existential methods. existential therapy

1834. Sunday. Noon. A young Dane sits in a small cafe, smoking a cigar and thinking that he will grow old without leaving a trace in this world. Thoughts about your successful friends arise. The cigar burns out. A young Dane lights another and continues to think. Suddenly a thought pops into his mind: You must do something, but since your limited abilities will not allow you to make anything more difficult than it is, you must, with the same humanitarian enthusiasm as others, set about making something more difficult.". "When people try to make everything easy, there is a danger that it will become too easy.", he thought, and decided that perhaps someone was needed to make life difficult again. Thus, Soren Kierkegaard, founder existential therapy discovered its purpose.

Finding difficulties is very easy. It is enough to think about the situation of one's own existence, the choices one has to make, one's possibilities and limitations, and the fear of death. These four factors are death, freedom, isolation and meaninglessness and constitute the main content existential psychodynamics.

Kierkegaard justified the concept existence as the uniqueness of human life. He also drew attention to the turning points in a person's life, which make it possible to live further in a completely different way than it has been living until now. Word "existence" comes from the root ex- sistere, meaning literally "to stand out, appear".

existential psychotherapy(existential therapy) is one of the directions humanistic psychology which aims to cope with the despair of man and focuses on the basic problems of the existence of the individual. Currently, there are a number of very different psychotherapeutic approaches, denoted by the same term of existential therapy (existential analysis):

• existential analysis of Ludwig Binswanger,
• Dasein analysis by Medard Boss,
• existential analysis (logotherapy) by Viktor Frankl,
• existential analysis by Alfried Lenglet.

In our country, the American branch of existential therapy has become widespread: existential-humanistic psychotherapy by J. Bugental And existential therapy by I.Yalom.

Developing, moving forward, striving for individuality, a person on his way may encounter loneliness, he may be visited by a feeling of insecurity, fear of anything. At some stage in life, every person is faced with gloomy thoughts. The first thing he does when fear becomes unbearable is retreat, he wants to dissolve in another person, he renounces his individuality. But, this is only an imaginary comfort. Existential psychotherapy is associated with the analysis of human values ​​and can help in all situations and life difficulties: cope with depression, fears, loneliness, addictions, obsessive thoughts and actions, emptiness and suicidal behavior, grief, crises and failures, indecision . The goal of therapy is the acceptance of the universe, the most complete, rich and meaningful existence.

In existential psychotherapy, life questions are taken as the basis, life itself in close connection with the outside world, and not the study of manifestations psyche and not symptoms. From an existential point of view, explore deeply, — does not mean to explore the past; it means putting aside everyday worries and thinking about what is out of time - about the relationship of your consciousness and the space around . This means thinking about what we are not about how we got to where we are.

Most people turn to a therapist when they lose something in themselves, some meaning. Problems can take over a person's life and make it unbearable, but at any moment there is an opportunity to take a step in favor of living differently. A person is able to understand the uniqueness of his life situation, is able to make choosing how to relate to your present, past and future. He can also develop the ability to act, taking responsibility for the consequences of his actions.

The existential therapist seeks to understand the patient's personal world, not to establish exactly how his world deviates from " norms". He does not give answers, but asks and helps the person himself to come to them.

Put everything aside, sit down, relax and think about your life, your existence in this life. Answers within a person.

A man can be who he chooses to be. In his very existence lies the possibility of going beyond himself and going out decisively. Such an exit is always fraught with risk and uncertainty, but, " the game is worth the candle". As wrote Sartre, — "Man is not moss, mold, or cauliflower."

Life is art. Each of us has the talent to live, and existential therapy only helps a person enter a new phase in the development of this talent. .

Do you want to live life to the fullest? So what's the deal?

Each person is given possession of his being, while he is also given full responsibility for existence. This is optimistic news. The only thing that allows a person to live is action.

"Initially, I had my doubts that psychotherapy could help, but it turns out it does.", - these are the words of a person who decided to change his life. How did she help him? He began to live a meaningful, full, rich life.

Rollo Reese May (1909-1994)

“The anxiety makes sense. Although it can destroy a person's life, anxiety can be used constructively. The very fact that we survived means that, once upon a time, our ancestors were not afraid to face their anxiety.”

