Existential & Experiential Therapy. Existential & Experiential Approaches Phenomenological view Dissatisfaction with prevailing scientific model in.

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.