Quotations "We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the EXISTENTIAL huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few 460 in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but Counseling and Interviewing one thing: the last of human freedoms - to Sheila K. Grant, Ph.D. choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances - to choose one's own way.” – Victor Frankl

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Quotations Quotations "Man's Search for meaning is the primary “The deeper sorrow carves into your motivation in his life and not a 'secondary being the more joy you can contain.” rationalization' of instinctual drives. This – Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning... Man, however, is able to live and even to die for the sake of his ideals and values!" – Victor Frankl

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Existential Approach Key Concepts Developed as a reaction against Human is a constant state of – transition: – – Emerging, evolving and “becoming” We pose questions: Goes against use of “techniques”; – “Who Am I” Instead focus is on – “What can I know” – “understanding what it means to be – “Where Am I Going” human” – “What ought I do” – “What can I hope for”

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1 Existential Therapy A Philosophical/Intellectual Approach to Therapy A Philosophical/Intellectual Approach to Therapy Existential therapy reacts against Definition: tendency to view therapy as a system of – a philosophical approach that emphasizes well-defined techniques our freedom to choose what to make of It affirms looking at those unique our circumstances characteristics that make us human & – So we are free & therefore responsible for building therapy on them our choices & actions Emphasizes choice, freedom, APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING responsibility & self-determination HUMANS In essence, we are the author of our life Awareness of our eventual nonbeing

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Existential Therapy Existential Therapy A Philosophical/Intellectual Approach to Therapy A Philosophical/Intellectual Approach to Therapy Existential movement stands for BASIC DIMENSIONS – OF THE HUMAN respect for the person, exploring CONDITION (6 Propositions) new aspects of human behavior, – Capacity for self-awareness – Tension between freedom & & divergent methods of responsibility understanding people – Creating one’s identity & establishing meaningful relationships – Search for meaning, purpose, values, & goals – Accepting as a condition of living 9 – Awareness of death and nonbeing 10

APPROACH TO Capacity for Self-Awareness UNDERSTANDING HUMANS Prop. 1: WE HAVE THE CAPACITY FOR Philosophical assumptions underlying SELF-AWARENESS - Corey the existential approach include the To expand our awareness is to increase our notions that: capacity to live fully The greater our awareness, the greater our – We are ‘thrust’ into a meaningless & possibilities for freedom absurd world & that we are basically Awareness is realizing that: alone – We are finite - time is limited – We must create our own meanings – We have the potential, the choice, to act or not through choices to act – Meaning is not automatic - we must seek it – We are subject to loneliness, meaninglessness, 11 emptiness, guilt, and isolation 12

2 Freedom and Responsibility Freedom and Responsibility Prop. 2: BECAUSE WE ARE BASICALLY We are free to choose among alternatives…we FREE BEINGS, WE MUST ACCEPT have a role in our destinies RESPONSIBILITY THAT ACCOMPANIES OUR “Bad Faith” (Jean-Paul Sartre, 1971) FREEDOM - Corey – The inauthenticity of not accepting personal responsibility This central issue in therapy leads to – “Naturally I grew up this way b/c I’m from an alcoholic family” (playing the victim role; blaming – (1) Commitment to Choose and external forces) – (2) Being Authentic The guilt we experience when we don’t live This existential idea involves the notion that authentically Inauthenticity is assuming external forces – Our freedom requires us to accept responsibility control our lives for directing our own life Assuming responsibility is a basic condition for – We are free to choose who we will be change (e.g., AA) Clients who refuse to accept responsibility by – They go hand in hand persistently Blaming others for their problems will not benefit from therapy – Contends F & R are two sides of same coin 13 14

Freedom and Responsibility Note: Authorship People come into counseling feeling they’ve lost control of Notion of authorship states that their lives we are authors of our life in the They want advice & magical sense that we create our cures – Destiny Job of existential therapists is to – Life situation – recognize how client has given – Problems away power & – help client work toward autonomy

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Identity and Relationship Identity and Relationship Prop. 3: WE HAVE A CONCERN TO Experience of aloneness: PRESERVE OUR UNIQUENESS & IDENTITY; – Part of human condition WE COME TO KNOW OURSELVES IN – We must learn to enjoy being alone RELATION TO KNOWING & INTERACTING before we can enjoy being with WITH OTHERS - Corey others Striving for Identity & Responsibility – We are ultimately alone, yet related to others: – Helps us find & create our personal identity – We alone must give a sense of – Courage to be takes a lot of guts b/c we meaning to our life may not like what we see – The experience of relatedness will – People fear they’ll discover they have no improve once you’re comfortable core; no self with yourself 17 18

