– Existential therapy and Counseling Services

Last Updated on May 4, 2023 by Chris Roberts

A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOTHERAPY AND COUNSELING

References “Humanistic-Existential Psychotherapy Competencies and the Supervisory Process by Eugene Farber of Emory University School of Medicine.  Psychotherapy Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 2010, Vol. 47, No. 1, 28-34.”

There are many different theoretical positions for practicing psychotherapy and counseling.  Most counselors choose to use a combined approach where they rely on several foundational theories for working with their clientele.  Although each approach has its own nuanced distinction for how a therapist could work with a client, they all have the ultimate goal of helping the client become more healthy.

Farber describes Existential psychotherapy as a belief that,

…psychological vitality and fullness in living spring from one’s willingness both to take responsibility for one’s freedom to choose and to accept that one’s potentiality is bounded by one’s physical, social, and psychological contexts, as well as specific existential givens (e.g., the finiteness of life) with which one must reconcile oneself. (p. 28)

Parsing out Farber’s succinct description of existential therapy, he is basically saying there is a fundamental tension in every human between the power we have to choose and the powerlessness of certain truths in life, such as we all die.  There are so many ways, on a daily basis, where we forego our freedom to choose, and most of us are quite unaware of the choices we make to nullify our freedom.  For example, let’s say you are to pick up your child from school as a car rider.  When you arrive on time to wait in line to pick up your child, you find that due to a reason beyond your control, you are basically the last car in line.  This means you will be late picking up your child and you will be late to your appointment.  How will you respond in this situation?  Will you be angry at the school?  Will you burst into a puddle of tears?  Will you be in a bad mood for the rest of the day?  Will you take your frustration out on your child, or your spouse, or your dog?  Will you pretend everything is fine?

Existential counseling uses real events both outside the therapy session and within it to illuminate to the client how they are dealing with the tension of our freedom to choose versus the powerlessness of certain events.  In the above example, if the driver had acted out of their anger at the situation, the existential therapist may have asked, “What were you trying to communicate with your anger?”  The subtle undertone is that the driver’s expression of anger had a purpose and was intentional, even if the driver was completely unaware of the intentionality of their anger.  Of course, the driver may respond, “What do you mean ‘trying to communicate’?  I was just angry, I was mad, it just came over me.”  Existential psychotherapy posits that we always have a choice, even if it is between two uncomfortable experiences.

The point is that an existential therapist is always asking if the client will be curious enough to consider that there are always alternatives.  Even though everything in the world may scream out to you that you are “stuck,” an existential therapist should empathically relate to your feeling of being stuck, while also prompting you to consider the power (even if it seems minuscule) of your freedom to choose something.  If we can choose, then we have power.  If we have power, then we are not futile.  If we are not futile, then there is hope that things can change and be different.

An existential therapist “…also strives to maintain a presence in the psychotherapy relationship, which refers to a concern with ‘understanding and experiencing as far as possible the being of the patient’ (May, 1983, p. 156).” (p. 30)  In order for a therapist to have the right to ask a client to consider alternatives in the midst of a dire circumstance, that therapist must also be just as committed to ‘understanding and experiencing’ what the client is feeling in that moment.  In fact, much of the premise of existential psychotherapy is based on the principle that the therapist can illuminate alternatives only because the therapist is deeply in a dilemma with the client.

At Two Trees Counseling in Nashville, TN, we employ several therapeutic positions in working with clients, one of which is existential therapy.  If you have questions about existential counseling or counseling in general, we would love to be of assistance.