Existential Counselling (Essay Sample)

EXISTENTIAL COUNSELING
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THE VIEW OF HUMAN NATURE ACCORDING TO EXISTENTIAL THEORY
Existential counseling approach is mainly built upon solving the problems and dilemma that surrounds human existence. This theory deviates from a deterministic view of human nature and rather focuses on the liberties that human beings have in making choices about different occurrences in life. (Cooper, 2003 p119) It ranks human nature as beings that are in a continuous dynamic change and transformation, living in large numbers around them in an environment full of strengths, weaknesses, limitations and opportunities. The context at which human nature lives, and coexists with one another creates all these challenges and opportunities. With a lot of emphases given to the context at which they live, the environment is a significant influence of human behavior. It provides values and morals to learn. But the existential counseling approach puts challenges humans to exercise their ideals, priorities and values. It’s all about living an authentic lifestyle. The authentic lifestyle means living a real-self, following one’s emotions and feelings. (Deurzen & Adams 2011, p 55)
This theory views human beings as porous and therefore permissible to personal and environmental influences. The main focus of existential theorist is to help clients get a connection with their real selves and make rational choices according to what their real self demands, rather than been permissible to personal and contextual influences. When humans are capacitated to see themselves in their real self they acquire potential to improve and eventually grow. Existential theorists have postulated that when humans are influenced by public opinion and the context around them, they enter in a state of fallenness (Plock, 1997 p 112). In such a state, humans absorb values, beliefs and ideas and of other people and tend lose their individuality. In a nutshell, humans under this state become obscured by superficial influences and immensely lose focus on their ability to demonstrate their authentic nature and self. This approach encourages humans to make their own rational choices, and determine their role in other social organizations like the family, society and community.
MAJOR CONCEPTS REGARDING HUMAN BEHAVIOUR, MENTAL HEALTH AND CAUSES OF PSYOCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
Existential theory focuses on four key premises regarding human behavior. These premises are considered inevitable in the existence of human nature and they include death, isolation, meaningless and freedom. When psychologists are administering existential therapy they mainly deal with emotional anxiety that emanates from an individual’s accomplishment and undertakings, whether achieved conscious or unconscious (Deurzen, 2002 p114). This is done in a bid to help clients deal with sophisticated facts of life that are as a result of a person’s very existence.
The realization of death and the fact that it’s certain brings unexpected terror to humans; everybody would wish to continue living. But the good of life is cut short by the inevitable death, both our death and the sudden loss of our loved ones. This premise is certainly the most common and can be well demonstrated by how human beings maneuver to extend the life through use of science and technology.
In regard to freedom, we cannot avoid the liberty we enjoy and the way we use it, perhaps, in building ourselves and creating a better world to live in. Through our human behavior, the world gives us enough freedoms so that we can construct our life stories (Barnett, 2009 p89).
On the other hand, existential isolation has to do with the inevitable fact that, despite our close relationships with one another, there is a principle separateness that individuals cannot dislodge themselves from. This utmost loneliness of the human behavior, Is what make humans realize that they enter and leave the world alone notwithstanding the strong integration that people have with one another.
The last premise is meaninglessness, it implies void of any worthiness in living. When human beings lack a well structured sense of direction or a tested plan for their life and perhaps realize that there lacks meaning innate in the world, they fall in the hands of meaninglessness. Human beings, were made with an ability to be create, therefore they create their own reality and find meaning of life, which in effect gives them structure and direction. The meaning of life can only be discovered by the individual rather autonomous sources from the self. The desire to pursue meaning in life is the greatest motivation for a worth living (Cooper, 2003 p120).
Human being experience limited ability to make choices in life and this triggers an existential anxiety, because the consequences of making such choices presented to them may not be well defined. Existential anxieties cause psychological problems which are characterized by nervous feeling and worries. Such nervous feelings and worries are basically caused by the four premises of human behavior discussed above. The realization of death, isolation, freedom and meaningfulness are the major causes of psychological problems as postulated by this theory. For instance, the unfortunate occurrence of death and the failure to know the consequences that might arise in future trigger existential anxiety. Existential anxiety has to do with how humans react to the duty of creating meaning in the way things happen in life (Deurzen & Adams 2011, p154).
Human nature is made with the ability of creativity, and this helps them in clarifying issues and making rational verdicts. However, existential anxiety can be mild and result to neurotic anxiety. Usually, people experience neurotic anxiety when they undergo excess existential anxiety or when they deliberately try to avoid it to levels at which it limits growth. Neurotic anxiety shows itself as lack of a subjective sense of free decision and the incapacity to take responsible actions for ourselves. This significantly affects the mental health, and patients tend to lose touch with the external world. Our ability for self-awareness is an important component of human development. Neurotic anxiety prevents this self-awareness and tends to inactivate people. Existential theorists have noted that the best way to cope with existential anxiety is through seeking integration with others and forming meaningful relationships.
THERAPEUTIC TECHNIQUES RELEVANT TO EXISTENTIAL COUNSELING
The main aim of existential therapy is not based on liberalizing the patient from anxiety, but rather helping them accept their own values, bear with them, and most important live well with them. The therapist maneuvers with the major concern their patients, actually to evade imposing their own verdicts, to help the patient elucidate and ponder on their own view points, with a major goal of making the patients live their live real.
The therapist has to man the patient carefully to learn and question the patient’s biases and prejudices. The therapist must encounter the patient with an open mind and try to set aside their own pre-judgments (Deurzen & Adams 2011, p155). The technique demands that, the therapists should adopt a gullible relationship with the patient; with a deliberate aim of understanding the client’s view point rather than imposing their own assumptions and beliefs. In so doing, the therapist is able to understand the client’s underlying assumptions, themes of life and beliefs. The therapist is now able to navigate through the weakness, limitations and responsibilities of the patient together with strengths, opportunities and freedoms. Most important is that, the therapist can easily establish the meaning which the patient attaches to their own thoughts, emotions, traditions, beliefs and personal past. (Plock, 1997 p 112)
However, it must be noted that existential counseling does not tie the therapist to any specific technique and or an interventionist method. It is only imperative for the therapist to demonstrate high levels of empathy and compassion to the clients during the examination period. The examination process should be carried out as philosophical discourse about the life of the patient. This approach basically, tries to show the client the means in which they are not living an authentic life, and therefore the therapist should help them make choices that will make them become their real selves.
In addition, the key issues in existential counseling are freedom and responsibility. The therapist attitude is the basic techniques that can help the patient assume responsibility. The therapist must consistently show the patient that they have a personal responsibility to their own miseries. This can be done by trying to establish what function the patient plays in their own predicament and possibly maneuver a way to communicate this role to the patient (Plock, 1997 p 112).
Sometimes, the client’s predicaments may be as a result of autonomous forces or even endogenously induced forces. Notwithstanding, the cause of the predicament, there cannot be an incentive to transformation unless the patient realizes that they bear surmountable responsibility in their own predicaments.
APPLICABILITY OF EXISTENTIAL THEORY AND THE PROBLEMS IT SOLVES
Existential counseling is best suitable for patients who see own problems as frontiers of challenges, instead of signs of psychopathology. It is also applicable to persons who are constantly in pursuit of self-awareness and self-evaluation. Patients are undergoing a personal philosophical examination and inquest for its meaning will certainly be helped by this approach. By this token, the theory suits patients pursuing clarity of their own viewpoints, personal adversity a...