Monday, July 12, 2010
Friday, July 2, 2010
A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE EXISTENTIAL THERAPY
Abstract
This article critically analyses the existential therapy as a counseling approach. Investigation of their key concepts such as their therapeutic goals, counselor function and role, client’s experience in counseling and relationship between counselor and clients were critically analyzed. The therapeutic techniques and procedures of the existential therapy from a multicultural perspective were also explored. The existential therapy has some unique contributions and limitations. These contributions, strengths and limitations were discussed in relation to culture and diversity.
Key Concepts of the Existential Therapy
Existential therapy is a therapy that stresses core human conditions. They understand people as a beings-in-the-world who construct their physical, personal, and relational worlds from their individual experiences and circumstances in the world (Krug, 2009). Their personality development is based on the uniqueness of each individual. According to the Existential approach, the basic dimension of human condition includes, 1, The capacity for self awareness: Existentialist believe that we can increase our capacity to live fully, when we become fully aware of our finite nature, our potential to take action, and the choices available to us. , 2. Freedom and responsibility: One of the existential themes is that people are free to choose among alternative and therefore has a large role in shaping their destinies. 3. Creating one’s identity and establishing meaningful relationship with others: Existentialist postulates that the trouble with humans is that we sought for directions, answers, values and believes from important people in our lives, rather than trusting ourselves to search within to find answers to the conflicts in our lives, 4. Search for meaning, purpose, values and goals: The struggle for a sense of significance and purpose in life is a human characteristic, 5. Anxiety as a condition of living: Existentialist believes that opening up to new life means opening up to anxiety. People experience anxiety when they use their freedom to move out of the known to the realm of unknown, 6.Awareness of Death and Nonbeing: Existential therapy does not view death negatively but an as a basic human condition that give significance to living.
Key concepts of the therapeutic process: Therapeutic Goals
The therapeutic goal of the existential therapy is to enable individual to accept the awesome freedom and responsibility to act. Their goal focuses on man having free will with choices and consequence that must be made and dealt with, even if it causes anxiety. The aim of the therapy is to assist clients in moving towards authenticity and learning to recognize when they are deceiving themselves. The purpose of therapy is not about fixing or analyzing a so-called psyche but with understanding of an entire existence and helping people accept who they are and come to terms with life as a human being. “Anxiety is our best teacher. If you don’t have any anxiety at all, you’re in very bad shape” (Schneider, Galvin, & Serlin, 2009, p. 420). The lack of guarantee in life is precisely what generates anxiety. May (1981) Contends that people come to therapy with the self-serving illusion that they are inwardly enslaved and that some one else (the therapist) can free them. The purpose of the therapy is to help the client become aware of what they are doing and to get them out of the victim role. The task of the Existential therapist is to teach clients to listen to what they already know about themselves. Increased awareness is the central goal of the existential therapy, which allows clients to discover other alternatives that they did not recognize before.
The therapist Function and role
The existential therapist is primarily concerned with understanding the subjective world of the client and how to help them come to a new understanding and option. The therapy focuses on the client’s current life situations. Existential therapist uses various methods for different clients and different methods at different phases of the therapeutic
They do not focus on the use of techniques because they feel they are
manipulative, rigid, routine, instead their focus is on the unique struggle of each client. . When the existential therapist goes into therapy their main concern is to get the client to accept personal responsibility and not blame others for the predicament they are in. Most clients of the existential therapy are those who have limited awareness of themselves and vague about the nature of their problems. Once clients are aware of their situation they can then begin to accept responsibility and together with the therapist discover the clients own way into the future. .
Clients experience in therapy
Clients in the existential therapy are encouraged and challenged to take responsibility for how they choose to be in the world, how to change their lives for the better in order to make it more fulfilling. In therapy clients learn to express their fears, guilty feelings and anxieties and discover a meaningful future they want for themselves. They are also made aware that every situation presents a unique opportunity for growth that meaning can be found in suffering, although suffering is not necessary to discover meaning (Badiee, 2008). In therapy clients gradually begins to be aware of what they have been and who they are now. They eventually learn be self aware, responsible for their freedom of choice, to examine the way in which they lost touch with their identity before creating meaning for their lives and finally see death and anxiety as part of life that must be dealt with in order to lead to a fuller life.
Relationship between therapist and client
In the existential therapy the relationship between the therapist and the client is of
uttermost importance. The core of the therapeutic relationship is respect and trust in the client by their therapist. Some clients enter therapy with problems relating to their sense of self-worth. Some do not value their own goals. Some question their abilities. Discussing a client’s goals and focusing on how they may be achieved implicitly emphasizes that the therapist values the client. Questions about client’s goals highlight that the therapist considers the client’s dreams, hopes, desires worthy of attention. Focusing on goals and tasks, the therapist takes the client’s life seriously, perhaps more seriously than the client himself or herself. Thus, such a focus undermines or challenges client’s feelings of low self-worth (Mackrill, 2009). . Application : Therapeutic techniques and procedures
Existential therapy is unlike most other therapies because it is not technique oriented. The existential interventions are responsive to the uniqueness of each client. In therapy the existentialist therapist is very open in their lives there by making it easy for the client to be open as well. Even though the existential therapy is the tapestry of interwoven approaches, there are three phases of the existential therapy. The initial phase is where the therapist assists the clients in identifying and clarifying their assumptions about the world. Clients are encouraged to take responsibility for the problem in their lives and examine their values and beliefs to determine their meaning in life. The next is the middle phase where clients scrutinizes the source and authority of their value system so that they can start to rearrange and shift some values, beliefs and attitudes in order to get a clearer picture of what they want in life. Lastly is the finale phase where the counselor focuses on aiding people taking their new view on life and implanting them into their daily routine.
Running head: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE EXISTENTIAL THERAPY The population for which the existential therapy is particularly useful includes: Clients struggling with developmental crises, doing grief work, confronting death or facing a significant decision, people passage from one stage of life to another such as struggle for identity in adolescence, coping with possible disappointment in middle age, coping with failure in marriage and work, uncertainty, anxiety, high school youths.
Contributions to multicultural counseling see http://www.existential-therapy.com/
. One of the strengths of the existential therapy is their ability to enable clients to examine the degree to which their behavior is influenced by family, cultural, social conditioning. If personal needs cannot be satisfied or personal goal cannot be realized in interpersonal relations, one may experience frustration, anxiety, or depression (Chen, 2009).
Limitations for multicultural counseling
One of the limitations of the existential therapy in the area of multicultural populations is that they are excessively individualistic and ignores the social factors that cause humans problems. Even though clients change internally, the social factors and environmental circumstances such as racism, discrimination and oppression severely restrict their ability to influence the direction of their lives. An example is an African American client who comes from the ghetto and the existential therapist consistently tells the client that he or she has a choice in making his or her life better, when in reality he or she does not. .
Conclusion
I love, believe and value the existential emphasis on freedom and responsibility and a person’s capacity to re-design his or her life by choosing with awareness. According to the existential theory, we as humans are capable of self-awareness, which is our distinct capacity to reflect and to decide. We are free being, free to choose, this freedom brings anxiety, which the existentialist sees as a basic human characteristics. In the existentialist approach it is not the technique that the therapist uses that makes the therapeutic difference it is rather the quality client - therapist relationship that heals. Even though the existential therapy lacks pure scientific methodology and does not offer “how to” but Instead offers viewpoints. It however offers a way to view oneself. In spite of the limitations and short comings of the existential therapy, there is no doubt that the therapy offers the world of psychology a path to therapy that is different from the other approaches that seeks only scientific outcomes. Existential therapy offers an alternative form of therapy, a phenomenological approach to the person, not a look at the instinct of the person, not a separation of the id, the ego and the super ego but a view of the entire being in the now. The existential therapy is a unique and the only effective therapy that instigates, encourages and assists people to open up their inside and look within to see who they really are and the power and freedom within them to change their destinies.
Reference
Kayoing L. C., James R. R., & James L. W. (2009). A culturally informed perspective
Suicide risk assessment with Asian American college students. The Counseling Psychologist, 37, 186
Kirk J. S., John G., & Ilene S. (2009). Rollo May on existential psychotherapy. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 49, 419-434.
Manijeh B. (2008). On the road to being. My personal journey into existential theory and practice. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 48, 477-488.
Orah T., K. (2009). James Bugental and Irvin Yalom two masters of Existential therapy cultivate presence in the therapeutic encounter. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 49, 329-354.
Ping-Hwa C. (2009). Clients with interpersonal conflicts. A counseling model for self- relation coordination for Chinese. The Counseling Psychologist, 37, 987-1009.
