EXISTENTIAL THERAPY

KEY CONCEPTS:  

Central focus on the nature of human condition

• capacity of self-awareness
• freedom of choice to decide one's fate
• anxiety
• search for meaning
• being alone and being in a relationship with others
• striving for authenticity
• facing living and dying

• Essentially an experimental approach to counseling rather than a firm theoretical model, it stresses core human conditions.

• Interest is on the present and on what one is becoming.
• The approach that has a future orientation and stresses self-awareness before action. (Corey, 2009)

 GOALS OF THERAPY

• To help people see that they are free and to become aware of their possibilities.
• To challenge them to recognize that they are responsible for events that they formerly thought were happening to them.
• To identify factors that block freedom. (Corey, 2009)

TECHNIQUES USED 

• Few techniques flow from this approach because it stresses understanding first and techniques second.
• Therapist borrow techniques from other approaches and incorporate them in an existential framework.
• Diagnosis, testing, and external measurements are not deemed important.
• Issues addressed are freedom and responsibility, isolation and relationships, meaning and meaninglessness, living and dying. (Corey, 2009)

FIGURE ASSOCIATED WITH THERAPY 

• Viktor Frankl- emphasized concepts of freedom, responsibility, meaning, and search for values.
• Rollo May- nature of human experiences, accepting freedom and responsibility, and discovering one's identity.
• Irvin Yalom- human concerns: freedom and responsibility, existential isolation, meaninglessness and death.  (Corey, 2009)

 

Corey, G. (2009). Theory and practice of counseling and psycotherapy. Fullerton: Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning.