Theoretical Aspects of Psychological Well-Being in Existential Understanding

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of understanding the phenomenon of psychological well-being of the individual in the context of existential philosophy and psychology. The concept of «psychological well-being» describes the status and features of man’s inner world that define the experience of wealth, and the behavior that produces and shows well-being. Existential philosophy touches upon the problems of studying psychological well-being. The external, objective world, this philosophy regards as «alienated existence» of human existence. Thus, in particular, the problems of the well-being of the individual are considered in the works of existential philosophers J. P. Sartre, S. Kierkegaard, A. Kamyu, P. Tillich, V. Frankl and others. Existential psychology also deals with the study of psychological well-being. Among the representatives of existential psychology, who are investigating psychological well-being, we can identify the names of L. Binswanger, J. Bugental, D. A. Leontiev, R. Laing, A. Langley, R. Mey, E. Fromm, I. Yalom, K. Jaspers and others. This approach to psychology emerged as an opposition to the natural-scientific approach, in which man is described as an object, like other objects of the world, represented by consciousness and study. The thesis is based on the constant existential search, awareness of internal freedom and responsibility, the ability of a person to self-development, the availability of meaning of life, existential completeness, a sense of their own psychological integrity and satisfaction with life, having an impact on the psychological well-being of a person. Today, at the time of socio-economic, ethnic and cultural transformations, of global informatization of society, a person will have to undergo much more difficult, from the point of view of existential elections, the path of personal development in order to strengthen his own psychological well-being.