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Handbook of Experimental Existential Psychology.

Article Excerpt
Greenberg, J., Koole, S. L., & Pyszczynski, T. (Eds.), Handbook of Experimental Existential Psychology. New York, N.Y.: The Guilford Press, 2004, vi + 528 pp., (Hardcover).

This volume represents a collection of articles attempting to provide an integrative framework for traditional experimental research relevant to existential concerns. Two of the three editors, Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski, along with Sheldon Solomon, developed terror management theory in the 1980's which attempts to demonstrate the impact of existential fears, chiefly death. The authors' work derives largely from the inspiration provided by Ernest Becker's (1973) exploration of death denial, with the present volume also incorporating the ideas of Yalom (1980) to yield a psychodynamic existentialism that runs through many of the contributions.

A central understanding that emerged from experimental studies of social cognition in the last decade is that subjects do not report being aware of stimuli that psychologists show clearly had an impact on their thinking or behavior. When such stimuli involve subtle priming with words dealing with death, or minutes earlier having had to write about one's own death, the chase is on to explore this new psychodynamic process, and now, its existential implications. What I find interesting, from a phenomenological perspective, is that the experimental stimuli, like the existential concerns of death, freedom, loneliness, and meaninglessness (Yalom, 1980) which are presumed to be terrifying, have not been found associated with much affect in the laboratory, and like the psychotherapeutic patient, subjects seldom report being preoccupied by such thoughts which so captivate and reflect the concerns of the researchers and therapists. So, of course, the experimentalists, like the psychodynamic therapist, now assumes we are all in denial because "everyone knows" such issues are "ubiquitous and influential regardless of whether we realize it or not" (Chapter 1, p. 6). While dismaying from a phenomenological psychology standpoint, this neglect of lived experience suggests a non-falsifiable "catch-22" which seems ironic coming from authors...

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