The main provisions of R. May's theory of personality are presented in fig. twenty.

Key Concepts

human being, being-in-the-world, Dasein (Sein (being) plus da (here)). Dasein means that a person is a being who is here, and it also implies that he has "here" that he can know about his being here and that he takes his place. Man is a being capable of thinking, and therefore he is responsible for his existence. It is this ability to be aware of one's being that distinguishes man from other beings. In Binswanger's words, "the choice of Dasein", one or the other, implies "a person who is responsible for choosing his existence".

Rice. twenty

One can think of the term "being" as a participle, a form of a verb that means that someone is in the process of being someone. One can use the word "being" as a noun, which is understood as potential, a source of potential opportunities. Man (or Dasein) is a special being who, if he wants to become himself, must be aware of himself, responsible for himself. He is also that particular being who knows that at some definite moment in the future he will be gone: he is that being who is always in a dialectical relationship with non-existence, death. May emphasizes that being is not the same as "Ego". He writes that "my sense of being is not the ability to view oneself as a being in the world, be aware of oneself, that can do it all. Being is inseparable from non-being - the absence of being. In order to understand what “to be” means, a person needs to realize the following: he could not exist at all, he walks along the edge of possible destruction every second, he cannot avoid the realization that sometime in the future death will overtake him.

There are three modes of the world, that is, three simultaneously existing aspects of the world that characterize the existence in the world of each of us.

Umwelt- literally "the world around»; it is the biological world, which in our time is usually called the environment. Weight organisms have the mode Umwelt. Umwelt of animals and human organisms includes biological needs, drives, instincts - this is the world in which a living organism will still exist, even without being endowed with the ability to be conscious of itself.

Mitwelt- literally "in peace" this is the world of beings of one kind, the world of people close to us; the world of relationships between people. The key word is relationships. As May writes, “If I insist that the other person must adapt to me, this means that I perceive him not as a person, Dasein, but as a means; and even if I adapt myself to myself, then I use myself as an object ... The essence of relationships is that in the process of interaction, both people change.» .

Eigenwelt - "own world"; it is the world of the true Self. Eigenwclt presupposes awareness of oneself as oneself. And this process is observed only in humans. This is our understanding of what something in this world means to me - this bouquet of flowers or another person.

These three modes of the world are always interconnected and always condition each other. The reality of being in the world is lost if the emphasis is on only one of the three modes of the world and the other two are excluded.

Will. The ability to organize one's "I" in such a way that there is movement in a certain direction or towards a certain goal. Will requires self-awareness, implies some possibility and/or choice, gives direction and a sense of maturity to desire.

Intentionality. A structure, a center in which we comprehend our past experience and imagine our future. Outside this structure, neither the choice itself nor its further implementation is possible. “There is action in intention, and there is intention in every action.”

ontological guilt. R. May highlights three types of ontological guilt corresponding to hypostases of being-in-the-world. " Environment" (umwelt) corresponds to the guilt caused by the separation of man and nature. It is guilt about our separation from nature, although it can be repressed. The second type of guilt comes from our inability to correctly understand the world of other people (mitwelt). Guilt before our loved ones arises due to the fact that we perceive our loved ones through the blinkers of our own narrow-mindedness and prejudice. And always one way or another we find ourselves unable to fully understand the needs of other people and satisfy these needs. The third type is based on relationship with one's own "I" (eigenwelt) and arises in connection with the rejection of one's potential.

Ontological guilt, according to R. May, has the following characteristics. Firstly, everyone feels it in one way or another. We all misrepresent the reality of our fellowmen to some degree, and none of us fulfills our full potential. Second, ontological guilt is not related to cultural taboos or the introjection of cultural tradition; All roots lie in the fact of self-consciousness. Third, if ontological guilt is not accepted and repressed, then it can develop into neurotic guilt. Fourth, ontological guilt has a profound effect on personality. In particular, it can and should lead to restraint, receptivity in relations between people and the growth of creativity in the use of the subject's potentialities.

