Strengths and weaknesses of existential therapy

Existential Therapy

Psychotherapy is the formal process of interaction between two parties, each consisting of one or more people, for the purpose of improvement in one of the parties relative to any or all of the following areas of malfunction or disability: Cognitive (disorders of thinking), affective (suffering or emotional discomforts) or behavioral (inadequacy of behavior). One of the parties, the therapist, must have some theory of personality origins, development, maintenance and change in addition to a method of treatment related to the theory. The therapist must have professional and legal approval to act as such. (Corsini and Wedding, 2007).

There are three different modes of psychotherapies. All of these methods are meant to help people to change, to assist them in changing their thinking, changing their feelings, and changing their actions. The first mode is cognition. People learn things actively (through experience) and passively (through information). Therapists use both active and passive techniques in order to help their clients to change and improve. The next mode is behavior. Learning can occur, with the help of a therapist, through action, therapeutic homework, role-playing, etc. The last mode is affective, which deals with feeling and emotions. The therapist may instill in his/her client feelings of anger, fear, hope, etc., in order to try to find the root of the problem. All therapies are a sum of these three modes, and the job of a psychotherapist is to convince the client to change his/her opinions, concepts, and behaviors through these methods (Ibid).

As a philosophy, a simple definition of existentialism is a philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe. It regards human existence as unexplainable. In addition, it stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one's act. Existentialism attempts to describe the desire to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe (Ankrom, 2009).

Existential psychotherapy sees the patient as an existing, immediate person, not as a composite of drives, archetypes, or conditioning. This type of therapy stresses the fact that anxiety and guilt are present in all humans and that only the neurotic forms of them need to be treated in therapy. Existential therapy is entrenched in the "I am" experience, the need for the client to be looked at as a whole human being (Wilkes, 2006).

In general, existentialist therapy actively invites clients to recognize how they have allowed others to decide modes of behavior for them, and to take active responsibility for their own actions. Instead of passively accepting the circumstances of others and surrendering control, an existential therapist might focus on the question, "Although you have lived with certain patterns thus far in your life, now that you recognize the consequences of some of those patterns, are you willing to discuss creating new ways of dealing with life's situations?"(Ibid).

On the positive side, existential therapy offers a relatively easy introduction to psychotherapy for most counselors. It stresses self-determination, the acceptance of personally responsibility, and provides perspective for understanding the role and value of anxiety and guilt. It is positive and proactive in that it encourages the individual to embrace life's journeys -- birth, evolution, death -- and to become comfortable making personal decisions based on their needs, without "needing" others (Schneider, 2007).