Existential Therapy

Existential therapy can best be discribed as a philosophical approach that influencescounsellor's therapeutic practice. As such it is not a separate school of therapy or a neatly defined model with specific techniques. Thus, significiant implications for the existentially oriented practitioner.

The existential approach rejects the deterministic view of human nature espoused by orthodox psychoanalysis and radical behaviorism. Psychoanalysis sees freedom as restricted by unconscious forces, irrational drives, and past events; behaviorists see freedom as restricted by sociocultural conditioning. In contrast, existential therapists acknowledge some of these facts about the human situation but emphasize our freedom to choose what to make of our circumstances. This approachis grounded on the assumption that we are free and therefore responsible for our choices and actions. We are the authors of our lives, and we drawup the blueprints for their design.

A basic existential premise is that we are not victims of circumstance, because to a large extent we are what we choose to be. A major aim of therapy is to encourage clients to reflect on life, to recognize their range of alternatives, and to decide among them. Once clients begin the process of recognizing the ways in the which they hace passively accepted circumstancesand surrendered control, they can start on a path of consciously shaping their own lives.

There is two important persons who influence existential therapy most. They are Viktor Frankl and Rollo May. They are the representative of the exentistial therapy.

Van Deurzen-Smith (1988, 1997) writes that existential counselling is not designed to "cure" people in the traditional of the medical model. Rather, clients are viewed as being sick of life or awkward at living. They need help in surveying the terrain and in deciding on the best route to take, so that they can ultimately discover their own way. Existential therapy is a process of searching for the value and meaning in life. The therapist's basic task is to encourage clients to explore their options for crearting a meaningful existence. We can begin by recognizing that we do not have to remain passive victims of our circumstances but instead can consciously become the architect of our life.

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