ABSTRACT
The chapter discusses the underpinned by existentialist thought, as it helps us to understand mental health problems as, in part, “challenges of meaning.” Existentialism is particularly relevant to mental health from a non-medical stance. Existentialism is often presumed incorrectly to be a philosophy of meaninglessness. Oversimplified approaches to the subject commonly look at one part of existentialism’s approach to meaning and take that to be the whole picture when it is not. A key existentialist concept that helps us understand meaning is the “dialectic of subjectivity and objectivity.” The human encounter is very much what existentialism is all about. Meaningful relationships are about being listened to, valued and thereby validated and affirmed. Given the fluid nature of identity, such affirming relationships can be crucial in maintaining mental well-being. By contrast, an absence of such relationships and/or the presence of toxic relationships can be devastating.
