Absurdity and Being in Itself

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Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 2001, 8, 367–372

© 2001 Blackwell Science Ltd 367

Absurdity and being-in-itself. The third phase of phenomenology:Jean-Paul Sartre and existential psychoanalysis

A. JONES

School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

JONES A. (2001) Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 8, 367–372

Absurdity and being-in-itself. The third phase of phenomenology: Jean-Paul

Sartre and existential psychoanalysis

Existentialism and phenomenology are closely linked philosophies. Existentialism preceded

phenomenology and is not considered a single philosophy but several schools of thought,

both theist and atheist in thinking, which grew out of a reaction to traditional philosophy.

The development of phenomenology is divided into three separate phases ultimately

merging with existentialism. Following Second World War, the phenomenological move-ment gained momentum in France and encompassed many of the ideas of Edmund Husserl

and Martin Heidegger. Gabriel Marcel, Maurice Merlieu-Ponty and, notably, Jean-Paul

Sartre established a ‘third phase’ of phenomenology. This paper explores some of Sartre’s

ideas related to being and later applications through Medard Boss and R.D. Laing, and

offers a short illustrative case vignette that shows the concepts as they might apply to

nursing practice. Consideration is finally given to existential psychoanalysis as an applied

research methodology

Keywords: dying, existentialism, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, research, serious illness

Accepted for publication: 1 February 2001

Correspondence:

A. Jones

School of Nursing, Midwifery

and Health Visiting

University of Manchester

Manchester

UK

Introduction

‘It is in Anguish that we become conscious of our

freedom’ (Jean Paul Sartre)

This paper is concerned with the third phase in the de-

velopment of phenomenology and specifically some of

the ideas of Jean-Paul Sartre, who challenged conventional

psychoanalysis and synthesized many ideas from phenom-

enology, existential hermeneutics and Marxism to form anexistential psychoanalysis. Ideas related to existentialism

and Freudian-derived psychoanalysis are also considered in

the context of qualitative fieldwork reports and are linked

to a case vignette. The discussion is meant to offer health

professionals, grappling with phenomenological method-

ologies, an accessible introductory text.

John-Paul Sartre: a brief biography

Jean-Paul Sartre was a philosopher who illustrated

complex ideas concerning human existence. He was born

in Paris, France on 21 June 1905 and died in Paris on 15

April 1980. Sartre was a student at the Ecole Normale

Superieure, where he met Simone de Beauvoir who was

to become a fellow writer and a source of inspiration.

He later continued his education at the Universities of

Berlin and Freiburg. Sartre began his professional life as a

secondary school teacher in the 1930s, at which time his

interest in existential philosophies grew. His ideas were

concerned with personal freedom, believing that a person’sexistence is not separate but related to others.

Scholars of Sartre’s rationalist philosophy might feel

affronted by a condensed and selective review of his

thoughts, as is offered in this paper. Nevertheless, I attempt

to apply some of Sartre’s ideas to the benefit of professional

practice.

I use an illustrative case vignette to show the work of

a community palliative care nurse and how she strives to

make sense of bewildering events, which transpired in

poignant circumstances. The account concerned a man’s



A. Jones

368 © 2001 Blackwell Science Ltd, Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 8, 367–372

imminent death and the distress of notable others trying to

bring some measure of relief to a forlorn situation.

The case example addresses issues of serious illness and

dying, yet fundamentally concerns mental health, human

existence and well-being, and so is an exemplar of pro-

fessional practice. An exemplar, as described by Benner

(1984), is an illustration of professional practice repre-

senting more than one meaning. The outstanding featureof an exemplar is that it can be related to other events with

seemingly different characteristics and so the embodying

principles might conceivably inform different areas of pro-

fessional practice.

Phenomenology

Phenomenology is a branch of philosophy concerned with

understanding human existence and can be approximately

divided into three separate phases, ultimately merging

with existentialism. First was the preparatory phase and

included the pioneers of phenomenology, Franz Brentano

(1838–1917) and Carl Stumpf (1848–1936). The second is

often called the German phase and Edmund Husserl

(1859–1938), Brentano’s pupil, was a leading and influen-

tial figure. Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) similarly

studied under Edmund Husserl, yet eschewed many of his

ideas. Later, when Martin Heidegger was to become the

Rector of the University of Frieburg, he rejected Husserl

also, because he was a Jew. Heidegger revised phenome-

nology to include ontology and the way phenomena

become evident through unconcealment. Along with his

student, Hans Georg-Gadamer, Heidegger developedphilosophical hermeneutics.

