EXISTENTIAL REGRET: A CROSSROADS OF EXISTENTIAL ANXIETY AND EXISTENTIAL GUILTMARIJO LUCAS, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Graduate Psychology Program at Immaculata University, where she teaches courses and guides dissertations in Existential-Humanistic Theories and Applications (EHTA). She also is in part-time private practice in Yardley and West Chester, Pennsylvania. She supports the growth of EHTA by coordinating the annual visit of a scholar in EHTA to Immaculata and by sponsoring an annual EHTA Student ResearchAward (honoring James Bugental and Hobart Thomas) at the PPA convention. She recently presented at the WAPCEPC's PCE 2003 Conference in The Netherlands and the NASPR Conference in Rhode Island, and she has written several essays in the AHP Perspective on wanting and sincerity.

SummaryThis article examines the experience of existential regret, defined as a profound desire to go back and change a past experience in which one has failed to choose consciously or has made a choice that did not follow one's beliefs, values, or growth needs. The person experiences a combination of existential anxiety and existential guilt. Existential anxiety stems from confrontation with existential givens, including the finitude of past choices, inability to change the past, and the finitude offreedom in the past. With existential regret, the object of regret is an experience in which one failed to make a conscious, wholehearted choice and instead has made a choice in a moment of bad faith or lack of authentic presence and subjectivity. One's sense is of having abandoned and betrayed the self, thereby feeling deep existential guilt. A paralysis of action and choice may follow. Distinctions, examples, implications, and recommendations are also discussed. Keywords: existential; regret; guilt; hindfulness; presence

Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 44 No.1, Winter 2004 58-70 D O T :lD.1177f()022167S032.~9752 2004 Sage Publications

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Marijo N. LucasIf a man in the morning hear the right way, he may die in the evening without regret. -Confucius

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This article examines the phenomenological experience of a particular type of regret, termed existential regret. Existential regret is expressed as a profound desire and aching to go back and change a past experience in which one has failed to consciously choose or made a choice which did not follow one's beliefs, values, or growth needs. It is a painful blending of existential anxiety and existential guilt. EXISTENTIAL ANXIETY Regret is often expressed as a desire to go back and change a past experience. In particular, we want to change a previous choice, and therefore existentially face the lack of freedom to choose in the past. ""'hen experiencing regrets, we face life's finitudes: the finitude of past choices, the finitude of our ability to change the past, the finitude of freedom in the past, and often the finitudes of freedom and choice in the future. Therefore, most regrets involve facing life's givens and often include an expressed existential anxiety that stems from confrontation with existential givens (Bugental, 1965; Yalom, 1980). We face existential anxiety in relation to acceptance, or lack of acceptance, of some of life's givens-the finitude of choices, limitations regarding the past, and therefore the finitude offreedom in the past. EXISTENTIAL GUILT With one type of regret, existential regret, the object of regret is an experience in which one failed to make a conscious, wholehearted choice and instead made a choice in a moment of bad faith or lack of authentic presence and subjectivity. One's sense, then, is of having abandoned and betrayed the self, thereby feeling deep existential guilt (Yalom, 1980). Hence, in these moments of existential regret, existential anxiety is coupled with existential guil t. These are moments in which we acted without purposeful, conscious choosing. We were not present (Bugental, 1978); our experience was more characterized by a divided consciousness, and hence

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we were living in bad faith (Sartre, 1956). Forme, it is a sense that I abandoned myself at that moment and instead serviced another reality at the expense of my current experience, needs, and choices. The effect is that at some level I feel I let myself down and did not make the choice when I had it to make. Now that my deeper, reflexive self has failed me, I feel I have let myself down on many levels and I am acutely angry, despairing, and full of regret. I also experience that I can do nothing about it. Here we can see that some regrets--existential regrets-include a feeling of existential or ontological guilt, the guilt one feels in having abandoned the self, having let the subjective self down, or, as May (1983) expressed it, having forfeited one's own potentialities. I propose that those regrets that are most painful and remain with us longer are existential regrets, which lie at a crossroads of existential anxiety and existential guilt. Here we couple existential guilt in having abandoned the self, having let the self down, with existential anxiety in confronting our inability to go back and reclaim the moment when we had the ability to choose. Existential regrets may also come from betraying ourselves in other ways. Sometimes we consciously consider our choices and let ourselves down by choosing to do what is easier rather than responding to our inner values, integrity, beliefs, potential, and

