Definition
Existentially significant experiences are experiences in which a person touches what really matters in their life. They are marked by intensity and authenticity: they widen something, narrow something, change something. Every such experience gives something and takes something away.
Not only in the spiritual dimension
They can happen in the body (e.g. childbirth, illness, touch), in emotions, in relationships, at work, in contact with nature. According to one workshop thesis, experiences from other dimensions “nourish” the spiritual dimension.
Feelings as a compass
In logotherapy feelings are “a finger pointing at something”: it is worth pausing at it, but then looking at what it points to. Anger, sadness or weariness are often a signal that a value is at stake.
Partial death
Kazimierz Dąbrowski, author of the theory of positive disintegration, spoke of “partial death”: something in my life has to die - a role, a habit, a relationship - so that I can open up to something new. Sadness is part of this process.
Subject-object in oneself
Dąbrowski considered one of the most developmental dynamisms to be the ability to see oneself simultaneously as subject and object - to stand beside oneself and look at oneself. This is close to Frankl's self-distancing.
Conditions for reflection
For an experience to become a source of growth, a person needs, among other things: a sense of safety, openness and curiosity, time, a relationship with someone who helps to see things from another perspective, and the readiness not to identify one hundred per cent with any role.
Sources
K. Dąbrowski, Positive Disintegration; I. D. Yalom, Existential Psychotherapy; E. Lukas, works on logotherapeutic practice.