Ernest Becker, Otto Rank, and Psychotherapy

Join the Ernest Becker Foundation for a discussion with the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis on the overlap between Becker's ideas and psychotherapy.
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The Ernest Becker Foundation seeks to advance understanding, based on decades of research, of how the awareness of our mortality profoundly influences human behavior, on both an individual and societal level. Learn more about EBF here: www.ernestbecker.org
Panelists:
Claude Barbre, M.S., M.Div., Ph.D., L.P., Distinguished Full Professor, The Chicago School of
Professional Psychology. Dr. Barbre is a Course-Lead Coordinator of the Psychodynamics Orientation, and lead faculty in the Child and Adolescent Studies. He is also a Board Member and Training Supervisor at The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis (CCP). A teacher and psychotherapist for nearly 40 years, Dr. Barbre served for 12 years as Executive Director of The Harlem Family Institute, NY. Author of prize-winning articles, books, and poetry, Dr. Barbre is a five-time recipient of the international Gradiva Award “for outstanding contributions to psychoanalysis and the arts.” In 2022, Dr. Barbre received the Distinguished Psychoanalytic Educator Award, presented by the International Forum for Psychoanalytic Education, and the Joanna K. Tabin Award for Exceptional Public Service (CCP). He is currently completing a book entitled, Soul Diver: Otto Rank’s Psychology of Religion. He is in private practice in Chicago, IL. Contact: [e-mail]
Sheldon Solomon, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at Skidmore College. Dr. Solomon's research on Terror Management Theory - which examines the effects of the uniquely human awareness of death on behavior - along with that of Jeff Greenberg (at the University of Arizona) and Tom Pyszczynski (at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs) has been supported by the National Science Foundation and Ernest Becker Foundation, and was featured in the award winning documentary film Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality. He is co-author of In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror and The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life. Sheldon is an American Psychological Society Fellow, and a recipient of an American Psychological Association Presidential Citation (2007), a Lifetime Career Award by the International Society for Self and Identity (2009), the Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs Annual Faculty Award (2011), the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Career Contribution Award (2021), and the International Society for the Science of Existential Psychology Career Contributions Award (2022).
Kirk J. Schneider, Ph.D., cofounder/current president of the psychotherapy training center the Existential-Humanistic Institute; adjunct faculty, Saybrook University. He . Dr. Schneider is a leading spokesperson for existential-humanistic and existential-integrative psychology. He is also a current candidate for president-elect of the American Psychological Association. Dr. Schneider is the author of 13 books, virtually all inspired by Becker, including The Paradoxical Self, Existential-Integrative Psychotherapy, Existential-Humanistic Therapy, Awakening to Awe, The Spirituality of Awe, The Polarized Mind, The Depolarizing of America: A Guidebook for Social Healing, and his lastest work (February 1, 2023) Life-Enhancing Anxiety: Key to a Sane World. Dr. Schneider is also a long-time member of the Ernest Becker Foundation, for which he has given several keynote talks, and he was a close associate of the EBF’s founder Neil Elgee. Dr. Schneider’s current focus, very much in keeping with Terror Management Theory, is on the existential bases of as well as alternatives to polarized states of being.

[@lorraineperson4935]

Thank you. A fascinating and healing discussion. I needed to be reminded of Solomon, Becker and Rank as I. approach 77 with its attendant anxieties

[@alanc231]

Terrific conversation, puzzling how mainstream psychology still neglects existential realities.

[@shengloongtan229]

You're speaking like an American 😂 There's no such thing as "mainstream psychology", it's like saying newtonian physic is the mainstream and schrodinger is not. They are all different branches and disciplines of a subject, like the lady moderator is a childhood developmental psychology specialising in autism, is she mainstream? Then there's behavioural psychology, clinical psychology, pathological psychology, sexology

[@Xanaduum]

It would be better to replace mainstream with institutional then. The existential philosophy side of psychology isn't seen as very scientific or measurable or even cost effective- same reason CBT will always be more popular than Psychoanalysis. Although you could also just say, common discourse. The quantum physics, Newtonian physics analogy isn't quite accurate. For example I can speak about Maslow and attachment theory in the NHS in the UK but if I talk about Otto Rank and Ernest Becker I will get blank looks. But anyone who knows anything about science knows who Newton was and Shroedingers cat, quantum physics is mainstream now. So the reason I'd say it's ignored is, 1. Money - institutional wise 2. Measurable/seen as scientifically serious 3. Sounds esoteric, much like Lacan or Jung's later work - These things were what Freud was worried would happen and drag all of psychology/analysis with it.

[@shengloongtan229]

@@Xanaduum again i have to disagree with you. Jordan Peterson personally said to Solomon, that his terror management theory is the most empirically proven psychological theory. And he was right. You would be surprised to find out how many psychological theory have no prove, sometimes there is even no way of proving it. There certainly are many dispute and criticism early on, but that's true of any new studies or theories. With the amount of evidences and studies we have for terror management, i dont think psychologists would dispute the legitimacy of terror management theory, they would most likely dispute what the studies implied about terror of death, but not the legitimacy of the theory itself. But its true that most profit-seeking institution would not pay any attention to his study, that's sad, but still, he is a professor at a prestigious university. It is also true that most people avoid topic regarding death, especially ones that go so deeply into exploring your anxiety on the possibility that you would die anytime, a few hours later, tomorrow etc. conclusion, these conspiracy about "mainstream academic" is overblown. IDK if you're a big fan of Graham Hancock , but academic is a place of great skepticism, if you have a extraordinary claim, you'll need extraordinary proof to be taken seriously. It's just that.

[@jackcarney313]

Ah, love that punny (not puny!) poet-philosopher, Sheldon, what a delivery!, seldom without a ripe word! Keep that worm busy at the core, thanks for your down home wisdom. Would love to see you next to Mr Spam Can of Now, Eckhart (for whom the bell apparently does not) Tolles.

[@williamscottharkey]

Many thanks. Wonderful discussion.

[@iloverumi]

amazing conversation. thank you very much!

[@martyjourard7172]

Highly informative and interesting. I learned a lot.

[@michaelmody]

Pure gold

[@williamscottharkey]

We can easily convert these videos to audio-only mp3 form. But might there be any chance to post these as podcasts as well? Thanks.

[@RedRosa]

Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death-ought to decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. One must negotiate this as nobly as possible, for the sake of those who are coming after us. But white Americans do not believe in death, and this is why the darkness of my skin so intimidates them. James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

[@DannyMulligan]

Amazing quote, thanks for sharing. I read this book but somehow forgot this passage. Baldwin was something else. We need him now more than ever.

[@RousBE]

The denial of death brought me here

[@akariwilliams7994]

Becker made me Black and White with my views on EVERYTHING

[@robertmacnichol8804]

Should have had Jack Schumaker in the conversation.

[@RichardKoenigsberg]

Sheldon left out Norman O. Brown, who preceded Becker (as Becker acknowledges), and is deeper and more profound than either Rank or Becker. Sheldon, it seems, has turned into an "entertainer," repeating his same "bit."

[@michellemay2081]

I could not disagree more thoroughly - and I’m sure you’re aware that Becker argued forcefully that Brown’s belief in the power of free love (influenced by his Santa Cruz days?) left him miles behind Rank and Soren intellectually when it came to reckoning with anguish and non-being, etc.

[@RichardKoenigsberg]

@@michellemay2081 Complete nonsense. Brown did not "advocate" anything. And he wrote LIFE AGAINST DEATH in 1959, when he was at Wesleyan University. WAY BEFORE he was at Santa Cruz, where he didn't write about sexuality.