PERSONAL BEING AS AN EXISTENTIAL GROUNDING OF THE PERSON IN PERIODS OF CRISIS
Keywords:
personal being, existential analysis, love, freedom, will, responsibility, resilience, meaning of life.
Abstract
The article explores the phenomenon of personal being as an existential foundation of personality under the crisis challenges of modernity (war, pandemic, social transformations). Based on an interdisciplinary approach, the study integrates philosophical and psychological concepts (Søren Kierkegaard, E. Husserl, M. Heidegger, M. Buber, Jean-Paul Sartre, G. Marcel; Viktor Frankl, A. Längle, Stanislav D. Maksymenko). The structure of personal being is revealed through love, freedom, will, and responsibility, which form the inner framework of identity and resilience. It is established that in crisis conditions, these existential foundations enable individuals to preserve integrity, find meaning, and make authentic decisions. The conclusion emphasises the integrative potential of the concept of personal being for psychological science and psychotherapeutic practice.
References
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19. Marcel, G. (1949). Le mystère de l’être [The mystery of being]. Paris: Aubier.
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22. Sartre, J.-P. (1943). L'Être et le Néant [Being and Nothingness]. Paris: Gallimard.
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24. Tillich, P. (1952). The courage to be. Collins.
25. Yalom, I. D. (2020). Existential psychotherapy. Basic Books.
2. Kaplunenko, Ya. Yu. (2018). Psykholohichna pruzhnist i kryhkist: Ekzystentsiino-analitychnyi pohliad. Psykholohiia ta psykhosotsialni interventsii, 1, 41–45. https://doi.org/10.18523/2617-2348.2018.41-45
3. Maksymenko, S. D. (1998). Osnovy henetychnoi psykholohii [Fundamentals of genetic psychology]. NPTs Perspektyva [In Ukrainian].
4. Maksymenko, S. D. (2006). Heneza zdiisnennia osobystosti [The Genesis of Personal Realization].
TOV “KMM” [In Ukrainian].
5. Tytarenko, T. M. (2020). Ekzystentsiinyi landshaft posttravmatychnoho zhyttietvorennia osobystosti. Naukovi studii iz sotsialnoi ta politychnoi psykholohii, 44(47), 20–29. https://doi.org/10.33120/SSJ.VI44(47).111
6. Arslan, G., Yıldırım, M., & Wong, P. T. P. (2021). A longitudinal examination of the association between meaning in life, resilience, and mental well-being during the coronavirus pandemic. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 645597. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.645597
7. Binswanger, L. (1942). Grundformen und Erkenntnis menschlichen Daseins [Basic forms and knowledge of human existence]. Zürich: Max Niehans.
8. Buber, M. (1923). Ich und Du [I and Thou]. Leipzig: Insel Verlag.
9. Frankl, V. E. (1988). The will to meaning: Foundations and applications of logotherapy. Meridian. (Original work published 1969).
10. Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man’s search for meaning: An introduction to logotherapy. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
11. Ghonchehpour, A., Nasab, F. R. S., Maghsoudi, F., & Mehdipour‐Rabori, R. (2025). Existential anxiety of nurses in the COVID‐19‐virus units and its relation with resilience and posttraumatic growth. Health Science Reports, 8(3). https://doi.org/10.1002/hsr2.70547
12. Heidegger, M. (1967). Sein und Zeit [Being and Time] (11th ed.). Tübingen: Niemeyer. (Original work published 1927).
13. Husserl, E. (1913). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch [Ideas About a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book]. Halle: Niemeyer.
14. Kierkegaard, S. (1980). Kierkegaard’s Writings, XIX, Volume 19: The sickness unto death: A Christian psychological exposition for upbuilding and awakening (H. V. Hong, & E. H. Hong, Eds., & Trans.). Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400847020
15. Kimhi, S., Marciano, H., & Eshel, Y. (2023). Impact of the war in Ukraine on resilience, protective, and vulnerability factors among Ukrainian civilians. Frontiers in Public Health, 11, 1053940. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1053940
16. Längle, A. (2003). Person – Existenz – Therapie. Wien: Facultas.
17. Längle, A. (2016). The search for meaning in life and the fundamental existential motivations. Existential Analysis, 27(1), 85–104.
18. Ma, Y., Wang, J., Dong, J., Cai, W., & Chen, P. (2024). Relationship between resilience, social support, existential well-being and negative emotions in cervical cancer patients. Journal of Cancer, 15(7), 91260. https://doi.org/10.7150/jca.91260
19. Marcel, G. (1949). Le mystère de l’être [The mystery of being]. Paris: Aubier.
20. Menzies, R. G. (2024). Existential therapies and the extended evolutionary meta-model: Towards integrating existential, evolutionary, and therapeutic frameworks. Clinical Psychology Review, 106, 102380. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2024.102380
21. Pinel, E. C., Long, A. E., Murdoch, E. Q., & Helm, P. J. (2017). A prisoner of one’s own mind: Identifying and understanding existential isolation. Personality and Individual Differences, 105, 54–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.09.024
22. Sartre, J.-P. (1943). L'Être et le Néant [Being and Nothingness]. Paris: Gallimard.
23. Stålbrand, I. S. (2025). An interdisciplinary model to foster existential resilience. World Futures, 16(1), 5.
24. Tillich, P. (1952). The courage to be. Collins.
25. Yalom, I. D. (2020). Existential psychotherapy. Basic Books.
Published
2025-11-30
How to Cite
Kaplunenko , Y. (2025). PERSONAL BEING AS AN EXISTENTIAL GROUNDING OF THE PERSON IN PERIODS OF CRISIS. Kyiv Journal of Modern Psychology and Psychotherapy, 10, 78-89. https://doi.org/10.48020/mppj.2025.02.07
Section
Articles
