what is an existential breakdown?

Question

someone tell me.. all the philosopher kings out there... give me examples too...

Answer 1

It is usually referred to as "an existential crisis".

Some people experience a time in their life when they question their existence, why they are here, what is their purpose, what is the meaning of life.

It is often accompanied by emotional states such as sadness, grief and depression.

Such things can be triggered by an accident, a death, the loss of relationship, violence, natural disasters, anything that presents a challenge to a person's ability to cope with reality.

Answer 2

I believe you're talking about an existential dilemma/crisis. Existentialism is the point of view that because there is no higher power that created humans, there is no innate 'meaning of life' per se. Every person must create meaning for his/herself. The dilema that an existentialist faces is the question of how to be "good" if there is no absolute, objective standard by which to judge what is good and what is not good. There's a quote that exemplifies this, "Man is condemned to be free". Condemned because we have absolute authority over our choices (No determinism) but we can't know what is good/not-good. Hope this helps?

Answer 3

I think maybe your referring to the GEICO commercial where the caveman says to his therapist in response to her saying"Nobody said this was going to be easy.", "Now see if GEICO have taken that approach I wouldn't be having this...existential meltdown right now." Existentialism in psychotherapy is often called the third force psychology. With complete freedom to decide, and through being responsible for the outcome of said decisions, comes anxiety or angst about the choices made. Anxiety's importance in existentialism makes it a popular topic in psychotherapy. Psychotherapist using this form of psychotherapy believe a patient can harness their anxiety and use it constructively. By embracing anxiety as inevitable, a person can use it to achieve his or her full potential in life. A parody in modern culture is found in the movie/comic book series X-men where the professor tries to teach children with mutant powers not to be afraid of them, but to control and use them to benefit mankind.