Explore next steps to improve your mental health. 
Existential therapy is a branch of humanistic therapy that focuses on human beings as a whole and how we fit into the world: our capacities, aspirations, and limitations. Centered around perpetual issues that each person faces (loneliness, responsibilities, etc.), it works to dissect fear and anxiety, creating meaningful change by confronting and accepting the realities of life.
Read on to discover how existential therapy works, what it treats, and how it can benefit you.
What Is Existential Therapy?
Existential therapy is a therapeutic intervention created by Rollo May in the 1950s that focuses on helping clients understand their relationship to their “self,” as well as their place in the world. Its process is to help clients accept responsibility over their personal choices, understand their personal freedoms and abilities, and—through this understanding—create meaningful change.
This type of therapy largely focuses on exploring topics like meaning, legacy, and the relationship of oneself to others within the world and their community, all seen through the lens of the client’s worldview and their sense of self.
Existential therapy has many different applications and can help people with a multitude of symptoms or presenting problems.
How Does Existential Therapy Work?
Existential psychotherapy encourages people to realize their potential and take control of their life, largely through exploring their place in the world, confronting emotional challenges, and developing skills to manage fear and anxiety.
Existential therapy considers anxiety a condition of living. The goal of existential therapy is to help clients get a clearer view of their sense of self, feel liberated, and let go of whatever’s holding them back.
Say, for example, a woman named Margaret lost her mother a few months ago, and ever since, she’s been upset about the loss and fearful about death. Existential psychotherapy will aim to help Margaret accept the loss and also reduce her fear of death by teaching her to take control of her own destiny and recognize that death is a natural part of life.
Furthermore, existential psychotherapy works by not fixating on the past, but rather examining how past choices and beliefs may have resulted in undesired outcomes in the present. Once patients accept the fact that they are in charge of their lives, they can embrace a newfound freedom and state of peace.
The 4 Principal Concerns of Existential Therapy
Existential psychotherapy centers around the belief that we all experience internal conflict caused by four main concerns that all people will deal with in life: responsibilities, isolation, meaninglessness, and death.
Concentrating on these four pillars and examining how each one impacts the client’s life will guide treatment.
- Freedom/responsibilities
The idea of freedom in existential therapy claims that everyone has internal choice and free will. However, it also acknowledges that freedom cannot exist without the counter of responsibilities, which can place burden and pressure on your life. Existential therapy encourages you to conceptualize your free will and how you can use it by exploring your personal capacity and ability to choose.
This idea involves acknowledging that isolation, particularly social, is a part of life. Though it may not always be present, it’s important to be able to handle feeling isolated or alone. One of the most effective ways to do this is to cultivate a deep and meaningful relationship with yourself. Because when you have yourself, you are never truly alone.
- Meaninglessness
The focus on meaninglessness is meant to confront feelings of purposelessness and loss of direction that everyone feels at some point. Existential therapy emphasizes the idea that meaning exists in everyone’s life, and individuals are allowed to pursue their own meaning. Existential therapy helps you define how “meaning” can exist in your life and what it might look like to you as a unique individual.
- Death
Existential therapy emphasizes that death is a constant, pivotal part of life. Framing life through the lens that death is inevitable can help you explore concepts like meaning and legacy.
While everyone will face these challenges in life, facing them all at once or head-on can often be too much, inspiring fear and dread and causing you to become overwhelmed. Instead, existential therapy strikes a balance between challenging yourself and respecting your own needs.
The process of existential therapy involves slowly and carefully working through each of these concerns until the client feels like they can accept their perpetual existence and can manage the emotional challenges that come with them on their own. The key is to acknowledge them, accept them, and navigate appropriately.
What Is Existential Therapy Used to Treat?
Existential therapy is used to treat a wide variety of presenting problems and patterns of dysfunction, such as:
- Depression
- Anxiety disorders
- Low self-esteem
- PTSD
- Substance use disorder
- High levels of stress
- Relationship conflicts
- Career challenges
- Those with chronic, severe, and potentially life-threatening medical and personal issues
Existential therapy can also be used in couples and relationship counseling as a helpful way to improve communication skills.
Benefits of Existential Therapy
One of the main benefits of this therapy style is a decrease in anxiety and emotional dysregulation, as well as increased self-confidence and belief in your ability to handle whatever life throws at you. Further, choosing existential therapy can help clients gain more overall life satisfaction and create a more meaningful and fulfilling life. Existential therapy is also known to improve the quality of interpersonal relationships and your relationship with yourself.
Those who immerse themselves in this kind of therapy often find greater meaning in life and develop better self-awareness, self-respect, and self-motivation. They leave therapy with a better understanding of how they control their own fate and no longer rely on an external locus of control.
If this sounds like something that could be helpful in your life, consider seeking treatment with a mental health professional who practices existential therapy. They’ll discuss your fears and symptoms and work with you to create an effective treatment plan, so you can create the life you desire.
