Existential Therapy: Finding Meaning, Freedom, and Authentic Living
- Igor Light, LMHC, NCC, BCC
- 4 days ago
- 8 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
The Hidden Depth in Every Therapeutic Encounter: Addressing Life’s Core Questions for a Fulfilling Life
In his seminal work, Existential Psychotherapy, Irvin Yalom posits that all forms of therapy inherently engage with core existential concerns. While clients often seek help for "presenting problems"—symptoms of anxiety, depression, or relationship issues—effective therapy, especially Existential Therapy, invariably encounters fundamental questions about human existence: the search for meaning, the confrontation with isolation, freedom, and death.
As Yalom writes: "Every human being, if he is to function adequately, must in some manner or other come to terms with the ultimate concerns of existence: death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness."
Regardless of a therapist's primary approach—be it psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral (CBT, DBT, ACT), or humanistic—if clients are willing to explore and face the root causes of their symptoms, the therapeutic process naturally assumes an existential dimension. Therapy, at its heart, is fundamentally existentially (life) oriented.
Key Takeaways
Existential Therapy is a unique approach that addresses core human concerns: our relationship with death, freedom, isolation, and the search for meaning.
The primary goals are to increase self-awareness and personal responsibility, foster authenticity in the face of social pressure, and discover a life of purpose.
It reframes challenges like anxiety and depression not as disorders, but as signals of unlived possibilities and a deep yearning for meaning.
The therapeutic relationship is a central part of the process, focusing on a genuine, "I-Thou" encounter between two human beings.
Table of Contents
The Novelty of Existential Encounter Makes Existential Therapy Unique
Despite shared philosophical foundations, practitioners of Existential Therapy often struggle to find a single, consensus definition. This lack of rigidity highlights the essence of the approach: its radical novelty. Every therapeutic session is a unique, unrepeatable event. Because Existential Therapy occurs within the relational field of the present moment, it is always new.
When the same modality is practiced by two different therapists who bring their genuine selves, the encounter is different.
When the same therapist uses the same modality with different clients, the process shifts based on the client’s genuine presence.
Even with the same therapist and client, each session is distinct, as both individuals are continually emerging in a new way.
Existential Therapy helps clients move from meaninglessness and isolation toward self-actualization and authentic engagement with the world, providing profound experiences of meaning and genuine closeness. This process is driven by three essential goals.
The Three Essential Goals of Existential Therapy
The purpose of the existential approach is to guide clients toward a life of authentic living and fulfillment by supporting a client in developing self-awareness and responsibility, authenticity in the world, and a sense of meaning and belonging.
1. Self-Awareness and Responsibility
The primary goal of Existential Therapy is to increase the client's self-awareness—the ability to reflect on one's existence and make conscious choices. By recognizing their inherent freedom, clients also recognize their responsibility for those choices.
This moves them from a passive stance—feeling like a victim of external forces—to an active one. As Rollo May emphasized, embracing this freedom and responsibility is essential for personal growth, allowing individuals to actively shape their own lives.
May states: "The central task of the therapist is to help the patient feel his own existence, his own reality, and to feel that he is responsible for that existence."
2. Authenticity in the World
The second goal is to help clients achieve authenticity, which is living a life true to one's own values and potential, rather than conforming to anonymous societal pressures.
This process requires a deep exploration of subjective experience, a method rooted in phenomenology (pioneered by Edmund Husserl). By focusing on "the things themselves" and suspending assumptions, clients access a more genuine understanding of who they are. Martin Heidegger distinguished authentic existence—a life lived in accordance with one's own possibilities—from an inauthentic one, defined by the expectations of the crowd.
James Bugental captures this goal: "I believe the purpose of therapy is to facilitate the search for and the experience of one's full personal being."
3. Meaning and Belonging
The final goal addresses the human need for both meaning and belonging. Existential Therapy helps clients confront existential isolation—the ultimate aloneness of individual consciousness—and simultaneously build authentic connections with others.
The therapeutic relationship itself models this, aiming for an "I-Thou" encounter rather than an "I-It" relationship, a concept introduced by Martin Buber, where two genuine beings meet.
