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Existential & Experiential Therapy
Existential & Experiential Approaches
Phenomenological view Dissatisfaction with prevailing scientific
model in psychiatry Early proponents were psychoanalytically
trained Rejection of determinism, whether
psychoanalytic or behavioral While based on existential and
phenomenological philosophies, emphasis upon immediate experience of being human, rather than reducing a person to fit a particular theoretical orientation
Characteristics of Existential Psychotherapy
Creativity is emphasized Focus on human experiences, including
inevitability of death, anxiety, and challenge of forming identity
Holistic approach Emphasis on subjectivity Therapy based on human relationship “Existence precedes essence” Jean Paul
Sartre: Truth is based on person’s awareness existing in a given situation at a particular time
Existential & Experiential Approaches
Soren Kierkegaard (1844/1944) Frederich Nietzsche (1889/1982) Martin Heidegger (1962) Edmund Husserl (1913/1962) Martin Buber (1937/1970) Erich Fromm (1941) Paul Tillich (1952) Jean Paul Sartre (1956) Ludwig Binswanger (1958) Rollo May (1958) Victor Frankl (1963) Ernest Becker (1973) Irwin Yalom (1980) Alvin Maher (1996) Clement Vontress (Vontress & Epp, 2001)
Rollo May
Rollo May was born April 21, 1909, in Ada, Ohio. His childhood was not particularly pleasant: His parents fought and eventually divorced, and his sister had a psychotic breakdown.
After a brief stint at Michigan State (he was asked to leave because of his involvement with a radical student magazine), he attended Oberlin College in Ohio, where he received his bachelors degree.
After graduation, he went to Greece, where he taught English at Anatolia College for three years. During this period, he also spent time as an itinerant artist and even studied briefly with Alfred Adler.
When he returned to the US, he entered Union Theological Seminary and became friends with one of his teachers, Paul Tillich, the existentialist theologian, who would have a profound effect on his thinking. May received his BD in 1938.
May suffered from tuberculosis, and had to spend three years in a sanatorium. This was probably the turning point of his life. While he faced the possibility of death, he also filled his empty hours with reading. Among the literature he read were the writings of Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish religious writer who inspired much of the existential movement, and provided the inspiration for May’s theory.
Rollo May
He studied psychoanalysis at William Alanson White Institute, where he met people such as Harry Stack Sullivan and Erich Fromm.
May attended Columbia University in New York, where in 1949 he received the first PhD in clinical psychology that institution ever awarded.
His doctoral dissertation, published in 1950 under the title of The Meaning of Anxiety, was heralded as the beginning of existential psychotherapy
After receiving his PhD, he went on to teach at a variety of top schools. In 1958, he edited, with Ernest Angel and Henri Ellenberger, the book Existence, which introduced existential psychology to the US.
He spent the last years of his life in Tiburon, California, until he died in October of 1994.
Key Concepts
“Being-in-the-world”: Understanding the immediate phenomenological world in which the client makes meaning
The human world is characterized by relationships in which a person exists and chooses to participate
Basic methods of embracing the difficult (e.g., anxiety), reflecting consciously on one’s existence, and using will or intentionality to define identity
Three Worlds
Umvelt: “world around;” the biological or natural world; needs, drives and instincts
Mitvelt: “with-world;” the world of fellow human beings; relationships
Eigenvelt: “own world;” the world involving relationship with one’s self; meaning from personal perceptions (“for-me-ness”); immediate self-awareness
Clients in Existential Therapy
Adults College students Prisoners Artists and creative persons Groups
Characteristics of Existential Therapy
Various symptoms and behaviors viewed as individual’s best effort to survive or sustain oneself
Human beings have the capacity to transcend their situation, even in the most oppressive setting such as prison camp
Freedom and responsibility are major concerns throughout the therapy process
Four Ultimate Concerns (Yalom, 1980)
Death Denial of death (Becker, 1973) Origin of anxiety
Freedom Escape from freedom (Fromm, 1941) Personal responsibility Will
Isolation Panic Fusion
Meaninglessness Meaning making organisms Hierarchy of values
May’s Views on Psychopathology