The third phase

Following the outbreak of the Second World War, phenom-

enology gained popularity in France, where Martin Heideg-

ger’s beliefs were perceived as authoritative. The marriage of

Edmund Husserl’s ideas about phenomenology to existen-

tialism embraced many influential figures including Gabriel

Marcel (1889–1973), Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–61),

and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–80), and so established a thirdphase in phenomenological philosophy. Marcel and

Merleau-Ponty viewed phenomenology as a way through

which to understand human reality in a metaphysical sense,

while for Sartre, it offered a means to explore philosophy

and politics through the medium of art and literature.

The development of Sartre’s ideas

Sartre’s ideas, like Husserl’s before him, developed through

three phases. Sartre’s first phase encompassed a morbid

period, arguably influenced by his experiences in the

French resistance during the Second World War. A second

phase in Sartre’s development, however, was characterized

by a lack of scepticism, when he adopted a more rigorous

and scholarly approach to his thinking. Sartre’s third phase

included ideas of both the phenomenology of Edmund

Husserl, and ontology, as expounded by Martin Heideg-

ger, and encompassing aspects of Marxism. It was throughthis development that he was to propose the idea of psy-

choanalytic existentialism and his major thesis Being

and Nothingness (Sartre 1956). Existential psychoanalysis

emphasizes human existence as characterized by thinking

(reflexion), freedom, choice and human responsibility.

Sartre’s ideas concerning existentialism

Existentialist ideas are regarded as philosophical attitudes,

more than empirically proven theories, and have influenced

phenomenology, some post-Freudian psychoanalysis, and

existential analysis. Sartre’s intellectual, philosophical and

literary contributions were derived from existential philos-

ophy, phenomenology and a critique of Sigmund Freud’s

ideas concerning psychoanalysis.

In the following passage, Iris Murdoch (1989) writes of

essential differences in Jean-Paul Sartre’s ideas and those

earlier of Sigmund Freud:

‘Roughly, existential psychoanalysis differs from the

Freudian variety in being less deterministic, and therein

less scientific, in that it involves reference to the future

as well as the past. A philosophy of time belongs in a

philosophy of man’ (p. 21).Sartre outlined a complex psychology encompassing

many interpretations of human existence. His discourses

on imagination and emotion were consequently steps

towards the final development of a psychology of human

existence (being-in-the-world ) and nothingness. Sartre’s

(1956) treatise Being and Nothingness contains a chapter

exploring ideas related to an existential psychoanalysis,

and his novels and plays are based on themes that concern

human struggles. Sartre’s first novel Nausea (La Nausee)

explores ideas concerning noticing situations for what they

are and in absurdity. The world is seen and understoodoutside of characteristic reality and as in Murdoch’s (1989)

words as ‘a fallen bedraggled place’.

For Sartre, authentic human existence evolves from

facing human despair. Freedom to choose emerges

from human anguish and he noted in L’Imaginaire that

‘the real is never beautiful’ (p. 245). Such is the richness of

Sartre’s writing that in 1964 he was awarded the Nobel

Prize for Literature, though he refused to accept it because

he felt that it would compromise his principles as a

writer.



Absurdity and being-in-itself

© 2001 Blackwell Science Ltd, Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 8, 367–372 369

For Sartre, existential psychoanalysis is concerned with

human givens and truths. Sartre (1956) proposes that

through conversation it is possible that:

‘comprehensible relations can unite to each other

various desires and various patterns of behaviours that

can bring light to certain concrete connections between

the subject of experience and situations experientially

defined’ (Sartre 1956, p. 568).Sartre nonetheless challenges the Husserlian postulate of

a descriptive psychology, believing that:

‘pure simple empirical description can only give us cat-

alogues and put us in the presence of pseudo irreducible

(the desire to write, to swim, a taste for adventure, jeal-

ousy, etc.). It is not enough in fact to draw up a list of

behaviour patterns, of drives and inclinations, it is nec-

essary also to decipher them; that is, it is necessary to

know how to question them. The research can only be

conducted to a specific method. It is this method we call

existential psychoanalysis’ (Sartre 1956, p. 568).

Being, according to Sartre, is a totality and so ontolog-

ical and therefore concerned with how we live in the world.

Sartre emphasises action and human responsibility as

important to meaningful human existence. Being is seen in

all human activity, even in trivial, superficial or seemingly

insignificant behaviours. Sartre’s contention is that all

human behaviour and mannerisms reveal something about

existence. Existential psychoanalysis is concerned with

deciphering behaviours and so opens them up to under-

standing allowing conceptual attributes to be made.

