Existential Therapy
Victor Frankl / Rollo May / Irvin Yalom
INTRODUCTION
Existential Psychotherapy is an attitude toward human suffering [that] has no manual. It asks
deep questions about the nature of the human being and nature of anxiety, despair, grief, loneliness,
isolation, and anomie. It also deals centrally with the questions of meaning, creativity and love.
Existential Therapy
More a way of thinking, or an attitude about psychotherapy, than a particular style of
practicing psychotherapy.
A philosophical approach that influences a counselor’s therapeutic practice.
Focuses on exploring themes of a person’s current struggle such as mortality, meaning,
freedom, responsibility, anxiety, and aloneness
Grounded on the assumption that we are free and therefore responsible for our choices and
actions.
Rejects the deterministic view of human nature
Phenomenology
A philosophical method used by existentialism that was made to be free of presupposition.
Deals with the client’s subjective reality
Historical Background in Philosophy and Existentialism
SOREN KIERKEGAARD (1813-1855) A Danish philosopher and Christian theologian who
addressed the role of anxiety and uncertainty in life.
“Once you label me you negate me”
He was particular with angst, a Danish and German word which means dread and anxiety
, Existential anxiety is associated with basic decision making about how we want to live,
and it is not pathological
Kierkegaard believed that the sickness unto death arises when we are not true to
ourselves.
Becoming human is a project, and our task is not so much to discover who we are as to
create ourselves.
Themes: creative anxiety, despair, fear and dread, guilt, and nothingness
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE (1844-1900) A German philosopher who expressed a revolutionary
approach to self, to ethics, and to society.
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger”
He set out to prove that the ancient definition of humans as rational was entirely
misleading.
Nietzsche located values within the individual’s will to power and emphasized that if, like
sheep, we acquiesce in herd morality, we will be nothing but mediocrities.
Both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were generally considered to be the originators of the
existential perspective (Sharp & Bugental, 2001)
Themes: death, suicide, and will
MARTIN HEIDEGGER (1889-1976) A German philosopher who claimed that our moods and
feelings (including anxiety about death) are a way of understanding whether we are living
authentically or inauthentically.
“Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one”
Phenomenological existentialism reminds us that we are being who exist in the world
and not apart from the world.
Phenomenological existentialism does not focus on the past but motivates individuals to
look forward to authentic experiences that are yet to come.
Themes: authentic being, caring, death, guilt, individual responsibility, and isolation
MARTIN BUBER (1878-1965) An Austrian-Israeli philosopher who said that humans live in a
kind of betweenness which means there is never “I” but always an “other”
The I, the person who is the agent, changes depending on whether the other is and in or a
Thou.
Victor Frankl / Rollo May / Irvin Yalom
INTRODUCTION
Existential Psychotherapy is an attitude toward human suffering [that] has no manual. It asks
deep questions about the nature of the human being and nature of anxiety, despair, grief, loneliness,
isolation, and anomie. It also deals centrally with the questions of meaning, creativity and love.
Existential Therapy
More a way of thinking, or an attitude about psychotherapy, than a particular style of
practicing psychotherapy.
A philosophical approach that influences a counselor’s therapeutic practice.
Focuses on exploring themes of a person’s current struggle such as mortality, meaning,
freedom, responsibility, anxiety, and aloneness
Grounded on the assumption that we are free and therefore responsible for our choices and
actions.
Rejects the deterministic view of human nature
Phenomenology
A philosophical method used by existentialism that was made to be free of presupposition.
Deals with the client’s subjective reality
Historical Background in Philosophy and Existentialism
SOREN KIERKEGAARD (1813-1855) A Danish philosopher and Christian theologian who
addressed the role of anxiety and uncertainty in life.
“Once you label me you negate me”
He was particular with angst, a Danish and German word which means dread and anxiety
, Existential anxiety is associated with basic decision making about how we want to live,
and it is not pathological
Kierkegaard believed that the sickness unto death arises when we are not true to
ourselves.
Becoming human is a project, and our task is not so much to discover who we are as to
create ourselves.
Themes: creative anxiety, despair, fear and dread, guilt, and nothingness
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE (1844-1900) A German philosopher who expressed a revolutionary
approach to self, to ethics, and to society.
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger”
He set out to prove that the ancient definition of humans as rational was entirely
misleading.
Nietzsche located values within the individual’s will to power and emphasized that if, like
sheep, we acquiesce in herd morality, we will be nothing but mediocrities.
Both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were generally considered to be the originators of the
existential perspective (Sharp & Bugental, 2001)
Themes: death, suicide, and will
MARTIN HEIDEGGER (1889-1976) A German philosopher who claimed that our moods and
feelings (including anxiety about death) are a way of understanding whether we are living
authentically or inauthentically.
“Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one”
Phenomenological existentialism reminds us that we are being who exist in the world
and not apart from the world.
Phenomenological existentialism does not focus on the past but motivates individuals to
look forward to authentic experiences that are yet to come.
Themes: authentic being, caring, death, guilt, individual responsibility, and isolation
MARTIN BUBER (1878-1965) An Austrian-Israeli philosopher who said that humans live in a
kind of betweenness which means there is never “I” but always an “other”
The I, the person who is the agent, changes depending on whether the other is and in or a
Thou.
