Existential Psychotherapy

Emmy van DeurzenEmmy van DeurzenUniversity of SheffieldUniversity of Sheffield..New School of PsychotherapyNew School of Psychotherapy--London.London.

Existential Approach

The existential approach to counselling and psychotherapy is a philosophical method for understanding human difficulties.

Life and death.

HUMAN CONDITION

It focuses on the way in which the individual struggles with the human condition and in particular with our inevitable limitations.

Vortex of life

Limit situations. ‘ In our day-to-day lives we often evade

them, by closing our eyes and living as if they did not exist. We forget that we must die, forget our guilt, and forget that we are at the mercy of chance.’ (Jaspers, 1951,p.20)

Stark landscapes

Relevance to crisis and suffering.Existential counselling or therapy is therefore an approach that is highly suitable to people who are in crisis, who are in the process of life transformation or who are in the midst of suffering.

Winter of our life

Failure.‘The ultimate situations-death, chance, guilt and the uncertainty of the world-confront me with the reality of failure. What do I do in the face of this absolute failure, which if I am honest I cannot fail to recognise?’ (Jaspers:ibid. p. 22)

Storm is gathering

Soren Kierkegaard 1813-1855

Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900

Nietzsche’s death mask.

EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHERS

Jacques Derrida1931-

Albert Camus1913-1960

Martin Heidegger1889-1976

Paul Ricoeur1913-

Maurice Merleau Ponty

1908-1961

Edmund Husserl1859-1938

Friedrich Nietzsche1844-1900

Michel Foucault1926-1984

Jean Paul Sartre1905-1980

Franz Brentano1838-1917

Soren Kierkegaard1813-1855

Post-modernismExistentialismPhenomenologyPhilosophers offreedom

Edmund Husserl 1859-1938

Husserl’s PhenomenologyWesenschau: things themselves.

Intentionality (Franz Brentano).

Intuition<>natural attitude.

Knowledge built on experience.

Bracketing assumptions:epoche.

Noema, noesis, cogito.

Description, horizontalization.

Equalization, verification.

Martin Heidegger: 1889-1976

Heidegger’s Being and Time.Dasein:

Everydayness is precisely that Being which is ‘between’birth and death. (233)

That being which is an issue for this entity in its very Being, is in each case mine. (Ibid. 42)

The fundamental ontological characteristics of this entity are existentiality, facticity and Being-fallen. (191)

Thrownnessdisposition

Fallennessunderstanding Existence

discourse

Being-in-the-world Being With (Mitsein) Ec-stasies of time

Facticity Undifferentiated state Past

Vorhanden/Zuhanden Inauthenticity Present

Projection (Entwurf) Idle Talk Future

Possibility Curiosity Being-towards-Death

Finitude Ambiguity Moment of Vision

Umwelt Authenticity Anticipatory Resoluteness

Care

Ludwig Binswanger 1881-1966

Existential PractitionersMartin Buber: 1878-1965 Ludwig Binswanger: 1881-1966.Karl Jaspers: 1883-1969.Paul Tillich: 1886-1965.Medard Boss: 1904-1990.Viktor Frankl: 1905-1997.Rollo May: 1909-1994. Ronald Laing: 1927-1989.

ANXIETYAnxiety is a positive and fundamental human experience.It can however turn into panic. We need to find an optimal level of anxiety and learn to use it constructively.

Optimal living

Kierkegaard’s view.‘Whoever has learnt to be anxious in the right way has learnt the ultimate.’

(Kierkegaard 1844:155)

Balance

Ronald D. Laing 1927-1989

Laing’s ontological insecurity.‘The individual in the ordinary circumstances of living may feel more unreal than real; in a literal sense, more dead than alive; precariously differentiated from the rest of the world, so that his identity and autonomy are always in question. (Laing, 1960: 42.)

Nothing but a shadow

Alienation:estrangement from self.The greatest hazard of all, losing oneself, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly. Any other loss- an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. is sure to be noticed. (Kierkegaard: Sickness unto Death:32)

Consequences of insecurity.

Engulfment: feeling overwhelmed.Implosion: feeling unreal and empty.Petrification: turning to stone.

Looking on the bright side

Breakthrough instead of breakdownConflicts are potential points of transformation and improvement of ourselves and our relationships so we need to be able to learn from our conflicts.Psychotherapy must remain an obstinate attempt of two people to recover the wholeness of being human through the relationship between them. (R.D. Laing, 1967:45)

relationship

Jean Paul Sartre 1905-1980

Sartre’s philosophyWho could help him choose?..…Nobody… I had only one answer to give: ‘You’re free, choose, that is, invent.’ No general ethics can show you what is to be done; there are no omens in the world. The Catholics will reply ‘But there are’ Granted – but, in any case, I myself choose the meaning they have. (Existentialism and Humanism, p 28)

Man is condemned to be free (34)

What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards. (28)

Sartre’s human being.

• Human reality is its own surpassing toward what it lacks; it surpasses itself toward the particular being which it would be if it were what it is…(89) •

The nature of consciousness simultaneously is to be what it is not and not to be what it is. (70)

• We can be nothing without playing at being (83)

Competitive relationships

Domination: sadism.Submission: masochism.Withdrawal: indifference.

competition

Cooperative relationships

Mutuality: reciprocity-equality.Generosity: giving of oneself.Collaboration: working together.

Co-operation

Sartre’s self-deception and truth.

The one who practises bad faith is hiding a displeasing truth orpresenting as truth a pleasing untruth. (49)

I believe that a man can always make something out of what is made of him. This is the limit I would today accord to freedom: the small movement which makes of a totally conditioned social being someone who does not render back completely what his conditioning has given him. (existentialism and marxism:33)

Bridge

Frankl’s way to meaningExperiential values: what we take

from the world.Creative values: what we give to

the world.Attitudinal values:the way we deal

with suffering.

Objective of existential work.Become more truthful with self.Find personal meaning and purpose. Understand own worldview and expand it.Learn from past in present.Find direction for future life. Recognize paradoxes and problems. Readiness for crisis. Liberation from alienation.Open and effective communication.

Psychoanalysis <> Existential Therapy

PurposeCausality

ValuesSymptoms

MeaningInterpretation

DescriptionAnalysis

SubjectivityObjectivity

UnderstandingExplanation

interpretation

Psychoanalysis <> Existential Therapy-2

DialogueMonologue

Human ConditionLibido

EngagementNeutrality

ParadoxConflict

InterrelatedIntra-psychic

Frank communication

sky

Evilfutility

Goodpurpose

Spiritualintuition

Freedomdisintegration

Identityintegrity

Personalthinking

Hateisolation

Lovebelonging

Socialfeeling

Deathpain

Lifepleasure

Physicalsensation

FearsDesires

dimensions

Life space

happinesshappiness

pridepride

jealousyjealousy

angeranger

fearfear

sorrowsorrowenvyenvy

desiredesire

hopehope

lovelove

joyjoyemotions

despairdespairdreaddread

depressiondepression

Flow of life

Paradox and PassionIf we let ourselves be moved by life and become at least capable of passion again, we shall be confronted with our limitations and the sorrows of life as well as with its pleasures.

van Deurzen: 1998.

Pandora’s box:Rita’s story.

Living to the full

Kierkegaard’s ParadoxPersonhood is a synthesis of possibility and necessity. Its continued existence is like breathing (respiration), which is an inhaling and exhaling.

(Kierkegaard, Sickness unto Death: 40)

Finding your way

Nietzsche’s Hero.

‘What makes heroic? To go to meet simultaneously one’s greatest sorrow and one’s greatest hope. (Nietzsche 1974:268-75).

sunset