What is an existential crisis

The objective maturation of our body also affects our psychological well-being. But age-related crises are not only suffering and danger, but also an excellent opportunity for an “upgrade.”

Many people probably know the curious fact that the word “crisis” is translated ambiguously from Chinese. It consists of two hieroglyphs - one is translated as “danger”, and the other is “opportunity”.

Any crisis, be it on a national or personal level, is a kind of new start, a staging area where we can stand, think and set new goals for ourselves, analyze everything we can do and everything we want to learn.

Sometimes this happens consciously, sometimes unconsciously. Crises are not always very precisely tied to a specific age; for some, they occur earlier or later by six months to a year and occur in varying degrees of intensity. But in any case, it is important to understand the reasons for their occurrence and typical scenarios in order to survive them with minimal losses and maximum benefit for yourself and your loved ones.

A crisis state most often occurs in a person in the middle of life if he has failed to achieve success in one area or another. The first attempts to study this personal phenomenon were made by philosophers, and then psychologists showed interest in the problem of crisis in humans.

An existential crisis is a state in which a person realizes the insignificance of his existence. When he tries to determine his mission in life, he experiences feelings such as panic, despair, irritation, and sadness.

If a person is in an extensional crisis, his own life no longer seems to him to be the greatest value

An extensional crisis is associated with the fact that a person cannot understand why he lives. The realization that there is no meaning in life irritates a person, so many people tend to avoid thinking about their life’s purpose.

Types of existential crises

Existential crises are of the following types:

Crisis of responsibility and freedom. The emergence of this crisis is due to the fact that life circumstances put pressure on the individual. A crisis of responsibility and freedom may arise in a teenager who cannot cope with the school curriculum. People who take on overtime work in production are also susceptible to this existence. Being in a crisis of freedom and responsibility, a person feels the need to radically change his life, but does not feel the resource for decisive action.
Mortality crisis. A person encounters this existence 3 times throughout his life: in early childhood, in adulthood and in old age.
Crisis of purpose. An existential vacuum in the soul occurs when a person does not have a clear life goal. Anxiety and irritation are caused by the fact that the brain of a person who has no goal cannot find something to do. In order to do something, the brain begins to stir up the past, forcing a person to regret what he has done, to sadly remember what can no longer be returned. An individual who is stuck in the past and engages in endless self-flagellation cannot be happy in the present. He also cannot plan for his future.

Stages of development of a personality crisis.

Regardless of the type, any personality crisis has a beginning, a peak and an end. Naturally, these phases are vague and conditional, but they make it possible to understand or predict the psycho-emotional state of a person experiencing a turning point.

Immersion stage.

An emotional explosion occurs;
General physical health deteriorates;
The algorithm of actions is confused, decisions are chaotic;
“Withdrawal into oneself” is possible;
Overwhelmed by inaction and apathy.

Dead end stage.

Awareness of the problem comes;
The question of what to do remains unresolved;
The search begins for the reasons for the current situation;
The future looks gray;
New solutions are being sought.

A turning point.

A new perspective on the problem appears;
There is a craving for change;
The situation does not seem to be a dead end;
Gradually, the “ice is collapsing.”

This is a classic model of a crisis, after which a person reaches a new level. But there are other options for the development of the situation - mental disorders, suicide, drug or alcohol addiction. These negative consequences are caused by ignoring a difficult condition. To prevent this from happening, it is advisable for everyone to know in advance how to survive in a crisis.

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Signs of an existential crisis

Signs of an existential crisis first appear in adolescence. Teenagers think about who they are in this world and how they can be useful to society. However, the signs of an existential crisis are most pronounced in people who are over 40 years old.

Typical symptoms of an existential crisis are:

a person feels awkward, his soul is empty, he cannot bring himself to engage in any socially significant activity;
tendency to question everything;
difficulties arise when an individual tries to find answers to questions that concern him;
loneliness, lack of strong emotional ties with family and friends;
lack of mutual understanding with loved ones;
loss of the ability to enjoy life and enjoy the little things;
disappointment in religion;
anxiety;
depression;
refusal of love and marriage and family relationships due to the conviction that the union of a man and a woman cannot exist forever;
lack of ability to independently set priorities, make decisions, manage your time and your freedom.

