School of Social Sciences, University of Limpopo, Polokwane 0727, South Africa.
Department of Psychology, University of Limpopo, Polokwane 0727, South Africa.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Aug 18;19(16):10248. doi: 10.3390/ijerph191610248.
Globally, humanity is in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic; thus, we question our individual, and collective, behaviours. Long periods of lockdown and ever-escalating death rates have found people asking questions such as "What is the point of carrying on?" This is exacerbated by the world's burgeoning ecological crisis. Humanity is beginning to wonder if it belongs on the planet when its footprint has caused such rampant destruction to forests, oceans, the animal kingdom, and other ecological entities. Existential positive psychology (EPP) seeks to uncover truths about humankind's existence, survival, and, thus, meaning in life. We, as people, need to make sense of our reason for being as we struggle with our anxieties and seek to become authentic. This discussion paper contends that EPP can help humanity find the courage to challenge, and heal, its existential anxieties, namely, death, isolation, freedom, and meaningless, in order to find individual and group identities, as well as overall mental wellness (or happiness), specifically in a South African context, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The writings of Wong, who works within the framework of EPP, and those of Frankl, a holocaust survivor, whose work falls within the scope of humanistic and existential psychology and Asante's Afrocentrism, which is a philosophical framework grounded on the African continent, are used to support this argument.
全球正处于 COVID-19 大流行之中；因此，我们开始审视个人和集体行为。长时间的封锁和不断攀升的死亡率让人们开始质疑，“继续下去有什么意义？”而世界范围内不断恶化的生态危机则使这一问题更加严重。人类开始怀疑自己是否应该存在于这个星球上，因为人类的足迹已经对森林、海洋、动物王国和其他生态实体造成了如此严重的破坏。存在积极心理学（EPP）试图揭示人类存在、生存以及生命意义的真相。作为人类，我们需要理解自己存在的意义，因为我们要应对焦虑并努力变得真实。本文认为，EPP 可以帮助人类找到勇气，去挑战和治愈其存在性焦虑，即死亡、孤独、自由和无意义，从而找到个人和群体认同，以及整体心理健康（或幸福），特别是在南非 COVID-19 大流行的背景下。本文使用了 Wong 的著作，Wong 的作品基于 EPP 框架，以及 Frankl 的著作，Frankl 是大屠杀幸存者，他的作品属于人本主义和存在主义心理学的范畴，以及 Asante 的 Afrocentrism，这是一种基于非洲大陆的哲学框架，来支持这一观点。