Freedom. The state of a person who is ready for change is in her ability to know about her predestination. Freedom is born from the awareness of the inevitability of one's fate and, according to R. May, involves the ability to "always keep several different possibilities in mind, even if at the moment we are not entirely clear how exactly we should act." R. May distinguished two types of freedom: freedom of action (existential freedom) and freedom of being (essential freedom). "I" suggests the world, and the world - "I"; both of these concepts - or experiences - need each other. And contrary to popular belief, they move together: in general, the more a person is conscious of himself, the more he is conscious of the world, and vice versa. This inseparable connection between "I" and the world at the same time presupposes responsibility. As R. May writes, freedom is not the opposite of determinism. Freedom is the capacity of man to know that he is determined. This provision sets the boundaries of freedom. Freedom is neither permissiveness, nor even a simple "doing what you like." In fact, such a life on a whim or on the demand of the stomach is the exact opposite of the actions of the centered personality, which was discussed above. Freedom is limited by the fact that a person always exists in the world (society, culture) and is in dialectical relations with it. Besides, freedom requires the ability to accept and bear anxiety, to live constructively with it. To be free is not to shy away from anxiety, but to endure it; to run away from anxiety is automatically to give up freedom.

Fate. A structure of limitations and abilities that are the "data" of our lives. Fate includes biological properties, psychological and cultural factors, but does not mean total predestination and doom. Fate is what we are moving towards, our final station, our goal.

Anxiety. It is a fear in a situation where a value is threatened, which, according to a person, is vital for the existence of his personality. It can be a threat to physical existence (threat of death) or psychological existence (loss of freedom, meaninglessness). Or the danger may refer to some other value with which a person identifies his existence (patriotism, love of another person, “success”, and so on). Since anxiety threatens the foundations of being a human being, at the philosophical level, anxiety is the awareness that the "I" can cease to exist (the so-called "threat of non-existence"). R. May distinguishes normal And neurotic anxiety.

Normal anxiety- reaction, which 1) is adequate to the objective threat; 2) does not trigger the mechanism of repression or other mechanisms associated with intrapsychic conflict, and as a result 3) the person copes with anxiety without the help of neurotic defense mechanisms. The person can 4) deal constructively with anxiety on a conscious level, or the anxiety is reduced when the objective situation changes.

neurotic anxiety- reaction to the threat, which 1) is inadequate to the objective danger; 2) includes repression (dissociation) and other manifestations of intrapsychic conflict and, therefore, 3) a person limits some of his actions or narrows the field of his consciousness through various mechanisms, such as suppression, symptom development and other neurotic defense mechanisms.

Transcending. The ability to go beyond the current situation. Existence is always in the process of transcending its Self.

• 1. Maslow A. Existential psychology / A. Maslow, R. May, G. Allport, K. Rogers. - M.: Institute for General Humanitarian Research; Initiative, 2005. - 160 p.
• 2. May R. The art of psychological counseling: how to give and gain mental health / R. May. - M.: Institute for General Humanitarian Research, 2008. - 224 p.
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In the postwar years, an existential approach was formed in European psychotherapy. Subsequently, in the 60-70s of the XX century. R. Laing's antipsychiatry also made a certain contribution to this direction. The foundations of the existential approach were formed under the influence of the philosophy of existentialism (M. Heidegger, J.-P. Sartre, etc.) and the French school of personalism (E. Munier, G. Marcel, E. Levinas), and not so much individual provisions as their ideology and general spirit.

The specifics of the existential approach

Most psychotherapeutic directions aim to change the client's life situation, certain aspects or view of their own problems. In contrast to them, the existential approach does not set such a goal. Its essence lies in the complete acceptance of the existence (existence) of the client, a comprehensive and benevolent understanding of him. Therefore, the existential psychotherapist does not seek any change, except perhaps his own.

Existential (lat. Existentia - existence) psychotherapy is psychological assistance based on the mind, respect and active knowledge by the therapist of all the features and aspects of the individual being (existence) of the client's personality, without the intention to find out the pathological or ineffective characteristics of his life, behavior and activities.

A patient, even with serious disorders (intermediate pathology or psychosis), not to mention the neurotic level of the disorder, is treated not as a sick, afflicted or disabled person, but as someone else who lives in his own special world. Accordingly, he deserves not treatment (therapy) or correction, but interest, understanding and respect. The therapist seeks to penetrate the patient's inner world, respects him and does not intend to correct something there.

