Post on 29-Mar-2020
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SOCP121
Session 7
Existential Therapy
Department of Social Sciences
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Session Aim:
This session introduces students to existential
philosophy which balances accepting common
human events against the freedom to create our
circumstances.
Existential Therapy
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Learning Objectives:
At the end of this session, you should:
o Be able to identify the key components of existential therapies.
o Understand how emphasizing control and utilisingacceptance can result in positive wellbeing for both clients and practitioners.
Existential Therapy
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Existential
Psychotherapy
“Between stimulus & response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth & our freedom”
(Viktor Frankl)
“The opposite of courage in our society
is not cowardice, it is conformity”
(Rollo May)
"Live your life to the fullest; & then, & only then, die.
Don't leave any unlived life behind“
(Irvin Yalom)
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Key Figures in Existential Therapy
VIKTOR FRANKL (1905-1997)
• Born and educated in Vienna
• Medical Doctor (1930) & PhD in Philosophy (1949)
• From 1942-1945: Prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps of
Auschwitz & Dachau where his parents, wife and children died
• Used these terrible experiences in a constructive way
• Wrote a number of books. Bestseller: “Man’s search for meaning” (1963)
• Developed Logotherapy: Therapy through meaning. Central themes:
• Life has meaning under all circumstances;
• The central motivation for living is the will to meaning;
• We have the freedom to find meaning in all that we think;
• We must integrate body, mind & spirit to be fully alive.
• Individuals can find meaning & purpose through suffering, work & love
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Existential Philosophy
• Existential psychologists & psychiatrists were influenced by
various philosophers & writers during the 19th C.
• A number of counselling frameworks have their roots in
existential philosophy.
• “Humanistic existentialism” embraces the following three
values:
1. Freedom (e.g. to know oneself)
2. Experiential reflection (e.g. to discover what one is becoming)
3. Responsibility (e.g. to act on or respond to what one is
becoming) [p.149]
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Existential view on Personality
o Personality:
• The characteristics or dispositions that influence their
thoughts, behaviours, and motivations.
• Is not as relevant to Existential-Humanistic therapy as
people are considered to be dynamic creatures who
change with experience
o Human actions are viewed in the context of freedom,
reflection, and responsibility
• Freedom to behave within or outside of social norms
• Responsibility to decide how to behave
• Reflection can moderate this process
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Existential Wellbeing
o Refers to freedom, reflection, and responsibility
o Lack of freedom can be due to failure to accept
responsibility and choose, or due to lack
of awareness of choice
o Awareness of freedom is important
for wellbeing
Freedom
Experiential Reflection
Responsibility
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Key Concepts
1. Capacity for Self-Awareness- Reflection and self-knowledge
2. Freedom and Responsibility- Making choices; Controlling our life; Being accountable for our choices
3. Striving for Identity and Relationship to Others- Not just doing, but being; Being alone; Being together
4. The Search for Meaning- Finding meaning and living a valued life
5. Anxiety as a Condition of Living- Anxiety as inevitable; Courage to face anxiety
6. Awareness of Death and Nonbeing- Death as inevitable; Death as a reminder to live our lives fully and meaningfully
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The Capacity for Self-Awareness
o Freedom, choice & responsibility constitute the
foundation for self-awareness.
o The greater our awareness, the greater our
possibilities for freedom
o Awareness is realizing that:
• We are finite - time is limited
• We have the potential & the choice, to act or not to act;
inaction is a decision
• Meaning is not automatic - we must seek it
• We are subject to loneliness, meaninglessness,
emptiness, guilt, & isolation
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The Capacity for Self-Awareness (cont.)
Emerging Awareness:
o Although we cannot change certain events in our lives we
can make new decisions, change the way we perceive
& react to events.
o Acceptance of limitations, we do not need to be perfect to
feel worthy.
o Appreciation of living in the present rather than a
preoccupation with the past, or planning for the future
o Look for affirmation within ourselves, rather than
seeking external approval.
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The Capacity for Self-Awareness (cont.)
Increasing Self-Awareness:
o Increasing awareness of alternatives, motivations,
contextual factors & personal goals
o With greater awareness we realise the consequences
of our choices & the price to pay for this increased
awareness.
o Awareness can bring more turmoil but more potential
for fulfilment in the long term.
