Existential therapy is said to be "plagued by a lack of consistency, coherency, and scrutiny.Existential therapy was introduced by Rollo May and was rooted in the philosophical writings of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.
- Existentialism is alternately religious, aesthetic, and anti religious. It emphasizes hope and optimism, as well as despair and nothingness.
- Existentialist do not agree on a basic view of human nature, despite into diverse interpretations, however, common threads run throughout all existential perspectives on counseling.
- The central focus of existentialism is on the essence of existence on the phenomena that are inherent in the very nature of being alive.
- Existentialist believe that live is either fulfilled, or constricted by a series of decisions that we make, with no way of knowing conclusively what the correct choices are.
- Existentialist believe there are no objective standard or rules to guide us in making decisions.
- Phenomenological or "here-and-now" perspective, such human choice is wholly subjective. Existentialists, then emphasize as the primary phenomenon in the study of human nature.
- Only when individuals have learned to make choices and to live with the consequences are they truly free. But, because they freely choose, individuals are also fully responsible for their choice.Responsibility is the mirror image of such freedom, the opposite side of the coin.
- Existentialist insist that individuals must accept full responsibility for their behavior, no matter how difficult.
- Death,or non being is also significant to an existential understanding of human nature, for we live on two levels: in a stater of forgetfulness of being and in a state of mindfulness of being.
- To live in the former and in a state is to live in continual distraction and diversion and thus to be wholly unaware of oneself.
- It is to be preoccupied with things, abstraction, and diversions. In the latter state, however, individuals are continually in touch with existence and the world of being. Although this living in awareness of being produces authenticity, it also fraught with anxiety, which increase when individuals confront the reality of non being or death.
- Ludwig Binswanger and Medard Boss represent many existentialists' further concentration on Dasein- "being there". In the so-called Daseinanalysis - that is, the analysis of our immediate experience - the existentialist therapist will focus on the three levels in we exist: the umwelt, the physical environment of animate and inanimate objects; the mitwelt, the social environment; and finally the eigenwelt, the inner feeling or our "own world." Together these three levels of existence constitute Dasein.
- Although existentialists do not talk about stages of development, they do believe that Dasein develops over time: they do believe that we become free of the influence of others. this is what brings us to true existence.
- Help clients restore meaning in their lives, the therapist may use advocacy, empathy, concern, sincere personal interest, reflection, action, environmental modification or support.
- Starting therapy , ending therapy, taking each step in the therapeutic process - all if this is determined in large part, not by the therapist but by the client.
- The therapeutic relationship must be an "I-thou" encounter build on honest, in which counselors expose their true selves.
- An existential therapists views the process of this change from six perspectives or angles.
- First client change as a result of insights, by understanding personal modes of existing in concert with a developing sense of choice, freedom and responsibility.
- Second, change occur through the process of therapeutic encountering between therapist and clients, a genuine meeting of persons, an open confrontation, a full "being-with-one-another."
- Third, change occurs when clients carry forward their own potential for existing.
- Fourth, change occurs by means of internal process of therapeutic encountering between the person and his or her own deeper potentials for existing.
- Fifth, change occurs when clients completely disengage from their own personality structure,identity, or self, and when they enter wholly into a deeper existence or mode of being, into deeper experiencing.
- And, finally, change occurs when clients open up new worlds, when they construct new and changing life situations, when they risk actual new and changing ways of being in worlds of their own construction.
- The aim of therapy is that the patient experience his existence as real.
- To stimulate the patient's willingness to work through pain, to offer help without the jeopardy of undercutting the other's own effort, to offer him strength without dependence.
- To help Individual reach a point at which awareness and decision making can be exercised responsibly.
- To help their clients find purpose and meaning in life.
- meaning can be uncovered in three ways: by doing a deed (creative values), by experiencing a value (experiential values) and by suffering (attitudinal values)
- Cunningham and Peter's assign six more specific aims to the process of existential therapy:
- To make the clients more aware of their own existence.
- Elucidates their uniqueness.
- To improve clients encounters with others.
- To foster freedom.
- To foster responsibility.
- To help clients establish their "will to meaning".
- Existential therapist are not known for their repertoire of techniques.
- Kemp points out that in existential counseling "technique follows understanding.
- "Approaching human beings merely in terms of techniques necessarily implies manipulating them," writes Frankl.
- "Approaching them merely in terms of dynamics implies reifying them, making human beings into merely things"
- Existential therapist, in general, particularly distortions, or defense mechanisms.
- The method used by existential counselors tend to be as varied as the numbers of practitioners.
- The initial therapy session begins with the client's circumstances at the moment and moves on from there. Because this first session can be frightening for the client who does not know what to expect from therapy, it is important that the therapist explore the client's expectations.
- The therapist may begin by expressing his or her inability to provide simple answers or quick solutions to the inherently difficult facts and possibilities of existence.
- In the world of the existentialist, at least three polarities are fundamental to the human condition:
- Dependence versus independence
- Rationality versus irrationality
- freedom versus determinism
- This practical method derives from the accidental finding that the difference between successful and unsuccessful therapeutic outcomes is not so much a result of what is achieved by the therapist, but of what is achieved by the clients.
Logotherapy
- Victor Frankl first set forth his ideas of "logotherapy," a term derived from the Greek word logos (word meaning) and Therapeia (healing), in The doctor and the Soul.
- Logotherapy, then, is a means of providing or experiencing healing through meaning.
- Responding to people whose "will to meaning".
- This approach seeks to establish responsibility, meaning, and purpose within the context of the I-thou relationship.
- In contrast to Freud's "will to pleasure" and Adler's "will to power," Frankl characterizes his approach as the "will to meaning."
- Unlike other existential approaches, however, logotherapy uses several distinctive "techniques," including paradoxical intention, dereflection, and modification of attitudes.
- Paradoxical intention, which requires clients to act against their anticipation of fear.
- Dereflection, the second of these logotherapeutic techniques, is an approach to treating excessive self-observation, obsession, or self-attention.
- A third logotherapeutic approach is to modify the client's attitudes, to change the way they think about their situation, to put new meaning into their predicament.
Group members:
Lalaine P. Sibulangcao
Ernie D. Floresta
Ernie D. Floresta
Eric Jhon Capal
Joel De Guzman
Janrel Cedrick B. German
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