Existential Therapy - Beyond Psychopathology
Existential Therapy - Beyond Psychopathology
• Short/CPD courses
• Existential Therapy training
• Existential Couple therapy training
• Free emotional crisis support services:
1.EU citizens in UK
2.Ukrainians in UK
3.Those affected by Middle East conflict
• Hosting organizations, including
FETE, V4E, SOP, ERA and EM
@Emmy van Deurzen 2023
@Emmy van Deurzen 2023
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Existential Therapy
in practice
• Constructive dialogue beyond blame and
shame.
• No psychopathology: modes of being
• Focus on a person’s actual life as lived
• Make a map of their connections and
values
• Philosophical view of human existence:
what matters most?
• Role of anxiety, guilt, despair and
suffering: paradox
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Gaining perspective: getting an
overview of your existence.
4/9/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Sisyphus: facing up to life’s futility
and to its uphill struggle: a long
repetitive journey.
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Finding a way to transcend or surpass our troubles: how
have you overcome a serious problem in your life?
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
We need a map of the landscape around us, a sense of direction and a
compass, each layer can facilitate or obstruct us in our progress
Nature
Culture-ideology-
politics
Society-state-
institutions
Peer groups
Family
Individual
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Juliet Young,
of Patreon
summary of
social factors
4/9/2024
@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
ACT Acceptance
and Commitment
Therapy
• Opening up to unpleasant
feelings
• Moving towards more
desirable behaviours and
experiences
• A CBT model going in an
existential direction
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Power Threat Meaning Framework
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Open Dialogue: Alanen, Seikkula,
Alakar, Aaltonen in Finland
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Resilience
Personal space
Spiritual: review
values, new
vision, trust, Social: strong
relationships,
transcendence,
allow and
dialectic,
understand
stronger beliefs, emotions,
meaning, belonging,
purpose, caring, sharing,
project support
Sðren Franz Brentano Jean Paul Sartre Michel Foucault Martin Buber
Kierkegaard 1838-1917 1905-1980 1926-1984 1878-1965
1813-1855
Friedrich Edmund Maurice Emmanuel Paul Tillich
Nietzsche Husserl Merleau Ponty Levinas 1886-1965
Existential 1844-1900 1859-1938 1908-1961 1905-1995
Authors Arthur
Schopenhauer
Karl Jaspers
1883-1969
Simone de
Beauvoir
Paul Ricoeur
1913-2005
Rollo May
1909-1994
provide the 1788-1860 1908-1986
approach
Karl Marx Max Scheler Albert Camus Jacques Derrida Abraham
1818-1883 1874-1928 1913-1960 1930-2004 Maslow
1908-1970
09/04/2024
Existential Authors
Existential Philosophers
Philosophers
of
Phenomeno-
logists
Existentialists Post-
Structuralists
Existential-
Humanists
Freedom
| Kierkegaard
Sðren Nietzsche
Franz Brentano JeanHusserl
Paul Jaspers
Michel Heidegger
Martin Buber
Sartre de
Kierkegaard
Beauvoir Buber
1838-1917 Sartre
Camus Foucault
Merleau Ponty
1878-1965
1813-1855 1905-1980 1926-1984
Foucault
Friedrich Edmund Maurice Emmanuel Paul Tillich
Nietzsche Husserl Merleau Ponty Levinas 1886-1965
1844-1900 1859-1938 1908-1961 1905-1995
Arthur Karl Jaspers Simone de Paul Ricoeur Rollo May
Schopenhauer 1883-1969 Beauvoir 1913-2005 1909-1994
1788-1860 1908-1986
Fyodor Martin Gabriel Marcel Jacques Hannah
Dostoyevski Heidegger 1889-1973 Lacan Arendt
1821-1881 1889-1976 1901-1981 1906-1975
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Existential Practitioners
Ludwig Medard Boss Rollo May Thomas Szasz Viktor Frankl Ronald D. Laing
Binswanger 1904- 1990 1909-1994 1920-2012 1905-1997 1927-1989
1881-1966
Karl Jaspers Gion Condrau James Bugental Aaron Esterson Joseph Fabry Hans Cohn
1883-1969 1919- 2006 1915- 2008 1923-1999 1909 - 1999 1916-2004
Eugene Alice Holzey-Kunz Irvin Yalom Peter Lomas Paul Wong Ernesto Spinelli
Minkowski 1943- 1931- 1924-2010 1937- 1949-
1885-1972
Erich Fromm Erik Craig Kirk Schneider Betty Cannon Alfried Längle Emmy van Deurzen
1900-1980 1944- 1956- 1943- 1951- 1951-
4/9/2024
ESSENTIAL
Existential Practitioners
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Karl Jaspers
1883-1969
• There are situations which remain
essentially the same
• even if their momentary aspect changes and
their shattering force is obscured:
• I must die, I must suffer, I must struggle, I
am subject to chance,
• I involve myself inexorably in guilt.
