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Psychology 348 exam summary Rebecca Jansen van Rensburg 19980329@sun.ac.zaWeek 6: The existential approach to group therapy
Article summary
Corey: The existential approach to groups
Introduction
➢ Existential therapy can be considered a way of thinking rather than a particular style of
practicing. Universal human concerns and existential themes constitute the background of
most groups.
➢ The existential approach rejects the deterministic views of traditional psychoanalysis and
emphasises our freedom to choose. It focuses on the underlying givens or the 4 ultimate
concerns [Freedom, Existential Isolation, Meaninglessness and Death]. It is grounded on the
assumption that we are free and therefore responsible for our choices and actions. We need
to be pioneers of our lives and find models that will give us meaning. Sometimes we cannot
control things that happen, but we have complete control over how we choose to perceive
and handle them. Our freedom to act is limited by external reality, but our freedom to be
relates to our internal reality. One of the goals of the therapeutic process is to challenge
clients to discover alternatives and to choose among them. Existential therapists are mainly
concerned with helping people to reclaim and re-own their lives. 4 essential aims of
existential aims of existential-humanistic therapy:
❖ To help clients become more present
❖ To assist clients in identifying ways they black themselves
❖ To challenge clients to assume responsibility for designing their present lives
❖ To encourage clients to choose more expanded ways of being
➢ It is ultimately a process of exploring clients’ values and beliefs that give meaning to living.
The aim is to invite clients to take action growing out of their honest appraisal of their life’s
purpose. The basic task is to encourage clients to consider that they are most serious about
so they can pursue a direction in life. It assumes the individual’s capacity to make well-
informed choices about his or her life. Group leaders cannot assume that they alone know
the purpose of the group – it is up to each participant to create this purpose.
➢ The focus of existential psychotherapy
❖ Existentialism began in Europe. Key writers were Heidegger and Sartre.
❖ The existential tradition seeks a balance between recognising the limits and tragic
dimensions of human existence and the possibilities and opportunities for humans
to transcend those limits to achieve a vital existence. It grew out of a desire to help
people engage the dilemmas of contemporary life (isolation, alienation and
meaninglessness). The focus is on the individual’s experience of being in the world
alone and facing the anxiety of this isolation.
❖ May translated key concepts into psychotherapeutic practice in the US. May says
that becoming a person is not an automatic process, but people do have a desire to
fulfil their potential. It takes courage to be, choices determine who we become.
There is a constant struggle within. We want to grow toward maturity and
independence, but we realised that expansion is often a painful process. The
struggle is between the security of dependence and the delights and pains of
growth. Another significant advocate is Yalom.
❖ Van Deurzen is developing academic and training programs in Existential therapy.
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❖ This perspective focuses on understanding the person’s subjective view of the world.
It is a phenomenological approach. Therapy is a journey by the therapist and client
into a world as perceived and experienced by the client. This quest demands that
the therapist also be in contact with his or her own phenomenological world. They
are personally engaged in their work and are willing to be affected by their clients’
experiences in therapy. Bugental writes about “life-changing psychotherapy” –
helping clients examine how they have answered life’s questions and inviting them
to revise their answers and begin living authentically. It is an attitude towards
human suffering that has no manual. It asks the deep questions.
❖ It provides a rigorous, intensive forum for the full-lived, awe-informed life. People
are not viewed as being ill but as being sick of playing certain roles or being clumsy
at living. Therapists help clients come to terms with life in all its contradictions. One
aim is to challenge people to stop deceiving themselves regarding their lack of
responsibility and their excessive demands on life.
❖ May views the aim as setting clients free. People enlarge their vision of themselves
as being free to engage in action that aims at change, tempered by the wisdom to
acknowledge that we are thrown into a world we didn’t create. Clients gradually
learn how to accept life in all its complexities. This involves learning to face the
inevitable problems, difficulties, crises and disappointments that are a part of living.
Clients come to realise that they are not imprisoned by their responses but have the
ability to achieve authentic freedom. They are better able to live with the givens and
find the courage to deal with uncertainty. Therapy provides an opportunity to
contemplate a life that is worthy of commitment.
➢ The purpose of an existential group
❖ The existential group represents a microcosm of the world. Over time, the
interpersonal and existential problems become evident. A guiding purpose is to
enable members to discover themselves as they are by sharing their existential
concerns. Participants make a commitment to a life-long journey of self-exploration
with these goals:
- Enabling members to become truthful with themselves
- Widening their perspectives
- Clarifying what gives meaning to their present and future life
- Successfully negotiating and coming to terms with past, present and future
crises
- Understanding themselves and others better and learning better ways of
communicating.
❖ An open attitude towards life is essential, as is the willingness to explore unknown
territory.
❖ The therapeutic process involves encouraging members to begin listening to
themselves and paying attention to their subjective experience. A group can assist
members in addressing their deepest human concerns. Attention is given to their
immediate, ongoing experience with the aim of helping them develop greater
presence in their quest for meaning and purpose. By openly sharing and exploring
universal personal concerns, members develop a sense of mutuality.
