Wk 5: Ch 6 Existential Therapy

• Existential psychotherapy is an attitude toward human suffering and has no manual.
• Focuses on exploring themes such as mortality, meaning, freedom, responsibility, anxiety, and aloneness as these relate to a person’s current struggle.
• Existential therapy is grounded on the assumption that we are free and therefore responsible for our choices and actions.
• A basic existential premise is that we are not victims of circumstance because, to a large extent, we are what we choose to be.

• The first step in the therapeutic journey is for clients to accept responsibility.
• therapist’s basic task is to encourage clients to consider what they are most serious about so they can pursue a direction in life.

A philosophical movement stressing individual responsibility for creating one’s ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

• Bases therapeutic practice on an understanding of what it means to be human.
• Existential tradition: seeks a balance between recognising the limits and tragic dimensions of human existence on one hand and opportunities of human life on the other hand.

• (1) the capacity for self-awareness;
• Self awareness: the capacity for consciousness that enables us to make choices.
• (2) freedom and responsibility;
• (3) creating one’s identity and establishing meaningful relationships with others;
• (4) the search for meaning, purpose, values, and goals;
• (5) anxiety as a condition of living; and
• (6) awareness of death and nonbeing

• Freedom, choice, and responsibility constitute the foundation of self-awareness
• We increase our capacity to live fully as we expand our awareness in the following areas:

• We are finite and do not have unlimited time to do what we want in life.
• We have the potential to take action or not to act; inaction is a decision.
• We choose our actions, and therefore we can partially create our own destiny.
• As we increase our awareness of the choices available to us, we also increase our sense of responsibility for the consequences of these choices.
• We are subject to loneliness, meaninglessness, emptiness, guilt, and isolation.
• We are basically alone, yet we have an opportunity to relate to other beings.

• A characteristic existential theme is that people are free to choose among alternatives and therefore play a large role in shaping their own destiny.
• Existential therapy embraces three values:
• (1) the freedom to become within the context of natural and self-imposed limitations;
• (2) the capacity to reflect on the meaning of our choices; and
• (3) the capacity to act on the choices we make. 

Inauthenticity: lacking awareness of personal responsibility and passively assuming that our existence is largely controlled by external forces.

Freedom: implies that we are responsible for our lives, actions and failure to take action.

• Existential guilt: being aware of having evaded a commitment or having chosen not to choose.
• Existential guilt can be a powerful source of motivation toward transformation and living authentically

Authenticity: implies that we are living by being true to our own evaluation of what is a valuable existence for ourselves; it is the courage to be who we are.

• Each of us would like to create a personal identity
• We also strive for connectedness with others.

The courage to be: Courage entails the will to move forward in spite of anxiety-producing situations, such as facing our death.

The experience of aloneness: The sense of isolation comes when we recognize that we cannot depend on anyone else for our own confirmation. We alone must give a sense of meaning to life, and we alone must decide how we will live.

The experience of relatedness: When we are able to stand alone and tap into our own strength, our relationships with others are based on our fulfillment, not our deprivation.

Struggling with our identity: some of us get caught up in ritualistic behavior patterns that cement us to an image or identity we acquired in early childhood

The problem of discarding old values: One of the problems in therapy is that clients may discard traditional (and imposed) values without creating other, suitable ones to replace them.

Meaninglessness: the central human concern is to discover meaning that will give one’s life direction. 

Existential neurosis: feelings of despair and anxiety that result from inauthentic living, a failure to make choices, and avoidance of responsibility.

Existential vacuum: a condition of emptiness and hollowness that results from meaninglessness in life. 

• Creating new meaning: logotherapi is designed to help clients find meaning in life. Therapist points out that they can create meaning even suffering.
• Meaning is created out of an individual’s engagement with what is valued, and this commitment provides the purpose that makes life worthwhile.

• Anxiety arises from one’s personal strivings to survive and to maintain and assert one’s being, and the feelings anxiety generates are an inevitable aspect of the human condition.
• Existential anxiety: an outcome of being confronted with the 4 givens of existence: death, freedom, existential isolation, and meaninglessness.