There are limits to living imposed by the natural world, social conditions (especially those imposed by powerful others), and one’s own consciousness
Failure to acknowledge freedom leads to dysfunctional identification with limits
Freedom and destiny are reflected in intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions, resulting optimally, in a healthy person, the capacity for interdependence
Assessment Methods
Existential therapists address both the process and content of the client’s experiences
There is attention to what the body says about the person’s life experiences
Presence of the therapist (including attunement, authenticity, and immediacy) is the major assessment tool
Therapeutic Presence in Existential Therapy
May (1980) and Yalom (1980) emphasize the value of therapeutic silence or pause, the “punctuation” of the therapy session
Vivification of the client’s inner world through meditation, imagery, and embodiment
Encouragement to participate in experiments: “Let’s see what unfolds”
Recognition of the intersubjective nature and mutuality of empathy in the therapy session
Emphasis upon ongoing “contract” in the therapeutic alliance
Dealing with Resistance (Schneider, 2003)
Vivification of resistance Noting of blocks and self-defeating
limits Tagging of repetitive cycles Revisitation of feelings from other
“stuck” experiences Confrontation
Focus on consequences of “stuckness” Identifying splits in personality (parts
that facilitate and obstruct growth)
Research on Existential and Experiential Therapies
Systematic, empirically-oriented research is limited
Existential approach attracts artistic and creative therapists
Qualitative research methods and models seem to be ideally suited to existential psychotherapy
Existential therapy has some of the most elegant of case studies
Trends in Existential Therapy
Existential and experiential therapies could be on the cutting edge of holistic, alternative, and integrative approaches to health care
Existential approaches are very consistent with grass-roots, advocacy, and “liberation” ideologies
Experienced therapists from many backgrounds come to adopt existential viewpoint
Managed care and “empirically-supported” therapy movements are somewhat antithetical to the freedom of choice and subjective evaluation of existential psychotherapy
References
Becker, E. (1973) Denial of death. New York: Free Press. Binswanger, (1956). Existential analysis and
psychotherapy. In E. Fromm-Reichmann & J.L. Moreno (Eds.). Progress in psychotherapy (pp. 144-168). New York: Grune & Straton.
Buber, M. (1970). I and thou. (W. Kaufmann, Trans.). New York: Scribner’s. (Originally published 1937).
Bugenthal, J.F.T., & Bracke, P. (1992). The future of existential-humanistic psychotherapy. Psychotherapy, 29, 28-33.
Frankl, V. (1963). Man’s search for meaning: An introduction to logotherapy. New York: Pocket Books.
References
Frankl, V. (1967). Psychotherapy and existentialism: Selected papers on logotherapy. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Fromm, E. (1941). Escape from freedom. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). New York: Basic Books.
Husserl, E. (1962). Ideas: General introduction to pure phenomenology (W.R. Boyce Gibson, Trans.). New York: Collier. (Original work published 1913).
Kierkegaard, S. (1944). The concept of dread (W. Lowrie, Trans.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published in 1844).
References
Maher, A.R. (1996). The complete guide to experiential psychotherapy. New York: Wiley.
May, R. (1958). The origins and significance of the existential movement in psychology. In R. May, E. Angel, & H. Ellenberger (Eds.), Existence: A new dimension in psychiatry and psychology (pp. 3-36). New York: Basic Books.
May, R. (1981). Freedom and destiny. New York: Norton.
Nietzsche, F. (1982). Twilight of the idols. In W. Kaufmann (Ed.), The portable Nietzsche (pp. 465-563). New York: Penguin. (Originally published 1889).
References
Sartre, J.P. (1956). Being and nothingness (H. Barnes, Trans.). New York: Philosophical Library.
Schneider, K.J. (2003). Existential-humanistic psychotherapies. In A.S. Gurman & S.B. Messer (Eds.), Essential psychotherapies: Theory and practice (2nd ed.) (pp. 149-181). New York: Guilford
Tillich, P. (1952). The courage to be. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
References
Vontress, C.E. & Epp, L.R. (2001). Existential cross-cultural counseling: When hearts and cultures share. In K.J. Schneider, J.F.T. Bugenthal, & J.F. Pierson (Eds.), The handbook of humanistic psychology: Leading edges in theory, practice and research (pp. 371-387). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Yalom, I. (1980). Existential psychotherapy. New York: Basic Books.