EXISTENTIAL THERAPY

CONCEPT OF HUMAN NATURE

The existential view of human nature is captured that the significance of ones existence is never fixed once and for all; rather,
it continually re-create him/her selves through projects. Humans are in a constant state of transition, emerging, evolving, and
becoming. Being a person implies that he/she is discovering and making sense of his/her existence. He/she continually
question him/her self, others, and the world like: Who am I? What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope for?
Where am I going?
Humans are capable of self-awareness, which is the dinstinctive capacity that allows to reflect and to decide. With this
awareness they become free beings who are responsible for choosing the way they live, and thus influence their own destiny.
This awareness of freedom and responsibility of oneself gives rise to existential anxiety due to uncertainty of the outcomes.
Humans strive toward fashioning purposes and values that give meaning to living.
DEVELOPMENT OF MALADAPTIVE BEHAVIORS
Restricted existence (limited awareness of him/herself and often vague about the nature of problems)
Lack of meaning
Struggling with developmental crises
Avoiding responsibility
Feels alone in the world
Faces anxiety due to isolation
Needs to secure approval from others
ESSENTIAL CONCEPTS
The basic dimensions of the human condition, according to the existential approach, include:
The Capacity for Self-Awareness
- 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 identity.
- Meaning is the product of discovering how we are thrown or situated in the world and then, through commitment, living
creatively.
- Existential anxiety, which is basically a consciousness of our own freedom, is an essential part of living; 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.
(As people become more aware, they find it increasingly difficult to go back home again. As he/she opens the door that were previously
closed, he/she can expect to encounter more struggles as well as the potential for enhancing the quality of living.)

Freedom and Responsibility

- People are free to choose alternatives and therefore responsible for directing their lives and shaping their destinies.
- Frankl believes human freedom is not freedom from conditions but the ability to take a stand in the face of conditions.
- When people come to believe they can direct their own destinies, they ultimately assume control of their lives
Striving for Identity and Relationship to Others
- A person is ultimately alone only he/she can give a sense of meaning to his/her life, decide on how to live, find answers,
and decide whether to be or not be.
- A person has a choice of experiencing aloneness and trying to find a center meaning and direction within him/herself.
When he/she make this choice and succeed at establishing his/her own identity, he/she can relate genuinely and
meaningfully to others.
The Search for Meaning
-

Existential neurosis (experience of meaninglessness)

Existential vacuum (a feeling of inner void that results from not fully addressing issues of meaning)

- Frankl contends that people who confront pain, guilt, despair, and death can challenge their despair thus triumph.
- Finding meaning in life is a by-product of engagenemt, which is a commitment to creating, loving, working, and building.
The Search for Authenticity
- Living authentically entails knowing and accepting his/her limits.

