Viktor Frankl Founder Of Existential Therapy

“Counseling’s focus on development, prevention, wellness, and treatment makes it attractive to those seeking healthy life-stage transitions and productive lives” (pearson). In the early 1900’s, there was a movement within the counseling profession that centered on promoting the prevention and the objects that provided purpose in a person’s life. The idea was to help individuals avoid problems and “focus on wellness, development, mindfulness, meaningfulness, and remediation of mental disorders” (pearson). This was the beginning of one of the three philosophies that comprises the key philosophies of counseling.

The ultimate goal of counselling is to enable individuals to make own decisions in life and act accordingly in order to change habits or overcome difficulties that had prevented them to achieve self-actualisation, build self-esteem or just live happily as general.

Existentialism is a philosophy that puts emphasis on the existence of a person’s freedom or life. In a human point of view, it means to believe in oneself, not a group or religion. (33)

Psychotherapy and counselling are inseparable. The effectiveness of a counselling program is not just based on the connectedness and interaction between a therapist and a client, but also the framework of the counselling approach in helping the client improving his mental health or overcoming personal problems. There are an extensive number of psychotherapies developed by past researchers, with each therapeutic concept offering unique contributions in understanding human behaviour and useful implications for counselling practice (Bedi et al., 2011).

As defined by Merriam-Webster, Existentialism is, “a chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad” (Merriam Webster). Logotherapy/existential analysis is based on the premise that within one’s self there lies the 1) “Freedom to will, 2)“will to meaning”, and 3), “ meaning to life”. (Batthyany, Alexander) Meaning to life as it pertains to classic existential theory and logotherapy, is defined by the individual on a situational basis. It can vary based on what is essential to the individual and their well being (Existentialism-By Branch/Doctrine, The Basics of Philosophy). Frankl concentrates on what it was that drives people to live, and determined that those who survived the unspeakable circumstances of the Nazi camps had been those who focused on the meaning of their lives. Frankl’s psychological-anthropological model addresses the ability for others overcome

(Existentialism: We as humans have some control over our own destinies. We may not be able to choose our situations (like where and when and what colour we are born) but we can choose how we live our lives and what we do with them. For instance, when Winston has to face the fact that John is leaving in 3 months and he is only leaving in 10 years,

This application paper will discuss my personal theory of counseling or psychotherapy in a number of different areas. Specifically, I will discuss the seven areas of interest. First, I will discuss and describe

In discussion of my personal theory of Psychopathology I will include (a) the definition of psychopathology, (b) etiology and progression of pathology, (c) the implications of the theory of psychopathology for treatment, (d) the process of counseling and the roles the counselor and client play (e) the ethical implications of this theory of psychopathology

Existential therapy through the eyes of Dr. Yalom is very fascinating. There is never a fixed life that each person is supposed to live. In his therapy the clients are allowed to find out for themselves what it is they need by receiving adequate questioning from Dr. Yalom. His questioning guides them down the existential path to freedom and responsibility.

After watching the movie Crash, I was left with the deep thought of what did I really just see? It was a complex, tragic story of many lives from very different ethnic and social backgrounds crashing together in life and leaving in the wake of it the consequences. I discovered several different existentialism themes throughout the movie. Existentialism is a twentieth-century philosophy that can be defined as the “existence” of human beings precedes their “essence”, that is, “historical human beings come before, and are thus the makers of, qualities and values” (McCutcheon, 91). In other words, Existentialism is the analysis of existence of humans that spend their entire lives making choices that changes their essence in the world.

Theories within psychotherapy guide interactions between the therapist and client, providing a process by which the client can come to understand and resolve their problems. However, these theories can often be conflicting with opposing techniques and goals. Existential therapy is best considered as a philosophical approach to the therapeutic process, which gives prominences to the themes of freedom, self-determination, self-awareness and anxiety (Yalom & Josselson, 2011, p. 310). It emphasises the individual’s capacity to make free choices regarding the person they become, and focuses less on the use of techniques. In contrast, Freudian psychoanalytic therapy considers ways to change problematic behaviours or thoughts by examining their concealed unconscious motivations and meanings (Corey, 2013, p. 63). Past experiences are significant in determining the distinctive behaviour of the individual, which is analysed by the therapist through techniques such as dream analysis and free association. Whilst both theories view the individual and their difficulties as unique, existential and psychoanalytic therapy have opposing views of human nature and therapeutic goals.

Perhaps the most telling symptom of existentialist philosophers is their ever-divergent theories on the fundamental characteristics of human life and their steadfast refusal to assign an explicit meaning or reason to our existence at all. Contrary to criticism which therefore labels the movement cynically nihilistic, existentialism justifies life with reasoning similar to that of Zen Buddhism. Specifically, the notions of hopelessness and absurdity can be gleaned from Buddhism in a manner helpful to the understanding of existentialist viewpoints on the same.

This theory focuses on a person’s meaning in life and taking into account that death is inevitable. I learned that everyone has a purpose in life and it may change as you experience different things. I am not sure what my purpose in life is yet. I see my goals, and I hope that my purpose is to help people to my best potential. To me, that is not a very obvious thing to know about yourself; It takes exploration for someone to find their purpose. What I learned about myself is that I trust myself to find answers about myself, and I think that is because there was a time when it seemed like I was alone and I discovered a lot about myself. This theory also covers the awareness of death and how it gives us a significance to living. I accepted the fact that we all die a while ago, and that does not hold me back from the things I want to do in life. I don’t want to avoid doing anything because I fear to die eventually. The existential theory made me think of the purposes each individual has in life and how everyone works towards those purposes so that our world can function. What resonates with me is accepting death because that is something that I believe I have already accomplished. What does not fit with the way that I see the world is that everyone should know their purpose in the world. I don’t necessarily believe in that unless it helps the person in their

The world we live in is an odd one; some cope with its absurdities through intensive faith, others through utter disregard of all its meaning. Existentialism, however, leads us down a peculiar path that blurs these concepts into one unique belief system. While we might be faced with situations beyond our complete control, we do have the power to control how we handle said situations and whether or not we choose to cultivate significance from them. The search for significance is very primitive and so are the answers that have accompanied it throughout human history. Obviously, life doesn’t have a clearly stated purpose to it; it is up to each individual to create their own relative purpose and find their own happiness in a life of suffering. This is exactly what Existentialism proposes, that it is not possible to know the truth, so it is up to the individual to create his or her own, and then create their own purpose. Merriam-Webster defines the philosophy theory of Existentialism as a “…philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad.” But Existentialism is not a concept that can simply be defined in one fell swoop. Throughout our studies of philosophy, I found there to be two main concepts that act as the foundation for the basic

To elucidate the real meaning of Existence, one should begin with the philosophy of Existentialism in which this concept is debated threadbare and discussed inside out. In Existentialism, 'existence' is important because the meaning of being is always grasped through human experience for which the existence is the first and basic point. This philosophy continues to remark that Existence is what man foundationally has and everything else is offered to him as a range of choices to choose from and act upon. Problems and quandaries are necessities of human life. Everyman has to face with them in a way freely chosen by him. He himself has to solve the problems and is fully responsible for what he does, even though he is not responsible for his coming into the world. He, in this way, should consider himself as an individual who is condemned to be free and must choose his choices freely in the world.