Relationality and Authenticity: How Relationality Can Provide a Navigation System Through the Intersections of Oppression

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Abstract

This discussion will explore topics of individualism and relationality, and their interconnectedness. Individualism will be presented as the tendency for people in Western cultures to focus on themselves as a self-contained, highly autonomous agent who stands above and against their social milieu. Indeed, many forms of psychotherapy even promote this paradigm in the interest of psychological well-being. However, thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, Brent D. Slife, and John Macmurray argue that true authenticity and emotional health comes not just from individualism but from being-in-the-world as part of a larger community, or in other words, a sense of belonging to not only others but cultural traditions and values. Other theorists such as Martin E. Seligman and William Glasser have argued for the effect of relationships on psychological well-being and the good life. This discussion will demonstrate how individualism paradoxically lends itself to an empty isolation that causes the patient to feel victimized and therefore more oppressed. In addition, this discussion will present alternative approaches to authentic societal engagement, focusing on embracing human relationships as a way to navigate and change systems of oppression which inadvertently arise from isolated individualism.

Authors

• Matthew R. Draper, Utah Valley University

• Kevin L. Glenn, Utah Valley University