ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I delineate the existential conception of authenticity and distinguish it from other more conventional notions of this pivotal existential concept. All existentialist thinkers promote authenticity over inauthenticity, but there is little agreement as to what authenticity is. First and foremost, it is a way of articulating what it means to be honest with oneself. Honesty was highly valued by Freud, and one could argue that he promoted authenticity in his patients’ lives via the act of free association, disclosing whatever comes to mind in the therapy session. Both psychoanalysis and existentialism are concerned with becoming the person you are by dropping the pretenses we typically employ to please others. This is probably the single-most feature of both these disciplines that have made them so controversial. Each acts as subversive elements in society by helping its citizens to separate themselves from the status quo.
