Theory Exam 2 Vocabulary.txt

A Danish and German word whose meaning lies between the English words dread and anxiety. This term refers to the uncertainty in life and the role of anxiety in making decisions about how we want to live.

A condition that results from having to face choices without clear guidelines and without knowing what the outcome will be.

The process of creating, discovering, or maintaining the core deep within one's being; the process of becoming the person one is capable of becoming.

The emphasis of this therapy approach is on the subjective and spiritual dimensions of human existence.

An outcome of being confronted with the four givens of existence: death, freedom, existential isolation, and meaninglessness.

The result of, or the consciousness of, evading the commitment to choosing for ourselves.

Feelings of despair and anxiety that result from inauthentic living, a failure to make choices, and avoidance of responsibility.

Seeks a balance between recognizing the limits and the tragic dimensions of human existence and the possibilities and opportunities of human life.

A condition of emptiness and hollowness that results from meaninglessness in life.

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

An inescapable aspect of the human condition; we are the authors of our lives and therefore are responsible for our destiny and accountable for our actions.

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

Developed by Frankl, this brand of existential therapy literally means healing through reason. It focuses on challenging clients to search for meaning in life.

A response out of proportion to the situation. It is typically out of awareness and tends to immobilize the person.

An appropriate response to an event being faced.

A method of exploration that uses subjective human experiencing as its focus. The phenomenological approach is a part of the fabric of existentially oriented therapies, Adlerian therapy, person-centered therapy, Gestalt therapy, and reality therapy.

A state of functioning with a limited degree of awareness of oneself and being vague about the nature of one's problems.

Core or universal themes in the therapeutic process: death, freedom, existential isolation, and meaninglessness

• The capacity for consciousness that enables us to make choices.
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The act of perceiving accurately the internal frame of reference of another; the ability to grasp the person's subjective world without losing one's own identity.

A growth force within us; a directional process of striving toward self-regulation, self-determination, realization, fulfillment, perfection, and inner freedom; the basis on which people can be trusted to identify and resolve their own problems in a therapeutic relationship.

The state in which self-experiences are accurately symbolized in the self-concept. As applied to the therapist, congruence is matching one's inner experiencing with external expressions; congruence is a quality of realness or genuineness of the therapist.

A deep and subjective understanding of the client with the client.

An approach that makes use of various arts:such as movement, drawing, painting, sculpting, music, and improvisation in a supportive setting for the purpose of growth and healing.

A movement, often referred to as the third force, that emphasizes freedom, choice, values, growth, self-actualization, becoming, spontaneity, creativity, play, humor, peak experiences, and psychological health.

Addressing what is going on between the client and therapist right now.

The ability to be with someone fully in the present moment; being engaged and absorbed in the relationship with the client.

The necessary and sufficient characteristics of the therapeutic relationship for client change to occur. These core conditions include therapist congruence (or genuineness), unconditional positive regard (acceptance and respect), and accurate empathic understanding.

The nonjudgmental expression of fundamental respect for the person as a human; acceptance of a person's right to his or her feelings.

An alternative to psychoanalytic and behavioral approaches; under this heading are the experiential and relationship-oriented therapies (existential therapy, person-centered therapy, and Gestalt therapy).

The process of attending to and observing one's own sensing, thinking, feelings, and actions; paying attention to the flowing nature of one's present-centered experience.

Paying attention to where energy is located, how it is used, and how it can be blocked.

A disturbance in which the sense of the boundary between self and environment is lost.

An invitation for the client to become aware of discrepancies between verbal and nonverbal expressions, between feelings and actions, or between thoughts and feelings.

The process of interacting with nature and with other people without losing one's sense of individuality. Contact is made by seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, and moving.

Staying with the moment-to-moment flow of experiencing, which leads individuals to discover how they are functioning in the world.

A way of avoiding contact and awareness by being vague and indirect.

A role-playing intervention in which clients play conflicting parts. This typically consists of clients engaging in an imaginary dialogue between different sides of themselves.

A split by which a person experiences or sees opposing forces; a polarity (weak/strong, dependent/independent)

Ready-made techniques that are sometimes used to make something happen in a therapy session or to achieve a goal.

Procedures aimed at encouraging spontaneity and inventiveness by bringing the possibilities for action directly into the therapy session. Experiments are designed to enhance here-and-now awareness. They are activities clients try out as a way of testing new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

A dynamic system of interrelationships.

Paying attention to and exploring what is occurring at the boundary between the person and the environment.

Those aspects of the individual's experience that are most salient at any moment.

Describes how the individual organizes the environment from moment to moment and how the emerging focus of attention is on what is figural.

Those aspects of the individual's experience that tend to be out of awareness or in the background.

Attending to a client's thoughts, feelings, behaviors, body, and dreams.

The stuck point in a situation in which individuals believe they are unable to support themselves and thus seek external support.

The uncritical acceptance of others' beliefs and standards without assimilating them into one's own personality.

An individual's tendency to take actions and make contacts that will restore equilibrium or contribute to change.

A theoretical position that authentic change occurs more from being who we are than from trying to be who we are not.

Through a therapist asking what and how questions, clients are assisted in noticing what is occurring in the present moment.

The process by which we disown certain aspects of ourselves by ascribing them to the environment; the opposite of introjection.

A supportive, kind, and compassionate style that emphasizes dialogue in the therapeutic relationship, rather than the confrontational style of Fritz Perls.

The act of turning back onto ourselves something we would like to do (or have done) to someone else.

Exercises or interventions that are often used to bring about action or interaction, sometimes with a prescribed outcome in mind.

Unexpressed feelings (such as resentment, guilt, anger, grief) dating back to childhood that now interfere with effective psychological functioning; needless emotional debris that clutters present-centered awareness.