Existential Psychotherapy Essay

The client’s way of being in psychotherapy Existential psychotherapy proposes that the conflicts and issues presented by clients arise from, and are expressions of, the wider overall "way of being" adopted by the client. From this perspective, the client’s problematic presenting symptoms or disturbances cannot be isolated, or considered on their own, as separate and distinct from the rest of the client’s various “ways of being.” In this way, clients are encouraged to examine the various embodied attitudes, values, beliefs, choices or assumptions regarding what it means and how it is for them to exist in and engage with themselves, others and the world in general. The way the client "is" in the psychotherapeutic relationship reveals his or her wider stance to the possibilities and limitations …show more content…
To adopt any other stance which emphasises a directive or manipulative change in the client’s way of being, no matter how benevolent or concerned to ameliorate the client’s distress, will only serve to allow the client to continue to avoid reflecting upon, and perhaps eventually owning, his or her way of being as it is rather than as he or she might want it to be. In adopting this stance, existential psychotherapists avoid adopting the role of superior, objective instructor who distinguishes for the client those beliefs, attitudes and behaviors that are assumed to be "unreal", "false" and/or "irrational" and who attempts to replace them with "real", "true" and/or "rational" ones. Similarly, rather than present themselves as "symptom-removers", "treatment-providers", "directive educators" or "professional helpers", existential psychotherapists return psychotherapy to its original meaning: the attempt to “stay with”, “stand beside” and “accept the otherness of being who is present” (Evans, 1981: