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Sartre's special type of existentialism, phenomenological philosophy, is the main focus of this book by Charles Hanly, a University of Toronto philosopher equipped with psychoanalytic training. His method is to translate phenomenological principles into the concrete psychological experiences to which they refer. The author then shows that while these are accurate descriptions of certain psychological states, they are by no means fundaments of human existence on which
to build a philosophy. On the contrary, these states are readily recognizable as surface manifestations of unconscious conflict (the existence of which existentialism does not recognize—but more on this later). For example: Existentialism's emphasis on the realization of oneself only in action bespeaks a primitive level of object relations; existentialism's description of the relations between the sexes is rife with sadomasochism and body-image anxiety, leaving no room for relatively conflict-free mutuality; the boredom, despair, loneliness, and emptiness of existentialist case histories tell of depression; the existentialist idea that one's consciousness never coincides with itself sounds like estrangement; the emphasis on "nothingness" reminds one of the "as-if" personality and other profound identity disorders.
Sartre's position starts with atheism. There being no God, there is no fixed human nature that determines one to act. Man is totally free and entirely responsible for what he makes of himself. Human reality is conscious choice. Neurosis is the problem of making free choices in one's existence. Experiences such as anguish, vertigo, nausea, and shame are based in consciousness itself—consciousness facing up to an intrinsic property of human existence: the equipossibility of choosing life or death.
According to Hanley, existentialism thus assigns to consciousness a nuclear role in mental life. The unconscious simply does not exist. Consciousness is the person's existence. It is an a