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did not consider potential risks, and an infection following surgery almost killed her and left her with facial scarring and distortion. I recall other women who without forethought invited men into situations in which the women were sexually assaulted. Some clients married without listening to their doubts and found themselves in bad marriages. Others married and had affairs, which they regretted. Finally, others procrastinated facing financial responsibilities until ultimately they were beset by a mountain of problems. In a more subtle situation, an adolescent client, Jennifer, came to me with problems of anxiety and procrastination. She consciously chose to go shopping, take naps, snack, talk with friends, or watch television rather than completing her homework. Each day as she faced assignments left incomplete, she dreaded the ever increasing backlog of work and reprimands from teachers and parents. Much of her anxiety stemmed from her dread of responsibility as well as her dread in facing the consequences of her ongoing choices to procrastinate. She had to face that she could not will the assignments away. After resolving her problem of procrastination, her anxiety diminished. Once she recognized the peace that came from not procrastinating, she was left with existential regret; she was frustrated and angry that she had let herself down for the past few years. Her grades had improved and she was able to get into a very good college; however, she was unable to get into the college she wanted because her earlier grades were poor. Through her therapy, she was able to face the consequences of her past choice and become more determined not to let hersellf down in this way again. She became much more aware of opportunities and choices and was more mindful of making choices that were best for her overall growth rather than her immediate pleasure. In a follow-up session years later, she reflected on how her peers do not take advantage of life's opportunities in the way she has learned to do. She is more invested in life and has more awe and curiosity about the world around her.

EXISTENTIAL ANXIETY WITHOUT EXISTENTIAL GUILT AND REGRET To further clarify existential regrets, we can distinguish them from other situations that are similar yet not the same. Examples include mistakes, our thrown condition, and ambivalence around

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making a choice. At these times we experience existential anxiety in facing life givens, yet we do not experience existential guilt. We may have regret, but we do not classify it as existential regret. In therapy, it is important to recognize these as significant existential moments to address with clients; however, the working through will include the existential anxiety but less likely any existential guilt.Mistakes

Sometimes we consciously consider options, make a reasonable decision, and later wish we had made a different choice. We would prefer to have done the opposite; we accuse ourselves of having made a mistake. When we are present, conscious of our choosing, and make the choice we believe is consistent with our beliefs, values, and understanding of future consequences, we find regrets to be fewer, more bearable, and transient. We are more forgiving of ourselves. We face the existential anxiety associated with a loss of freedom and choice in the past, but because the choice was made in good faith, the internal feeling is one offorgiving ourselves for this mistake. We experience regret and existential anxiety, but we do not experience existential guilt. This regret is therefore considered here a regret but not an existential regret.Choosing

The act of choosing also often stimulates existential anxiety. As Bugental and Bugental (n.d.) point out, "Every choice is a thousand relinquishments." To choose means to relinquish or even kill other choices and possibilities. It is a crossroads in which one road is taken at the expense of having the opportunity to experience the other road. In other words, we face life's finitudes when making a choice. We face the finitude in having all we want, as well as the finitude of our ability to predict the future. Often, choices are postponed out of this existential anxiety. It is experienced as a fear of later regretting the choice, a fear oflater wishing we had made the other choice, and a reluctance to give up the other options. Unfortunately, the decision to not choose often leads to the loss of options, too. In Sophie's Choice (Styron, 1976/1992), Sophie is in line with her children at a Nazi concentration camp. She is distraught and in

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frantic agony as she is required to choose which of her two children she can keep with her, and which child will be taken from her and likely put to death. She first refuses to choose, and the officer insists that ifshe does not choose she will lose both children. This is one of many examples in which this novel provides examples of existential anxiety and choice. Some may see Sophie as having regret, existential regret. One can point to her apparent shame in having made these choices, evident in her having kept these choices a secret. Perhaps, however, Sophie's experience, pain, and shame are not existential regret; perhaps her experience, pain, and shame are related to her thrown condition but not a sense of regret that she has let herself down or made a bad faith choice. It seems instead that each of her choices were made with conscious choosing, and they could be considered the best choice she could make given a number of choices that were all painful options. She may feel regret, trauma, and shame in having to make the choices; the question is whether she regrets the actual choices she made. Perhaps the regret is not the existential regret referred to in this article; rather, it may be existential anxietyagony over the existential givens and her thrown condition. Thrown Condition Hence, existential regret should also be distinguished from a regrettable situation, or our thrown condition. We do not always have a choice regarding our life circumstances, events, and so forth. Much of our life circumstances and experiences are given to

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Sophie, who struggled with her thrown condition. Perhaps Sophie's Choice could be in reference not only to Sophie's choices but also to the fact that Stingo allowed Sophie to choose for him while he shut down his attunement to his own inner pain and grief:Despite all this frustration, I [Stingo] began to try to convince myself, with partial success, that I was happy; certainly I was happier than I had been in as long as I could remember. Thus I was ready to bide my time and discover what might felicitously happen ... I shivered violently, as if someone had thrown open at my back in the dead of winter a portal on the Arctic wastes. It was nothing so grand as what might be called a premonition-this clammy feeling which overtook me, in which the day darkened swiftly, along with my contentment-but I was suddenly ill-at-ease enough to long desperately to escape, to rush from the train. If, in my anxiety, I had done so, hopping off at the next stop and hurrying back to Yetta Zimmerman's to pack my bags and flee, this would be another story, or rather, there would be no story at all to tell. But I allowed myself to plunge on toward Coney Island, thus making sure to help fulfill Sophie's prophesy about the three of us: that we would become "the best of friends." (pp. 82-83)

SUBJECTIVE DEFINITION Regret and existential regret are individually and subjectively experienced and defined. They are defined not by events and choices, but by the person's experience ofthe choice and the desire to go back and change the decision. Although I use Sophie's Choice (Styron, 1976/1992) as an example to illustrate several points, no one but Sophie and Stingo can determine whether they experienced regret or existential regret. When the French golfer Jean Van de Velde lost his three-shot lead on the 18th hole in the Open Championship, most people expected him to experience the same agony and regret as his colleagues Scott Hoch, Tony Jacklin, and others who experienced distress in the face of their similar loses in major championships. However, he was not scarred by the experience. Jock Howard wrote of Jean Van de Velde's experience and entitled the article, "Je Ne Regrette Rien" (2000). Howard wrote,Van de Velde insists that his week at Carnoustie was nothing but positive. "J gave 100 at Carnoustie and I walked out there with my chin pretty straight. And it wasn't quite enough. But I'll tell you this-i-I couldn't live with myself if I'd tried to play safe and t.hen

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blown it. There was no guarantee that I'd make a six if I'd played safe." Perhaps Van de Velda's experience is better framed again as one of having experienced the agony of a thrown condition or experience. In a stroke of extreme bad luck, his ball hit a tiny piece of the grandstand that was facing back toward the tee. Any other part of the stand and his ball would have been safe. I expect he experienced existential anxiety in facing his inability to change the past, but he did not seem to experience existential guilt. He did not appear to believe he failed himself; instead, his sense was one of having given 100. He actually did mention having regrets about two decisions he made playing the last few strokes. These regrets may not have lingered or pained him because he believed that he gave his 100 and made conscious choices. His regrets were apparently felt as mistakes of sorts, but not self-abandonment or existential regret. Similarly, Edith Piaf and Frank Sinatra sang popular songs about having no regrets. Edith Piaf who led a difficult life including many failed relationships, substance abuse, and periods of depression, sang "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien." The first chapter of her book, My Life (2001), carries the same title. She begins the