3 Identity and Relationship Identity and Relationship Identity is “the courage to be” “DON’T GET SO BUSY –We must trust ourselves to search within and find our own MAKING A LIVING THAT answers YOU FORGET TO MAKE A Struggling with our identity LIFE” –“some become trapped in a “doing” mode to avoid the experience of “being”

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Identity and Relationship Search for Meaning Prop. 4: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF OUR Relatedness EXISTENCE & THE MEANING OF OUR LIFE ARE – At their best our relationships are NEVER FIXED ONCE & FOR ALL; INSTEAD, WE based on our desire for fulfillment, RE-CREATE OURSELVES THROUGH OUR PROJECTS - Corey not our deprivation Meaning – like pleasure, meaning must be – Relationships that spring from our pursued obliquely sense of deprivation are clinging, – Finding meaning in life is a by-product of a parasitic, and symbiotic commitment to creating, loving, and working – When we can stand alone, then “The will to meaning” is our primary striving relationships are based on our – Life is not meaningful in itself; WE must “fulfillment” and not on our create and discover meaning “deprivation” Problem of discarding old values and not

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Search for Meaning Search for Meaning

Meaningless in life leads to emptiness & WHAT DO YOU ‘CREATE’ EVERYDAY? hollowness Existential vacuum: WHAT DO YOU ‘BUILD’ EVERYDAY? – emptiness and hollowness Existential guilt: WHAT DO YOU ‘LOVE’ EVERYDAY? – Being aware of having evaded a commitment, or having chosen NOT to choose Realization we’re not what we might have become Creating new meaning in our lives – c/n directly look for meaning: Finding meaning is a by-product of “engagement”: – A commitment to creating, loving, working, & building 23 24

4 Anxiety – A Condition of Living Anxiety – A Condition of Living Prop. 5: ANXIETY IS PART OF THE We can blunt anxiety by HUMAN CONDITION restricting our lives & thus Existential anxiety is normal - life cannot be lived, nor can death be faced, without anxiety reducing choices – Anxiety can be a stimulus for growth as we Opening up to NEW life become aware of and accept our freedom means opening up to – We can blunt our anxiety by creating the illusion that there is security in life – If we have the courage to face ourselves and life we may be frightened, but we will be able to change – Need normal anxiety to be able to survive (we don’t strive to eliminate this!)

– Neurotic anxiety is NOT healthy, and is very25 26 limiting (out of proportion to situation)

Awareness of Awareness of Death and Nonbeing Death and Nonbeing Prop. 6: DEATH IS ALSO A BASIC We have LIMITED time to complete HUMAN CONDITION, AND our projects! AWARENESS OF IT GIVES Each moment is crucial! SIGNIFICANCE TO LIVING Our awareness of death is the source It is a basic human condition and it is of ZEST for life & creativity! necessary so that we can think about Answer the following: – “If you knew you had 1 week to live, how life would you spend it? According to the existential – “If you knew you had 1 year to live, how viewpoint, death gives significance to would you spend it? living – “If you knew you had 10 years to live, how 27 would you spend it? 28

Relationship Between Relationship Between Therapist & Client Therapist & Client

Therapy is a journey taken by therapist Client-therapist relationship is of and client paramount importance because quality of – Person-to-person relationship/encounter is the I/Thou encounter offers a context for a stimulus to positive change in client change – Relationship demands that therapists be in contact with their own phenomenological Instead of prizing therapeutic objectivity & world professional distance, existential therapists value being fully present, & they Core of the therapeutic relationship strive to create caring relationships with – Respect & faith in the clients’ potential to clients cope Therapy is a collaborative relationship in – Sharing reactions with genuine concern & which both client & therapist are involved empathy in a journey of self-discovery – Therapists model authentic behavior KEY: to help client transfer what is learned Existentialists contend that the experience outside therapy of relatedness to other human beings can be therapeutic in and of itself 29 30

5 Therapists Therapists

Most crucial quality of therapist in Deal with clients who have a building an effective therapeutic “restricted existence” relationship with a client: – I.e., clients have limited awareness of self – Therapist’s authenticity – I.e., clients vague about nature of their Therapist’s function and role problem – Understanding the subjective world of Therapy holds a mirror for client to client examine self – Focus on client’s current life situation – Therapists use a wide range of methods depending on client – Therapists dislike specific techniques 31 32