Anxiety as a Condition of Living

- Existential anxiety is the unavoidable product of being confronted with the givens of existence: death, freedom, existential
isolation, and meaninglessness (Yalom, 1980)
Awareness of Death and Nonbeing
- It is essential to the discovery of meaning and purpose in life because it makes every act and moment count.
- Without morbidly preoccupied by the ever-present threat of non-being, clients can develop a healthy awareness of death
as a way to evaluate how well they are living and what changes they want to make in their lives.
GOALS OF THERAPY
To help people see that they are free and become aware of their possibilities
To identify factors that block freedom
To challenge them to recognize that they are responsible for events that they formerly thought were happening to them
To encourage them to reflect on life, to recognize their range of alternatives and to choose among them
To help clients create meaning in their lives
METHODS AND TECHNIQUES
Therapeutic Relationship
Therapists Function and Role
The therapist establish a personal and authentic encounter with clients to effectively understand and challenge the client.
Existential therapists are primarily concerned with understanding the subjective world of clients to help them come to new
understandings and options.
They assist individuals in discovering the reason for their stuckness.
They encourage them to weigh the alternatives and to explore the consequences of what they are doing with their lives.
The therapist may hold up a miror, so that clients can gradually engage in self-confrontation.
Clients Experience in Therapy
Clients in existential therapy are challenged to take a responsibility for how they now choose to be in their world.
The experience of opening the doors to oneself is often frightening, exciting, joyful, depressing, or a combination of all of
these.
They can be aware of what they have been and who they are now, and they are better able to decide what kind of future
they want.
Another aspect of the experience of being a client in existential therapy is confronting ultimate concerns rather than coping
with immediate problems.
Techniques of Therapy
Few techniques flow from this approach because it stresses understanding first and technique second.
The therapist can borrow techniques from other approaches and incorporate them in an existential framework. According to
Deurzen-Smith (1997), the existential practitioners intervention are responsive to the uniqueness of each client.
Existential therapy places central prominence on the person-to-person relationship. It is not the techniques a therapist uses
that make a therapeutic difference, rather, it is the quality of the client-therapist relationship that heals.
Three General Phases:
Initial Phase Counselors assist clients in identifying and clarifying their assumptions about the world. Clients are invited to define and
question the ways in which they perceive and make sense of their existence. They examine their values, beliefs, and
assumptions to determine their validity. This is a difficult task for many clients because they may initially present their
problems as resulting almost entirely from external causes. They may focus on what other people make them feel or
on how others are largely responsible for theiractions and inaction. The counselor teaches them how to reflect on their
own existence and to examine their role in creating their problems in living.
Middle Phase Clients are encouraged to more fully examine the source and authority of their present value system. This process of
self-exploration typically leads to new insights and some restructuring of their values and attitudes. Clients get a better
idea of what kind of life they consider worthly to live and develop a clearer sense of their internal valuing process.
Final Phase Focuses on helping clients take what they are learning about themselves and put it into action. The aim of therapy is to
enable clients to find ways of implementing their examined and internalized values in a concrete ways. Clients typically
discover their strengths and find ways to put them to the service of living a purposeful existence.

Applications to the Approaches

Can be especially suited to people facing a developmental crisis or a transition in life (e.g. high school youths)
Useful for clients with existential concerns (making decisions, dealing with freedom, and responsibility, coping with guilt and
anxiety, making sense of life, and finding values)
Appropriate for those seeking personal enhancement/experiencing a lack of a sense of identity
Can be applied to both individual and group counseling, marital and family therapy, crisis intervention, and community
mental work

(e.g. struggle for identity in adolesccence, coping with possible disappointments in middle age, adjusting to children leaving home, coping with
failures in marriage and work, and dealing with increased physical limitationsas one ages)

STRENGTHS
Can be used in helping clients of all cultures because it focuses on the sober issues each of us must inevtably face: love,
anxiety, suffering, and death
Enables clients to examine the degree to which their behavior is being influenced by social and cultural conditioning
Central focus on human existence (self-consciousness, freedom)
Emphasizes on the human quality of the therapeutic relationship
Understanding freedom
Understanding anxiety
Awareness to choose
Acceptance of death (for death gives lifemeaning)
LIMITATIONS
Less systematic
Lacks precision causing confusion
Abstract concept
Excessively individualistic highly focused on the philosophical assumption of self-determination, which does not take into
account the complex factors that many people who have been oppressed must deal with
Lack of direction that clients may get from the counselor
Has limited applicability to lower functioning and non-verbal clients and to clients in extreme crisis who need direction
CRITICAL ISSUES
Lacks a systematic statement of principles and practices of psychotherapy
A counselor is challenged to provide enough concrete direction for clients without taking the responsibility away from them (the
client may discard traditional (and imposed) values without finding other, suitable ones to replace them)
Clients can experience being excited and joyful but also frigthening and, at times, depressing during the early phases of
therapy.

References:
Corey, Gerald (2005). Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychoterapy 7th Edition. USA: Thomson Learning, Inc.
Corey, Gerald (2008). Theory and Practice of Group Counseling. USA: Thomson Learning, Inc.

Reported by:

Avelino, Diana Jean P.

Manalo, Maria Sheila C.
GC 503