Week 4 - Existential Therapy Flashcards
Who were some of the first people to popularize existential therapy?
Viktor Frankl, Carl Rogers, and Fritz Perls
What is Victor Frankl’s specific approach to existential therapy?
Logotherapy or meaning therapy
What was the third wave of Viennese psychology?
Logotherapy, came from Frankl working with suicidal women and how some of them could maintain a sense of meaning in their lives and thus ward off deeply painful feelings.
What did Frankl believe?
That each person was responsible for their actions, refused to generalize anger or what he called collective guilt, toward all Germans as was commonly done after the war.
Recognized in the camps that unless they had meaning int heir lives and hope for their future, their psychological lives would cease and their physical lives would soon end.
What is collective guilt?
An emotion that occurs when a group of people feel responsible for immoral acts committed by their social group. It can also refer to the responsibility of a group, organization, or society.
Existential philosophers such as Nietzsche and Sarte, put forth which ideas taht would impact Frankl’s theory?
-The world is an absurd place into which we are thrust against our will
-Anxiety is a natural part of living
-Self-awareness and consciosness should not be assumed
-Reality is a self-created subjective experience
-Relationships are critical to who we are and who we become
-The choices each person makes determines their essence
Is existentialism anti-deterministic?
Yes
Who is Rollo May?
Considered the founder of American existential therapy
Who popularized the existential approach to therapy?
Irvin Yalom
What is the existential view of human nature?
People are born into a world with no inherent meaning or purpose
People are not born good or bad, they are just thrust into the cosmos
Whether there is broader meaning to existence one will never know
True or False: Since life has no inherent meaning, each of us is charged with the responsibility of making it meaningful through the choices we make.
True.
True or False: most existential therapists believe that the ability to face life’s struggles and bring meaning into one’s life is at least partially related to the kind of parenting one receives.
True
True or False: In existential therapy one needs to unravel years of early childhood issues to uncover core concerns that affect one’s ability to face life’s struggles and bring meaning into one’s life.
False. You do not need to.
True or False: Existentialist therapists reject the notion that we are determined by early childhood development, instincts, or intrapsychic forces, although talking about the past is not avoided if clients believe it would help them understand themselves in more meaningful ways.
True
What belief is central to existential therapy?
That all people struggle with basic questions of what it is to be human, such as the fact that we are born alone, will die alone, and except for the periodic moments when we encounter another person deeply, we live alone, that death constantly looms over us and reminds us of the relatively brief amount of time we have; that we alone are responsible for making our lives meaningful; that meaningfulness, as well as a limited sense of freedom, comes through consciousness and the choices we make
We can live authentically by facing our BLANK, which will at times lead to feelings of anxiety, depression, and dread, or live an inauthentic, neurotic, and maybe even psychotic unaware existence if we do not
inherently human struggles
In existential therapy, how do people gain greater awareness of the choices they have made and begin to direct their lives toward a more purposeful, meaningful, and authentic existence by making new choices that involve facing life’s struggles honestly and directly?
Through dialogue
What do existential therapists believe about uncomfortable feelings or neurotic symptoms?
That they are important messages regarding the maneuvering one engages in to avoid the ultimate questions of living.
i.e. the germophobic neurotic who has a pet goldfish around their neck and the executive who is working 80 hours a week = the same
Both the extistential and humanistic approaches are BLANK and BLANK?
Holistic (nonreductionist) and antideterministic, they also believe in the power of choice in redefining the person, view the client and therapist relationship as critical to the therapeutic journey, and have a phenomenological perspective, are optimistic about he individual’s ability to change
What is having a phenomenological perspective?
Highlights the client’s subjective experience
What are the core beliefs of existential therapy?
-We are born into a world that has little inherent meaning
-We are born alone and will die alone
-We alone make our lives meaningful
-We bring meaningfulness into our lives through the choices that we make
-Meaningful choices only occur if we are conscious of our aloneness and our limited time on Earth
-Anxiety, feelings of dread, and struggles in life are a natural part of living and are important messages about how we make meaning in our lives and relate to others
-Limited freedom is experienced through the realization that we choose our existence
-With recognition that we choose our existence comes the responsibility to choose wisely for ourselves and to recognize how those choices affect those close to us all people
What are some of the differences between existential and humanistic approaches?
Existential focus directly on existential issues and discuss topics such as how clients make sense of their lives, deal with their aloneness, etc.
Humanistic tend to have clients self-direct their sessions and believe that people are born with an inherent growth force that will lead them toward a state of self-actualization and harmony with self if they are in an environment that allows clients to access their true self.
What is phenomenology?
A branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of reality and emphasizes subjective experience as a way of approaching and understanding truth.
Each thought, reflection, and experience a person has should be understood as meaningful and provides a window into that person’s understanding of truth.
This contrasts with trying to understand a client by applying an external model or frame of reference, as do many other therapeutic approaches.
