What is existential psychotherapy?
What is psychotherapy?
Psychotherapy and counselling are talking therapies, which means the therapist and client work through speaking to one another. They are used to address emotional and mental health difficulties.
The term ‘psychotherapy’ covers a range of approaches and methods. These range from one-to-one talking sessions to therapies that might use such techniques as cognitive exercises, role-play or art-work.
I mostly work through talking, though I remain open to whatever might assist our interaction as it unfolds.
Counselling might be distinguished from psychotherapy in that the counsellor tends to offer more practical guidance in times of heightened distress, such as in bereavement counselling.
What is existential?
‘Existential’ means ‘of existence’, and specifically of human existence or living. Existential issues are those thrown up for us by living as human beings - which of course we all do all of the time.
We all share what it is to be human, whilst at the same time also living in our own personal and unique way.
Aims and objectives.
The aim of existential psychotherapy is to bring into awareness, clarify, reflect upon and make sense of human life as it is lived by the client in order to overcome or otherwise find resolution with those issues – be it a problem, dilemma or other difficulty.
One of the central objectives of existential therapy is to develop the client’s truthfulness with themselves. In getting real with all of ourselves – both with those things we find comfortable and those we try to push away – we can begin to take responsibility for our own life in an up-to-date way and within what is possible for us.
The therapist will also help the client see the choices they have already made, as well as those elements of their life that are beyond choice.
With more clarity comes greater opportunity to resolve our problems.
The existential perspective.
Different forms of psychotherapy have different theory, practice and emphasis. Existential psychotherapy views the person as fundamentally in relationship with all of the features of what life is for us as humans; and, often most relevant to clinical work, those aspects of living that we find difficult, such as our power to choose and the limitations to our freedom.
The existential approach is one borne out of philosophy (the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence); and understands psycho-emotional distress (so pain of mind and of our emotional inner world) as stemming from difficulties encountered in our living; rather than as indicators of mental health or illness that might require a ‘cure’.
In practice, existential psychotherapy and counselling are characterised by the exploration through talking of how a person lives their life, considering the meaning they give to their experience and what they do and don’t value. In this way, what is implicit in us is made explicit; and the client better learns to take an active role in their own life through making more informed choices.
Emotions are seen as a natural barometer of what is important to us, always disclosing something of ourselves to us. Anxiety, for example, is understood as a healthy response to human life - life that always holds challenges for us and about which we can never be certain.
Existential psychotherapy is scientific in that it incorporates the currently accepted scientific view. An understanding of neurobiology and biochemistry are, for example, especially important when we try to piece together what is going on for us in mind and body and what it is that we are experiencing. We also use phenomenological method, which is an unusual word for something very straightforward: phenomenology is simply an approach that focuses attention on what is going on in our consciousness as we experience it.
If you would like to know more or have any questions, then please reach out to me. I’d be happy to add to what I say here, or else point you in an intelligent direction.
