Abstract
Defining emptiness has been challenging, although it is possible to find it in different circumstances, disorders, and doctrines. Its definition depends on its conceptualization as an emotion, symptom, defense mechanism, or existential state. (D’Agostino et al., 2020).
From a psychopathological point of view, there is empirical evidence on the relationship between feelings of emptiness and depression. A robust correlation has been found between those (Klonsky & Olino, 2008), and the existence of a continuum of severity of the emptiness experience with the evolution of the depressive disorder has been described. (Rhodes et al., 2019). The feeling of emptiness has also been related to schizophrenia (Zandersen & Parnas, 2019), associated with dissociative states, and the phenomena of depersonalization and derealization that may happen in this disorder (Stanghellini, 2009). In Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), in which emptiness is presented as a diagnostic criterion, the patients’ descriptions are varied and uncertain (Miller et al., 2020). Nevertheless, it is recognized as one of the symptoms that prevails for the longest time, regardless of treatment or improvement of the other symptoms.
Concerning the cultural and social approaches, in the existentialist philosophy, the emptiness or the nothingness of the consciousness manifested as a cause of existential anguish, fear, and as the perception of human finitude. In the other hand, it is seen as a condition which ultimately allows free consciousness (Lancer, 2019). This paradox is also found in the concepts attributed in Christian doctrine. The act of emptying oneself of contents is necessary and obligatory to attain divine knowledge and joy, but also a longing for God. The more the human being feels lost in emptiness, the closer he gets to God (Corrigan, 2017). The Buddhist notion of emptiness, śūnyatā, originated with Siddhartha Gautama, is used to express the total absence of existence, identity and permanence, and the interrelation and dependence of all things. It has been conceptualized as a metaphysical concept and a mental, experiential, meditative state of mind. It is a state to achieve, that frees the human begin from suffering (Tirado, 2008).
The concept of emptiness is also considered a concrete spatial and temporal concept in the global landscape of capitalism. After the World War II, individuals and families around the world experienced the loss of members, values and beliefs, and the sense of community and tradition. The empty self needed to combat the alienation and fragmentation of its era by continually being filled with consuming commodities and experiences, acquiring a close relation with the modern world consumerism (Dzenovska & Knight, 2020).
In eastern Latvia, people use the term emptiness (tukšums) to describe the radical changes in their lives that happened after 50 years in the Soviet Union: the abandonment of people who left, the closure of schools and transports, the disappearance of their town and the rubble, and disorderliness left behind (Dzenovska, 2020).
Recently, practices derived from Buddhism have been applied to psychotherapeutic contexts, congruently displayed in its positive and salutary form (Shonin, 2015). Some second-generation Mindfulness-Based Interventions are based on the emergence of emptiness experiences in the mind of the individual, where he recognizes that all phenomena are absent from existence and is capable of reaching a meditative state (Van Gordon et al., 2021).
In conclusion, a term present across several languages and contexts finds distinct meanings and attributions, almost as if it did not correspond to the same concept. While in certain practices the negativity weighs and its pathologizing occurs, in others it is something that is sought and desired. Somehow, the term itself little seems to matter.
Furthermore, some questions remain unanswered: if we look at emptiness in another way, would it not be a symptom or an illness? Is its inclusion in BPD diagnosis criteria pathologizing an existential problem? And finally, if another meaning was attributed, could emptiness be used in the patient’s treatment?
These enhance the importance of approach of emptiness and deepen the other meanings of emptiness.
