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existential therapy

Existential therapy focuses on free will, self-determination, and the search for meaning—centering on you rather than on the symptom. This approach emphasizes your capacity to make rational choices and to develop to your maximum potential.

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The existential approach stresses that:

  • All people have the capacity for self-awareness.

  • Each person has a unique identity that can be known only through relationships with others.

  • People must continually re-create themselves because life’s meaning constantly changes.

  • Anxiety is part of the human condition.

when it's used

What else is existential therapy recommended for?  Interventions often aim to increase self-awareness and self-understanding. Existential therapists try to comprehend and alleviate a variety of challenges, including excessive anxiety, apathy, alienation, nihilism, avoidance, shame, addiction, despair, depressionguiltanger, rage, resentment, embitterment, and purposelessnesse. I also focus on life-enhancing experiences like relationships, love, caring, commitment, courage, creativity, power, will, presence, spirituality, individuation, self-actualization, authenticity, acceptance, transcendence, and wonder.

How it works

This practice—due to its focus on existence and purpose—is a positive and flexible approach. Existential therapy fairly and honestly confronts life’s ultimate concerns, including loneliness, suffering, and meaninglessness. Existential therapy focuses on ways to confront these inherent challenges of the human experience, and the therapist’s role is to foster personal responsibility for making decisions. As therapist, I am a "fellow traveler" through life, and I use empathy and support to elicit insight and choices. The core question addressed in this kind of therapy is "how do I exist in the face of uncertainty, conflict, or death?”

Contact me if you'd like to receive more information

about Existential Therapy.

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