Myths of Life – Identifying and Removing the Myth of Limitation

Existential therapy offers a refreshing approach of understanding the concerns and challenges of being human.  As we live our lives, challenges and obstacles bring us face to face with a growing awareness that there is uncertainty and change all around.  Modern living encourages us to become more organised, seek ways to reduce our anxiety and concerns, as if they were impediments to living a normal life.  Whilst techniques and strategies aimed at reducing anxiety or alleviating mood can be enormously valuable, they are often temporary solutions to the bigger questions of living.

Many people, despite achieving much in their lives, are left with a gnawing anxiety: ‘Isn’t there more to life?’  When these questions are asked, opportunity exists to explore more fully what it is ‘to live’ rather than ‘make a living’.  Ask yourself ‘When I look back at the end of my life, what will I think of how I lived? What was it all about? Will I believe I have lived and loved fully? The author Brendan Burchard implores us to ask at the end of our lives ‘Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter?’

Existential therapy is an opportunity to work with a therapist who, instead of pathologising symptoms and mental health conditions, sees them as responses to the inevitable challenges of being human, despite their pain.  Anxiety, depression, panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive behaviour are seen as signs and signals of how the sufferer is living in the world against the backcloth of the undeniable responsibility we have for ‘how to live’. And the way society dictates we should live may not be what you want for yourself.   It is a journey that not only introduces you fully to yourself but one which invites you to live fully and purposefully – on your terms – not those dictated to by social, social conditions or culture.   Every professionally trained existential therapist will have journeyed in their own existential therapy, highlighting the importance of them, as human existents, embracing their own existential dilemmas.  Existential therapy is different from other modalities, not only philosophically but sees all theories of ‘why we do things’ as not fixed and absolute – often valuable but even potentially fixing the human condition in way that ignores the uniqueness of our personal journey.

Existential psychotherapy, like all therapy is about reflecting on our life choices and choosing in order to have a well lived life. It takes place within the therapeutic relationship and is underpinned by the following philosophical beliefs:

We have choice and free will.
We are doomed to choose and yet often deny this, never tapping into the wide array of options available to us. We say ‘’I can’t do this’’ Ï shouldn’t do this’’ – all examples of denying the freedom we have – ultimately to be who
we really want to be.

Human nature is intrinsically flexible
We create our reality and ourselves by ‘being-in-relation’ to other people and other things. It is possible to make sense of life by engaging with this reality. We create our reality and ourselves by ‘being -in-relation’. We are not fixed but beings-in-relation who experience the world and co-create through Intentional Acts. ‘Intentionality’ means ‘moving towards’.  For example, we do not love, like, want anything in isolation – we love, like and want (or any other adverb), something or somebody. See the co-creation?

There are limitations to our freedom.
We do not have unlimited freedom to choose but are bounded by our social, physical and cultural circumstances.

Existential psychotherapy is a philosophical endeavour.
Van Deurzen says ‘existential psychotherapy is a tutorial in the art of living’ – not about pathologising and considering people to be sick; instead  struggling with the very problem of living and making sense of their particular circumstances.

Existential psychotherapy focuses on problems of living and not personality problems.

A individual’s challenges are not seen within a framework of personality differences, nor are people explained in terms of personality type or trait.  This would be seen as inauthentic, inasmuch as it presupposes a fixed entity called ‘personality’.

The goal of existential psychotherapy is Authenticity.

This is Heideggerian concept, not to do with being genuine or truthful but embracing the concept of Dasein or ‘’being there’’. Dasein embraces the infinite possibilities of being, against the backcloth of the limits of our existence.

Individuals are unique and their way of seeing the world is valuable

Regardless of how different a client’s beliefs or behaviours are, their subjective experience is real and significant.  The psychotherapist will always encourage a client to consider all their choices and their consequences, although they are not there to judge or condemn – their job is to throw light on the extent to which their choice serves them.  We often have a tendency to deny we have choice or do not see the choices inherent in everything.  Psychotherapy thus open up possibilities we may not have considered before – often a much in ‘ways of seeing’ as in ‘doing’.

Psychotherapists face the same challenges of living as their clients

These challenges are known as ontological i.e. we are born, we die, we relate, we are alone, we have to choose, experience anxiety due to there being no external yardstick to judge the rightness of our choices etc. Our ontic experience is how we encounter and experience these ontological givens.  Problems and challenges, from an existential perspective, are seen as encounters with these givens.  Existential psychotherapy assists a client to both experience and become the witness of one’s experiences.

Psychotherapists, as well as clients, are changed in the therapeutic process

If every human existent is co-creating and experiencing ontological givens, then whether therapist or client, they are each ‘in relation’. Although focus is in the client’s story and clients may never hear of the therapist’s life, both changed because they have ‘encountered’ each other.

In choosing, we must take responsibility for those choices

By choosing or ‘choosing not to choose’ by allowing others, social myths or circumstances to dictate the direction of our lives, we assume responsibility for what we experience.  Once we fully grasp this, we can no longer blame anything outside of ourselves for what we are or experience.  We are always ‘in relation’, even if the only choice we experience in a moment is how we think about something in our minds.
Existential psychotherapy is an opportunity to encounter yourself in a way that enrich your life, helps you assume full responsibility for your life in order to leave with meaning and purpose.