Existential psychotherapy

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The Existential Psychotherapy (ger .: existential psychotherapy ; also: existential psychotherapy ) was of Rollo May and Irvin D. Yalom founded. This form of individual therapy is based on the insight that many people despair of life as a result of a confrontation with the basic existential facts (the so-called "existential psychodynamics") of being human (death, fear, loneliness, senselessness) and because of cognitive-rational forms of therapy are not available. Problem-oriented forms of therapy reach their limits here, since the “meaning of life” or the question of mortality do not represent “problems” in the therapeutic, but rather in the philosophical sense.

history

The existential psychotherapy developed by Irvin Yalom in the 1980s is based on the older approach of Rollo May , who explained large parts of human behavior with an underlying existential fear . This fear can be overcome at different stages of development up to the courageous acceptance of the individual fate.

Yalom, son of Russian immigrants, was dissatisfied with the classical psychoanalytic approach during his training ; his wife Marilyn Yalom, who had a doctorate in literature, introduced him to Franz Kafka and Albert Camus .

Yalom's therapy is intended to help answer important questions from the client about the “meaning of life”, e. B. in acute life crises, in grief processes or at crucial life transitions. It aims to encourage the client to accept his own existence as a free, yet always uncertain, to take responsibility for it and to strengthen his authenticity . As a Neo-Freudian, Yalom is partly in the tradition of Sigmund Freud , from whom he particularly adopted storytelling as a diagnostic tool, but refused to use these stories to pathologize clients. He also does not work with the concept of instinct , but replaces it with the awareness of ultimate concern , the perception of existential problems as a universal constant. From Kierkegaard he took over the insight that people's sense of security is extremely fragile and that their attempts to give meaning are constantly pending without receiving a final answer.

Some studies confirm a positive influence of the therapy in life crises, e.g. B. in serious illnesses.

A representative of a similar approach is Viktor Frankl (see Logotherapy and Existential Analysis ).

Forms of therapy

As a form of therapy, it is difficult to squeeze into the usual psychotherapeutic categories: Her approach is depth psychological with excursions into the philosophical, she is interested in the genesis of disorders, but her focus is on the "here and now" and serves to develop a life-affirming attitude. It can also be combined with other methods. The therapeutic work, as Yalom describes it, is essentially based on a close, hierarchy-free relationship between therapist and client, since the therapist is faced with the same existential questions as his client. Your goal is not the search for truth; Rather, the conceptual framework is intended to enable the instrumental, but humane processing of current problems of the clients and the underlying, partly manifest, partly repressed fears. While Yalom assumes that failure to cope with existential problems can lead to mental disorders, other representatives of the direction generally avoid the terms illness or disorder and, accordingly, the term healing. The cornerstones of therapy are usually

  • Strengthening self-reflection
  • Philosophical exploration of the problem
  • Expansion of consciousness and above all that
  • Acceptance of the human condition .

The four basic existential conflicts

The therapy is about answering one or the other of the following basic questions, all of which can be a source of fears :

  • Life or death ( mortality ): According to Yalom, one of the child's developmental tasks is to learn to deal with the fear of their own destruction (e.g. as a result of the death of an important caregiver). If this does not succeed or if the question is suppressed, it can lead to disturbances in personality development.
  • Order or freedom ( freedom ): A basic conflict is the pursuit of the greatest possible freedom with simultaneous search for order, structure and bonding. Each individual constructs his or her world that has not been planned by others and also bears responsibility for his constructions.
  • Proximity or loneliness ( isolation ): Even if we want protection and contact and often get close to other people, the final chasm to them is insurmountable. We cannot merge with them and we have to walk the world alone.
  • Sense or senselessness ( meaninglessness ): If we constructivist create our own world and ultimately live alone, what is the point of our own existence? How do we deal with the experience of the futility of our actions or our own insignificance?

The last topic seems particularly topical because every person today is confronted with the central social idea that every goal can be achieved. This leads to disorientation and the widespread fear of not tapping your full potential and of leading an insignificant, unsuccessful life. This makes it difficult to develop a stable sense of self-worth. The main symptom of existential therapy is the lack of inner fulfillment. The dominant commercialized self-help culture of self-optimization cannot help here; it prevents intensive preoccupation with the basic existential questions that existential therapy addresses.

But the therapist can only try to be sensitive to these existential issues, which are repeatedly raised or suppressed on different levels of consciousness, but for which he cannot offer a final solution. He will try to integrate it into the therapy and thus the self-reflection, autonomy and ability of the client to act in the context of the given situation - e.g. B. in chronic diseases - to strengthen and clarify the determination of the client's attitude to the world and to others. This examination of the basic existential questions, which should lead to personal growth and maturation processes, is more important for existential therapy than eliminating symptoms.

literature

  • Irvin Yalom: Existential Psychotherapy. Basic Books, New York 1980, ISBN 0-465-02147-6 .
    • German translation: existential psychotherapy. Edition Humanistische Psychologie, Cologne 1989, 5th edition 2010. ISBN 3-926176-19-9

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rollo May: Contributions of existential psychotherapy. In R. May, E. Angel, H. Ellenberger (Eds.): Existence: A new dimension in psychiatry and psychology . New York: Basic Books 1958, pp. 37-91.
  2. ↑ Ruth Ellen Josselson: Irvin D. Yalom: On Psychotherapy and the Human Condition. Working Biographies, Jorge Pinto Books 2007.
  3. ↑ RD Miars, RD: Existential Authenticity: A Foundational Value for Counseling. Counseling and Values, 46 (2002), pp. 218-225. doi: 10.1002 / j.2161-007X.2002.tb0021
  4. ^ Søren Kierkegaard: The sickness to death. Munich 1969.
  5. ↑ Anders Draeby Sorensen, Rosemary Lodge & Emmy Van Deurzen: A Comparison of Learning Outcomes in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Existential Therapy: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. In: International Journal of Psychotherapy, Vol. 21 (2017), No. 3, pp. 45-59.
  6. ↑ Yalom speaks of his therapy as a tool , Yalom 1980, p. 16.
  7. ^ Carlo Strenger : The Fear of Insignificance: Searching for Meaning in the Twenty-first Century. Palgrave-Mcmillan, New York 2011.