Sartre (1956) calls human insight being-for-itself. By dis-

engaging from uniformity and conformity, an event can beseen in-itself and for-itself , making all previous connections

seem absurd or have no meaning. The sense of things as

they should be is turned upside-down and we are merely

here in the world, neither super-ordinate nor subordinate,

and a sense of regularity and continuity can be lost.

Sartre (1956) proposed that empirical psychoanalysis

and existential psychoanalysis both search for fundamen-

tal attitudes that could not be expressed by simple or

logical definitions because they are before logic. Empirical

psychoanalysis is a means through which to find the

complex, a word that refers to any phenomena thatdetermines attitudes. Sartre used this term along with

polyvalence, which means many truths. Existential

psychoanalysis on the other hand attempts to detect the

original choice, which functions in a situation described by

Sartre as in-the-face-of-the-world. It draws together pre-

logical synthesis and provides a centre of reference for

what Sartre (1956) believed to be limitlessness meanings.

Sartre was closest to the philosopher Heidegger (1962)

in his belief that descriptive methods cannot show how we

live in the world and his ideas of experience suggest that

choice comes before logic. Concerning ideas about the

unconscious however, it is Brentano (1973) and the phe-

nomenology of Husserl (1962), whom Sartre (1956)

echoed in the following statement:

‘Existential psychoanalysis rejects the hypothesis of the

unconscious; it makes the psychic act coextensive with

consciousness but the fundamental project is fully expe-

rienced by the subject and hence wholly conscious, thatcertainly does not mean that by the same token it is

known by him; quite the contrary’ (p. 570).

Yet, the idea of project, Sartre used in the Heideggerian

sense as striving towards living authentically. As both verb

and noun, project refers to choice of a way of being moving

towards a future. Sartre called this for-itself , linked to good

faith or bad faith, which are expressions concerned with

living authentically or otherwise in the world. Although

disagreeing with many of aspects of Husserl’s thinking in

favour of Heidegger’s ideas, Sartre seemingly upheld the

idea of intentionality, which, derived from Husserl’s one

time mentor Franz Brentano, and means that conscious-

ness is directed towards something. Sartre (1956) sug-

gested, as well, that humanity cannot escape freedom and

so therefore can make choices concerning how to live while

assuming responsibility for those choices.

Sartre (1956) believed that human beings invest in a

world of ‘things’ to avoid the finitude of life, for example,

organizational structures, good causes, divine beings, other

people and personal achievements. Characteristically, fear

of personal freedom shows in a people conforming to cul-

turally prescribed ways of behaving, and so human exis-

tence is defined by specific codes of behaviour.Largely expounded through literature, Sartre’s (1956)

ideas have influenced the notable theorists who in various

ways have taken ideas from existentialism and phenome-

nology to compose a socio-psychoanalysis of human exis-

tence. For example, Medard Boss (1957) pioneered

Daseinsanalysis (an existentially oriented type of analysis).

Daseinsanalysis as described by Boss draws on the guiding

principles of psychoanalysis and Heideggerian existen-

tial phenomenology. Boss made significant contributions

to synthesizing Freudian-derived psychotherapy and

existential-phenomenological philosophy as a psychologi-cal approach and method.

A British variant of existential psychoanalyses was inti-

mately linked to the reputed antipsychiatry movement and

applied phenomenology to clinical practice. R.D. Laing,

for example, was a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who

was influenced by Sartre, existentialism, phenomenology

and psychoanalysis. Because he combined psychoanalysis

with existentialism, mysticism and politics, Laing was con-

sidered theoretically contradictory in many of his supposi-

tions and is typically referred to because of personal



A. Jones


excesses rather than his scholarship. Yet, he exerted a

notable influence on the development of existential-

phenomenological thinking as methods of psychoanalysis

and clinical practice within the UK.

In his first book for instance, The Divided Self , Laing

appealed to existential philosophy to reveal absurdity in

the experience of schizophrenia. According to Clarke

(1999), R.D. Laing challenged 1960s psychiatric conven-tion and physical management of people and proposed an

existential view of mental crisis in which self divides and

in part converts into insanity as a mechanism of defence

against a threatening world. Laing called liberally on the

ideas of philosophy, in particular Edmund Husserl, Martin

Heiddeger and Jean-Paul Sartre. He applied these ideas to

clinical work, to try to explain what it is to be schizo-

phrenic. Moreover, Laing described what it is like to be

entrapped in situations of social compliance, so losing

a sense of individuality. Such ideas could have useful

application outside of well-defined confines of mental

illness

Existential and psychoanalytic thinking applied

The following account illustrates some of the ideas dis-

cussed in this paper and shows an intensely sad situation

and ways in which a sense of meaning is grasped from

telling the narrative. Making sense of events as significant

communication is possible by moving outside usual cul-

tural boundaries. In the account of professional practice

that follows, a palliative care nurse describes what might

be considered absurd as understood by Sartre (1956), andseeing-things-for-themsel ves permeating distressing events.

Some circumstances and names have been subsequently

changed in the case vignette in such a way as not to alter

the events but to offer anonymity.

Illustrative narrative

Remember we spoke of Harry? Well … he died last week,

peacefully, I am happy to say. He was a beautiful man.

During one period, his breathing was laboured. I thought

that he was very close to death, so I suggested to his wifethat he might not live for very long … to allow her to

prepare. Harry was a Catholic … lapsed. She asked if I

would inform the priest and so I telephoned him [the

priest] and he asked if we could wait a while. I said that I

did not think that was possible and that I thought that

Harry would die very soon. He responded by saying ‘I will

be with you in five minutes.’

The priest arrived at Harry’s home while still dressing.

He rushed upstairs and immediately began saying his

sacraments. You could hear this very loudly throughout the

house. Harry was lying very quietly. He [the priest] thought

that Harry had died and asked God’s forgiveness for his

[Harry’s] sins. Harry suddenly opened his eyes, sat up and

said ‘I haven’t sinned. Who said that I had sinned?’ With

that he jumped out of bed, walked over to the bathroom

and poured himself a glass of water. His wife, Betty, was

so upset but Harry calmed her, saying, ‘I know that youneeded to do this for me Betty, thank you’. The priest was

obviously shocked and with evident distress carried on

saying the sacraments quietly. It was a very difficult situa-

tion for him to deal with. He didn’t really know what to

do. It was unbelievable and very painful and moving to

witness. The district nurse was downstairs and she later

commented on the inanity of it all. It wasn’t the priest’s

fault. He did his best for everyone. Harry was so calm and

so aware, and it was as if he needed to say before he died

‘I am not a sinner. I am a good man’. He died peacefully

the following day.

The narrative suggests that during an intense period of

extant crisis, order is seemingly lost as structures of con-

formity or normative decrees are challenged. In this

instance, the priest found difficulty in maintaining

composure and experienced distress in trying to sustain

his role the face of Harry’s unexpected challenge to

convention.

A brief estimation of events

The idea of exposé and authenticity of is a feature of exis-

tentialism and phenomenology. Moreover, it is a centraltenet of psychoanalytic existentialism as outlined by Sartre

(1956). Following Sartre’s ideas, we can perhaps under-

stand the interactions between Harry and his priest in

terms of a personal shift towards good faith and a freedom

to choose. Harry’s interactions with his priest showed

being-for-itself . In the face of crisis and close to death, he

confronted his existence, or being-in-the-world. Even with

death close at hand, Harry was concerned with his future

project and other possibilities. This helped Harry to

discard structures of conformity and act in good faith,

embracing both life and death authentically.Iris Murdoch (1989) encapsulates these ideas in the fol-

lowing account:

‘One on hand lies the empty reflexion of reason which

has lost faith in its own power to find objective truth,

which knows its idea of an unprecarious liberty to be

contradictory and which finds human suffering a

scandal and a mystery. On the other lies the dead world

of things and conventions, covering up the mute sense-

lessness of the irrational, where the other person is a



Absurdity and being-in-itself

© 2001 Blackwell Science Ltd, Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 8, 367–372 371

Medusa and the only escape is in ‘going away’ or ‘losing

oneself’’ (p.110).

Murdoch (1989) suggests that there is a deadening of

humanity through society and socialization, wherein a

sense of immunity from anxiety and human dread lies

uneasily with individual freedom and choice. This view is

distinct from R.D. Laing’s notions of cauldron-like psy-

chotic activity, as way of protecting the self from a fear-filled existence. Harry was caught up in a situation

which was both intolerable and impossible, and so was

faced with a sense of personal anguish, numbing and

fearful. In Sartre’s terms, he was left with no other choice

than to rebel.

Making sense of seemingly irrational behaviours helped

the nurse to value her own comprehensive yet tacit under-

standing of Harry’s communications and perhaps view

peoples’ struggles with serious illness and dying as being

concerned not with technique but issues of ontology and

unconstraint. Harry died as perhaps a part of him lived, in

protest against conventions and conformity imposed by

others.

My understanding of Harry’s situation and construction

of the final narrative is necessarily based in assumptions

and is also influenced by the nurse’s experience and her

remembering and telling, and so derived out of intersub-

jectivity. Each person’s feelings and life biography affects

the way in which an event is experienced and relived. A

definitive account is not possible. Yet the reader may rec-

ognize similar events with accompanying feelings, thoughts

and impressions inviting constructive action or beneficial

change to occur.Hunt (1989) described such research as placing:

‘particular emphasis on the dynamic nature of the field

work process, depicting it as a series of encounters in

which both subject and object change and new inter-

subjective realities emerge’ (p. 29).

Hunt (1989) provides a way of applying Sartre and

discussed the application of existential and psychoanaly-

tical methodologies to research. She suggested that such

approaches inherently challenge the subject/object dualism

of positivism. They are essentially concerned with the

researcher’s subjective experiences and emphasize theimportance of intersubjectivity and exploring the experi-

ences of both the researcher and subject.

Existential and psychoanalytic fieldwork

For Hunt, existentialism and psychoanalysis are devoid

of Cartesian (positivist) principles. Each is culturally medi-

ated and situated historically. Hunt concurs with many of

Sartre’s ideas, while disagreeing with others. The major

conceptual distinction lies in Hunt’s support for the notion

of an unconscious, which Sartre rejected in favour of con-

sciousness outside awareness. Both however, agree with the

idea of pre-logical psychic energy. Sartre is phenomeno-

logical, directional and intentional towards the project

of life and authentic being. Hunt conforms with Freud’s

(1917) ideas concerning repetition-compulsion, which

refers to repeating early established behaviours as a meansof avoiding feelings of anxiety. Yet, with Sartre, Hunt

(1989) asserted that examinations of consciousness cannot

take place outside of dialogue and that intersubjectivity is

an essential part of human inquiry.

Hunt proposes that psychoanalytic ideas can make

known cultural phenomena and as such enhance existen-

tial, phenomenological and hermeneutic modes of inquiry.

Hunt (1989, p. 21) believes that:

‘Existentialist field workers recognise that the research

process is far less orderly than is depicted in traditional

sociological accounts. Events are often unexpected, irra-

tional and spontaneous’.

Hunt proposes many representations of psychic activity,

including creative endeavours that reveal necessity to

repeat earlier trauma, hidden aggression, forbidden desires

and defences against disturbing wishes. She suggested that

both researchers and their subjects unexceptionally act

from situated feelings and moods and this view can be

seen in the account concerning Harry. That dynamic forces

might influence a researcher is important in that reality

might conceivably be reported not as it reveals itself to the

researcher and subject but as each would prefer it to be,

knowingly or otherwise. Events described to me by thenurse are constructions of reality mediated by language

and social convention. The account represents approxi-

mations of events as they were understood to have

occurred, and not actuality. Qualitative approaches to

research need therefore to acknowledge the intersub-

jective nature of reported events. Realities are constructed

and encompass intrapsychic and interpersonal

occurrences.

Hermeneutic existential phenomenology focuses on the

cultural dimensions of the phenomena, lived experiences

and life-worlds. Existential psychoanalytic-informedmethodologies, on the other hand, are concerned itself with

the intrapsychic aspects of a phenomenon. Nevertheless,

the researcher mediates the inquiry and this has important

methodological implications. The mental, intellectual and

emotional experience of the researcher negotiates between

cultural phenomena and the psychological worlds of

the informants and so, ultimately, it is the researcher’s

subjective understanding that gives narratives their

structure.



A. Jones


Conclusion

This paper has explored the purported third phase in the

development of phenomenology and has used a disguised

work account. Some ideas of Jean-Paul Sartre are discussed

and brief links are made with clinical developments

through the ideas of Medard Boss and R.D. Laing. The

potential for existential hermeneutics and psychoanalysis

as meaningful research methodologies is also considered in

the context of professional practice. Although abstract and

seemingly remote, many of Sartre’s ideas are suited to

understanding nursing relationships and issues related

to a person’s mental health and well-being. They might be

developed usefully as means of making sense of complex-

ities of human existence and often, seemingly irrational

behaviours linked to the experience of serious illness.

Acknowledgements

My thanks to the two external reviewers for many helpfulcomments.

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Absurdity and Being in Itself