Existential Therapy. Explained in simpler terms.
Ukrainian therapists describe how existential therapy works.
The existential approach implies the rejection of any universalities, patterns and diagnoses. Each person is unique, each destiny is unique, each soul is a phenomenon revealed once in eternity. By accepting this, it is possible to help a person to believe in this himself, and be able to find the strength to accept himself, his life and his authorship in it. Responsibility, spirituality, freedom, choice, guilt, will, life, death, love are the main vectors of our life, setting direction and meaning.
Artem Polar
Larissa Vladimirovna Natalukha
Existential analysis concentrates on making a person capable of realizing his essence among the challenges of our troubled world.
The specificity of this psychotherapeutic direction: must be activated, " to become alive" is what a person essentially is, and, especially, what he can and should be. Having become himself, a person lives his calling in dialogue with the world, being where he is most needed.
The goal of existential-analytical work is to help people live and act with a sense of inner harmony.
The main thing in the work is to activate access to experiences. You need to understand what feelings reflect, what they say. You need to feel them - both joy and sadness, both hatred and courage, hope.
And then, at the next stage of work, approach the stage at which the client takes a certain position in relation to himself and the world around him.
In the course of such work, the following is formed:
- respectful attention towards oneself;
- a fair attitude towards oneself, taking oneself seriously: a person becomes open towards oneself, which gives a good foothold in contact with others , self-confidence;
- there is recognition of the value of oneself, an adequate assessment of oneself and judgment about oneself, thanks to this criticism from other people is more easily experienced.
This means that a person becomes stronger, he has a strong rear in the face of the outside world and its assessments.
The existential direction really begins where responsibility begins. RESPONSIBILITY is accepting the challenges of life, it is awareness of your position, your life relationships, your meaning, your faith and truth. Real responsibility is This is an understanding of your real self - not how you would like to be, but how you are. And you are the way people, loved ones, significant people see you, how you have become, or can become. This is an understanding of your real inner self , separation from the social role, rejection of the mask that he wore for years, considering responsibility to be a moral duty, and freedom to be unbridled behavior.
Larisa Vladimirovna Yanovskaya
Real responsibility always presupposes freedom and awareness, and this freedom means freedom from the power (captivity) of desires. This is not means that a person ceases to desire anything, but it means that he realizes the value of his desires - what is really important to him and what is transitory, what can hurt another person and what will be healing.
The existential direction recognizes the uniqueness and loneliness of a person, but emphasizes co-existence with other people, since a realized life always presupposes direct relationships with other people - Meetings. Meaning and awareness are always generated by Love, or in the words of Heidegger - Care. After all, Care is mature love, in which the sensual moment is significant not in itself, but as the ability of sympathy, co-experience.
Existential psychotherapy is a special direction that is difficult to squeeze into any framework. As among the philosophers who belong to this tradition, who are so different from each other, so among psychotherapists There is no unambiguous definition for this direction. But what, unites everyone under the wing of existentialism? Probably a special view of man, as a kind of universe in miniature, which cannot be measured, disassembled, analyzed in the classical sense of the word, which cannot be reduced to mechanical determinants.
sergey Yurievich Kornyat
Yes, for the existential direction it is important to face the most important and deep human “essences”, which are freedom (doomed to freedom as Sartre wrote), isolation (the irresistible loneliness of all people), the meaninglessness of the objective world and the most important thing is the mortality of everyone person.
These topics in traditional psychotherapy are either kept silent, or avoided, or even have a kind of “taboo”. But it is precisely in this problematic that lies the deep meaning-forming thread of human existence.
One of the most interesting moments in existential therapy is working with the borderline states of the client’s psyche. This does not necessarily mean suddenly getting stuck somewhere. You can come to the work of such a psychological flywheel gradually. To say that this is a different functional state of the body - to say nothing. In my practice there were three of them. I will not reveal the secret of the “consequence”, but I would like to generalize something. It seems that the client’s unconscious deliberately provokes the personality to search in reality for situations that can reveal a different perception and attitude towards things that until now seemed so ordinary and familiar. As if this is a search for new knowledge, it is not clear why this particular person needs it. Logic is powerless here. This knowledge is necessary only for him personally and it is very difficult for others to understand it. Himself the client is unable to explain this plausibly. A new meaning has been revealed to the client in what was previously ordinary, it is better to invite him to draw with paints, rather than describe with words.
Dmitry Vladimirovich Taran
One of the tasks of the psychologist is to study the patient's behavior in terms of responsibility. Clarifying questions such as: Why are relationships with others not satisfying? What prevents the patient from finding a job that matches his desires? After hearing the answers By answering these questions, the psychologist can understand what share of responsibility the patient takes on. We often hear complaints: about the wife, about the husband, about relatives, about health, about the government. Accepting responsibility means becoming stronger. Understand and accept the fact that only you are the master of your life and responsible for the quality of your life is not easy.
Alena Ivanovna Komarova
Why is this so? As you know, we come from childhood. It is enough not to let the child do anything on his own, to do everything for him. And when making an attempt do something yourself, say: “You did it badly, don’t do it again.” The child develops the following worldview: “Everything I do is bad. Therefore, there is no need to do anything.” As an adult, he will carry the same position throughout life - “I am not worthy to take a responsible position.” Thus, we get a lot of people with untapped opportunities, unfulfilled dreams, who have never found the meaning of life and who suffer from this.
It is extremely difficult to understand these labyrinths of the psyche on your own. We need someone who looks at the situation from the outside and has certain knowledge. Helping others not miss their opportunities and gain satisfaction from their inner strength - this is the task of an existential psychologist.
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