Gestalt Therapy, Sartre, and Camus: Living with the Absurd

Camus: facing the absurd without an easy answer

In The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Camus defines the absurd as the clash between our need for meaning and a universe that provides no answer to that need. It's not simply that nothing matters. The point is what it means to live authentically, to live without the illusion that the absurdity of existence has been overcome.

Camus's response is frequently characterised as revolt: the recognition of the absurdity of the situation and yet to persist in the face of it rather than simply flee to some pre-packaged explanation. The image of Sisyphus is the one that gives that response its power. It is a literary and philosophical image, not in any sense a call to endure every form of suffering alone or without assistance.

• Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

  Stanford Libraries catalog record for the English edition, translated by Justin O’Brien (1955).

• Albert Camus, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

  Scholarly overview of Camus’s concepts of the Absurd and revolt.

Sartre: freedom within the conditions we inherit

Sartre takes a very different approach to the notion of meaning. In Being and Nothingness (1943) he looks at how we are formed by our circumstances, by history, by our relationships with others, yet we are not simply the sum of those things. We make choices within a set of constraints and it is through those choices that we become who we are.

That freedom can feel more like a burden than a gift. It doesn't mean we can simply choose our way out of illness, loss, injustice or the past. It means that even in the face of constraint, the way we respond to our circumstances matters. No Exit (1944) is Sartre's most famous work and it's a searing examination of the ways in which people can be trapped in the judgments of one another. It's a work which makes the nature of the relationship at the heart of the question of identity.

• Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness

  Stanford Libraries catalog record for Hazel E. Barnes’s English translation (1956).

• Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit

  Stanford Libraries catalog record for the play, originally copyrighted in 1946.

• Jean-Paul Sartre: Existentialism, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

  Scholarly overview of Sartre’s account of freedom, facticity, and Being and Nothingness.

A shared question, not the same answer

Camus and Sartre both reject the comfort of the idea that meaning comes to us pre-packaged. They are not really the same though. Camus is concerned with the tension between the human desire to find meaning and a universe that is entirely indifferent. Sartre is concerned with the freedom and responsibility of the individual in the face of a world which has no inherent human essence.

Their work can help us to name the experience of being in a state of uncertainty, but philosophy doesn't offer a single explanation for the way everyone else is distressed. To be lost can be grief, it can be depression, it can be trauma, it can be isolation, it can be practical pressures and it can be all of those things at once. To call something absurd should not be a way of dismissing the fact that it can be a very difficult experience.

• Camus, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

  Context for Camus’s distinct ideas about the Absurd and revolt.

• Sartre, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

  Context for Sartre’s distinct account of freedom and facticity.

Where Gestalt therapy connects

Gestalt therapy is interested in the lived experience rather than abstract theories about what your life 'should' mean. Rather than starting with a theory of what your life is 'supposed' to mean, a Gestalt therapist might simply ask you to notice what is actually happening as you speak: a tightening in the chest, a pause, a flash of anger, a shift in the way you're relating to the person on the other side of the table.

This is not to suggest that the past is irrelevant. It's simply a way of seeing how the past is very much alive in the present day in our expectations, our habits, our relationships and the way we go about meeting the world. Meaning may well emerge through that contact rather than through being told what our experience means.

• Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy

  Stanford Libraries catalog record for the 1951 foundational text on Gestalt therapy.

• Gestalt therapy, EBSCO Research Starters

  Overview of the approach’s emphasis on present-moment awareness and personal responsibility.

From big questions to immediate experience

A person who says 'nothing matters' may be espousing a philosophy, or they may simply be exhausted, disillusioned, numb or just wishing to be heard. In Gestalt terms the words do matter and the act of noticing what is going on in the moment they are said is important. The therapist and client can become curious about it together rather than immediately jump to the business of fixing or explaining the feeling.

That very same curiosity can open the door to more than one truth. Life can be deeply uncertain and yet something can still be important to you. You can feel constrained and still have options as to how you respond. Gestalt therapy doesn't promise to resolve the absurdity. It simply provides a means of becoming more aware of how you are living with the questions and what is actually possible in the relationships and situations you have.

Reading Sartre and Camus alongside Gestalt

For a starting point you could look at Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus (1942) and The Stranger (1942) and Sartre's Being and Nothingness (1943) or the play No Exit (1944). They're all very different in form and in argument, they're all essentially invitations to think rather than therapy manuals.

Gestalt therapy brings the question back to the person's present experience: what is going on, what is important and how are they relating to the world and to other people at this very moment? There may well be no final answer to the big questions. There can still be increased awareness, greater honesty in the contact and space to choose a next step.