How and how can an existential psychotherapist help someone who is tormented by the question of the meaning of life? Let’s talk about what direction it is.
History
1930s The first attempts to apply the existential approach are made by the Swiss psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger (1881–1966). In the 1960s, these ideas were successfully developed by the American psychologists Rollo May (1909–1994) and James Bugenthal (1915–2008), and the Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl (1905–1997).
Today the method is represented by: Irvin Yalom in the USA, Ernesto Spinelli and Emmy van Dorzen in the UK, Alfried Langle and Elisabeth Lucas in Austria.
Definition
This approach is based on the philosophy of existentialism. Its initial concept is “existence”. It is an authentic existence that unfolds here and now, it is not derived from anything, but is experienced. Existential therapy helps a person understand how his life works, what factors influence it, what paradoxes and dilemmas it contains, and how he can find purpose and meaning. She deals with the problems of life and death; time and freedom; responsibility and choice; love and loneliness; meaning and meaninglessness of existence.
Operating principle
Therapy aims at a deep understanding of existence as such. External circumstances can disrupt a person’s contact with his own existence. Therapy helps the client to re-establish this contact, to discover a true inner experience, to live freely and responsibly. The approach reveals (and develops) the ability to perceive and fully experience the events taking place, to take an active, creative position in relation to one’s own life.
Progress
Existential therapy is not an alternative to other approaches, it complements and expands them, referring to the resources of human consciousness. In the course of work, the therapist seeks to gently but consistently present to the client the deep, genuine problems of his life. As a result, a kind of “awakening” occurs – a person begins to more clearly realize himself, his place and takes responsibility for his life.
Показания
There are no specific indications for existential therapy. It begins to work when a person moves from solving problems to questions about his life as a whole – about its meaning, structure, direction. In the process of self-analysis, research of one’s own way of being in the world, narrower problems can be (indirectly) solved, including phobias, personality disorders and various psychosomatic disorders.