Existential therapy is a unique form of therapy that explores difficulties from a philosophical perspective. Existential therapy highlights our abilities and encourages us to take responsibility for our successes.
Rather than looking at the past, the existential approach looks at the here and now. It explores the human condition as a whole and what it means for an individual.
What can existential therapy help with?
People in therapy who are willing to explore the reasons for their conflicts and the decisions that led to their current circumstances may benefit from existential psychotherapy. There are many mental health and behavioural issues that may be successfully treated with this therapeutic approach, including:
- Depression
- Anxiety, substance dependency
- post-traumatic stress resulting from trauma-related incidents
- Existential crisis
- Excessive anxiety
- Addiction
- Feelings of shame, despair, guilt, anger, and rage
What to expect
Marésa will work with you to discover and explore the choices that lie before you. Through retrospection, you will begin to understand the implications of past decisions and the beliefs that led those to take place. In existential therapy, you are encouraged to use the past as a tool to promote freedom and assertiveness.
Existential therapy uses a range of approaches, but significant themes focus on your freedom and responsibility. Marésa will help you find meaning in the face of anxiety by choosing to think and act responsibly. You will also be guided to confront negative internal thoughts rather than external forces. Fostering love, authenticity, and free will are avenues that will help move you towards transformation. Marésa will help you to face the anxiety that pushes you to deconstructive behavior and will guide you to take responsibility for this behavior. The goal of therapy is to learn to make more willful and responsible decisions about how to live.
Individuals who go through existential therapy may find purpose and meaning in their lives and often experience heightened self-understanding, self-respect, self-awareness, and self-motivation. The realisation that you are primarily responsible for recovery may increase the likelihood that you will see beyond the limits of a therapy session and view recovery as a therapeutic process.