Existential Psychotherapy: Its Characteristics And Philosophy
Going to a psychologist for treatment can be an arduous process, in which there may be fears of emotional nakedness. And it is not a trivial step: it means that we open ourselves to another person who, at least at first, is a total stranger.
Existential psychotherapy is based on a humanistic basis which is sensitive to this insecurity and proposes an intervention that seeks to escape labels and that provides the patient with the perfect scenario to design a life full of meaning.
In the following pages we will delve into this question; detailing what the intervention consists of, what objectives it proposes and what methodology it conceives to achieve them.
Existential psychotherapy is based on a homonymous current of Philosophy whose cardinal concern is oriented to the way in which every human being constructs his or her way of being and being in the world. Søren Aabye Kierkegaard is considered to be the founder of this way of understanding suffering, although its theoretical roots also lie in the contributions of thinkers of the stature of Karl Jaspers, Edmund Husserl, Simone de Beavor and Jean-Paul Sartre.
While “conventional” Psychology has dedicated its most important efforts to the understanding of thought and behavior, and often only with regard to its psychopathological dimensions, this branch has been interested in elaborating on the meaning that existence has for each person Thus, it seeks a deep analysis of the great universal questions: death, freedom, guilt, time and meaning.
The founding fathers of the discipline were psychiatrists generally disappointed with traditional biomedical models, such as Medard Boss or Ludwig Binswanger, who sought in phenomenological or constructivist currents the epistemological space with which to express the way in which they understood their work. In this way, one transcended beyond the pain and the negative, to fully enter into identification of potential and positive aspects that contribute to a happy life.
1. Human nature
From the existentialist perspective, each human being is a project under construction, and therefore can never be understood as finished or concluded. It is also a reality that is flexible and open to experience, harboring within itself the potential to live and feel a virtually infinite range of emotions and ideas. It is not an isolated being either, but makes sense as it is immersed in a canvas of social relations in which you can trace the brushstrokes that draw your subjectivity.
Existentialism does not focus only on the human being as a biopsychosocial reality, but rather on contemplates at the intersection of the following dimensions: umwelt (which involves the body and its basic needs), mitwelt (connections with others embedded in the framework of culture and society), eigenwelt (self-identity in the relationship that is built with one’s own self and with others). affects or thoughts that give it its shape) and überwelt (spiritual/transcendental beliefs about life and its purpose).
These four dimensions are the basis on which the client’s exploration is carried out (this is the term by which the person who requests help is described from the point of view of humanistic currents), so that the balance of its entirety will be ensured The disturbance in one of them (or several) will be raised as a therapeutic objective, within a program that can last as long as the person wants or needs.
2. Health and illness
From the existential perspective, health and illness are perceived as the extremes of a continuum in which any person can be located, depending on the specific way in which they relate to themselves and others. Another important criterion consists of adherence to one’s own values and principles as guides for life. Therefore, it is not a conservative vision, but rather flees from mere survival and seeks an existence through which to find ultimate meaning
From this perspective, health (adequate functioning) would be understood as the result of living an authentic life, guided by our genuine will and open to both the positive and negative things that may arise. In such a way of existing, the tendency to self-knowledge would be implicit, in order to discriminate our virtues or limitations and wield an attitude of full awareness when we have to make important decisions. Lastly, it assumes also the valiant search for wisdom
Illness, on the other hand, involves above all the opposites of what concerns health. From freedom we would move on to questioning one’s own will and distrust when assuming the reins of one’s own destiny. He would lead a life lacking authenticity, distanced from reality as it is presented, in which others would be the ones who would decide the paths through which he would have to travel. As can be seen, health transcends the limit of the physical and reaches the spiritual and social spheres.
The intervention from this type of therapy
Below we proceed to describe the objectives pursued by this form of psychotherapy, and the phases of which it consists (whose objective is to satisfy these fundamental goals). This section will conclude by showing the commonly used techniques, which in reality They are philosophical positions on one’s own life
Existential therapy pursues three basic purposes, namely: to restore trust in those who may have lost it, to expand the way in which the person perceives their own life or the world around them, and to determine a goal that is personally meaningful.
It is about the search for a position in life and a direction to assume, a kind of map and compass that stimulates the ability to explore the limits of one’s own way of being and being. In short, determine what makes us authentic.
2. Stages
The intervention process, aimed at mobilizing changes based on the outlined objectives, is also three: the initial contact, the work phase and the completion. We go on to describe each of them.
The initial contact with the client aims to forge rapport, that is, the therapeutic bond on which the intervention will be built from this moment on. This alliance must be based on active listening and acceptance of other people’s experiences, as well as on the search for a consensus on how the sessions will evolve (periodicity, significant objectives, etc.). It is assumed that the answer is within the client, so the therapist will limit himself to accompanying him, investigating issues anchored to the present through a horizontal and symmetrical relationship.
In the work phase, you begin to delve deeper into the client’s history, into everything that worries or grips them. The exploration is carried out following the four spheres of humanity, which define the complexity of its reality (which was already investigated in a previous section). This is when the main objectives of the model are addressed: detection of strengths and weaknesses, definition of values examination of the bond that unites us to the most important people, reinforcement of autonomy and construction of a life project.
The final part of the treatment exemplifies one of the tasks that the client will have to accept regarding his own life: that everything that is undertaken has a beginning and a conclusion. This point will be reached after a variable time of working together, which for the most part will depend on the way in which the person’s internal experience evolves. However, the aim is to return to everyday life, but assuming a new vision of the role played in the everyday scenario.
The therapeutic techniques used in the context of existentialist therapy are based on its original philosophical roots, which start from phenomenology and constructivism to diametrically oppose the traditional way in which the process of health and illness is understood. It is because of that flee from everything related to diagnoses or stereotypes, since they would attack the essential goal of finding one’s own meaning for life and identity. Below we present the three main methods.
The first of them is the epoché, a concept that comes from existential philosophy and which summarizes one of the foundations of therapy: approach all the moments of life as if they were new, assuming an attitude of a learner capable of marveling at the present that unfolds. Additionally, the inhibition of judgment and the dilution of expectations are pursued, a naked look at the risk and fortune that destiny harbors within it, which facilitates decision making and the ability to risk being what you want. be.
Description is the second of the techniques. In this case, the aim is to carry out an exploratory, and not explanatory, analysis that allows knowledge about things without falling into categorization. This is intended to encourage curiosity about oneself and social relationships, since both constitute the essence of what one really is from an existentialist perspective. That is why the therapist is not based on immovable objectives when starting the intervention but rather these change and adapt to the client as time passes.
The third and final procedure is based on horizontalization, through which the hierarchy of power held by the psychiatrist in the doctor-patient dyad at the historical moment in which the intervention proposal was born is avoided.
The relationships that are based on this position (equal to equal) allow the client’s rapid identification with the figure and role of the clinician, encouraging him to express his truth in a therapy context that deliberately avoids judgment and criticism.
Thus, through a psychologist-patient relationship that emphasizes honesty and the need to be open when communicating what you feel and the problem for which the consultation is being sought, existential therapy has the subjectivity of the individual as the aspect on which the therapeutic process must influence.
