May I be like this?
Some people know quite well who they are. What they do not know is whether they are allowed to be it. They keep a part of themselves out of sight at work, at home, with their parents. The question is not "who am I". It is closer to "is this all right".
Alfried Längle, a Viennese psychotherapist who worked with Viktor Frankl and later built his own version of existential analysis, gave this question a place in a larger structure. He calls it the third fundamental motivation.
Four questions
Längle set out the structure in a paper for the 18th World Congress of Psychotherapy in Trondheim, in August 2002. He argues that the themes a person deals with over a lifetime go back to four realities. Each of them asks for an inner position, so each becomes a question.
1. The world. I am here, but can I be here? 2. Life. I am alive, but do I like it? 3. Being oneself. I am myself, but may I be like this? 4. The future. I am here, but what is it good for?
The fourth question, about meaning, belongs to Frankl's line of thought. It has its own pages, on logotherapy and the will to meaning and on Frankl's dimensional ontology. This page stays with the third.
The word "may"
Here is how Längle puts the third question in the paper:
"I am myself – may I be like this?"
— Alfried Längle, "Existential Fundamental Motivation", paper at the 18th World Congress of Psychotherapy, Trondheim, 16 August 2002, section 6 (laengle.info)
He then rephrases it twice. Do I feel free to be like that? Do I have the right to be what I am and to behave as I do? The word that carries the question is "may". It is a question of permission, and permission is something that happens between people.
Längle calls this the plane of identity and of ethics. Knowing yourself and being entitled to yourself sit on the same level.
Three experiences
For the question to get a "yes", Längle writes, a person needs to have experienced three things: attention, justice and appreciation. He turns each into a question of its own. By whom am I seen? Who respects my boundaries? Do people do me justice? For what am I appreciated, and for what can I appreciate myself?
None of these is an attitude a person can simply adopt. Each describes something that happened, or did not happen, in the company of others. When Längle uses the word "self-esteem" here, he means the sum of these experiences.
Saying yes to oneself
Experience alone is not enough, Längle goes on. A person also has to say "yes to myself". He describes what that takes: looking at other people and meeting them, and at the same time drawing one's own line and refusing what does not fit.
The first half of that is encounter. For Längle it is the bridge out of isolation. In the "you" of another person, he writes, I find their essence and also my own "I". This is where he locates the feeling of being entitled to be what I am: in being met.
The second half is the line. Meeting others does not mean taking their shape. Längle keeps both movements in one sentence. Without the first, a person ends up alone. Without the second, there is no one left to meet.
Whose permission
Read this way, the third motivation turns the question around. A person who asks "may I be like this" is often waiting for an answer from someone specific. A parent, a partner, a group they once belonged to. Längle does not promise that the answer will come. For him, being oneself was never done alone. The permission has an address.
Before whom do I need permission to be who I am?
Epimelea is an app built around the existential school. The conversation carries over from one meeting to the next. The archive is encrypted on the device and belongs to the person who wrote it.
About the app: an AI therapist for long-term therapy
This page is about a school of psychotherapy. It is not medical advice and not emergency help. If you are in danger right now, contact your local emergency number, or find a helpline in your country at findahelpline.com.