Archives

  • Life Anyway - Constellations of How We Choose to Live
    No. 2 (2025)

    Editorial Note

    Writing about life is not easy. Especially about the ordinary, simple, good life - without pathos, without grand words. About the fact that life continues despite. Despite pain, despite loss, despite the diagnosis, despite death. Despite not going where we hoped to go, despite someone leaving, despite something ending irreversibly. And yet - it is precisely this despite that becomes a place of meaning, an act of creation, and a constellation of chosen attitudes. We find freedom in eating sprats, in the smell of the forest, in conversation, in the quiet after a day that did not unfold the way we expected, in everydayness. In the fact that someone finishes their studies - despite. That someone begins again after forty - despite. That we still try to live well and authentically - despite. Life does not fulfil expectations; it asks for our response. And perhaps this is why we so often cover simple truths with philosophy. Because it is easier to speak of Being than to admit that life is sometimes simply difficult? And yet one can live well despite — and that is precisely why it makes sense. From a mother’s first word to Ozzy’s final chord — in all of it there is gratitude, presence, and an everyday choice rather than struggle. And that is enough.

    We hope that the second issue of Existential Analysis and the Phenomenology of Life (ISSN 3071-978X), will become a space for reflections on living well despite - on choosing one’s attitude and on providing an answer until the very end.

    Warm regards,
    Dorota Draczyńska & Agnieszka Nowakowska
    Editor-in-Chief & Chair of the Editorial Board

    19.12.2025

  • Translations
    No. 3ap (2026)

  • Death as an Emanation of Life
    No. 1 (2025)

    Editorial Note

    The inaugural issue of Existential Analysis and the Phenomenology of Life (ISSN 3071-978X) is devoted to the themes of death, mourning, parting, accompaniment, understanding, and the search for meaning in loss – explored from the perspective of physicians, psychotherapists, philosophers, and human beings.

    Its inspiration: fathers.
    Created because of fathers, for fathers. And in spite of them. Three fathers, three stories, three lives.
    We are grateful that this voice can be heard in the opening volume of our journal.

    In this issue, we ask: What is death?

    How can we understand dying and saying goodbye – not as a medical process, but as a relational and existential event? How can we make sense of mourning and grief, both from the perspective of diagnostic classifications and through the experiential-existential lens of those who have faced death?

    The authors whose texts appear in the following pages approach these questions from various angles: from philosophical reflections on temporality and transience in Heidegger’s thought, through analyses of sorrow and loss grounded in existential perspectives, to deeply personal and boundary-experiencing voices – revealing that death, grief, and mourning are not merely theoretical subjects, but part of lived human experience.

    A cultural, social, and profoundly relational phenomenon – also explored in the context of funeral rituals across cultures, as forms of accepting what is ultimately inevitable.

    Authors share their personal experiences of accompanying others through dying – of being present in a boundary situation, a transformative event where the awareness of finitude restores access to authentic life. The issue also addresses persistent treatment, complicated grief from a clinical perspective in light of the ICD-11, and perhaps most importantly – the idea of a good death.

    We hope this issue will become a space for contemplation – but above all, an invitation to reflect on what it means to be – all the way to the inevitable end.

    With respect,
    Dorota Draczyńska & Agnieszka Nowakowska
    Editor-in-Chief & Chair of the Editorial Board

  • Understanding Took a Long Time to Reach Me, and Then I Missed It by a Hair Several Times
    No. 3 (2026)

    Editorial Note

    The third issue of our journal has turned out to be a summer issue and - something we only realized during the editorial process - a distinctly male one. The authors lead us along different paths of misunderstanding and understanding: from personal and practical perspectives, through philosophical reflection, to clinical and diagnostic inquiry. Although their points of departure differ, all the contributions explore attempts to understand oneself, another person, and the world.

    The collected texts remind us that understanding is not a state to be attained once and for all. It is a process marked by pauses, returns, and moments of uncertainty. It does not always come immediately. Sometimes it requires a shift in perspective, sometimes patience, and sometimes the courage to question one's own assumptions. It is along this path that the possibility of a genuine encounter - with another person and with oneself - emerges.

    We wish you a peaceful and restorative summer and hope you enjoy reading Existential Analysis and Phenomenology of Life (ISSN 3071-978X).

    With warm regards,
    Dorota Draczyńska & Agnieszka Nowakowska
    Editor-in-Chief & Chair of the Editorial Board

    27 June 2026