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These same questions can be asked of Frank Sinatra (Anka, 1969), who sang, Regrets, I've had a few; But then again, too few to mention. I did what I had to do, And saw it through without exception. I planned each charted course, But more than this, I did it my way. Sinatra, like Piaf, had much success, but also many troubled times. They both lived lives that some would view negatively. However, when speaking of regret and existential regret, the origin and definition of the experience lies solely with the person experiencing it. Therefore, we should be cautious with clients in assuming the client does experience regret. Instead of assuming it is there, probing excessively for it, or accusing the client of denial when it is not experienced, therapists should remain aware of its possibility and foster a climate conducive for clients to discover and express regret when it emerges. RESPONSES TO EXISTENTIAL REGRET: PARALYSIS AND ATTEMPTS TO UNDO Existential regret is often followed by a paralysis-a lost perspective. We find ourselves not wanting to accept the finality of the present situation. We want to fend off thoughts of it, change the present situation, and other times consider destroying ourselves rather than face the future based on this current situation. We even sometimes lose perspective regarding choices that can now be made to minimize the consequences or to move forward. Sometimes along with accepting the past, the present and future consequences are too fully accepted. We go from not accepting the previous choice to embedding ourselves in a decision from the past, with a belief that the damage has been caused and we must accept the consequential reality. In other words, in accepting the consequences, we sometimes fail to see future choices in relation to dealing with the consequences. Our ability and the effects of current choices are sometimes distorted. Many of us can relate to a minor example: After stepping on the surge protector and losing a file, we stare at the blank screen, imagining that retyping our work will be

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impossible or take days. In fact, retyping what has already been created is much less difficult and painful than imagined in that paralysis. People in painful relational mistakes fantasize about running away or even killing themselves. They imagine life and relationships can never be good. I wonder whether this is the moment in which people desperately try to get their former partners to return to a lost relationship. They resort to bribes or enticements to try to convince the lover to return. They may even report that they do not care whether the person wants to return, they just want the relationship back the way it was. They want to avoid accepting the finality of choice and the consequences of that choice. Therapists, too, may find existential finalities unbearable and unconsciously collude with clients in their attempts to undo their situations. Therapists may minimize the consequences, offer alternatives to make the situation better, and challenge the client's belief about the significance of the choice and situation-attempts to undo the situation so the therapist does not have to bear witness to the existential pain and regret. Erik Baard (2003), in his article "New Science Raises the Specter of a World Without Regret," describes how current research is being developed to numb the memories of trauma. He expresses concern that this technology may also be used to avoid painful consequences of our behavioran emotional morning-after pill to fend off the birth of regret and anxiety. Instead of attempting to undo their regrets, we can help clients and ourselves look and lean into the future. In doing so, we can see options available, choices in the future that may affect the current situation. With this we face freedom and choices, as well as the limits and finitude of these choices. We face the responsibility to ourselves for these choices. 'I'he freedom, choice, finitude, and responsibility can be energizing and frightening. As Henry David Thoreau advised, "Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow .... To regret deeply is to live afresh" (cited in Baard,2003).

W hat are the im pli cati ons for wo rki ng wit h clie nts in psy cho the rap y? I fin d tha t aft er wo rki ng thr ou gh the se bad fait h, exi ste n-

CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS

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tial regrets, I and others often experience a determination to live more choicefully and affirmatively in the future. Therefore, I suggest that when clients experience existential regret, pointing toward this experience in such a way that clients can come to a clearer phenomenological understanding of the experience will help facilitate the life force that engenders a determination to move past the paralysis and learn from the experience. In other words, we should help the client to clarify the experience, how it was experienced, and to avoid the unending questions of why it happened. To explore the moments immediately surrounding the regretted experience and understanding how it happened is more illuminating than to examine more distant historical explanations for why it happened. Often in simply observing the experience more fully, the client is able to articulate the sense of having not been present, having not made a good faith choice, and having let the self down. This illumination allows us to highlight the existentiallessons: to live with intentionality and choicefulness and not abandon themselves in the present for the sake of giving into this hurried, dissociated nonliving surrounding us. Regrets can be opportunities to learn to appreciate, savor, and taste choices more fully; then, regrets will be experienced as mistakes rather than moments of bad faith. We need to be watchful, however, of the neurotic response-the tendency to express self-disdain for the errors and to proclaim a renewed desire to achieve perfection. Hence, this moment in therapy can allow for observations of approach to self and living. Does one humbly and wisely embrace this moment of error as an example of one's humanity? Or does one assert a renewed addictive desire for perfection, rather than a renewed appreciation for one's subjectivity, humanness, and difficulty in forgiving ourselves? I knew one woman had turned a corner in her work when she announced her New Year's resolution. Rather than her typical objectified goals of spending less money, eating less, or keeping a clean house, she resolved to "stop lying to myself." I saw this as a more subjective and fundamental problem underlying her behavioral problems and concerns. As therapists, we should also be alert to ways in which therapists and clients can keep clients stuck in their regrets, lost in bad faith, wasted time, wasted energy, and wasted life. Clients may avoid confronting their regret and remain stuck when they provide soliloquies of excuses, externalize blame, or ruminations. Simi-

