Existential Psychotherapy – Values and Assumptions Underpinning Practice

Existential psychotherapy and counseling is mostly based on the principles of existential philosophy. Possessing said that, any person who has grappled with the ideas of existential philosophy will appreciate the difficulty of applying it to their own life, nonetheless alone the psychotherapeutic connection. The writings of Nietzsche, Sartre or Heidegger for instance, although original and revolutionary, are complicated and tricky to grasp. Their suggestions also challenge the premise on which a great deal of Western considering is primarily based. Sartre advisable that ‘Existence precedes Essence’ and that we are free of charge to create ourselves in any way we wish.

Heidegger, contrary to Cartesian Dualistic ideas, presented the idea of Dasein – we are an existent, ‘thrown’ into a world not of our personal deciding on and challenged to respond to the ‘Call of Conscience’ – to authentically engage with what it is ‘to be’. Clearly our values and private philosophy of life influence our possibilities in life and, as psychotherapists, our choice of therapy and the modality within which we function. These values and beliefs subtly influence how psychotherapists think ‘people tick’ and what they have to have to do to really feel far better. What ever our modality, psychotherapy is something about increasing effectively becoming.

What are the values and philosophical assumptions underpinning existential psychotherapy?

We have choice and totally free of charge will. We are doomed to choose. In our personal lives and with our shoppers, we see examples of denying this and also never tapping into the wide array of selections accessible to us. We say ”I cannot do this” Ï shouldn’t do this” – all examples of denying the freedom we have – in the end to be who we want to be. In an attempt to make sense of the infinite possibilities of life, we create myths or unquestioned assumptions which hoodwink us into believing there is an objective globe.

Intrinsic Flexibility of human nature. We generate our reality and ourselves by becoming-in-relation to other folks. This suggests it is achievable to make sense of life by engaging with this reality. We develop our reality and ourselves by becoming-in-relation to other individuals/challenges. We are not fixed but beings-in-relation who practical experience the globe by means of Intentional Acts.

There are limitations to our freedom. We do not have unlimited freedom to pick but are bounded by our circumstances and social, physical and cultural situations in which we come across ourselves.

Existential psychotherapy is a philosophical endeavor. It is a tutorial in the art of living. It is not about pathologising and thinking about men and women to be sick but struggling with the incredibly issue of living and producing sense of their certain situations.

Concentrate on troubles of living and not personality troubles. Existential psychotherapy does not concentrate on character differences and approaches in attempting to have an understanding of a client’s behavior. In reality, existential psychotherapists are not there to recognize their clientele – they help their shoppers in understanding their personal worlds and use themselves as an instrument to reveal that to buyers. They also focus on the Ontic, lived encounter of the client within Ontological givens to which the therapist is also subject.

The objective of existential psychotherapy is Authenticity. Authenticity is a Heideggerian notion that is not to do with being genuine or truthful but embracing the notion of Dasein or ‘being there’.

People are exceptional and their way of seeing the planet is helpful. Focus on the individual’s subjective globe is important in existential psychotherapy and the therapist is educated to assist the client in understanding additional their worldview, and valuing it, even if it is viewed as to be destructive or contrary to social or cultural norms.

Therapists face the extremely very same challenges of living that the clients face. Existential psychotherapy is not about identifying and modifying elements of an individual’s self or behavior. Therapists start out off from the premise that we are all ‘at life’ and topic to ontological provided e.g. birth, death, relatedness, existential angst, selection, freedom. Our ontic knowledge is how we reside against the backcloth of these ubiquitous existential givens.

Therapists as a Self is changed in the process of conducting psychotherapy. Psychotherapists are changed in the approach of functioning with buyers and a client that visits one therapist will be diverse from the identical one particular unique who visits one particular far more therapist. As https://quenza.com/blog/online-tools-for-therapists/ in the planet, we are co-constructed and do not exist in isolation. Not only will the story and content shared with a further therapist be a variety of, but phenomenologically the person exists only as a function of their co-building in the counseling connection. As a outcome the client – and therapist – are 1 of a type and the stories which emerge are also particular, in how they are supplied and in how they are received.