

59. Onto-dynamics
Learning to live in line with the laws of life
Paradox, conflict, difficulty and dilemmas are
our daily companions
When crisis comes we need to have the
courage to descend to rock bottom
From there we can build something better

60. The art of living is to be equal to all our
emotions and experiences rather than to
select and cultivate only the safe or pleasant
ones
There are many opposites of love:
Indifference, hate, suffocation, and
most of all: fear

61. Four kinds of ways of being conscious
• Loss of
value
• Aspire
to value
• Threat
to value
• Gain
value
approach fight
flightfreeze

62. pride
jealousy
anger-
despair
fear
sorrowshame
envy
hope-
desire
love
joy
Sadness
Low
Happiness
High
Anxiety
Excitement
Engagement
Depression
Disappointment
Disengagement
Compass of
emotions
evd 10

63. Overview of conflicts, challenges and paradoxes on four dimensions
World Umwelt : where? Mitwelt : how? Eigenwelt: who? Uberwelt: why?
Physical:
survival
Nature:
Life/
Death
Things:
Pleasure/
Pain
Body:
Health/
Illness
Cosmos:
Harmony/
Chaos
Social:
affiliation
Society:
Love/
Hate
Others:
Dominance/Sub
mission
Ego:
Acceptance/
Rejection
Culture:
Belonging/
Isolation
Personal:
identity
Person:
Identity/Freedom
Me:
Perfection/
Imperfection
Self:
Integrity/
Disintegration
Consciousness:
Confidence/
Confusion
Spiritual:
meaning
Infinite:
Good/
Evil
Ideas:
Truth/
Untruth
Spirit:
Meaning/
Futility
Conscience:
Right/
Wrong

64. Paradoxes of human existence
Deurzen and Adams
challenge gain loss
Physical Death and
pain
Life to the full Unlived life or constant
fear
Social Loneliness
and rejection
Understand and
be understood
Bullying or being
bullied
Personal Weakness
and failure
Strength and
stamina
Narcissism or self
destruction
Spiritual Meaning-
Lessness and
futility
Finding an ethics
to live by
Fanaticism or apathy

65. We are never but an aspect, an element, a part
of a wider context. Relationship is essential to
our very survival and inspires everything we do.
(Deurzen, 1997: 95)

66. Kierkegaard
• Most people are subjective toward
themselves and objective toward all others,
frightfully objective sometimes –
but the task is precisely to be objective toward
oneself and subjective toward all others.
• (Kierkegaard, 1998: 72)

67. Don’t cling, don’t be casual

68. www.icecap.org.uk
www.dilemmas.org
www.nspc.org.uk
www.existentialacademy.com
www.emmyvandeurzen.com
www.existentialpsychotherapy.net
www.societyofpsychotherapy.org.uk
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