No. 2 (2025): Life in spite of – constellations of freedom to choose an attitude.

The next issue of Existential Analysis and the Phenomenology of Life (ISSN 3071-978X) is dedicated to the theme of life i-n-s-p-i-t-e-o-f. In spite of illness, diagnoses, loss, crises, disability... It will include stories of good, conscious life in spite of everything – all the way to the end. Of life that might not seem to fit – and yet... Through the freedom to choose one’s existential stance in the face of life’s circumstances – it does find its place.

A human being – as a free being – gives a response to life. In spite of pain, wounds, the inability to trust, or the lack of language – life can become a response, not an imposed form. Precisely in the fracture, in the misfit, in the absence of ready answers – possibility emerges. As Viktor Frankl wrote – even in the most limiting of situations, a person has a choice: the choice of one’s attitude, the freedom to take one’s own path (…). Even if “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden” (Greenberg, 1964), even if “Life Is No Fairy Tale” (Greenberg, 2014), it is the human being who decides what their life will be. And what position they will take in relation to it – even if that stance takes time to assume…

“And if I’m going to fight – what for?

Not for anything easy or sweet – I told you that a year ago and two years ago. You will fight for your own challenges, your own mistakes, your own punishment for them, your own definition of love and mental health – for a good, strong ‘I’ with whom you can begin to live.” (Greenberg, 1964/2014)

We warmly invite submissions on the possibility of life in spite of, on the choice of existential stance, on the courage to say YES to life, to face it fully, and to live a good life – all the way to the end, i-n-s-p-i-t-e-o-f.