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Relationship between existential crisis and other conditions

An existential crisis entails disturbances in the emotional-volitional sphere. This personal pathology is associated with many mental disorders. As a rule, a painful search for an answer to the question of one’s life purpose causes in a person such states as:

Bad mood;
apathy;
helplessness;
indifference to what you previously liked.

The mental states of an individual listed above can be both a consequence of the onset of existence and its causes.

The task of a person who has developed emotional states associated with experiencing an existential crisis is to understand their root cause and find ways to deal with them.

Asya Rakhovich

Psychologist with more than 8 years of experience. Consultant on interpersonal and marital relationships, self-discovery.

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Causes of an existential crisis

Existence appears in life because every person realizes that he cannot live forever. When a person feels that the second half of his life is already underway, he begins to take stock. If there are no special achievements in life, a person becomes horrified. He begins to think that he is living in vain.

According to psychologists, the main reasons for existentialism are:

fear of death;
low self-esteem;
unfavorable psychological environment at work, frequent conflict situations with superiors and colleagues;
the person feels threatened by the social environment;
chronic fatigue syndrome;
emotional burnout;
guilt.

What can cause a crisis?

Crisis states arise for various circumstances and reasons. These may be social and situational factors, individual and psychological characteristics of the individual.

Children, adolescents and the elderly are predisposed to a crisis; these age phases are characterized by biological vulnerability and any difficult situation in life during this period can disrupt a person’s emotional state.

The risk group will also include somatic patients, people with diagnosed physical exhaustion or those with psychological trauma.

The causes of stress disorder can be:

violence and cruelty;
participation in hostilities;
terror;
crime;
disaster;
death or illness of loved ones;
loss of work and/or social status (livelihood);
significant decline in living standards;
social conflict (in the family or at work).

What an existential crisis can teach a modern person

Psychologists encourage us to find the positive in any situation. Everything that happens to a person, he can use for his own benefit. The crisis associated with the loss of the meaning of life is no exception.

Faced with an existential crisis, modern man can benefit from this state. Thus, a crisis can teach him the following vital skills:

Show tenacity and perseverance in everyday life. These qualities are necessary to achieve your goals. A purposeful person does not allow himself to give up when faced with difficulties and obstacles on the way to his goal. If he understands that his methods are ineffective, he will not give up trying, but will find other ways to get what he wants.
Accept the fact that neither relatives nor friends are obliged to sacrifice themselves and their interests for the sake of another person. Each person has his own life, his own worries. Of course, a person can ask for help from loved ones, but he must be prepared for the fact that his request will be refused. An existential crisis helps an individual understand that being offended by someone’s refusal to take part in improving someone else’s life is a pointless exercise.
Take responsibility for your own actions and your own inactions. Faced with existence, a person understands that his passivity does not contribute to positive changes in life.

The man decided to live the way he wants

Realize that in order to become successful, you need to be yourself. When a person tries to appear to be someone he really is not, he first of all deceives himself. Even if others like the role that the individual has tried on for himself, he himself will be uncomfortable with such a position. To be able to find his calling, a person needs to be himself.
Develop an unshakable system of life principles. Wanting to find meaning in life, a person needs to listen to his heart, and not to what others say. When a person understands his mission, he must be strict enough with himself so as not to succumb to temptations and immoral behavior. To do this, in everyday life he needs to be guided by his own value system.
State your position in a reasoned manner. An existential crisis teaches a person to defend his legitimate rights and interests, while maintaining friendly relations with others.
Evaluate people not by external characteristics, but by personal qualities. A person’s attempts to understand his own soul help him learn to understand people. This means that, experiencing an existential crisis, a person clears his immediate environment of casual acquaintances, dubious comrades and energy vampires.

What are the features of age-related crises of maturity?

Their occurrence and course depend on how a person relates to the passage of time and how expressed his fear of the future is. The future is disturbing, and its image is often negative; the past, on the contrary, is emotionally charged and is seen more positively. Fear of the future causes denial of one's age. A person wants to be younger, and as a result, there is a desire to appear younger. Therefore, changes in appearance indicating age are perceived very painfully.

People don't always understand that they are afraid of the future. They project their fears onto other aspects of life - family or professional. They are the ones that cause dissatisfaction; it is about them that a person complains to others or to a psychologist.

The basis of fear of the future is the awareness of the finitude of one’s own existence and the fear of death, that is, the reason is individual and personal.

