Today

1
Todays Class - 20 JuneTwo Thousand and Seven -
the days are ticking

• Time - Pink Floyd
• Experiential Exercise
• Begin Existential Theory
• Existential Psychotherapy - Review Principles and
  goals of therapy
• Case study - Anthony Jr.
• Other videos

2
Pink Floyd - Time

• Ticking away the moments that make up the dull
  day
• You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand
  way
• Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home
  town
• Waiting for someone or something to show you the
  way
• Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to
  watch the rain
• You are young and life is long and there is time
  to kill today
• And then one day you find that ten years have got
  behind you No one told you when to run, you
  missed the starting gun

3
Time, part II

• And you run and run to catch up with the sun, but
  it's sinking And racing around to come up behind
  you again
• The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're
  older
• Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
• Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find
  the time
• Plans that either come to naught or a half page
  of scribbled lines
• Hanging on in a quiet desperation is the English
  way
• The time is gone the song is over, thought i'd
  something more to say

4
Important Influences

• Victor Frankl
• Prisoner, Nazi Concentration Camps-1942-45-
• lost entire family Spiritual freedom
  independence
• of mind can be had in the worst situations
• Essence lies in searching for meaning purpose
• Rollo May
• American psychiatrist many books on existential
• therapy, integrated psychoanalysis and
  existential
• therapy - He had two failed marriages- wrote
  extensively
• regarding questions of intimacy, monogamy, morals
  of
• relationships, studied with Adler
• Irvin
• Yalom
• Therapy through Meaning, therapeutic love
• themes of existential work

5
Existentialism

• Area of philosophy concerned with the meaning of
  human existence
• Asking questions about issues of love, death and
  the meaning of life
• How one deals with the sense of value and
  meaning of ones life
• Frequently referenced as more of a philosophy
  than a specific theoretical approach - SOME
  DEBATE HERE

6
Nondeterministic

• Similar to client-centered approaches
  Existentialist argue that it is an
  oversimplification to view people as controlled
  by fixed physical laws
• Focus on active, positive aspects of human growth
  and achievement

7
Existential perspective to key therapeutic
dynamics

• Resistance - Occurs when a client does not take
  responsibility, is not aware of feelings, or
  otherwise is inauthentic in dealing with life.
• Rarely directed at therapist-- rather a way of
  dealing with overwhelming threats, an inaccurate
  view of the world, or an inaccurate view of the
  self.
• Transference - important to note when clients
  attention focuses on the therapist - Work to make
  progress in the process of developing a real and
  authentic relationship

8
The Capacity for Self-Awareness

• The greater our awareness, the greater our
  possibilities for freedom
• Awareness is realizing that
• We are finite - time is limited
• We have the potential, the choice, to act or not
  to act
• Meaning is not automatic - we must seek it
• We are subject to loneliness, meaninglessness,
  emptiness, guilt, and isolation

9
Freedom and Responsibility

• People are free to choose among alternatives and
  have a large role in shaping personal destinies
• Manner in which we live and what we become are
  result of our choices
• People must accept responsibility for directing
  their own lives

10
The Search for Meaning

• Meaning like pleasure, meaning must be pursued
  
• Finding meaning in life is a by-product of a
  commitment to creating, loving, and working
• The will to meaning is our primary striving
• Life is not meaningful in itself the individual
  must create and discover meaning

11
Tony Jr - Sopranos

• What is Tony Jr. Struggling with
• What is the therapist trying to overview to Tony
  relative to the lecture?
• What is the Grandmother in the nursing home
  struggling with - and how she has been able to
  overcome certain existential themes in her life

12
Steve Jobs commencement talk

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vD1R-jKKp3NA
• What did people see that had relevance to the
  lecture?

13
Anxiety, continued 2 types

• Normal anxiety (also called existential
  anxiety)
• Proportionate to its cause, does not require
  repression, and can be used constructively to
  identify and confront the dilemma from which it
  arose.
• Neurotic Anxiety
• When a person tries to evade normal or
  existential anxiety. It commonly manifests
  itself as a loss of a subjective sense of free
  will and an inability to take responsibility for
  ones own life.

14
Primary Goals Techniques Pertaining To Anxiety

• Eliminate neurotic anxiety to degree possible
• Help the client learn to tolerate the unavoidable
  existential anxiety of living.
• Help clients to reach higher levels of
  authenticity
• Techniques
• Identifying instances when the patient avoids
  responsibility, helping the patient to consider
  options make decisions, and pointing out how
  grief reactions and sadness about life milestones
  COULD BE related to underlying fears of isolation
  and death.

15
Role of the therapy relationship

• Very important - strive toward an honest, open,
  and egalitarian relationship with patients.
• The goal is development of an authentic and
  intimate relationship between the therapist and
  the client. -- Serves to model authenticity,
  freedom of choice, and appropriate handling of
  anxiety circumstances

16
Awareness of Death Nonbeing

• Awareness of death is a basic human condition
  which gives significance to living
• We must think about death if we are to thing
  significantly about life
• If we defend against death our lives can become
  meaningless

17
Central Tasks of Existential Therapists

• Inviting clients to recognize how they have
  allowed others to decide for them
• Encouraging clients to take responsibility
• Recognize ways clients passively accepted
  circumstances surrendered control-
• Although you have lived in a certain pattern,
  now that your recognize the price of some of your
  ways, are you willing to consider creating new
  patterns?

18
Stance on Techniques

• Little to not specific techniques designated
  within theory
• Commonly integrated within other frameworks

19
Pros and Cons

• PROS Something to offer all counselors, stresses
  self-determination, accepting the personal
  responsibility, provides perspective for
  understanding the value of anxiety and guilt, the
  role of death, and the creative aspects of being
  alone and choosing for oneself.
• CONS Lacks a systematic statement of principles
  and practices writers use vague and global terms
  or abstract concepts little research, limited
  applications for lower-functioning clients,
  clients in extreme crisis who need direction,
  poor clients, and those who are nonverbal.