Midterm Flashcards
What are the key themes and principles of Existential Psychotherapy?
- Patient’s subjective experience
- Morality, meaning, freedom, responsibility, anxiety, & aloneness
What are the 6 principles of Existential Psychotherapy?
- We have the capacity for self awareness
- Because we are free beings, we must accept the responsibility that comes with this freedom
- We have a concern to preserve our uniqueness & identity; we come to know ourselves in relation to knowing & interacting with others
- The significance of our existence and the meaning of our life are never fixed once and for all; instead, we recreate ourselves through our projects
- Anxiety is part of the human condition
- Death is part of the human condition, & awareness of it gives significance to living
How is non-being illustrated in Existential Psychotherapy?
In the threat of death, or destructive hostility, severe incapacitating anxiety, or critical sickness.
What is the “I-Am” experience, or the experience of being, known as in Existential Psychotherapy
An ontological experience- it is the “science of being”
What is neurotic anxiety in Existential Psychotherapy?
Anxiety that is seen as not appropriate to the situation, must be repressed, and is destructive
What is anxiety seen as arising from in Existential Psychotherapy?
The need to survive, preserve our being, & assert our being
What are the characteristics of normal anxiety in Existential Psychotherapy?
It is proportional to the situation, does not require repression, and can be used productively/creatively
What is the definition of mental health in Existential Psychotherapy?
Living as much as possible without neurotic anxiety, but with the ability to tolerate the unavoidable existential anxiety of living
How is the experience of guilt viewed in Existential Psychotherapy?
Similarly to anxiety, it can take on both normal & neurotic forms
*Neurotic guilt feelings are seen as arising out of fantasized transgressions
* Normal guilt sensitizes us to ethical aspects of our behavior
According to Yalom, what are the givens of existence?
- Death
- Freedom & responsibility
- Isolation
- Meaninglessness
According to Yalom, what is an existential conflict faced by human beings?
Our desire for continued contact with others and our need to be part of a larger whole in light of our innate awareness of our absolute isolation
In Existential Psychotherapy, what are the three forms of the world?
- Umwelt- meaning “world around,” the biological or natural world (the environment)
- Mitwelt- meaning “with world”, the world of one’s fellow human beings
- Eigenwelt- meaning “own world”, the relationship to oneself
What is Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP)?
A family-focused form of attachment-focused therapy used for children who have experienced complex trauma with attachment/reactive attachment issues
Who developed DDP?
Hughes and Becker-Weidman
What types of situations might DDP be used in?
- Children in foster care & adoptive families
- Children who have experienced abuse, trauma, &/or neglect
What does DDP hold in high regard?
The parent-child relationship “dyad”
What is the goal of DDP?
Facilitate experiences of safety & security so that a secure attachment can grow