THERAPY

Psychotherapy provides a safe environment where a person can explore their problems and dilemmas. Therapy is a time and space to be heard. The therapeutic process throws light upon how we are, and gives people a greater understanding about human living. Many people who come for therapy have taken several hard knocks before they walk through the door of the practice room. Others come because they lack meaning in their lives. Whatever the reason that people may choose to come for therapy, it means engaging with the process of taking a long, hard, truthful look at oneself.

The good news is that human beings, whatever their circumstances, always have the potential to change and create meaningful lives. Therapy enables people to explore their freedom and realise the many choices before them. Through the exploration of our anxieties and fears in therapy, it is possible to transform our attitude to living and make some often quite astonishing changes.

PHILOSOPHY

Existential Psychotherapy is a philosophically-based psychotherapy. Existentialism is concerned with freedom, choice, possibility and what it means to be alive.

Existential thinkers have come from varying nationalities, religious backgrounds and political persuasions. They include Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Friedrich Nietzsche amongst others.

Existentialism is a philosophy that can foster an attitude to living that is useful to therapists who are trying to help people make sense of their lives.

For further reading about existential philosophy and its application to therapeutic practice see the News and Articles section of this website or the website of the Society for Existential Analysis, the link for which can be found on our links page.