Existential Therapy

1. Existential Therapy

2. View of Human Nature: people.. • Have capacity for self-awareness • Have freedom, responsibility, and choice • Strive for identity • Establish meaningful relationships • Search for meaning of life • View anxiety as a condition of living • Are Aware of death

3. The Capacity for Self-Awareness • We can reflect and make choices because we are capable of self-awareness. • Expanding our awareness by realizing that: • Time is limited • We have the choice to act or not to act • We must search for meanings in our life • We are alone

4. Freedom, Responsibility, & Choice • We are • free to choose among alternatives • responsible for our choices, lives, actions… • Responsibility is not to blame others for our problems

5. Striving for Identity • Identity is “the courage to be” • We must trust ourselves to find our own answers • Our greatest fear is that there is no self • Struggling with our identity: • Challenging clients---in what ways have they lost touch with their identity and instead let others to run their life.

6. Relationship to others • Aloneness • We are alone---So, we must give meaning to life, decide how we will live, have a relationship with ourselves, and learn to listen to ourselves. • Relatedness • We need to create a close relationship with others • Challenging clients----What do they get from their relationships? How do they avoid close relationships?

7. The Search for Meaning • Therapists’ trust is important in teaching clients to trust their own capacity to find their way of being. • Meaninglessness in life leads to emptiness • Human beings need a sense of meaningfulness in their lives.

8. Anxiety – A Condition of Living • Anxiety arises from one’s strivings to survive. • Existential anxiety is normal

9. Awareness of Death • Death provides the motivation for us • to live our lives fully • to take advantage of each opportunity to do somethingmeaningful • to livein the present

10. Therapeutic Goals • To help clients become authentic • To expand self-awareness • To increase potential choices • To help clients accept responsibilityfor their choice

11. Therapist’s Function and Role • Understand the client’s subjective world • Encourage clients to accept personal responsibility • When clients blame others, therapist will ask them what they have done to contribute to their situation.

12. Client’s Experience in Therapy • They are challenged to take responsibility for their decision and to take actions to change. • Major themes in therapy sessions are anxiety, freedom and responsibility, isolation, death, and the search for meaning. • Assist client in facing life with courage, hope, and a willingness to find meaning in life.

13. Therapeutic Relationship • Truly caring for the clients • An authentic love for the clients (is nonreciprocal) • Trusting clients’ potential to cope with their problems • Therapists have an authentic with themselves and are authentically open to the client • Therapists share their reactions with the clients by showing genuine concern and empathy as one way of deepening the therapeutic relationship.

14. Therapeutic techniques & procedures • It is not technique-oriented • The interventions are based on philosophical views about the nature of human existence • Free for draw techniquesfrom other orientations • The use of therapist self is the core of therapy

15. Research on existential therapy • More studies are related to existential themes such as death and anxiety, or meaninglessness. • Purpose-in Life (PIL) Test (Crumbaugh & Henrios (1988): measuring meaninglessness. • Yalom and colleagues conducted a series of research on existential group therapy • Comparing with a waiting list control or no treatment group, participants in the existential group therapy showed increase in psychological functioning, increase in existential awareness, and improvements in immune functioning.

16. From a multicultural perspective:contribution • Is applicable to diverse clients who are searching for meaning of life • Many similarities between Eastern thought and existential psychotherapy • Existential therapy is particularly relevant for working with cross-cultural issue(Van Deurzen-Smith,1988)

17. From a multicultural perspectivelimitations • Ignore social factors that cause human problems • Even if clients change internally, they see little hope that the external realities of racism will change • For many cultures, it is not possible to talk about self outside the context of the social network • Many clients expect a structured and problem-oriented approach instead of a discussion on philosophical questions.