Client’s Experience in Therapy BASIC GOALS OF Take experiences seriously EXISTENTIAL THEORY – Client expected to be active in their therapy To expand self-awareness Take responsibility for choices in their To increase choice potentials world To help clients accept the – Client confronts “ultimate concerns” rather than “immediate problems” responsibility of choosing It is frightening, exciting, joyful, To help the client experience depressing, or a combination of all of authentic existence these Confrontation of concerns in their life BASICALLY AN EXPERIENTIAL – Expected to go out into world & decide APPROACH TO THERAPY how they will live differently 33 34

Existential therapy Existential therapy Based on a growth mode and Basic Therapeutic Goals: Conceptualizes health rather than sickness – To recognize factors that block De-emphasis on techniques freedom Use of therapist’s self is core of therapy Attention is given to clients’ immediate, ongoing – To challenge clients to recognize that experience with aim of helping them develop they are doing something that they greater presence in their quest for meaning & formerly though was happening to purpose them At beginning of therapy, therapist helps the client – To accept the freedom and identify & clarify the assumptions about the world responsibility that go along with – (often clients focus on external things to blame) Then, clients are encouraged to examine the action source and authority of their present value system – Corey – (clients gain new insights & reconstruct values) Finally, therapist help clients implement what they have learned about themselves (apply new 35 learning to life!!!)) 36

6 Existential Therapeutic Process Criticism An invitation to clients to recognize ways in which they aren’t living authentic lives & make different choices to be all that they can become A major criticism of existential Challenge client’s narrow & compulsive trends approach is that it lacks a Challenge their notion that they’re inwardly enslaved & someone else can free them systematic statement of the Existential therapists do NOT cure clients, but get principles & practices of them out of the victim role – When have you blamed someone else for YOUR unhappiness? Not a system of highly developed Increased awareness is the central goal of techniques Therapy is the process of bringing out the latent “aliveness” in a client – What aliveness is latent in you? To dance, to sing, love, plant flowers, paint, etc? 37 38

Major Players Major Players Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) – The founder of the “philosophy of existence” – Talked about our – Proposed that truth lies in subjective rather than presumptions of “will to power” & objectivity “herd mortality” True existence is achieved by intensity of feeling – Anguish: a revelation of the possibilities which lie beyond one’s constricted existence – Passion: the quality of striving to come into being – True heroism: a “daring to be entirely oneself, alone before God

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Major Players Major Players Jean-Paul Sartre Binswanger EXISTENCE PRECEDES ESSENCE – World-design: – "Freedom is existence, & in it existence The all encompassing pattern of an precedes essence." individual’s mode of being-in-the-worl – This means that what we do, how we act in our life, determines our apparent "qualities" The borders of the design may be narrow & constricting or broad & expansive, open or – It is not that someone tells the truth because she is honest, but rather she defines herself as closed, disclosed or conceled, light or dark honest by telling the truth again and again – Existential guilt is what we experience when We allow others to define us or to make our choices for us

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7 Major Players Major Players Victor Frankl (1905-1997) Medard Boss – Born in Vienna, Austria – Dasein: – Spent time in concentration camps 1942- Being-in-the-world: ideally should be open to one’s past & future as well as one’s present 1945 (Auschwitz & Dachau) – Daseinanalysis: – M.D. in 1930; Ph.D. in 1949 Univ of Trying to see what is in one’s experience & describe Vienna it as accurately as possible – Works translated into over 30 languages Careful elucidation of specific nature of human being- in-the-world – Best seller: “Man’s Search for Meaning” 1963 – Coined : Therapy through meaning “will to meaning”

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Major Players Major Players Rollo May (1909-1994) – Responsible for bringing Existentialism Irving Yalom & from Europe to U.S. (2 modern day Existentialists) – Instrumental in translating some concepts – Yalom: The concerns that make up the drawn from existential philosophy & core of existential psychodynamics are: applying them to therapy Death – “It takes courage to “be” and our choices Freedom determine the kind of person we will become” Isolation – Neurotic anxiety is the result of not facing Meaninglessness normal anxiety To run away from anxiety means automatically surrendering a measure of one’s freedom 45 46

Some Counseling Situations Some Counseling Situations Dealing with Existential Problems Dealing with Anxiety I feel like my existence does not matter to Person has had a lucrative & secure job for anyone. If I were to die today, I fully years but is now becoming aware that it is believe that it wouldn’t make a difference sterile, unexciting, & dull. to anyone. He finally musters the courage to leave this I keep looking outside of me for answers. secure job & go into business for himself I try hard to be whatever anyone else He experiences more challenges & expects me to become. I see myself as a excitement, yet he is filled with anxiety of stranger to myself. I really don’t know failing who I am, and what’s worse, at this point What is real fear? I don’t even know what I would like to become. What are some ways of coping with these fears? 47 48

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