• We call these fundamental situations of our
existence ultimate situations.
• (Jaspers 1951:20)
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
magnum opus:
A General Psychopathology (Jaspers 1963):
how do people grapple with limit situations?
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Ludwig Binswanger: 1881-
1966 existential analysis
• ..to be a man means not only to be a creature begotten by living-dying life,cast into it and
beaten about, and put into high spirits or low spirits by it: it means to be a being that looks its
own and mankind’s fate in the face, a being that is ‘steadfast’ (Binswanger 1963:204). Umwelt,
Mitwelt, Eigenwelt.
• Mutuality
• The anonymous mode of relating individual living in relation to an unknown and collective
mute world with requirements and demands which leaves us relating like objects and automata.
• The plural mode of relating is that of formal relationships, in which we compete and struggle
for dominance. In this mode there are several beings fighting or grappling for power.
• The singular mode of relating is that of our relationship to ourselves: inward and self relating,
either in struggle or harmony.
• The dual mode of relating is that of intimacy with a single other. This is very much Buber's I-
Thou and therefore includes the possibility of our relationship to the infinite as well.
• People’s actions are meaningful, not random. When Ilse puts her arm in the fire, she is
sacrificing herself for her father.
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Medard Boss 1903-1990
• Daseins Analysis
• Work with Freud, Jung, Jones, Binswanger, Heidegger.
• Existential Foundations of Medicine and
Psychology (1979). S. Conway and A. Cleaves,
trans. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.
• Psychoanalysis and Daseinsanalysis (1963). L.
E. Lefebre, trans. New York: Basic Books.
• I Dreamt Last Night... (1977). S. Conway, trans.
New York: Gardner Press.
• The Analysis of Dreams (1957). J. Pomerans,
trans. New York: Philosophical Library.
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
American existential therapists
• Existential Psychotherapy
• The Gift of Therapy
• Love’s Executioner
• Staring at the Sun
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Thomas Szasz 1920-2012
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Myth of Mental Illness (1961)
• Myth of Mental Illness (1961). Mental illness is a
metaphor for being disabled by living rather than having
a disease or a disorder
• Don’t try to cure people, be honest and mind your own
conduct
• In most types of voluntary psychotherapy, the therapist tries
to elucidate the inexplicit game rules by which the client
conducts himself; and to help the client scrutinise the goals
and values of the life games he plays (ibid.).
• Against all coercion.
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Political stance: prof of psychiatry at State University of New York, Syracuse
4/9/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Developments around Europe in 50s and 60s
against involuntary commitment, ECT and
psychoactive medication (chlorpromazine)
influenced by Foucault, the Birth of the Clinic,
Deleuze, Guattari, Anti-Oedipus.
UK developments
Ronald David Laing
(1927-1989)
• We live equally out of our bodies, and out of our
minds. Concerned as I am with this inner world,
observing day in and day out its devastation, I
ask why this has happened? Laing, 1967:50
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
• ‘The individual in the ordinary circumstances of living may feel more unreal
than real; in a literal sense, more dead than alive; precariously
differentiated from the rest of the world, so that his identity and autonomy
are always in question. He may lack the experience of his own temporal
Laing ontological continuity. He may not possess an over-riding sense of personal consistency
or cohesiveness. He may feel more insubstantial than substantial and
in-security unable to assume that the stuff he is made of is genuine, good, valuable.
And he may feel his self as partially divorced from his body.’
• R.D. Laing, The Divided Self.
Laing:
Breakthrough instead of breakdown.
◼Loss and transition are about breakdown of the old.
◼Instead of breaking down and becoming depressed it
can mean we break through some block and move on
to a next level.
◼In the process we become stronger.
◼We establish values that are more deeply rooted.
◼Therapeutic communities: allow regression
◼Inspired by Stanislav Grof: use of psychedelics
◼and Gregory Bateson: double bind
◼Rebirthing
absorbed in 1. Engulfment, which is the fear of being flooded,
contriving ways of overwhelmed, surrounded and destroyed by the
other.
trying to be real, of 2. Implosion, which is the sense of being so
preserving his completely empty that one is in danger of
disappearing into a black hole - of falling into
identity. . . to an endless pit of nothingness where one’s
prevent himself existence explodes inwards and is annihilated.
loosing his self' 3. Petrification, or depersonalisation, which is
the experience of being turned into a thing by
(Laing 1959: 42-3). the other - of having one's selfhood and
autonomy so negated; that the only solution is
to freeze or let oneself turn to stone.
09/04/2024
@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
• Psychotherapy must remain an obstinate attempt of
two people to recover the wholeness of being human
through the relationship between them (Laing
1967:45)
• The psychotherapeutic relationship is therefore a
Politics of research. A search , constantly reasserted and
reconstituted for what we have all lost, and which
experience some can perhaps endure a little more easily than
others, as some people can stand lack of oxygen
1967 better than others, and this re-search is validated by
the shared experience of experience regained in and
through the therapeutic relationship in the here and
now. (Laing, 1967:47)
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Registration with Existential therapy
UKCP as existential included in most
therapy in Phenomenological
UK Outcome research
at Roehampton,
research at
Regent’s,
Metanoia, Surrey,
Mick Cooper Roehampton, City,
Middlesex and
New School etc.
Loving your Life
Method: Edmund
Husserl’s Phenomenology
1859-1938
• Phenomenology:
appearance<>essence
• Wesenschau: to things
themselves.
• Intentionality (Franz Brentano)
• Intuition: question natural
attitude.
• Knowledge begins with experience
• Bracketing assumptions, epoche
• Noesis or cogitatio (process or predicate): phenomenological
reduction
• Noema or cogitata (object): eidetic reduction
Intentionality • Ego cogito (subject): transcendental reduction
Birth and death
Closing off freedom to keep
anxiety at bay: Heidegger
• Being taken over by the world in fascination
• Fallenness with other people –dispersion
• Tranquillizing: protective sheltering
• Backing away, comfort seeking, shirking
• Rapture of forgetting- closing off- covering up
• Non-transparency: opaqueness
• Evasion, fleeing
• Distraction, irresoluteness, alienation
• Inauthenticity: negation of death and existential limits
• Un-owned existence: indifference
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Being lost and finding something new
• Heidegger’s aletheia (ἀλήθεια): truth means: unveiling the hidden
• In loss we become homeless, Unheimlich and are forced to find ourselves for the first time.
Heidegger and anxiety
Kierkegaard 1813-1855
Kierkegaard’s
definition
• Anxiety is the dizziness of
freedom.
(Kierkegaard 1844:155)
Paul Ricoeur’s
dialogue
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2017
Enable people to search for truth in their lives
Help them live passionately and
compassionately
Aim of Finding inner authority: think for yourself
Greater understanding of the human condition
existential Purpose and direction: intentionality
dialogue Paradox, dialectic: freedom, responsibility, life,
death
Find talents, strength, vulnerability
Past, present, future, temporality
As therapists we
are the guardians
of the Art of Living:
• The art of living is about weaving the
different strands of life together into
a meaningful whole that holds us
safe.
• Strands are constantly added and
taken away.
• We need to tend carefully to the
fabric of our lives on a daily basis,
disconnecting, reconnecting and
integrating all the time.
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Frankl’s way to meaning •Experiential values: what we take from the world.
•Creative values: what we give to the world.
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
We think we
control
connections
but in loss:
sudden
disconnection
: meaning is
severed as we
lose what we
love and what
defined us.
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We feel best when
weaving it together:
‘religare’= connecting=
religion.
09/04/2024
@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Loss means a
sudden
disconnection:
if this is at
every level of
our life, we
experience
existential
crisis
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All of us are faced with limits (Jaspers)
• Temporality
• Gravity
• Entropy
• Death
• Labour
• Illness
• Failure
• Loss
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
We analyze and pull things apart to gain knowledge.
We use memory, imagination, dreams and creativity to
connect.
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
We go forward together, slowly,
step by step.
With life as our guide.
• What is this person’s world? What are
their connections and values?
• What are the life issues this client is
preoccupied with?
• What path are they on? Where are they
going?
• What understanding of this does the
therapist have?
• How can the therapist find new direction
with this client?
• What are the points of blockage or
friction?
09/04/2024
• Dialogue
@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
It’s essential that we do not locate the source of
our problems in ourselves when it belongs
elsewhere. Many problems are existential and
structural.
ONTO
We consider the client’s struggles, but do not
DYNAMICS pathologize them. Rather try to describe, identify,
Not PSYCHO experience and put into perspective.
DYNAMICS
What are the client’s assumptions, values, mode of
being and worldview?
09/04/2024
@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
@ EmmyvanDeurzen2022
WHAT IS SEA?
* STRUCTURAL EXISTENTIAL ANALYSIS IS A
METHOD OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH THAT
SYSTEMATICALLY TRACKS PEOPLE’S LIFE WORLD
AS THEY EXPERIENCE IT IN THEIR SITUATION
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Structural Existential
Analysis (SEA):
onto dynamics
1. Phenomenology: bias and the
reductions
2. Philosophy: methodology
3. Space: four worlds
4. Time: four dimensions
5. Paradox: conflicts and
dialectics
6. Passion: emotional compass
7. Purpose: intentionality, values
and direction
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
SEA
Time
Space
Passion Purpose
Re Dia-
ductions logue
Phenomeno-
Paradox Philosophy
logy
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
@ EmmyvanDeurzen2022
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Assumptions and prejudice
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@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
• Phenomenology
• Wesenschau: to things
Edmund themselves.
• Intentionality (Franz
Husserl Brentano).
09/04/2024
Assumptions and
prejudice
We are always making sense of our world: we can never be free of our
assumptions.
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Intentionality
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
The Phenomenological Method consists of
several reductions
09/04/2024
@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
I. Phenomenological reduction
6. Verification: don’t
4. Horizontalization: be 5. Equalization: initially
jump to conclusions but
aware of the limit and accord equal
check again and again
context of our importance to
that you are processing
observations. everything in sight.
things correctly.
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
II. Eidetic Reduction
3. Wesenschau: we look for essences directly: aiming to grasp what is really the case, rather than
how it seems.
4. Genetic constitution (vs. static): bear in mind everything is in movement and changes
dynamically: we only really know something when we see it changing.
5. Universals beyond the properties: ultimately we seek to unite all aspects to come together in an
infinite manner.
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
III. Transcendental reduction
2. Transcendental ego: we
3. Solipsism overcome: this
1. Cogito or nous: this is the seek to go beyond the
unites us as we go beyond
thinking self, the subject of personal ego towards a pure
ourselves and connect in
intentionality. observing ego:
intersubjectivity.
consciousness itself.
4. Transcendental inter-
4. Horizon of intentionality: 5. Self as point zero: be
subjectivity: seek to connect
but there is still a limit to aware your vision always
your perceptions with those
what we can see from where comes from the centre of
of others: interactive
we stand: know this limit. your own world.
checking of truth.
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
THERAPIST BIAS: S-O-A-R
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@ EmmyvanDeurzen2022
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Athenian philosophers:
Asking Questions and
Reflecting
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@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
09/04/2024
Philosophical Methods
Ontology Bring our understanding of Being to bear on the
ontic (lived) reality of the person: worldview-
modes of being
Maieutics Bringing out hidden but deeply felt truths: Socratic
dialogue: finding essences, clarifying definitions
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Four dimensions of life.
4.Spiritual: Uberwelt
3.Personal: Eigenwelt
2.Social: Mitwelt
1.Physical: Umwelt
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Dimensions of existence
Spiritual:
Good/Evil
Intuitions, values, beliefs, purpose, meaning.
Worldview/Ideas.
Personal:
Strength/Weakness
Thoughts, memories, identity, freedom.
Selfhood/Me.
Social:
Love/Hate
Feelings, relations, belonging, acknowledgement.
Communication/Others.
Physical:
Life/Death
Sensations, actions, environment, body, things.
Survival/World.
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
1. Space
Spiritual
Personal
Social
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Physical
@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Four relational layers
Spiritual:
ideas
Personal: self
Social: others
Physical: things
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Four worlds
4/9/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
dimensions Physical
survival
Nature Things Body Cosmos
spheres of Personal
identity
Private Me Self Consciousness
existence: Spiritual
meaning
Infinite Ideas Spirit Conscience
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Surplus and lack on each dimension
Physical Social Personal Spiritual
Surplus Addiction, Sadism, Narcissism, Fanaticism,
Compulsion, Sociopathy, Psychopathy Mania,
Bulimia Bullying Egocentricity Paranoia
Lack Anorexia, Masochism, Self harm Apathy,
Hypochondria, Borderline, Suicide Depression
Phobia Hysteria Schizophrenia Melancholia
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
@ EmmyvanDeurzen2022
THEEXACTSCI EN
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Multi dimensional
time and change
• Past
• Present
• Future
• Eternity
• Timelessness
• Parallel universes
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Personal timeline
Purpose
New Feeling
event: in the
Low hope flow
point and
strong
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Plotting your lifeline
7
5
physical
4
social
3 personal
2 spiritual
0
past present future ideal
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
downs
Something
going wrong
Lost job
illness
Lose
confidence
Nose dive
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
EUGÈNE MINKOWSKI
All Time exists in the present
Present
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Time Zones
• Present: zone of activity, which includes all the other zones of time
• Remote past: zone of the obsolete and of history, including one’s own life myths
• Mediate past: zone of loss and regret
• Immediate past: zone of remorse or grief
• Immediate future: zone of expectation
• Mediate future: zone of wish and hope or dread and anxiety.
• Remote future: zone of prayer and ethical action and also of ultimate meaning of
life.
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Heidegger’s time: historicality:
@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
the ec-stasies
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Temporality vs Eternity
@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
past
present
future
09/04/2024
Dialectic of time
Deurzen and Arnold-Baker 2018
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Living in time
@ EmmyvanDeurzen2022
V. PARADOX
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3. Paradox and CONFLICT
pro con
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
What is paradox?
are
opposites
inevitable
Polarities and
contradictions are the
dynamic power of life.
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Both positives and
@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
negatives: +
_
See how
they
relate
09/04/2024
The power of tension
and paradox
Polarities and opposites are the dynamic power of life:
Tension = charge = energy
Fears
Desires
Ta o i s m :
Yin (moon/dark/
fe m a l e ) a n d Ya n g
(light/sun/
male)
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Dimension Positive Negative Minimal Goal Optimal
Purpose Concern Value
Physical: Health Illness Fitness Vitality
Pleasure Pain Safety Well Being
Strength Weakness Efficacy Ability
Life Death Survival Existence
Social Success Failure Skill Contribution
Belonging Isolation Kinship Loyalty
Acceptance Rejection Recognition Cooperation
Love Hate Respect Reciprocity
Personal Identity Confusion Individuality Integrity
Perfection Imperfection Achievement Excellence
Independence Dependency Autonomy Liberty
Confidence Doubt Poise Clarity
Spiritual Good Evil Responsibility Transparency
Truth Untruth Reality Authenticity
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Meaning Absurdity Sense Value
World Umwelt Mitwelt Eigenwelt Uberwelt
Physical Nature: Things: Body: Cosmos:
@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Synthesis:
a wider view
future
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Exploring our limits and our
possibilities. Understanding and
getting things in perspective
• Living deliberately
• Befriending and treasuring our anxiety
• Facing facts
• Seeking truth
• Finding our purpose and direction
• Breathing and living fully
• With the courage of our values
• Empowerment
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
@ EmmyvanDeurzen2022
THEEXACTSCI EN
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John Henry Fuseli’s the
nightmare:
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4. PASSION:
the Emotional Compass
• State of mind
1. sensation
2. emotion
3. thought
4. intuition
• Compass of emotions : Befindlichkeit
• Where is the person? Where did they
come from, where are they now, where
are they going?
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
How we experience our world: attunement
We pick up messages, moods and
atmospheres. We change the tone and affect
the world in turn. We interpret meanings. We
search for deeply felt experience, connection,
engagement. We resonate
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
The I is like the eye
We refract light/life like
lenses or prisms: but we have
intentionality:
• We transform what we receive and either reflect it,
absorb it, stop it, ward it off or pass it on as is.
• We can also learn to magnify and illuminate it, refracting
all different facets (phenomenology)
• We attribute, receive, transform and create meanings
• We reflect.
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Compass of Happiness
emotions High
joy pride
love jealousy
hope- anger-
desire despair
envy fear
Anxiety Depression
Excitement shame sorrow Disappointment
Engagement Disengagement
Sadness
Low
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Four kinds of emotions
• Gain • Threat
value to value
find fight
freeze flight
• Aspire • Loss of
to value value
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Threat to value:
pride, jealousy, anger
Pride
Jealousy
Anger
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Loss of value
(despair, fear, sorrow):
Despair,
Fear,
Sorrow
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Aspire to value:
desire, envy, shame
Desire
Envy
Shame
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Gain value: hope, love, joy
Hope,
love, joy
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
We attune to the
world by our
desire for what
we value and love
and our fear of
losing it
09/04/2024
Exhilaration
Happiness
12:High/
Tension
Joy-thrill-excitement:11 1:Pride-confidence-arrogance
Love-courage-commitment:10 2:Jealousy-worry-vigilance
Up Down
Hope-desire-resolve:9 gain 3:Anger-hate-despair
loss
Envy-curiosity-aspiration:8 4:Fear-confusion-cowardice
Shame-emptiness-guilt:7 5:Sorrow-misery-resignation
6. Low/ Release
Despondency
Depression
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Compass of Physical Satisfaction
Sensation Fullness
Pleasure Greed
Lust Stinginess
Excitement Frustration
Craving Disgust
Gain Loss
Need Pain Threat
Survival
Deprivation
Emptiness
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Compass of Social Belonging
Feeling Oneness
Acceptance Care
Love Jealousy
Approval Anger
Envy Fear
Isolation
Separateness
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Compass of Personal Perfection
Thinking Strength
Confidence Superiority
Commitment Stubbornness
Courage Defiance
Anxiety Deflation
Imperfection
Weakness
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Compass of Spiritual Meaning
Intuition Purpose
Bliss Pride
Resoluteness Prudence
Hope Wrath
Aspiration Resignation
Futility
Absurdity
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Compass Rose John Bennett
Exhilaration-Happiness -High -Tension
(12)
Resoluteness Prudence
(S10) (S2)
Good Jealousy -Worry -Vigilance
Love-courage-commitment: (2)
(10)
Wrath
Hope (S3)
(S9)
Evil
Aspiration
(S8)
Resignation
Guilt (S4)
Satisfaction (S7) Perfection
Fullness Disillusionment Strength
PS(12) Futility PT(12)
Absurdity (S5) Confidence
Greed (S6) Superiority
Pleasure PS(1) PT(11)
(PT1)
PS(11)
Stinginess Commitment Stubbornness
PS(2) PT(10) PT(2)
Survival Lust Success
PS(10)
Hope-desire-resolve:
(9) Courage
Gain Excitement PT(9) Defiance Anger - Hate -Despair
PS(9) Frustration Threat
PS(3) PT(3) (3)
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Meaning Purpose S(12)
John
Prudence (S2)
Resoluteness (S10) Stubbornness PT(2)
Commitment PT(10)
Love SF(10) Jealousy SF(2)
Lust PS(10) Stinginess PS(2)
Bennett
research
Hope Courage Approval Excitement Frustration Anger Defiance Wrath
(S9) PT(9) SF(9) PS(9) PS(3) SF(3) PT(3) (S3)
Craving
PS(8) Disgust PS(4)
Envy
SF(8) Fear SF(4)
Anxiety
PT(8)
Aspiration Deflation PT(4)
(S8)
Resignation (S4)
Need PS(7)
Pain PS(5)
Shame SF(7) Rejection SF(5)
Inferiority PT(7) Deprivation Emptiness PS(6) HumiliationPT(5)
Guilt (S7)
Isolation Separateness SF(6)
Disillusionment (S5)
Imperfection Weakness PT(6)
Futility Absurdity (S6)
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
@ EmmyvanDeurzen2022
THEEXACTSCI EN
CESARENOTHINGWITHOUTAPSYC
HOLO
GI C
AL PERSP
ECTI VE.
09/04/2024
@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Meaning is
found not
despite but
because of
adversity
09/04/2024
5. Purpose and Intentionality
physical social personal spiritual
Deficit Difference Dilemma Disorientation
Disease Discord Deception Delusion
(self)
Desire Dominance Disappointment Doubt
Dependence Dishonesty Dread Debt
Dis- Dis- Despondency Dissolution
embodiment engagement
Death Destruction Distress Despair
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Human values
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
09/04/2024
Living with conflict and trauma
Spiritual:
Integrate what has happened in world view
Improve rather than give up values, beliefs, purpose, meaning.
Stick with what is true but transcend values.
Personal:
Allow the event to strengthen your character
Express thoughts and memories. Regain a sense of freedom in relation to adversity.
Learn to yield as well as to be resolute.
Social:
Seek to go beyond hateful and destructive relations by isolation and avoidance till
Reconciliation is possible. Seek belonging with like minded allies.
Communicate your emotions without reproach, resentment, bitterness.
Physical:
Seek safety when under threat.
Trust and heed sensations of stress. Find natural environment that can soothe as
well as expand your horizons.
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Quest for
Happiness
will never
succeed:
life is more
complex
than that
@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
09/04/2024
Holding truth open for the other
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Exploring our limits and our
possibilities. Understanding and
getting things in perspective
• Living deliberately
• Befriending and treasuring our anxiety
• Facing facts
• Seeking truth
• Finding our purpose and direction
• Breathing and living fully
• With the courage of our values
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Existential intelligence
• Embracing existence in its contradictions and
rising from adversity
• Realizing that there is no such thing as a perfect
human being or a perfect life
• Learning to be resilient and flexible enough to
negotiate on-going paradoxes
• Facing existential challenges in a personal and
creative manner that allows for dialectic
• Welcoming truth and transparency, being open
to feelings and understanding what they mean
• Deep reflection and purposeful action go hand in
hand.
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Reclaiming
TIME-SPACE
• Heidegger’s Zeit-raum: time-space, is not
the same as the space-time of physicists.
Time-space is the point where space and
time come together before the big-bang
and they have their origin in a common
root.
• It opens up the Spielraum, elbowroom or
play-space in which we find the truth of
being.
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Enabling a
person to find
their inner
authority in the
face of their
anxiety is to
show them the
meaning of
existential
courage.
09/04/2024
Heidegger’s Ereignis:
re-owning your life
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
It is not just
about seeking
the light
we have to
accept that
people seek to
be the light: a
source of truth
09/04/2024
Making meaning
in time
• Past meanings
• Present meanings
• Future meanings
• Eternal meanings
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
connection: physical: harmony/skills/science/act in the world
09/04/2024
Connection: personal:
Inner integrity/peace/
transformation/create safety in the world
People need education, support, creativity, clarity, arts, philosophical thought, leisure in order to function
well and have confidence
@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
09/04/2024
Connection:
spiritual:
truth/value/
transcendence/s
eek meaning in
the world
People need a
credible vision
and belief
system, freedom
of creed, but
also a joint
framework of
morality and
commitment to
truth and justice
and freedom
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Face new realities for
adaptability, flexibility,
neuroplasticity and
dynamic evolution
• Use your senses, let nature calibrate you, observe and pay attention.
• Be disciplined in your practice, be flexible, attentive: care
• Find the balance, the beauty, the harmony
• Life is energy: your body transforms energy
• Work, move, eat, drink and sleep. Be gentle
• Your inner world is not just a depository for opinions, media messages,
advice, labels, admonishments and judgements. It is your inner sanctuary.
• Focus on your interiority and create space
• Pay attention to your thoughts, try different thoughts, be kind and caring
and clear.
• Do problem solving instead of just worrying. