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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
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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.
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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
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370 © 2001 Blackwell Science Ltd, Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 8, 367–372
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
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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.
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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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