Existential-Humanistic 

Humanistic And Related Therapies

Humanistic and related therapies include Person-Centered Therapy, Emotion-Focused Therapy, Narrative Therapy, and Existential Therapy. At the foundation of the humanistic and related therapies is the belief that human beings are intrinsically oriented towards growth. Humanistic and related therapies also place an emphasis on the client's subjective experience. Over the course of these therapies, the therapist aims to enter and explore the client's world. This process involves reflection of the client's thoughts and feelings. The therapist is a collaborator rather than a director.

Person-Centered Therapy

In Person-Centered Therapy, clients are encouraged to take initiative. You get out what you put in to therapy. If you don’t know what to talk about, I can make practical suggestions based on your broader goals. But ultimately, it is your responsibility to bring something in. It doesn’t have to be “something big.” Perhaps you had an interaction during the week that left you unsettled and you don’t know why. I can help you tap into your inner resources and make sense of things for yourself. A Person-Centered therapist works based on the idea that everything you need is already inside of you; the role of the therapist is to help you unlock that untapped potential. 

Emotion-Focused Therapy

Emotionally expressive therapies naturally involve the processing and expression of emotion. The idea of "processing" one's emotions has perhaps become trite to point of being meaningless. It is easier to define the unhealthy ways of relating to emotion. These unhealthy ways include suppression (i.e. consciously holding it in), avoidance (i.e. avoiding situations that may evoke emotions; unconsciously holding it in), and reactive escalation (i.e. blowing up and lashing out). For example, if you feel angry because someone mistreats you and push the anger down, you may find that the anger comes out later in the form of uncontrollable road rage. A healthier way of relating to anger involves using it as fuel to motivate assertiveness (i.e. setting a boundary; asking for what you want). In emotion-focused therapy, you work with emotions in real time, you learn what they are "telling" you, and you learn to respond to them in more adaptive ways. 

Emotion-focused Therapy is based on Attachment Theory, which posits that 1) individuals are driven to connect in meaningful ways with others and 2) this drive to connect is a survival strategy. Individuals develop a "style" of interpersonal attachment that is developed by early relationships with caregivers but can also be informed by romantic relationships. Individuals with "insecure" attachment styles respond to relationship anxiety through contact-avoidant behaviors (i.e. becoming emotionally distant; breaking up when relationships feel "serious") and/or through contact-seeking behaviors (i.e. becoming possessive or dependent; asking for lots of reassurance). Attachment styles can change through doing work in therapy as well as through working with a partner in a romantic relationship. 

Narrative Therapy

We create meaning in our lives by telling ourselves stories about who we are and what we feel based on our prior experiences. We form a sense of identity through personal narrative. Client and therapist work together to 1) identify destructive personal narratives involving repetitive, unproductive patterns that have been informed by the client's maladaptive belief systems, and 2) to co-construct a new narrative to make sense of and learn from the past as well as to aid in carving out a more satisfying future. The new narrative is created through contextualizing events and symbolizing experience. Clients learn to use narrative skills to articulate an account of emotional experience, which aid in the processing of emotion. 

Existential Therapy

The goal of the existential therapist is to facilitate an "authentic dialogue" with the client where the focus is on increasing the client's honesty with him or herself. In order to facilitate this dialogue, the existential therapist must first enter the client's world and understand it from the inside. Once the existential therapist has joined the client in his or her world, the therapist then works to highlight the inconsistencies and contradictions in the client's ways of being with the ultimate purpose being to reduce self-deception and increase true self-knowledge. Existential Therapy is grounded in the philosophy of Existentialism, which posits that the individual is responsible for creating his or her own meaning and purpose in life. The acceptance of being a free creative agent involves reckoning with various existential conflicts, themes including death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness. 

Death: To live in the world, we must contend with the awareness of this one most inevitable/inescapable aspect of life versus our wish for immortality. 

Freedom: In the absence of external structure, we are responsible for our own choices and actions and in turn must confront this groundlessness versus our desire for grounding/structure. 

Isolation: No matter how close we can get to others, we all enter and leave the world alone. We must reckon with the awareness of this ultimate isolation versus the desire for contact, protection, and wish to be apart of a larger whole. 

Meaninglessness: We are meaning-making creators who are thrown into a universe that has no objective meaning. So if we are creating our own worlds, what meaning should we assign? How should we live?