However, social factors—stereotypes and values of modern culture—play an equally important role in generating fear of the future. The most important of them is the stereotype of negative perception of old age. This means that old people are traditionally attributed such characteristics as grouchiness, conservatism, and criticism of young people. Old age is associated with visits to clinics, poor health, loneliness and lack of joy in life. And the question of development and self-improvement in old age seems strange, to say the least.

Fear of one's own old age can be present even in very young people. The phrase “happiness in old age” evokes an ironic smile among students, and “sex life in old age” evokes Homeric laughter. What is the reason for the stereotypical perception of old age as a period of personality degradation?

According to L.I. Antsyferova, the idea of old age is strongly influenced by prevailing social relations. In developed countries with pronounced competitive relations, such “youth” qualities as energy, endurance, athleticism, and pronounced ambition are highly valued. In recent decades, the “cult of youth” has spread widely in Russia.

However, the very emergence of such stereotypes seems to us to be a secondary phenomenon, arising due to the fact that the period of old age is the “youngest” in the process of cultural and historical development of mankind. Indeed, ancient people almost did not know old age. There was simply no place left for those who, due to physical weakness, could not be a full-fledged hunter and get food. According to historians and ethnographers, the first old people appeared with the beginning of the use of fire, they received the status of its guardians. But nevertheless, life expectancy remained quite short.

The emergence of old people as a quantitatively significant group of the population is usually attributed only to the last centuries. It was at this time that old age began to be studied deeply and extensively, but the results of such studies often do not reach everyday psychology. Therefore, the source of the formation of ideas about old age is not scientific research, but the experience of close relatives living this age period. The media also play an important role in this, usually “drawing” the image of an unhappy elderly person experiencing financial and everyday difficulties. Recently, another factor has emerged that shapes the idea of old age - advertising. On the one hand, it itself relies on the presence of a negative stereotype, and on the other, it reinforces it.

In addition to the dominant image of old age in society, the emergence of age-related crises is influenced by the value system adopted in modern society, which contrasts a person’s own importance with material well-being and social status.

Modern culture denies death in all its manifestations, which causes a latent fear of death in most people and gives rise to the cult of eternal youth.

In addition, modern culture is increasingly shifting from socialization to individualization. If earlier society, through a system of rituals and customs, helped a person determine what his social and cultural role is, now a person is forced to solve these issues on his own. It is difficult to call this phenomenon positive or negative, but it exists, and we have to take it into account.

Social factors not only influence the occurrence of age-related crises of maturity, but also affect their passage, sometimes significantly complicating or, on the contrary, facilitating this process.

Here it is worth noting the specifics of the emotional sphere of modern man. According to A. Kholmogorova and N. Garanyan, a person’s emotional life is determined by two differently directed trends. The first is an increase in the frequency and intensity of emotional stress due to an increase in the pace of life, rapid value, economic, and political changes. The second is a negative attitude towards emotions, which are attributed to a disorganizing role. The consequence of this is an increase in the frequency and strength of psychosomatic diseases, social and interpersonal conflicts, which are often ways of venting feelings.

One can also agree with the authors who argue that many affective disturbances in human behavior are associated with the cult of success, achievement, strength and rationality inherent in modern culture. A successful person is prescribed by society to be strong-willed, cold, and reasonable. However, this leads to the accumulation of emotions, and this, in turn, negatively affects health.

In addition to the cult of rationality, let us dwell on one more factor influencing the course of the crisis. In a society where a person has broad professional opportunities, the stereotypes of success in life change. There are more options for choosing an individual life path. It is clear that expanding the range of choices can complicate the course of the crisis. For example, if in Russia before perestroika there were clearly defined social stereotypes regarding the “stages of success” - these are the Komsomol, a university, a party, now they are quite blurred.

In addition, the rapid change in socio-economic conditions leads to differences in the values, level and rhythm of life of parents and children, preventing the latter from relying on family stereotypes. For example, since now there is no strict idea that it is necessary to start a family by a certain age, young people do it either too early or too late, or even do not get married at all.

The situation is further complicated by social, economic, and political instability in society - people begin to fear change, and the absence of a clear value system in society forces a person to decide the question of the meaning of life on his own, so every age crisis carries some existential meaning.

From the above, we can conclude that in modern Russian society there are quite a lot of social factors that can complicate a person’s passage through the age crisis. Let's consider possible complications in more detail.