Thomas M. (2010). Goal consensus and collaboration in psychotherapy: An existential rationale. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 50, 96-107
Abstract
This article critically analyses the existential therapy as a counseling approach. Investigation of their key concepts such as their therapeutic goals, counselor function and role, client’s experience in counseling and relationship between counselor and clients were critically analyzed. The therapeutic techniques and procedures of the existential therapy from a multicultural perspective were also explored. The existential therapy has some unique contributions and limitations. These contributions, strengths and limitations were discussed in relation to culture and diversity.
Key Concepts of the Existential Therapy
Existential therapy is a therapy that stresses core human conditions. They understand people as a beings-in-the-world who construct their physical, personal, and relational worlds from their individual experiences and circumstances in the world (Krug, 2009). Their personality development is based on the uniqueness of each individual. According to the Existential approach, the basic dimension of human condition includes, 1, The capacity for self awareness: Existentialist believe that we can increase our capacity to live fully, when we become fully aware of our finite nature, our potential to take action, and the choices available to us. , 2. Freedom and responsibility: One of the existential themes is that people are free to choose among alternative and therefore has a large role in shaping their destinies. 3. Creating one’s identity and establishing meaningful relationship with others: Existentialist postulates that the trouble with humans is that we sought for directions, answers, values and believes from important people in our lives, rather than trusting ourselves to search within to find answers to the conflicts in our lives, 4. Search for meaning, purpose, values and goals: The struggle for a sense of significance and purpose in life is a human characteristic, 5. Anxiety as a condition of living: Existentialist believes that opening up to new life means opening up to anxiety. People experience anxiety when they use their freedom to move out of the known to the realm of unknown, 6.Awareness of Death and Nonbeing: Existential therapy does not view death negatively but an as a basic human condition that give significance to living.
Key concepts of the therapeutic process: Therapeutic Goals
The therapeutic goal of the existential therapy is to enable individual to accept the awesome freedom and responsibility to act. Their goal focuses on man having free will with choices and consequence that must be made and dealt with, even if it causes anxiety. The aim of the therapy is to assist clients in moving towards authenticity and learning to recognize when they are deceiving themselves. The purpose of therapy is not about fixing or analyzing a so-called psyche but with understanding of an entire existence and helping people accept who they are and come to terms with life as a human being. “Anxiety is our best teacher. If you don’t have any anxiety at all, you’re in very bad shape” (Schneider, Galvin, & Serlin, 2009, p. 420). The lack of guarantee in life is precisely what generates anxiety. May (1981) Contends that people come to therapy with the self-serving illusion that they are inwardly enslaved and that some one else (the therapist) can free them. The purpose of the therapy is to help the client become aware of what they are doing and to get them out of the victim role. The task of the Existential therapist is to teach clients to listen to what they already know about themselves. Increased awareness is the central goal of the existential therapy, which allows clients to discover other alternatives that they did not recognize before.
The therapist Function and role
The existential therapist is primarily concerned with understanding the subjective world of the client and how to help them come to a new understanding and option. The therapy focuses on the client’s current life situations. Existential therapist uses various methods for different clients and different methods at different phases of the therapeutic
They do not focus on the use of techniques because they feel they are
manipulative, rigid, routine, instead their focus is on the unique struggle of each client. . When the existential therapist goes into therapy their main concern is to get the client to accept personal responsibility and not blame others for the predicament they are in. Most clients of the existential therapy are those who have limited awareness of themselves and vague about the nature of their problems. Once clients are aware of their situation they can then begin to accept responsibility and together with the therapist discover the clients own way into the future. .
Clients experience in therapy
Clients in the existential therapy are encouraged and challenged to take responsibility for how they choose to be in the world, how to change their lives for the better in order to make it more fulfilling. In therapy clients learn to express their fears, guilty feelings and anxieties and discover a meaningful future they want for themselves. They are also made aware that every situation presents a unique opportunity for growth that meaning can be found in suffering, although suffering is not necessary to discover meaning (Badiee, 2008). In therapy clients gradually begins to be aware of what they have been and who they are now. They eventually learn be self aware, responsible for their freedom of choice, to examine the way in which they lost touch with their identity before creating meaning for their lives and finally see death and anxiety as part of life that must be dealt with in order to lead to a fuller life.
