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Existential Therapy
3
Sidney Wentland
Existential Therapy
View of Human Nature
Bases therapeutic practice on an understanding of what it means to be human
Existential tradition - balance between recognizing the limits of human existence and also the possiblities and opportunities of human life.
Current focus: the individual's experience of being in the world alone and facing the anxiety of this isolation
We continually recreate ourselves!
Key Points
Freedom, Choice, and Responsibility
To live fully we must expand our awareness in:
- Humans are finite
- Action/inaction is a decision, we choose our actions -> create own destiny
- Increase awareness of responsiblity for consequences
- Meaning is the product of discovering how we are situated in the world
- We are alone, but can relate to others - we are subject to loneliness, meaninglessness, emptiness, guilt and isolation
The Capacity for Self-Awareness
The decision to expand self-awareness is fundamental to human growth
Freedom - we are responsible for our lives, our actions, and our failures to take action.
Client may show inauthenticity - not accepting personal responsibility -> EXCUSES
Existential guilt is being aware of having evaded a commitment or having chosen not to choose.
Freedom and Responsibility
Focused on present and future self
By assisting clients in facing the
fear that their lives or selves are empty and meaningless, therapists can help clients to create a self that has meaning and substance that they have chosen.
If we are unable to tolerate ourselves
when we are alone, how can we expect anyone else to be enriched by our company?
Striving for Identity and Relationship to Others
Must have a relationship with ourself in order to have meaningful relationships with others
"Why am I here?”
“What do I want from life?”
“What gives my life purpose?”
“Where is the source of meaning for me in life?”
The Search for Meaning
Avoid discarding old values, instead create new ones
Help clients create a value system based on a way of living that is consistnet with their way of being to prevent existential vacuum -> meaninglessness
Logotherapy - to help clients find meaning in life. Suffering can be turned into human achievement.
Anxiety
Existential anxiety is the unavoidable result of being confronted with the “givens of existence”—death, freedom, choice, isolation, and meaninglessness
(Vontress, 2013; Yalom, 1980; Yalom & Josselson, 2014).
Anxiety as a Condition of Living
Learning how to tolerate the uncertainty and how to live can be a necessary phase in the journey from dependence to autonomy
Also normal and neurotic anxiety
Death & Nonbeing
Holds that awareness of death as a basic human ocndition gives significance to living
Awareness of Death and Nonbeing
Motivation for us to take advantage of appreciating the present moment!
Key Figures
Key Figures
Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) themes of creative anxiety, despair, fear and dread, guilt, and nothingness.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) themes of death, suicide, and will
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) themes of authentic being, caring, death, guilt, individual responsibility, and isolation
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) themes of meaninglessness, responsibility, and choice
Martin Buber (1878-1965) themes of interpersonal relationships, I/Thou perspective in therapy, and self-transcendence
Viktor Frankl, Rollo May, Irvin Yalom
Many key figures contributed to existential therpay!
Authenticity - claiming authorship or taking responsibility for our actions and the way we are living
Aim: to assist clients in moving toward authenticity and learning to recognize when they are decieving themselves.
Help clients face anxiety and engage in action that is based on authentic purpise of creating a worthy existence.
Therapeutic Goals
4 Essential Aims of Existential-Humanistic Therapy:
Schneider and Krug (2010)
(1) to help clients become more present to both themselves and others
(2) to assist clients in identifying ways they block themselves from fuller presence
(3) to challenge clients to assume responsibility for designing their present lives
(4) to encourage clients to choose more expanded ways of being in their
daily lives.
Increased awareness is the central goal of existential therapy
Address 6 dimensions of human condition
*Special concern about clients avoiding responsibility
Therapist Role
Assist clients in seeing the ways in which they constrict their awareness and the cost of feeling stuck or trapped - resticted existence
Pros:
- Focus on available choices and pathways toward personal growth
- General focus on love, anxiety, suffering and death can apply to all humans
- Focus on universality and similarities we all share
- Subjective experience, or phenomenology
- Challenges clients to look within at choices they have made
Pros/Cons
Cons:
- Lack of consideration of oppression on choices
- Not all individuals have the ability to live they way they want to
- Social factors/power dynamics not considered
- Individualistic, no family structure considered
1940s and 1950s many streams of thought contributed to the existential therapy movement
Arose spontaneously in different parts of Europe among schools of psychology and psychiatry
Roots
Post WWII struggles - isolation alientation, and meaninglessness
19th century philosophers and writers had an influence
Roots - cultural, philosophical, and religious writings of Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Martin Buber. These major figures of existentialism and existential phenomenology provided the basis for the formation of existential therapy.
Roots
Not technique-oriented
The interventions existential pracitioners use are based on philosophical views about the nature of human existence
It is not theories and techniques
that heal but the encounter that occurs between client and therapist as they work
together (Elkins, 2007, 2016).
Application
Openness to the individual creativity of the therapist and the client. Existential therapists need to adapt their interventions to their own personality and style, as well as being sensitive to what each client requires.
Initial
Identify & clarify clients assumptions about the world, address values & beliefs
Middle
Examine present value system - what kind of life they consider worthy to live
Phases of Existential Counseling
Final
Take what they are learning about themselves and put it into action
Similarities
Individualism of this theory connects to individual psychology within Adlerian therapy
Therapeutic relationship and encouragement is similar to Adlerian
Similarities/Differences
Anxiety as a key concept is very similar to psychoanalytic theory
Differences
- Not technique-oriented
- Many different key figures attributing to this theory
- Key focus on responsibility by the client
- Awareness of death as motivation/significance
- Importance of relationship with self connecting to relationships with others
Differences
Personal thoughts:
In my applied work so far I've notcied connections to this theory specifically with blame in sport. I have a client who blames others every single time they make a mistake. They lack taking responsibility for their actions and choices in games/practices therefore existential therpay could be a great therapeutic option!
Sport Psychology
Existential therapy can also be valuable in broadening my athletes views on sport, and expanding their identity outside of sport. Problems can arise after competitive sport has finished and many clients may wonder "what now?" and so being able to use this theory would be so beneficial in navigating their purpose of life beyond sport.