The existential suffering of the UEMG Divinópolis community: challenges and possibilities for coping

Abstract

Under different terminologies and forms, suffering has always been present throughout human history. The search for the meaning of life, the realization of loneliness and existential emptiness become marks in contemporary ways of being. And it is within this framework of uncertainty and search for ways to deal with these ways of being that this project is inserted. It tries to discuss how the existential suffering of teachers, students and administrative technicians at UEMG Divinópolis unit occurs and what strategies they use to deal with it. At the moment we live, still within a pandemic state, but coming out of isolation, many are the issues that have been presented to the human person and led to existential suffering: relearning to deal with face-to-face relationships, dealing with the grief suffered , whether to do with work situations, now face to face within the University, with the conflicts that took place in the face of the 2022 election, with personal experiences facing life itself, with broken relationships due to different political positions, etc. becomes a challenge for both students and teachers and technicians. Based on Amedeo Giorgi's empirical phenomenological method, interviews are being carried out with teachers, students and administrative technicians at the Divinópolis unit. The empirical phenomenological method that will be used is divided into four steps: 1) establish the general meaning; 2) determination of meaning units; 3) transformation of meaning units into psychological expressions; 4) determination of the general structure of psychological meanings. This study aims to produce material to support the NAE and the unit to propose actions to help the subjects in coping with their existential suffering. From obtaining the reports, common aspects in all interviews will be sought and the existential suffering experienced by the subjects will be characterized. We still do not have data saturation, however, with the data collected so far, it is possible to understand that the existential suffering of the students has permeated the difficulty of contact with themselves, with others and with the university environment itself. They have felt weakened by the experience of not belonging to groups at the university, the difficulty of getting in touch with themselves when a challenge arises, and the loneliness experienced at the university since they are far from their family, usually from other cities, and end up for closing themselves, which enhances the experience of an anguish that immobilizes and paralyzes them. There is still a lot to be collected during the month of August so that new and more consistent data can be presented at the congress. The research is funded by the Institutional Research Support Program - PAPq/UEMG, Notice 11/2022.