User:The.Filsouf/Existential therapy
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Existential therapy is one of the major schools of psychotherapy and refers to applying existential philosophy as an approach to psychotherapy and counselling. It is associated with humanist psychotherapy and many professionals in the field who use this approach refer to themselves as humanist psychotherapists, yet it does not follow the Rogerian Person-centered approach.
In Existential psychotherapy the therapist provides a therapeutic and non-judgemental frame where the client feels safe and secure to try out different modes of being in the world, and encouraged to take more responsibility to make decisions and live an authentic life.
History
Existentialism as a philosophy is mainly associated with a number of philosophers including Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre, although not all of them acknowledged or accepted the label. However existential thinking has been associated with much earlier philosophers and thinkers including Socrates. [1]
Existential psychotherapy is rooted in the application of existential and phenomenological philosophies to psychotherapy and mental health. The first attempt at this was by Karl Jaspers in 1912, yet the first practitioners which applied existential concepts were Eugene Minkowsky and Jacques Lacan. [1]
The first method of practice which referred to itself as "existential analysis" was by Ludwig Binswanger who heavily borrowed from Heidegger and applied his concepts such as Being-in-the-World to Psychotherapy. Daseinsanalysis was furthered by Medard Boss who was inspired by Husserl and thus applied existential and phenomenological frameworks to finding meaning, especially in dream analysis [1]