PSYCHOTHERAPHY

The existential approach to psychotherapy

maintains that the central goal of therapy is
to help promote understanding of the self and
ones mode of being in the world.
Psychological constructs for understanding
human beings are, therefore, placed on an
ontological basis and take their meaning from
the present situation.
To be and not to be is a choice we make at
every moment. An I am experience is a
precondition from solving specific problems.
Otherwise, we merely trade one set of
defenses from another. Nor is the
emergence of an I am experience identical
to the development of the ego.
In order to grasp what it means to exist, one also
needs to grasp the option of nonbeing. Death is
an obvious form of the threat of nonbeing, but
conformity is an alternative mode that May found
very prevalent in our day. People give up their
own identity in order to be accepted by others
and avoid being ostracized or lonely, but in doing
so they lose their power and uniqueness.
Whereas repression and inhibition were common
neurotic patterns in Freuds day, today
conformism is a more prevalent pattern.
Thus the central task of the therapist is to seek
to understand the patients mode of being and
nonbeing in the world. It is the context that
distinguishes the existential approach rather
than any specific techniques. The human being
is not an object to be managed or analyzed.
Technique follows understanding. Various
psychotherapeutic devices may be used,
depending on which method will best reveal the
existence of a particular patient at any given
time.
The relationship between the therapist and
patient is seen as a real one. The therapist
seeks to help the patient experience
existence as real. This does not imply
adjusting to ones culture or relieving anxiety
but rather experiencing ones existence or
mode of being in the world.
Anxiety is an inevitable characteristic of being
human. An absence of anxiety may be
pathological in that it denies reality.
Occasionally, May employed techaniques
developed by gestalt therapists such as Fritz
Perls. If a patient states that she is frightened
but has smile on her face, the therapists
might point out that a frightened person does
not smile and seek to explore the meaning of
the smile.
A patient might be asked to fantasize that a
significant other was sitting in an opposite
chair, to have a conversation with that person,
and then to reverse roles. Such techniques
are designed to help the patient confront and
experience actual present feelings, Finally,
Mays approach emphasized commitment,
believing that patients cannot receive any
insight until they are ready to decide and take
a decisive orientation to life.