How Existential Therapy Transforms Suffering into Growth
Each symptom, viewed through the existential lens, becomes not merely pathology to be eliminated but a meaningful signal pointing toward deeper truths about human existence and the courage required to live authentically. Our psychological symptoms are not merely problems to solve—they are often messengers bearing essential truths about our existence. When we learn to read their deeper language, suffering transforms into a catalyst for authentic living. Viktor Frankl, the founder of Logotherapy, profoundly stated:
"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
Anxiety
Anxiety reveals itself as whispers of unlived possibilities. The "dizziness of freedom" you feel is the vertigo of genuine choice. When befriended, anxiety's energy transforms from paralysis into the courage needed to claim the life you desire.
Depression
Depression often signals what Viktor Frankl called the "existential vacuum"—a life drained of personal meaning. Beneath its weight lies a profound yearning for authentic expression.
Trauma
Trauma, within its devastation, holds the potential for "post-traumatic growth." This is the slow discovery of unexpected resilience, deeper compassion, and previously unknown strength emerging from the ruins of what was lost.
Addiction
Addiction reveals itself as misdirected seeking—a flight from the burden of freedom. What you seek through substances (transcendence, connection, relief from isolation) becomes available through authentic paths when you develop the courage to face what you have been avoiding.
Grief
Grief teaches love's deepest lesson: that cherishing means accepting loss. Through "tragic optimism," we learn to carry forward what we've lost while creating new meaning, expanding our capacity for both sorrow and joy.
5 Essential Techniques in Existential Therapy
There is no single "correct way" to do Existential Therapy. It is a process where both client and therapist emerge authentically in the encounter. In my practice of Existential Therapy, I find the following methods essential for a successful therapeutic outcome:
1. Therapeutic Intersubjectivity: Co-Creating the Relationship
By recognizing our mutual responsibility to create what Buber called the "I-Thou" relationship—a genuine meeting between two beings—we establish a practice of validating each other’s realities and co-creating a shared reality. Clients become aware of how they co-create all relationships and learn that genuine connection requires mutual vulnerability and responsibility.
2. Phenomenological Bracketing and Acceptance
Phenomenological bracketing (Husserl's epoché, or suspension of judgment) helps the therapist set aside biases to fully enter the client's unique world. This aligns with Carl Rogers' "Unconditional Positive Regard." Through experiencing this non-judgmental acceptance, clients learn to apply the same principle to themselves and others. True acceptance is not resignation; it is the resoluteness to see life and people as they are—not as we prefer them to be—which is the foundation for genuine relationship and self-emergence.
3. Therapeutic Attunement and Intentionality
Attunement represents openness to the client's immediate state, helping them clarify their situation and recognize new possibilities. Through exploring intentionality—consciousness always being directed toward something—we uncover deeper motivations beyond surface behaviors. Following Heidegger's concept of Befindlichkeit (situatedness in mood), Existential Therapy helps clients accept their emotional states, allowing them to reconstruct reactions that no longer serve their goals. This develops the capacity to respond to life from intentional awareness rather than reactive emotion.
4. Embodiment: Integrating Body and Mind
Recognizing what Merleau-Ponty called the "lived body" (corps vécu)—our fundamental embodied existence—clients recognize the deep connections between their physical and mental health. While we focus on existence, clients often begin developing healthier lifestyles (sleep, diet, exercise), transforming embodied awareness into lived practice that directly impacts mental well-being.
5. Therapeutic Resoluteness: Flexible Commitment to Growth
Therapeutic resoluteness (Entschlossenheit) focuses on the therapist’s intention to support the client's goals while remaining adaptive and flexible to the client's needs and the emerging process. Clients embody this principle by becoming flexible in surface strategies while remaining resolute in their core intentions. They navigate life's complexities with adaptive responses that honor their deeper purpose.
Examples of Existential Therapy Modalities
The existential approach encompasses several established modalities, all focused on the core themes of existence. Each modality offers a unique pathway into the existential dimensions of human experience, yet all share the fundamental recognition that meaning, authenticity, and the courage to face existence are central to psychological healing.
Logotherapy
Founded by Viktor Frankl, Logotherapy centers on the search for meaning (will to meaning) as the primary human drive. In this approach, suffering becomes bearable when it has meaning.
