PHENOMENOLOGICAL

AND EXISTENTIAL
THEORIES IN
COUNSELING
Social Work Counseling
 Phenomenological theory
•It focuses on the uniqueness of each person’s
internal perspective, which determines one’s reality.
•This approach emphasizes on the here-and-now
rather that what was or what will be, and how
people perceive and feel about themselves and
their environment rather than their adjustment to
prevailing cultural norms. It also emphasizes
affective rather than cognitive or behavioral
domains.
 Three widely used
phenomenological approaches

1. Existential psychotherapy (Rollo May, Viktor

Frankl, James Bugental, Irvin Yalom)
2. Client-centered theory (Carl Rogers)
3. Gestalt theory (Fritz Perls)
 Existential theory
•Existential view of human nature is subjective and
individualistic, that meaning is whatever one
uniquely experiences.
•Human being are always on the process of
becoming, and they have the capacity for
awareness and the freedom and responsibility to
make choices.
•The goal of the therapy is to enable clients to
recognize the full range of their choices and to
take responsibility for whichever option they select.
 Existential therapy
• It is more a way thinking than any particular style
of practicing psychotherapy.
• It is neither an independent nor separate school of
therapy, nor is it a neatly defined model with
specific techniques.
• Existential therapist serves as model and a
companion in the client’s search for self-
awareness , responsibility and meaning.
 Existential Counseling
◦ It is not designed to “cure” people of illness in the tradition of the medical model.
◦ Does not view clients as being sick but as “sick of life or clumsy at living”
◦ Attention is given to clients’ immediate, ongoing experience with the aim of helping
them develop a greater presence in their quest for meaning and purpose.
◦ Encourage clients to explore their options for creating a meaningful existence.
 Some Existential Theorists
◦ To understand the philosophical underpinnings of modern existential psychotherapy, one
must have some awareness of such figures as:
◦ 1. Søren Kierkegaard
◦ 2. Friedrich Nietzsche
◦ 3. Martin Heidegger
◦ 4. Jean-Paul Sartre
◦ 5. Martin Buber
◦ 6. Ludwig Binswanger
◦ 7. Medard Boss
Following Themes:
◦From Kierkegaard: creative anxiety, despair, fear
and dread, guilt, and nothingness •
◦From Nietzsche: death, suicide, and will •
◦From Heidegger: authentic being, caring, death,
guilt, individual responsibility, and isolation •
◦From Sartre: meaninglessness, responsibility, and
choice •
◦From Buber: interpersonal relationships, I/Thou
perspective in therapy, and self-transcendence
The basic dimensions of the human
condition, according to the existential
approach:
◦(1) the capacity for self-awareness;
◦(2) freedom and responsibility;
◦(3) creating one’s identity and establishing
meaningful relationships with others;
◦(4) the search for meaning, purpose, values, and
goals;
◦(5) anxiety as a condition of living; and
◦(6) awareness of death and nonbeing.
(1) the capacity for self-awareness;
◦ The greater our awareness, the greater our
possibilities for freedom.
◦Self-awareness is at the root of most other human
capacities, the decision to expand it is fundamental
to human growth.
◦Ignorance of our condition may have brought
contentment along with a feeling of partial
deadness, but as we open the doors in our world, we
can expect more turmoil as well as the potential for
more fulfillment.
(2) freedom and responsibility
◦People are free to choose among alternatives and
therefore have a large role in shaping their destinies.
◦Although we long for freedom, we often try to
escape from our freedom.
◦Freedom implies that we are responsible for our lives,
for our actions, and for our failures to take action.
◦Existential guilt is being aware of having evaded a
commitment, or having chosen not to choose.
(2) freedom and responsibility
◦Authenticity implies that we are living by being true
to our own evaluation of what is a valuable
existence for ourselves; it is the courage to be who
we are.
◦Clients who refuse to accept responsibility by
persistently blaming others for their problems will not
profit from therapy.
◦The therapist assists clients in discovering how they
are avoiding freedom and encourages them to
learn to risk using it.
 (3) creating one’s identity and
establishing meaningful relationships
with others
◦THE COURAGE TO BE
◦Courage entails the will to move forward in spite of
anxiety-producing situations, such as facing our death
◦Existential therapists may begin by asking their clients
to allow themselves to intensify the feeling that they
are nothing more than the sum of others’ expectations
and that they are merely the introjects of parents and
parent substitutes.
(3) creating one’s identity and
establishing meaningful relationships
with others
◦THE EXPERIENCE OF ALONENESS
◦The sense of isolation comes when we
recognize that we cannot depend on
anyone else for our own confirmation; that
is, we alone must give a sense of meaning
to life, and we alone must decide how we
will live.
(3) creating one’s identity and
establishing meaningful relationships
with others
◦THE EXPERIENCE OF RELATEDNESS
◦Humans depend on relationships with others.
◦One of the functions of therapy is to help
clients distinguish between a neurotically
dependent attachment to another and a life-
affirming relationship in which both persons
are enhanced.
(3) creating one’s identity and
establishing meaningful relationships
with others
