A Thing A Day: 43 About - Existential Philosophy in Therapy I’m continuing from where I left off yesterday with a brief summary of Existential philosophy. It’s a topic so broad that it’s impossible to do it justice by being brief. So with apologies to the passionate and bold thinkers and writers of the existential movement: Rollo May is credited by some as the American therapist and theorist who brought European existential thought into the US therapy realm. In “Origins and Significance of the Existential Movement” May wrote that existentialism offers a “unique and specific portrayal of the... predicament of western contemporary man.” What better to ground a contemporary therapy in than a philosophy that addresses predicaments? The people of the 50’s and 60’s certainly faced their share of predicaments as we do today. The humanistic movement had opened the door to a non-pathologizing view of human experience and this attitude was well met in existential philosophy. People had predicaments to confront. The existential philosophers of the late nineteenth century and twentieth century were concerned with a wide range of matters related to living, feeling, and experiencing life not merely through abstract thinking but through passionate and authentic living. Existential thinkers advocated that individuals face their confusion or disorientation in life and create meaning or find the freedom to create personal meaning in life. They concerned themselves with a wide range of topics: the factuality of individual limitations, with freedom and responsibility, with acting as an authentic self, with hope and the loss of hope, and with a range of other concerns. The inquiry that had been underway among this group of philosophers was interesting and inspiring for many in the newly formed humanistic group in the US. Rollo May observed that the European existential movement was developed by many thinkers and had no single clear originator or thinker. One consequence of having many different thinkers is that each contributor naturally had their own particular interests and each added their own contribution. This broad focus makes it difficult to concisely or briefly define the movement. The same would be true of the American development of Existential-Humanism. May was joined in the E-H movement by other influential therapists and authors who contributed their own particular interests to the E-H perspective including James Bugental, Irvin Yalom and Viktor Frankl. Irvin Yalom describes existential therapy as… (continued in tomorrow’s Thing)
Posted on: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 17:41:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015