Dispiritedness

Abstract

In this clinically based, conceptual article, dispiritedness is defined as the condition and the emotional aspect of that condition in which a person is unable to bring significant life intentions from the unconscious through subjective processing and thus to actualization. When in this condition, the person loses the sense of vitality in living, experiences melancholy, and has difficulty in taking effective and satisfying action. The central role of intentionality is described, as well as a sequence through which intentions evolve toward being realized. Interruption of the movement of impulses along this sequence occurs when the person experiences threats to constructs important to having a stable identity in a stable world. The dispirited state is analyzed into (a) its primary component, a threat to the person's self-and-world-concept; (b) a secondary overlay, socially learned reactions to one's own dispiritedness; and (c) a tertiary state of detachment in which concern is explicityly or implicitly denied. A complementing psychotherapeutic approach is sketched.