◦STRUGGLING WITH OUR IDENTITY
◦People get caught in a ritualistic behavior patterns
that cement us to an image or identity we acquired
in early childhood.
◦The therapy process itself is often frightening for clients
when they realize that they have surrendered their
freedom to others and that in the therapy relationship
they will have to assume their freedom again.
(4) the search for meaning,
purpose, values, and goals
◦People struggle for a sense of significance
and purpose in life.
◦Some underlying conflicts that bring
people into counseling and therapy are
centered in these existential questions:
“Why am I here? What do I want from life?
What gives my life purpose? Where is the
source of meaning for me in life?”
(4) the search for meaning,
purpose, values, and goals
◦THE PROBLEM OF DISCARDING OLD VALUES
◦Cients may discard traditional (and imposed) values
without finding other, suitable ones to replace them
◦The task of the therapeutic process is to help clients
create a value system based on a way of living that
is consistent with their way of being.
◦The therapist’s trust is important in helping clients
trust their own capacity to discover a new source of
values.
(4) the search for meaning,
purpose, values, and goals
◦MEANINGLESSNES
◦Clients may wonder whether it is worth it
to continue struggling or even living.
◦Meaninglessness in life can lead to
emptiness and hollowness, or a condition
called the existential vacuum. (Frankl)
(4) the search for meaning,
purpose, values, and goals
◦CREATING NEW MEANING
◦Logotherapy is designed to help clients
find a meaning in life.
◦The therapist’s function is not to tell clients
what their particular meaning in life
should be but to point out that they can
discover meaning even in suffering.
(4) the search for meaning,
purpose, values, and goals
◦CREATING NEW MEANING
◦Finding meaning in life is a by-product of
engagement, which is a commitment to
creating, loving, working, and building.
◦Meaning is created out of an individual’s
engagement with what is valued, and this
commitment provides the purpose that
makes life worthwhile
(5) anxiety as a condition of living
◦Anxiety arises from one’s personal strivings to
survive and to maintain and assert one’s being,
and the feelings anxiety generates are an
inevitable aspect of the human condition.
◦Existential anxiety is the unavoidable result of
being confronted with the “givens of
existence”—death, freedom, choice, isolation,
and meaninglessness.
(5) anxiety as a condition of living
◦Existential therapists differentiate between
normal and neurotic anxiety, and they see
anxiety as a potential source of growth.
◦Normal anxiety is an appropriate response
to an event being faced.
◦Neurotic anxiety is out of proportion to the
situation. It is typically out of awareness,
and it tends to immobilize the person.
(6) awareness of death and nonbeing
◦The existentialist does not view death negatively
but holds that awareness of death as a basic
human condition gives significance to living.
◦It is the ability to grasp the reality of the future
and the inevitability of death.
◦Death provides the motivation for us to live our
lives fully and take advantage of each
opportunity to do something meaningful.
(6) awareness of death and
nonbeing
◦One focus in existential therapy is on
exploring the degree to which clients
are doing the things they value.
◦Therapists talk directly to clients about
the reality of death. He believes the
fear of death percolates beneath the
surface and haunts us throughout life.
 The Therapeutic Process
◦Bugental (1990) identifies three main tasks of
therapy:
• Assist clients in recognizing that they are not fully
present in the therapy process itself and in seeing how
this pattern may limit them outside of therapy.
• Support clients in confronting the anxieties that they
have so long sought to avoid.
• Help clients redefine themselves and their world in
ways that foster greater genuineness of contact with
life.
 Therapist’s Function and Role
◦1. primarily concerned with understanding
the subjective world of clients to help them
come to new understandings and options.
◦2. concerned about clients avoiding
responsibility; they invite clients to accept
personal responsibility.
◦3. Deal with people who have what could
be called a restricted existence.
 Therapist’s Function and Role
◦4. Assist clients in seeing the ways in
which they constrict their awareness
and the cost of such constrictions.
◦ 5. The therapist may hold up a
mirror, so to speak, so that clients
can gradually engage in self-
confrontation.
 “There is no one right way to
do therapy, and certainly no
rigid doctrine for existentially
rooted techniques. What is
crucial is that you create your
own authentic way of being
attuned to your clients”
(Russell, 2007)
Relationship Between
Therapist and Client
◦Basic attitudes toward the client and own personal
characteristics of honesty, integrity, and courage.
◦The core of the therapeutic relationship is respect.
◦Genuine concern and empathy as one way of
deepening the therapeutic relationship.
◦ “The therapeutic alliance is the powerful joining of
forces which energizes and supports the long,
difficult, and frequently painful work of life-changing
psychotherapy.
Sources:
◦ Okun, Barbara. 2002. Effective Helping: Interviewing and Counseling Techiniques.USA:
Brooks/Cole
◦ Hepworth, Dean, et.al. 2010. Direct Social Work Practice: Theory and Skills, 8th Edition.
USA: Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning.