"The Spark" Reclaiming the Existential in a Post-Secular World : Existential Health as a Multidimensional Process, From Crisis to Embodied and Relational Integration

Sammanfattning

This thesis examines existential crisis as a transformative process emerging across both secular and religious life-worlds in contemporary Swedish society. In a cultural context shaped by linear time, productivity ideals, and cognitive acceleration, individuals increasingly experience stress, disconnection, and a loss of meaning. Drawing on existential philosophy and theory, and holistic perspectives on health, the study explores how such crises may function not merely as breakdowns, but as thresholds that enable reorientation toward a more cyclical, embodied, and relational understanding of self, life, and meaning-making. Using qualitative methods and phenomenology, the thesis analyses in-depth experiences from four participants with diverse worldviews, including both secular orientations and experiences rooted in strict religious or spiritual dogma. Despite differing belief systems, participants describe similar paths of inner journeys, such as patterns of existential rupture, emotional disconnection, and questioning of identity, purpose and belonging. This study explores how individuals experiencing life crises undergo existential transformation characterized by a movement from fragmentation toward integration. Drawing on narrative and existential frameworks, the findings suggest a recurring pattern in which participants shift from externally oriented, linear modes of being toward more cyclical, relational, and embodied understandings of self and world. The findings highlight how existential crisis often disrupts previously stable meaning structures – whether secular or religious – creating space for deeper self-reflection, emotional integration, and renewing the sense of self anchored in a more authentic version. The study suggests that existential and emotional dimensions of health are central to human well-being and should be more explicitly recognized and supported within societal institutions and policy making, as well integrated in healthcare, educational frameworks, and religious or spiritual contexts. By foregrounding embodied awareness, relational meaning, and cyclical understandings of life, the thesis contributes to interdisciplinary discussions on existential health, resilience, and sustainable ways of living in an increasingly fragmented and pluralistic world.