• Normal anxiety: an appropriate response to an event being faced
• Neurotic anxiety: response out of proportion to the situation.

The existentialist does not view death negatively but holds that awareness of death as a basic human condition gives significance to living.

• Existential therapy is best considered as an invitation to clients to recognize the ways in which they are not living fully authentic lives and to make choices that will lead to their becoming what they are capable of being. 
• An aim of therapy is to assist clients in moving toward authenticity and learning to recognize when they are deceiving themselves.

• 4 essential aims of existential-humanistic therapy
• 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

• Existential therapists are primarily concerned with understanding the subjective world of clients to help them come to new understandings and options. 
• Especially concerned about clients avoiding responsibility; they consistently invite clients to accept personal responsibility.
• Restricted existence: clients that have a limited degree of awareness of oneself and being vague about nature of one's problems.
• No set of techniques.
• Create your own authentic way of being attuned to your clients.

• Clients in existential therapy are clearly encouraged to assume responsibility for how they are currently choosing to be in their world.
• Encourages clients to take action on the basis of the insights they develop.
• Experimentation with new ways of behaving in the outside world is necessary if clients are to change.

• The relationship is important in itself because the quality of this person-to-person encounter in the therapeutic situation is the stimulus for positive change.
• Therapists with an existential orientation believe their basic attitudes toward the client and their own personal characteristics of honesty, integrity, and courage are what they have to offer.
• Rather than prizing therapeutic objectivity and professional distance, existential therapists strive to create caring and intimate relationships with clients.
• Crucial role the presence of the therapist plays in the therapeutic relationship

• Not technique oriented.
•  It is not theories and techniques that heal but the encounter that occurs between client and therapist as they work together.
• stresses the importance of therapists reaching sufficient depth and openness in their own lives to venture into clients’ murky waters without getting lost.

• initial phase: therapists assist clients in identifying and clarifying their assumptions about the world. They examine their values, beliefs, and assumptions to determine their validity.
• Middle phase: clients are assisted in more fully examining the source and authority of their present value system. 
• Typically leads to new insights and some restructuring of values and attitudes.
• Final phase:  focuses on helping people take what they are learning about themselves and put it into action.

• A strength of the perspective is its focus on available choices and pathways toward personal growth.
• For people who are coping with developmental crises, experiencing grief and loss, confronting death, or facing a major life decision.
• This form of therapy is most appropriate for clients who are committed to dealing with their problems about living, for people who feel alienated from the current expectations of society, or for those who are searching for meaning in their lives.
• It can be useful for people who are on the edge of existence, such as those who are dying or contemplating suicide.

• Possible for a time-limited approach to serve as a catalyst for clients to become actively and fully involved in each of their therapy sessions.
• Short-term applications of the existential approach require more structuring and clearly defined and less ambitious goals.
• At the termination of short-term therapy, it is important for individuals to evaluate what they have accomplished and what issues may need to be addressed later.

• An existential group can be described as people making a commitment to a lifelong journey of self-exploration with these goals:
• (1) enabling members to become honest with themselves,
• (2) widening their perspectives on themselves and the world around them, and
• (3) clarifying what gives meaning to their present and future life

• The existential group provides the optimal conditions for therapeutic work on responsibility.
• A group represents a microcosm of the world in which participants live and function.
• A group can be instrumental in helping members see how some of the self-constricting patterns they manifest in the group parallel patterns in their everyday life.
• Through feedback, members learn to view themselves through others’ eyes, and they learn the ways in which their behavior affects others.

• Because the existential approach does not dictate a particular way of viewing or relating to reality, and because of its broad perspective, this approach is highly relevant in working in a multicultural context.
• Focus on subjective experience.
• Another strength consists of inviting clients to examine the degree to which their behavior is being influenced by social and cultural conditioning.

• Existentialists can be criticized on the grounds that they are excessively individualistic and ignore the social factors that cause human problems.
• Some individuals who seek counseling may operate on the assumption that they have very little choice because environmental circumstances severely restrict their ability to influence the direction of their lives.
• They may feel patronized and misunderstood.
• Many clients expect a structured and problem-oriented approach to counseling that is not found in the conventional existential approach.