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Freedom & Responsibility
o We don’t choose to enter the world, but we are free to choose
how we live it, therefore shaping our own destiny.
o Assuming responsibility is a basic condition for change.
Psychotherapy helps clients to accept this responsibility for
directing our lives.
o “Bad faith” (Sartre): Refers to the excuses we make to avoid
accepting responsibility for directing our own lives, e.g. “I am
this way because my parents did not love me”.
o Inauthentic mode of existence: Limited awareness of personal
responsibility for our lives & passively assuming that our
existence is mostly influenced by external forces.
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Striving for Identity & Relationship to Others
o Identity is “the courage to be”. We must trust ourselves to
search within & find our own answers.
– Our great fear is that we will discover that there is no
core, no self.
– Being existentially “alone” helps us to discover our
authentic self
o To BE more than the sum or reflection of others’ expectations.
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Striving for Identity & Relationship to Others
o The experience of relatedness: When we are able to
stand alone, our relationships with others are based on
our fulfillment, not our deprivation. If we feel personally
deprived, relationship with others will be clinging,
parasitic or symbiotic.
o The experience of aloneness as part of the human
condition
o Struggling with identity: We may have lost touch
with our own identity, goals & ability to find our own
answers. Some of us become trapped in a doing
mode to avoid the experience of being.
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The Search for Meaning
o Human struggle for a sense of meaning & purpose in life.
o Existentialists assert that the underlying conflicts that bring people into
therapy are centered around the questions:
– Why am I here?
– What do I want from life?
– What gives my life purpose?
– Where is the source of meaning for me in life?
o Existential therapy can provide the conceptual framework for helping
clients challenge the meaning in their lives. Questions therapists might
ask are:
• How do you feel about the direction of your life?
• What is it that you really want to do with your life?
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Class Activity
Personal Reflection on Meaning
o Consider the following quote:
• “Boredom does not mean we have nothing to do; it means
we cannot find meaning in what we are doing.”
o Think about your life over the past five years.
• How have you coped with boredom?
– For example, did you distract yourself (alcohol, partying,
television, etc)?
• How has your life changed? Have you grown?
• Where do you want your life to be in five years?
• How do you find meaning? What really matters to you?
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Anxiety as a Condition for Living.
Normal anxiety is an appropriate response to an event &
is necessary to survive.
Existential anxiety is normal: life cannot be lived, nor can death be
faced, without anxiety. Anxiety follows freedom.
o Existential Therapy help clients develop a healthy relationship with
anxiety:
• Anxiety can be a stimulus for growth as we become aware of &
accept our freedom
• It can be a catalyst for living authentically & fully in the present
• If we have the courage to face ourselves & life, we may be
frightened… but we will be able to change
• Individuals can tolerate ambiguity & uncertainty. Anxiety will
diminish as clients experience more satisfaction, self-confidence,
self-acceptance & more ways of being.
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Class activity
Anxiety
o Break into two groups and debate the following:
• One group must defend the statement “anxiety is good”
• One group must defend the statement “anxiety is bad”
o After the debate you should take a few minutes to reflect
on what makes you anxious.
• Does anxiety help you realise what’s important? Does it
help you to grow?
• How do you like to handle anxiety? Do you like to
confront it? Or avoid it?
• How will the way you deal with anxiety affect your
effectiveness as a practitioner? How will you deal with
anxious clients?
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Awareness of Death.
o Existential Psychotherapy seeks to help the client to grasp
reality of the future and to think about death
o This awareness is the zest for life and creativity. It helps to
transform life into a fully engage mode of living.
Present moment of life counts.
- We start asking ourselves –
Am I doing the things I value ?
Living in the present will help us not become pre-occupied with
the ever present of not being.
View death as a positive force that gives life its meaning and
purpose.
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Victor Frankl on Choice
“We who lived in the concentration camps can
remember the men who walked through the huts
comforting others, giving away their last piece of
bread. They may have been few in number, but they
offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken
from a man but one thing: the last of the human
freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given
set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way”
(Viktor Frankl)
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Victor Frankl
The following video clips provide an overview of a
number of existential therapy concepts:
Interview with Dr. Viktor Frankl
Part 1 (8 minutes 41 seconds)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EIxGrIc_6g&t=324s
Part 2 (10 minutes 27 seconds)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnWETfCaBmo
Part 3 (9 minutes 34 seconds)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSSftFde5vo
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Existential Therapy
Focuses on:
• Health rather than sickness
• Growth
• The client’s immediate experience
• Helping clients to examine their values and
assumptions
• Helping clients reconstruct values, and develop
meaning & purpose in their life
• Bringing out the “aliveness” in a client (singing,
dancing, painting, etc.)
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Existential Therapy (cont.)
o Is considered as a collaborative journey (client/therapist)
• The relationship/bond with the client is crucial
• This relationship demands the therapists to be aware and
in contact with their own phenomenological world
o Key aspects of the therapeutic relationship:
• Respect and faith in the client’s potential
• Sharing honest reactions with genuine concern and
empathy
o The client needs to accept there is no escape from freedom
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Existential Therapy (cont.)
o Helps clients face the anxiety of the responsibility when
considering their options and take decisions based on
authenticity.
o It does not seek to “cure” clients but to help them become
aware of what they are doing and get out of the victim role.
Its seeks to teach them to listen what they already know
about themselves.
o Assists them to remain fully aware in the present and do not
focus on past of future.
o Supports them in confronting their own anxieties.
o Helps clients to “rewrite” who they want to be in the world.
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Existential Therapeutic Approach
o No set of pre-determined techniques. The relationship is at the
core of the process, more relevant than set methods.
o To confront clients and to help them see where/how they are stuck or
living a restricted existence.
o The therapist does not tell clients what their life meaning is, but points
out that meaning can be found, even in the midst of suffering.
o Focus on current life situations.
o Therapists provide a “psychological mirror” to the client so they can
see how they contributed to limited awareness and avoided
responsibility.
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Goals of Existential Therapy
• To help clients:
- Expand self-awareness
- Increase choice potentials
- accept the responsibility of choosing
- experience authentic existence
- recognize factors that block freedom
- Accept the freedom and responsibility that
go along with action
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Existential Therapy - Contributions
o Emphasis on the human quality of the therapeutic relationship.
The therapist is seen as a mentor.
o The approach can be integrated into most counselling
approaches. There is no set of techniques to follow.
o Clients are encouraged to find their own direction.
o Challenges in life can be dealt with equanimity, determination,
curiosity & wonder rather than self-deception. Optimistic view.
o Focus on the positive aspects of being alive. Human
resilience.
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Existential Therapy
Limitations & Criticisms
o Individualistic focus: it may be difficult to be accepted by a
collectivistic culture.
o Self-determination value: not fully applicable to some real-life
limitations of those who are oppressed and have limited choices.
o Clients may prefer a more directive therapeutic approach
o The approach does not focus on specific techniques, making
treatments difficult to standardize.
o Limited empirical support and evidence base research.
Clients may get a lack of direction from therapist.
o Existentialism is not a problem-oriented therapy.
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Revision Questions
o What did Victor Frankl discover about human choice?
o How much control do you and the client have over the
therapeutic process, each other, or therapeutic
outcomes?
o What is the relationship between human needs and
wellbeing?
o How do I recognize areas of competence I need to
improve?
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References
Bugental, J. (1987). The art of the psychotherapist. New York: Norton
Corey, G. (2015). Theory and practice of counselling and psychotherapy (10th ed.).
Boston, MA: Brooks Cole Cengage Learning.
Deurzen, E van (2002). (2nd Ed.) Existential counselling & psychotherapy in practice.
London: Sage Publications
Frankl, V. (1963). Man’s search for meaning. Boston: Beacon Press
May, R, (1970). Love and will. London: Souvenir Press
Schneider, K.J. (2005). Existential-Humanistic Psychotherapies. . In A.S. Gurman &
S.B. Messer (Eds.), Essential Psychotherapies. New York: Guilford Press.
Yalom, I, (1980). Existential psychotherapy. New York: Basic books
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