Key Concepts
➢ They guide the practice of group work by providing a way to view and understand individuals
➢ Self-awareness
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❖ This capacity separates us from other animals and enables us to make free choices.
The greater our awareness, the greater our possibilities for freedom. We are both
free and limited by environmental and social constraints. We are all subject to the
deterministic forces of socio-cultural conditioning and the limitations imposed by
our genetic endowment, but still able to choose based on our awareness of these
limiting factors. We have the capacity to know that we are being victimised which
allows us to take a stand. We come to recognise the responsibility associated.
❖ Implications for Group Work
- The basic existential goal of expanding self-awareness and thereby
increasing the potential doe choice is pursued by helping members discover
their unique “being-in-the-world”. Participants seek to define themselves
and become aware of the central dimensions. The task for group members is
to become aware of their existence as fully as possible, which includes
realising their possibilities and learning to act based on them. A central
theme is taking existence seriously.
- Participants can express their own unique feelings and their subjective views
of the world. They are also explicitly confronted by others, and they learn to
deal with the anxiety that arises from being without the security of their
everyday roles. Existentialists view anxiety in positive terms. Anxiety helps
individuate us by awakening us to the inauthenticity of merely being who
others want to be and it reflects the understanding that we are unique.
- Group leaders need to alert the members of their groups to the price that is
involved in seeking greater self-awareness. As people become more aware,
they find it increasingly difficult to “go back home again”. While living in
ignorance of the quality of one’s existence can lead to staleness, it can also
provide a certain degree of contentment or security. As we open doors that
were previously closed, we can expect to encounter more struggles as well
as the potential for enhancing the quality of our living. The experience can
be exciting and joyful but also frightening and depressing. This is an issue
that should be mentioned during the early phases of a group.
- A higher degree of self-awareness permits us to recognise that we can make
choices for ourselves. For example:
▪ We can choose to expand our awareness or to limit our vision of
ourselves
▪ We can determine the direction of our own lives or allow other
people and environmental forces to determine it
▪ We can use our potential for action or choose not to act
▪ We can choose to establish meaningful ties with others or choose to
isolate ourselves
▪ We can search for our own uniqueness or allow our identity to be
lost in conformity
▪ We can create and find meaning in our life or lead an empty and
meaningless existence
▪ We can engage in certain risks an experience the anxieties that
accompany deciding for ourselves or choose the security of
dependence
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▪ We can make the most of the present by accepting the inevitability
of our eventual death or hide from this reality because of the
anxiety it generates
❖ Example
- Crystal first entered the group, she could see no value in expressing intense
emotions, and insisted she had to be rational. She tried very hard to keep
her feelings harnessed because she was afraid that she’d go crazy. This need
to tightly control her feelings manifested itself in several ways. During one
session, another person’s work triggered some painful memories that were
associated with her childhood. Suddenly she became that frightened child
again, letting herself go emotionally out of control.
- This experience made Crystal aware that she had been keeping a lid on her
strong feelings and that her defences had resulted in her difficulty in getting
close to others. She learned that she did not “go crazy”. She chose to open
herself to feelings.
➢ Self-determination, freedom, and personal responsibility
❖ We are self-determining beings, free to choose and therefore responsible for
directing our lives. How we live and what we become are the result of our own
choices. Our existence is a given, but we do not have an cannot have a fixed settled
nature or essence. We are constantly faced with having to choose the kind of person
we want to become, and as long as we live, we must continue to choose. We are
free in that we are nothing but what we do, and what we do is not the result of our
past. We are much given to making excuses for our behaviour, thus acting n “bad-
faith”. Existential therapy embraces 3 values:
- The freedom to become within the context of natural and self-imposed
limitation
- The capacity to reflect on the meaning of our choices
- The capacity to act on the choices we make.
❖ Frankl stresses the relationship between freedom and responsibility and insists that
ultimate freedom can never be taken from us because we can at least choose our
attitude. Frankl draws from his experience in a German concentration camp, where
prisoners were stripped of every semblance of outward freedom. He contends that
even in a situation of such extreme powerlessness, people can ultimately be their
own choosing: “Life ultimately means taking responsibility to find the right answer
to its problems and to fulfil the tasks which it constantly sets”. He believes human
freedom is not freedom from conditions but the ability to take a stand in the face of
conditions.
❖ Frankl’s brand of therapy (Logotherapy) teaches that meaning in life cannot be
dictated but can only be discovered by searching in our own existential situation. We
have the will to meaning, and we have the freedom to find meaning, and we have
the freedom to find meaning. He believes the goal is not to attain peace of mind but
to experience meaning in a healthy striving. This search for meaning, which is our
central quest, enables us to make sense of our existence. We are also responsible
for (but not to blame for) the symptoms that restrict our ability to live freely and
fully. It is essential that we recognise and accept our part in creating the quality of
our existence. We are capable of actively influencing our thoughts, feelings, and
actions. Until we accept our capacity for freedom, we will not change. If we wait
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