Jean-Paul Sartre: The Third Force Movement

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) is referred to as the most popular existentialist of the twentieth century and was born out of the third force movement in psychology. The third force movement of the twentieth century consisted of a diverse collection of psychologists and philosophers that did not all share universal principles, but were all reacting to the new orientation of psychology, which differed from behaviorism in that it did not reduce psychological processes to reactions to mechanical laws of physiological events but acknowledged the mediating and active role of the mind (Brennan, 2003). Despite the diversity of the third force movement, there were commonly shared views amongst its pioneers. One of these views was the focus on personal freedom and responsibility in terms of decision making and fulfilling ones potential (Brennan, 2003). The mind was considered to be active, and dynamic and a place where an individual could express their uniquely human abilities of cognition, willing, and judgments (Brennan, 2003). There was an emphasis on the self, and an acknowledgement of the strive of humans toward individually defined personality development. Existentialism holds that an individual is free to define his or her life course through his or her choices and decisions, but individuals are responsible for the consequences of their personal choices and decisions, and therefore freedom is a burdensome source of anguish (Brennan, 2003).

At the core of Jean-Paul Sartre’s views was that existence precedes essence. This contrasted with the Aristotelian and Scholastic views that individual existence is an expression of essence or being (Brennan, 2003). Instead, Sartre believed that existence defines the essence of an individual such ...

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...s they are in actuality. Part of the committed action of ACT is for clients to define goals in specific areas along their valued life path, and then act on the goals while anticipating psychological barriers (Hayes, 2004). Clients are encouraged to take responsibility for the patterns of actions that result from their committed action goals. Sartre states that we have total and deep responsibility in every decision that we make, such that if we decide to commit ourselves to “truthfulness”, we will impose a truthful standard on ourselves and have to take responsibility for this standard. Finally, the idea that we can only rely on ourselves and must accept our cognitions to increase our psychological flexibility in ACT, is similar to Sartre’s idea that we only have responsibility to ourselves and must guide ourselves through our ability to make decisions and choices.