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larly, therapists may perpetuate this avoidance by exploring and supporting these distractions or by minimizing the significance of the choice and consequences. Often, therapists will challenge the client's belief and instead try to encourage the client to see the situation as fully out of personal control, challenging the regret as an irrational belief. Such a stance does not tolerate the client's regret or self-blame. Finally, therapists can point toward small examples of regrets that typically occur during the therapy process. These may include the client's regrets regarding previous sessions or moments earlier in the session. Yalom (1995) encourages clients to evaluate their satisfaction with each session, sometimes in comparison with other sessions, in an effort to help teach them to become responsible for their own sessions. Clients typically point to those sessions and moments in sessions that are here and now focused/subjective and present as being the most helpful. Here, regrets allow for opportunities to live more fully in the therapy sessions, just as we can help them to use existential regrets to live more fully outside of therapy also. SUMMARY When choices are made from a stance of intentionality and subjectivity, regrets are fewer and more bearable. We struggle with existential anxiety regarding the finitude of our choices, but we do not have a concomitant existential guilt about having let ourselves down. Yet when choices are made in a climate of a relative lack of choicefulness, lack ofintentionality,

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ence will help facilitate the life force that engenders a determination to move past the paralysis and learn from the experience. After working through these bad faith, existential regrets, they may experience a determination to live more choicefully, intentionally, subjectively, and affirmatively in the future.

REFERENCESAnka, P. (1969). My Way [Recorded by Frank Sinatra]. Management Agency & Music Pub. Baard, E. (2003, January 22-28). New science raises the specter of a world without regret: The guilt-free soldier. The Village Voice. Retrieved September 11, 2003, from http://www.villagevoice.comiissues/0304/ baard.php Bugental, J. F. T. (1965). The search for authenticity: An existential-analytic approach to psychotherapy. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Bugental, J. F. T. (1978). Psychotherapy and process: The fundamentals of an existential-humanistic approach. New York: McGraw-Hill. Bugental, J. F. T., & Bugental, E. (n.d.). Wanting: A life-essential art that is much neglected. Unpublished manuscript. Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). New York: Harper & Row. (Original work published 1927) Howard, J. (2000). Je ne regrette rien [1 regret nothing]. Golf World. Retrieved from http://www.allezjean.comlpresbooklgw02~.0700.html Maslow, A. H. (1993). Neurosis as a failure of personal growth. In M. Vich (Ed.), The farther reaches of human nature. New York: Penguin. (Original work published 1967) May, R. (1983). The discovery of being. New York: Norton. Piaf, E. (2001).My Life. (J. Noli, Ed. & M. Crosland, Trans.). London: Peter Owen Ltd. Sartre, J. (1956). Being and nothingness (H. Barnes, 'I'rans.). New York: Washington Square Press. Styron, W . (1992). Sophie's choice. New York: Vintage. (Original work published 1976) Yalom, I. D. (1980). Existential psychotherapy. New York: Basic Books. YaIom, I. D. (1995). The theory and practice of group psychotherapy (4th ed.), New York: Basic Books.Reprint requests: Marijo N. Lucas, Ph.D., Graduate Psychology, P.O. Box 521, Immaculata University, Immaculata, PA 19345-0521; e-mail: mlucas@ immaculata.edu,