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Ontological Insecurity

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Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion
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Definition

Discomfort is necessarily a feature of human psychology, a condition that is impossible to avoid because humans are inherently imperfect while wishing for perfection, and, as such, we already are uneasy by nature, or as Freud (1930/2005) would likely have said, we are all dis-eased. Therefore, trying to remove or even ameliorate this dis-ease of imperfection by finding the one perfect pathway, vocation, or belief system, whatsoever these might be, will not help because that discomfort is built into the human condition. Though some might try to eliminate discomfort and dis-ease with denial, believing they can say, “Just be happy” or “Nothing is ever wrong” making the discomfort, distress or dis-ease go away, will discover that these feelings persist. Unfortunately, the phenomenon of dis-ease is universal.

The tension of meaning between traditional religious terms and psychological interpretations, related to implications for human self-understanding, cross-cultural...

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Correspondence to Ashley Whitaker .

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Whitaker, A. (2020). Ontological Insecurity. In: Leeming, D.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24348-7_200203

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