The founders of existential psychotherapy were not just psychotherapists, but psychiatrists (in the West, psychiatry and psychotherapy are still little distinguished from each other). This direction has become a challenge to the traditional "punitive-corrective" psychiatry, as well as the everyday view of mental illness as something to be ashamed of and something to hide. R. Laing's antipsychiatry is also based on this principle.

For existential psychotherapy and psychiatry, the treatment of a disease is inseparable from its understanding, and to understand the essence, phenomenon, idea or experience means to communicate with the object of understanding the language. The immediacy and inevitability of the existential situation are present in the analysis of each specific case. The patient with his peculiarities and problems for the existential therapist is the adventure of life, a unique encounter, a riddle of riddles.

With the exception of Dasein analysis, it is difficult to single out separate therapeutic schools in existential psychotherapy. It is rather a system of views, norms and values ​​inherent in certain authors. TO to that some theorists did not practice as therapists, and recognized practitioners (except L. Winswanger) left very few works, among which the so-called N. Case - descriptions of clinical cases predominate.

The existential approach is to a certain extent akin to the humanistic one: the works of R. May, V.-E. Frankl is often called existential-humanistic, but in content they gravitate more towards traditional humanistic theories. Given current trends in society, existential psychotherapy has a great future.

Dazane analysis

The only well-defined school of existential psychotherapy is dasein analysis. The founder of this approach was the Swiss psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger (1881-1966). Understanding life as a holistic concrete phenomenon in the unity of the past, present and future, he described the phenomena under study in their unique and holistic personal meaning and internal context. Assuming that the mind constitutes objects of experience even in the case of a deep emotional experience, he tried to investigate how a person relates at this moment to objects that are constituted as follows. In his opinion, sensation is as much a real experience as anything else.

Binswanger's model of therapy is very peculiar, it expands the "semantic horizon" of the individual, which makes it impossible to realize the repressed, "lost". Central to this is the concept of "dasein" - the ordering of reality and the way in which being (existing) can become accessible to essence. This is the essential difference between dasein analysis and the analytical paradigm based on multiple interpretations and their elaboration. The analyst's interpretations are accompanied and supplemented by the expansion of the subjective semantic space of the patient, so the understanding in Dasein analysis often turns out to be complete, and the therapeutic effect is deeper. In addition, existential-analytic thinking (this is how Binswanger defined his approach) deals with the structure of existence - that which the person himself considers to be real, important.

Dasein-analysis (in German Da-sein - here being, being-in-the-world) is a psychotherapeutic direction based on the analysis of the individual being of a person, which the therapist considers as a terminal value.

The main methods in Dasein therapy are listening (understanding into feeling), empathic attention and an interested attitude towards both healthy and pathological individual manifestations, far from evaluation and nosological classifications.

A specific feature of the existential approach is the categorical scheme for the analysis and reconstruction of psychological phenomena. Representative of this direction Henry

Elenberger (1905-1993), along with the classical psychological triad of dividing the psyche into affect, intellect and will, also singled out categorical phenomenology - a system of measurements of the individual life world, within which it is possible to reconstruct the inner world of clients. The main categories of phenomenology are:

1) "temporality" - a sense of how life happens, the actual experience of "now", the integrity of being in the unity of the past, present and future;

2) "spatiality" - a field of events, things, conditions or qualities oriented in accordance with the desires and ideas of a person. Equipped with space, according to Binswanger, corresponds to certain modes of life activity of the individual: rest, knowledge, love, consumption, and the like. This is not just a territory on which a person lives and works, but also an emotional and value dimension of the main areas of her life (for example, a favorite sofa is different from any bed, and it is more pleasant to sleep or make love on it than anywhere else);

3) "causality" - the conditionality of some phenomena by others. The sphere of causality in consciousness contains three main principles: determinism (predestination), randomness and intentionality (orientation of actions and actions), according to which the subject explains his actions;

4) "materiality" - objectivity, a concrete embodiment in a certain thought. Binswanger insisted that the individual system of classifications of the client is oriented towards this dimension: he can divide the world and things into pale and bright, hard and soft, clear and amorphous, living and inanimate, and the like. The therapist must act within the classification proposed by the patient, no matter how exotic it may seem to him.

