Humanistic/Existential Therapies

Change occurs by creating conditions for the client to grow through the therapeutic relationship with the presence of three essential components: congruence/genuineness, unconditional positive regard, and empathy. A humanistic theory.

• ● Therapist is nondirective.
• ● A facilitator (helper) who sets the stage and believes the client is able to do what is
• necessary for growth and self-actualization. Client determines goals of therapy.

• ● Self-acceptance
• ● Congruence between client’s idealized and actual selves
• ● Increased self-understanding
• ● Decreased levels of defensiveness, insecurity, and guilt
• ● More positive relationships and increased comfort with others
• ● Increased ability to experience and express feelings in the here and now

• Congruence
• Unconditional Positive Regard
• Empathy
• Self-Actualization
• Locus of Control
• Non-Directive Therapy

• Therapist’s genuineness with client. Therapist shares their feelings
• honestly, does not hide behind a professional facade, is transparent with feelings,
• thoughts, and beliefs.

• Complete acceptance and nonjudgmental respect of
• clients and their feelings allows clients to feel less anxious about their perceived
• weaknesses and take risks.

• Therapist accurately senses the feelings and personal meanings the client is
• experiencing and is able to communicate this understanding to the client.

Innate tendency of all human beings to reach their fullest potential.

• Through the therapeutic relationship, clients are able to take control of
• their lives rather than follow the direction of others who were previously in control.

Clients are allowed to lead the discussion.

• Change occurs through increased awareness of here-and-now experience in a dialogic
• relationship. Both existential and humanistic.

• ● The therapist is an authentic, present other
• ● Non-directive and non-judgmental
• ● Increase the client’s awareness in the present moment

• The goal is for clients to become aware of what they are doing; how they are doing it; how they
• can change themselves; and at the same time, learn to accept and value themselves.

• ● Phenomenological Method
• ● Dialogical Relationship
• ● Experiential
• ● Here-and-Now Focus

Exploring experience by description and abstaining from interpretation

Therapist’s presence allows for the client to become fully present.

Through experiments, the therapist supports the client’s direct experience of something new, instead of merely talking about the possibility of something new.

The past is discussed in terms of how the past affects the present.

• ● Empty Chair Technique
• ● Experiments
• ● Body Techniques
• ● Focus on the Process

Used to explore clients’ relationships with themselves or others in their lives. A form of role-playing, the client addresses an empty chair as if another person was in it in order to act out two or more sides of a discussion.

Encourages the clients to experience their feelings rather than just talk about them

Brings clients' awareness to their body functioning; helps them to be aware of how they can use their bodies to support excitement and awareness.

Therapist pays attention to how things are said.

Change occurs through finding philosophical meaning in the face of anxiety by choosing to think and act authentically and responsibly. The core question addressed in existential therapy is "How do I exist?" in the face of uncertainty, conflict, and/or death.

• ● Provide an encounter with a “real” other.
• ● Presence of the therapist is essential.
• ● Help the client focus on personal responsibility for making decisions.

• ● Client discovers their own life meaning.
• ● Client confronts anxiety inherent in living.
• ● Client experiences agency and responsibility in the construction of their life.

• ● All persons have the capacity for self-awareness.
• ● As free beings, everyone must accept the responsibility that comes with freedom.
• ● Each person has a unique identity that can only be known through relationships.
• ● Each person must continually recreate themselves. The meaning of life and existence is never fixed; rather, it constantly changes.
• ● Anxiety is part of the human condition.
• ● Death is a basic human condition that gives significance to life.

• ● Focus on moment-to-moment process rather than on explicit content.
• ● Holding refers to a process of holding up the problem experience so it may be seen,
• remembered, and re-experienced by the client.
• ● Empathic availability is a committed presence to the “other” and openness to the pain and potentials of the other even when such openness is difficult and unpleasant.
• ● Telling, talking about, and naming emotional pain places the emotional experience into
• the world of mutual encounter, where the relationship between client and practitioner
• can be used to process the situation with increased support.
• ● Mastering the emotional pain is a process of reflection and behavioral experimentation
• that helps a client discover unique healing activities that are useful in processing and
• defusing the problem situation.
• ● Honoring the pain refers to the process of celebrating the meaning of potentials and
• opportunities in the problem situation that the client actualizes and makes real.

Change happens through the existential encounter – the authentic meeting of the therapist and the client in the present moment and by expanding the client’s range of experience.

• ● Authentically being with client
• ● Playful, creative

The goal is for growth and increased flexibility.

• ● Battle for Structure
• ● Battle for Initiative
• ● Trial of Labor
• ● Activating Constructive Anxiety
• ● Play, Humor, and “Craziness”

Therapist establishes the rules and working atmosphere of treatment. Includes the need for the entire family to be in therapy.

Motivation for change must come from family. Includes having a family state the agenda for each session, waiting silently for family to take initiative, allowing family to determine how change is going to happen.

• Understanding the roles, boundaries, beliefs, history, and levels of conflict
• within the family.

• Reframing anxiety as efforts toward competence (fear
• of failing to accomplish what one is capable of).

Tapping irrational side. Finding solutions in creative interactions.

• Engage family as authentic people. Battle for structure. Encourage all members to
• attend. Family wins battle of initiative. Gather information about boundaries, coalitions, roles, and level of conflict.

• Develop sense of cohesion. Create alternative interactions. Highlight inappropriate
• boundaries. Role-play situations. Use play and “craziness.”

Highlight accomplishments and reflect on growth. Identify possible blocks to future growth. Role-play future scenarios. Each member expresses feelings about their experience of therapy.