Existential-Humanistic Therapy
Developed by figures like Yalom, May, and Bugental, this modality addresses the Four Ultimate Concerns: death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness, through an authentic therapeutic relationship.
Existential Analysis
Pioneered by Alfried Längle, Existential Analysis focuses on four fundamental motivations for a fulfilled existence: space, life, selfhood, and meaning. As Längle notes: "The person must be touched by what is right. Only then can they decide to make it come true."
Daseinsanalysis
Created by Binswanger and Boss, this approach offers phenomenological analysis of being-in-the-world based on Heidegger's philosophy. Ludwig Binswanger stated its goal as: "The real goal of Daseinsanalysis is to liberate the patient's existence toward genuine possibilities of being."
Personal Meaning Therapy
Developed by Paul Wong, this comprehensive approach emphasizes meaning-seeking, meaning-making, and meaning reconstruction across life domains. Wong suggests: "Meaning is not something to be found, but something to be constructed."
Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy
Created by William Breitbart, this structured group intervention focuses on meaning-making for cancer patients and those facing serious illness. Breitbart highlights the core principle: "Hope is a moral duty, and meaning is the antidote to despair."
Common Misconceptions About Existential Therapy
Is Existential Therapy dry philosophy?
Existential Therapy is rooted in philosophy but is not merely a philosophical discourse. It rejects deterministic and cynical views, embracing a deeply humanistic perspective that values the potential for self-actualization and deep, meaningful connections. It combines phenomenological, humanistic, and interpersonal perspectives to be actively therapeutic.
Does Existential Therapy neglect the past?
While deeply grounded in phenomenology, prioritizing the present moment and the "here-and-now" meaning, Existential Therapy does not ignore the past. It explores the past in the form of embedded experiences and schemas that continue to interfere with present existence, and it explores the future in terms of projections and possibilities.
Does Existential Therapy lack structure and technique?
This is a common misconception. In reality, effective existential therapists develop specific techniques and structures tailored to each client's unique goals and preferences. It is about highly personalized intervention rather than a lack of technique.
Does Existential Therapy ignore symptoms and diagnosis?
Critics suggest it doesn't address mental health conditions practically. On the contrary, Existential Therapy works effectively with conditions like anxiety and depression by exploring their existential dimensions, discovering the deeply rooted causes that appear on the surface as signals that there is potential to fulfill and live a more meaningful and authentic life.
Conclusion: Your Path to an Authentic Life
In my practice of Existential Holistic Therapy, I've watched clients discover that when we stop running from life's fundamental questions—when we turn toward rather than away from our anxiety, loneliness, and meaninglessness—something profound happens.
The great news is that everything you need for this journey is within you: the courage to be a genuine companion to your own life and the willingness to risk revealing yourself in an authentic encounter. In that genuine moment, your own wisdom and strength emerge.
Life is not easy, especially an authentic life. The goal of Existential Therapy is not to change the world to make you feel authentic, but to support you in finding a place in the world that is deeply, meaningfully yours. The challenges you face are not obstacles; they are the pathway to authentic living.
References and Further Reading about Existential Therapy
Binswanger, L. (1958). The case of Ellen West. In R. May, E. Angel, & H. F. Ellenberger (Eds.), Existence: A new dimension in psychiatry and psychology. Basic Books.
Breitbart, W. (2010). Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy in the cancer setting: Finding meaning and hope in the face of suffering. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 55(12), 770-776.
Bugental, J. F. T. (1987). The art of the psychotherapist. W. W. Norton & Company.
Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man's Search for Meaning. Beacon Press. (Original work published 1946)
Längle, A. (2005). The essence of existential analysis. Journal of the Society for Existential Analysis, 16(1), 18-35.
May, R. (1969). Love and Will. W. W. Norton & Company.
Wong, P. T. P. (2010). Meaning-centered counseling and therapy: An integrative and comprehensive approach to suffering. In P. T. P. Wong & L. C. J. Wong (Eds.), The handbook of multicultural counseling. SAGE Publications.
Yalom, I. D. (1980). Existential Psychotherapy. Basic Books.