According to these categories, the patient's inner world is reconstructed in the process of psychotherapy. Successful reconstruction not only reproduces his being, but also enables the therapist to enter this world, to understand it, that is, to see the plane of the client's life as meaningful, full of meaning - even if it is strange and very different from the usual. This is precisely the main task of a dazin analyst.

Dasein analysis is designed to study the personality and its world even before its distribution by illness and health. What the dazein analyst wants is impossible in psychoanalysis: to represent the phenomena of human life without any explanations or classification schemes, but simply as parts of existence, pointing to those essential modes in which the dazein perceives, transforms and constitutes the world. From this point of view, a mental disorder arises as a modification of the basic or essential structure, as one of the many metamorphoses of being-in-the-world.

The main works of L. Binswanger concern what psychiatry classifies as pathological. Bean used the concept of "existential a priori" (lat. Ariori - from the previous one) - the primacy, intrinsic value of the individual perception of the world. What a person experiences is, first of all and more than anything, not the impression of taste, sound, smell or touch, not things or objects, but the meaning, the meanings that make existence and experience. In the sense of the matrix, within which phenomena arise and are related to the dasein and the self and the world are constituted, in extreme cases only one theme prevails. In such a context, mental illness or disorder is a pervasive uniformity of experience, a homogeneity of symbolic response. This means that all experience, all perceptions, knowledge are depleted, and being goes into a state of neglect.

The main dasein-analytical criterion of mental disturbance is the degree of subordination of freedom to dasein's power of something else. In the neurotic, this submission is partial: although his being-in-the-world is subject to one or more categories, he constantly struggles to adhere to his own self-determination. This struggle takes the form of a dazeinu that gives up some of its ability to protect itself from the destruction of its own world. But since such a refusal itself already means the beginning of the disintegration (reduction, narrowing, devastation) of the Self, all efforts negate themselves, and the neurotic feels trapped. Trying to solve problems only makes them worse.

The psychotic goes further and completely submits himself to the power of the unknown. The price he pays for diminishing the experience of anxiety is the loss of his own self-determination. In the case of psychosis, dazein is completely subject to one principle of the universe: it no longer spreads into the future, does not get ahead of itself, rotates in a narrow circle into which it has been "thrown", repeating itself again and again fruitlessly. Modification of the essential structure - mental illness - arises from the fact that the dazein ceases to freely relate to its own essence, that is, being loses its immediacy, it is forced to compare itself with how it should be, how normal (or right), and feels not as it should be - bad, insignificant, abnormal and the like. Dasein as understanding becomes a subordinate volume of the mode of neglect of being-in-the-world, which Binswanger called "self-imposed unfreedom."

Binswanger's model of therapy is quite radical in psychiatry. His best-known case reports (Lola Foss, Helen West) form the golden fund of existential therapy. However, in the daily practice of psychotherapeutic care, this approach is used very rarely. Perhaps because the majority of modern people lack the patience necessary for the reconstruction of the life world and its full understanding "from themselves, and not according to any of their own ideas or theories."

Existential therapy is considered to be founded by the American psychologist Rollo May (Fig. 13).

Rice. 13. American psychologist Rollo May, founder of existential therapy.

Rollo May considered it unacceptable to reduce human nature to the realization of deep instincts or to reactions to environmental stimuli. He was convinced that a person is largely responsible for what he is and how his life path develops. His numerous works are devoted to the development of this idea, and he taught his clients for decades.

Existential psychotherapy is one of the directions of humanistic psychology. The main emphasis is not on studying the manifestations of the human psyche, but on his very life in inextricable connection with the world and other people.

Existential psychotherapy is a collective concept for designating psychotherapeutic approaches that emphasize "free will", free development of the personality, awareness of a person's responsibility for the formation of his own inner world and the choice of a life path.

To a certain extent, all psychotherapeutic approaches of existential psychotherapy are genetically related to the existential direction in philosophy - the philosophy of existence, which arose in the 20th century as a result of upheavals and disappointments caused by two world wars.

The central concept of the doctrine is existence (human existence) as an undivided integrity of an object and a subject; the main manifestations of human existence are care, fear, determination, conscience, love. All manifestations are determined through death - a person sees his existence in borderline and extreme states (struggle, suffering, death). Comprehending his existence, a person gains freedom, which is the choice of his essence.

The philosophical basis of existential therapy is the phenomenological approach, the goal of which is to refuse to accept all conceptions of reality in order to reach what cannot be doubted - pure phenomena. The phenomenological approach is associated with the name of Edmund Husserl. From it comes the philosophy of Martin Heidegger.

Heidegger argued that people, unlike objects, exist in interactive unity with reality. They are a source of activity rather than fixed objects, and are in constant dialogue with their environment. At any given moment, the individual is a creative combination of past experience and present situation. As a result, it never stays constant for a minute. Heidegger would consider that belief in a fixed personality structure, including various labels of borderline, passive, or narcissistic personality, is an inauthentic way of relating to oneself and others. People don't "have" a personality; they are constantly creating and re-creating it through their own choices and actions.

Jean-Paul Sartre suggested that when people are faced with the need to be responsible for themselves and for their choices, they begin to experience anxiety. The concept of a fixed identity reduces anxiety. Treating yourself as a good person replaces the study of your behavior and the possibility of choosing on the basis of correctness and virtue. If you define yourself as a borderline person, you no longer need to hold yourself accountable for your impulsive actions. We all need a fixed identity, such as “doctor” or “honest man,” to avoid feeling anxious about making choices. However, what really matters is not who we are, but what we do, that is, what style of behavior we choose.

Every time a person makes a choice, he opens up new possibilities both in himself and in the world around him. For example, if you behave cruelly towards someone, then you expose both your negative sides and, possibly, the negative sides of this person. If you are caring, you can let your potential positive qualities come out.

Thus, people are beings through which reality manifests itself. Human actions make it possible to clearly express what was previously only potential or "hidden" in reality. The most important kind of knowledge is the knowledge of "how" (that is, it is related to actions). For example, learning to play the guitar reveals not only the creative potential of the player, but also the musical potential of the instrument. Mental knowledge of facts is less useful. Therapy should teach to be a man, and not to gain knowledge about yourself, that is, about your past. People need to learn to listen to themselves and conform to the nature of their developing personality.

Existential psychotherapy, like the very concept of "existentialism", includes many different directions and currents, but it is based on some general ideas and principles.

ultimate goal Existential therapy is about empowering the client to understand their own goals in life and make authentic choices. In all cases, therapy helps them to “remove their limitations” and also contributes to their development. Clients must openly face themselves and what they have been avoiding - their anxiety and, ultimately, their extremeness. Often, in order to control anxiety, people give up their deepest potentials. To choose to fulfill one's potential is to take risks, but there will be neither wealth nor joy in life unless people learn to face the possibility of loss, tragedy, and finally death.

The first thing the client needs to do is to expand the ability of awareness, that is, to comprehend: the potential that he refuses; means used to maintain failure; a reality he can choose; anxiety associated with this choice. To help the client succeed in this, the therapist uses two main tools - empathy and authenticity.

Empathy is used as a form of phenomenological method. The therapist tries to respond to the client without prejudice. An empathic and nonjudgmental attitude can help the client to open up their inner world.

Another important tool is the therapist's own authenticity. If the goal of therapy is to achieve the authenticity of the client, then the therapist must model this authenticity. In order to become authentic, the client needs to learn that he does not have to play any role, does not have to strive to be perfect or the way he wants to be seen. He also does not need to give up aspects of his own experience and can take risks. The therapist should model these qualities and try to become a real person in therapy.

In existential therapy, being real or authentic means sharing with the client your immediate impressions and opinions about him. In essence, this is providing the client with direct personal feedback.

Advisory contact in existential therapy can be described as follows: the existential therapist makes sure that his patient is as open as possible to the possibilities that arise during his life, is able to make a choice and actualize them.

Purpose of therapy- the most complete, rich, meaningful existence.

In line with existential therapy, another important direction has emerged, represented by a separate international educational program of our institute - logotherapy.