COUN | EXISTENTIAL THERAPY

VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE

Developed by Viktor Frank, Rollo May, Irvin Yalom, and others, existential therapy states that
we are born into a world that has no inherent meaning or purpose, that we all struggle with the
basic question of what it is to be human, and that we alone can create our own meaning and
purpose. Existential therapists believe that we all have the ability to live authentically and
experience fully, but we sometimes avoid such an existence out of fears of looking squarely at
how we are making meaning in our lives. They state that meaningfulness, as well as a limited
sense of freedom, comes through consciousness and the choices we make.
● Meaning, he believed came from a vill to take responsibility for oneself and to choose to
live a life of dignity with purpose, despite one's predicament.
● "The world is an absurd place into which we're thrust against our will, anxiety is a
natural part of living, self-awareness and consciousness should not be assumed, reality is
a selfcreated subjective experience, relationships are critical to who we are and who we
become, and the choices we make affect who we are (existence precedes essense)."

Following are common questions sources of existential angst for clients:

• "Why am I here?"
• "What do I want from life?"
• "What gives my life purpose?"
• "Where is the source of meaning for me in lie?"

Propositions
1. Capacity of self-awareness
2. Freedom and responsibility
3. Striving for identity and relationship to others
4. The search for meaning
5. Anxiety as a condition of living
6. Awareness of death and non-being.

Finding and Creating Meaning in Life

Viktor Frankl (1905 - 1997)
"Suffering ceases suffering at the moment you find meaning"
 ● Frankl states that we can't abstain from afliction, yet we can pick how to manage it and
discover significance in it.
● Motivation behind life isolates the person from creatures as well as enables us to survive
troublesome circumstances.
● Man cannot avoid suffering but can find meaning from it.
Noological Possibilities
● Self-detachment
● Self-transcendence
● Ability to be spiritually in touch with something or someone independent of
spatial-temporal dimensions.
3 Postulates
Anthropological
● Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will
become in the next moment.
● Man is ultimately self-determining.
Psychological
● Man’s key motivation is the search for meaning.
Philosophical
● Life has unconditional meaning, regardless of the circumstances or situation. His life in
the concentration of camp, Frankl writes that he found meaning that helped strengthen
his will to survive.

Key Components
● Phenomenology
● Death and Non-Being
● Freedom
● Responsibility
● Isolation - Existential Isolation
● Meaninglessness - Existential Vacuum
● Anxiety - Existential and Neuroic
● Cuilt - Neurotic/Moral and Existential Guilt
● Will to Meaning
● Authenticity
 1. Compulsivity
2. Displacement
3. Playing the victim
4. Losing Control
5. Avoiding Autonomy
6. Willing-denial
7. Physical disease

Therapeutic Goals
● Assisting clients in moving toward authenticity and leaning to recognize when they are
deceiving themselves.
● Helping clients face anxiety and engage in action that is based on creating a worthy
existence.
● Helping clients to reclaim and re-own their lives; teaching them to listen to what they
already know about themselves.
● To help clients become more present to themselves and others.
● To assist clients in identifying ways they block themselves from fuller presence.
● To challenge clients to assume responsibility for designing their present lives.
● To encourage clients to choose more expanded ways of being in their daily lives.

Relationship Between Therapist and Client

● Therapy is a journey taken by therapist and client.
○ The person-to-person relationship is key.
○ The relationship demands that therapists be in contact with their own
phenomenological world.
● The core of the therapeutic relationship
○ Respect and faith in the clients potential to cope
○ Sharing reactions with genuine concern and empathy

Phases of Existential Therapy

● Initial phase: Clients are assisted in identifying and clarifying their assumptions about
the world.
 ● Middle phase: Clients are assisted in more fully examining the source and authority of
their present value system.
● Final phase: Clients are assisted in translating what they have learned about themselves
into action.

Therapeutic Techniques
● Dialectical Method*
● Therapeutic Techniques
● Educating the client about Existential Therapy Philosophy.
● I-Thou/l-It relationship
● Listening, Empathy, Being Nonjudgmental, and Inquiring a Phenomenological
Experience
● Acceptance
● Confrontation
● Encouragement
● Paradoxical Intention
● De-reflection
COUN | PERSON-CENTERED THERAPY
CARL ROGERS 1902 - 1987
Conception of self
a. Perceived Self - self-worth; how the person sees self and others.
b. Real Self - how the person really is.
c. Ideal Self - how the person would like be.

VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE

States that we have an inbor actualizing
tendency that lends direction to our lives as
we attempt to reach our full potential.
However, this tendency is sometimes
thwarted as individuals act in ways in which
significant others want them to act due to the
individual's desire to be loved and regarded by those significant others. This results in the
creation of an incongruent self. Anxiety and related symptoms are signals that the person is
acting in a non-genuine way and not living fully. Being around people who are real, empathetic,
and who show positive regard can help individuals become real or genuine.
● At their core, humans are trustworthy and posive.
● Humans are capable of making changes and living productive and effective lives.
● Humans innately gravitate toward self-actualization.
● Given the right growth-fostering conditions, individuals strive to move forward and
fulfill their creative nature.
Counselor's creation of a "growth-promoting" dimate
● The following are the three therapist attributes that create a growin-promoting climate:
○ Congruence: Genuineness or realness
○ Unconditional positive regard: Acceptance and caring
○ Accurate empathic understanding: The ability to deeply grasp the subjective
world of another person.

Client's Experience in Therapy

● Clients have the opportunity to explore their felings, beliefs, behavior, and worldview.
● Client may hope to find "the way" through the guidance of the therapist.
 ● Therapy relationship provides a supportive structure within which clients' self-healing
capacities are activated.

Relationship Between Therapist and Client

The following six conditions are necessary and sufficient for personality changes to occur.
1. Two persons are in psychological contact.
2. The first, the client, is experiencing incongruence.
3. The second person, the therapist, is congruent or integrated in the relationship.
● Is invested in developing his or her own life experiences to deepen self-knowledge and
move toward self-actualization.
● Is genuine, integrated, and authentic.
● Can openly express feelings and attitudes that are present in the relationship with the
client.
● Serves as a model of a human being struggling toward greater realness.
COUN | GESTALT THERAPY
FRITZ PERLS
VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE
Suggests that we are born alone with the capacity to embrace an infinite number of personality
dimensions. With the mind, body, and soul operating unison, from birth, the individual is in a
constant state of need identification and need fulfillment. However, parental dictates, social
mores, and peer norms can prevent a person from attaining a need and results in defenses that
block the experiencing of needs. Gestalt therapy highlights the importance of accessing one's
experience because the "now of experience = awareness = reality. Experiencing allows one to
break free from defenses and live a saner life.

Some Principles of Gestalt Theory

Holism:
● The full range of human functioning includes thoughts, feelings, behaviors, body,
memories, and dreams.
Field Theory:
● Client is a participant in a constantly changing field.
● Emphasis may be on a figure and on the ground.
Figure Formation Process:
● How an individual organizes experiences from moment to moment.
Organismic Self-Regulation:
● Emergence of a need, a sensation, or an interest disturb an individual's equilibrium.
Contact
● Interacting with nature and with other people without losing one's individuality
Boundary disturbances/resistance to contact
● The defenses we develop to prevent us from experiencing the present fully

Contact Boundary Phenomena

Following are the five different kinds of contact boundary disturbances:
● Introjection - "swallowing whole" of the values of the significant others without ever
really examining whether one also holds those values.
● Projection - "disowning' a part of oneself.
 ● Retroflection - similar to repression and inhibition, is the holding back of impulse. It
attempts to show-off but being held back by the body.
● Deflection - avoiding contact. Redirecting the potential contact.
● Confluence - blurring or dissolving of boundaries between people that results in a loss of
identily and the inability to clearly define self.

Therapeutic Goals
● Move toward increased awareness of themselves.
● Assume ownership of their experience.
● Develop skills and acquire values.
● Become more aware of all of their senses.
● Learn to accept responsibility for what they do.
● Be able to ask for and get help from others and be able to give to others.

Therapist's Function and Goals

● Invite clients into an active partnership.
● Increase clients' awareness, freedom, and self-direction.
● Pay attention to client’s body language.
● Emphasis on the relationship between language patterns and personality.
● Clients express their feelings, thoughts, and attitudes.
● “It” talk
● “You” talk
● Questions
● Language that denies power.
● Listening to client’s metaphors.
● Listening for language that uncovers a story

Gestalt Theraphy Interventions

● The Internal Dialogue Exercise
● The Empty-Chair Technique
● Making the Rounds
● The Reversal Exercise
● The Rehearsal Exercise
● The Exaggeration Exercise
● Staying With the Feeling
● The Gestalt Approach to Dream Work