How to Deal with an Existential Crisis

Some people hide from existential problems behind the screen of addictive behavior. But alcohol and excessive enthusiasm for work provide only temporary relief. Sooner or later, everything that a person suppresses will manifest itself. Crisis manifestations will force a person to do something to cope with loneliness and fear. You can find the meaning of life again if:

Make informed choices. There are many roads open to every person, which means that he can take any of them. Based on his own life experience, common sense and life goals, a person must independently set priorities and choose the activity that he likes. According to philosophers, problems arise in a person when he does not know how to make decisions and take responsibility for them.
Engage in self-knowledge and self-development. To understand his purpose, a person must know his strengths and weaknesses. Studying his personality, he sees what he needs to correct in himself. In this you can already find the meaning of life.
Stop self-searching and endlessly comparing yourself to more successful people. Existential conflict arises when a person is jealous of a friend. Everyone’s natural inclinations and individual abilities are different, so if someone doesn’t know how to draw beautifully or play a musical instrument, this does not mean that he is completely incapable of anything. One has only to do something that gives pleasure, and it will immediately become obvious that the person is talented. To overcome envy of people with famous names, you need to concentrate on your own life and stop following the lives of celebrities.
Build constructive relationships with society. Existential problems arise quite often in society. The lack of meaning in life is felt especially acutely by people living in cities with high population density. Using the example of metropolis life, we can describe in detail such social phenomena as indifference and selfishness. An accelerated pace of life, overwork caused by the desire to earn more money in order to satisfy personal needs, a lack of live communication - all these significant manifestations make a person feel his own insignificance. To protect himself from emotional burnout, a person needs to communicate with loved ones, meet friends, share impressions from watching a movie with colleagues. Live communication helps a person to survive an existential crisis with benefit, because in the process of interpersonal interaction he learns the shadow sides of his personality, opens up new horizons in himself, and gains the possibility of self-realization.
Be creative. You can defeat existentialism with the help of creative creative activity. When a person does handicrafts, dances or plays music, he is working through his own existential experiences. His thoughts and feelings become a source of inspiration for him.

Creativity helps you find the meaning of life

Creativity has no age restrictions. This means that both a teenager and a pensioner can start creating.

By changing his own views, reconsidering life principles and values, a person will find ways to resolve existential problems.

What crises do adults experience?

It is traditional to distinguish between the thirty-year crisis and the mid-life crisis, which is referred to as 40-45 years. Let us immediately note that linking crises to calendar age is quite conditional. However, since we are talking about maturity, it is necessary to consider the crises that mark its boundaries - the crises of the transition from youth to maturity and from maturity to old age.

The age of the first crisis is difficult to determine unambiguously; it depends on the time of the beginning of a person’s independent professional activity.

By the crisis of transition to old age we mean the period corresponding to the time of a person’s retirement. Understanding the conventionality of this factor, we nevertheless believe that for Russia it is an important social condition that determines a serious intrapersonal crisis.

Unfortunately, as a rule, age-related crises of adults acquire an existential character, since problems of the meaning of life and individual existence are included in their experience.

In addition to existential crises, adults can experience, as we have already said, spiritual crises, the common feature of which is an appeal to higher values.

A personal crisis in adults can arise from experiencing one or another difficult situation.

A family crisis is associated with the transition of a family to a new stage of the life cycle, which entails changes in its structure and relationships with other social groups (for example, the birth of a child, parental divorce, “separation” of a teenager from the family).

There are also professional crises caused by professional growth or changes in the field of activity.

According to many authors, the unifying parameter of all crises is the presence in them of a situation of choice. Let us dwell on the content and typology of elections, based on the ideas of V. Shuts (1993).

The researcher formulates his idea of choice as follows: “I have chosen all my life and have always chosen. I choose my behavior, my feelings, my thoughts, my illnesses, my body, my reactions, my death. Some of these choices I choose to be aware of, some I prefer not to be aware of. I often prefer not to know about feelings that I don’t want to deal with, about thoughts that are unacceptable to me, and about certain connections between events.” Thus, we can talk about conscious and unconscious choice. We can distinguish active choice, which corresponds to one or another human activity, and passive choice, which is carried out as a result of inaction. There are situations when a person feels that he has no choice, and he is forced to submit to circumstances. In fact, this is also a choice, but an irresponsible one.

So, a crisis can be understood as a situation of the need for choice, in which there is a consistent movement from unconsciousness, passivity and irresponsibility of choice to a more complete understanding of it, an active position and making a responsible decision.