Relationship between therapist and client
In the existential therapy the relationship between the therapist and the client is of
uttermost importance. The core of the therapeutic relationship is respect and trust in the client by their therapist. Some clients enter therapy with problems relating to their sense of self-worth. Some do not value their own goals. Some question their abilities. Discussing a client’s goals and focusing on how they may be achieved implicitly emphasizes that the therapist values the client. Questions about client’s goals highlight that the therapist considers the client’s dreams, hopes, desires worthy of attention. Focusing on goals and tasks, the therapist takes the client’s life seriously, perhaps more seriously than the client himself or herself. Thus, such a focus undermines or challenges client’s feelings of low self-worth (Mackrill, 2009). . Application : Therapeutic techniques and procedures
Existential therapy is unlike most other therapies because it is not technique oriented. The existential interventions are responsive to the uniqueness of each client. In therapy the existentialist therapist is very open in their lives there by making it easy for the client to be open as well. Even though the existential therapy is the tapestry of interwoven approaches, there are three phases of the existential therapy. The initial phase is where the therapist assists the clients in identifying and clarifying their assumptions about the world. Clients are encouraged to take responsibility for the problem in their lives and examine their values and beliefs to determine their meaning in life. The next is the middle phase where clients scrutinizes the source and authority of their value system so that they can start to rearrange and shift some values, beliefs and attitudes in order to get a clearer picture of what they want in life. Lastly is the finale phase where the counselor focuses on aiding people taking their new view on life and implanting them into their daily routine.
Running head: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE EXISTENTIAL THERAPY The population for which the existential therapy is particularly useful includes: Clients struggling with developmental crises, doing grief work, confronting death or facing a significant decision, people passage from one stage of life to another such as struggle for identity in adolescence, coping with possible disappointment in middle age, coping with failure in marriage and work, uncertainty, anxiety, high school youths.
Contributions to multicultural counseling see http://www.existential-therapy.com/
. One of the strengths of the existential therapy is their ability to enable clients to examine the degree to which their behavior is influenced by family, cultural, social conditioning. If personal needs cannot be satisfied or personal goal cannot be realized in interpersonal relations, one may experience frustration, anxiety, or depression (Chen, 2009).
Limitations for multicultural counseling
One of the limitations of the existential therapy in the area of multicultural populations is that they are excessively individualistic and ignores the social factors that cause humans problems. Even though clients change internally, the social factors and environmental circumstances such as racism, discrimination and oppression severely restrict their ability to influence the direction of their lives. An example is an African American client who comes from the ghetto and the existential therapist consistently tells the client that he or she has a choice in making his or her life better, when in reality he or she does not. .
Conclusion
I love, believe and value the existential emphasis on freedom and responsibility and a person’s capacity to re-design his or her life by choosing with awareness. According to the existential theory, we as humans are capable of self-awareness, which is our distinct capacity to reflect and to decide. We are free being, free to choose, this freedom brings anxiety, which the existentialist sees as a basic human characteristics. In the existentialist approach it is not the technique that the therapist uses that makes the therapeutic difference it is rather the quality client - therapist relationship that heals. Even though the existential therapy lacks pure scientific methodology and does not offer “how to” but Instead offers viewpoints. It however offers a way to view oneself. In spite of the limitations and short comings of the existential therapy, there is no doubt that the therapy offers the world of psychology a path to therapy that is different from the other approaches that seeks only scientific outcomes. Existential therapy offers an alternative form of therapy, a phenomenological approach to the person, not a look at the instinct of the person, not a separation of the id, the ego and the super ego but a view of the entire being in the now. The existential therapy is a unique and the only effective therapy that instigates, encourages and assists people to open up their inside and look within to see who they really are and the power and freedom within them to change their destinies.
Reference
Kayoing L. C., James R. R., & James L. W. (2009). A culturally informed perspective
Suicide risk assessment with Asian American college students. The Counseling Psychologist, 37, 186
Kirk J. S., John G., & Ilene S. (2009). Rollo May on existential psychotherapy. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 49, 419-434.
Manijeh B. (2008). On the road to being. My personal journey into existential theory and practice. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 48, 477-488.
Orah T., K. (2009). James Bugental and Irvin Yalom two masters of Existential therapy cultivate presence in the therapeutic encounter. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 49, 329-354.
Ping-Hwa C. (2009). Clients with interpersonal conflicts. A counseling model for self- relation coordination for Chinese. The Counseling Psychologist, 37, 987-1009.
Thomas M. (2010). Goal consensus and collaboration in psychotherapy: An existential rationale. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 50, 96-107
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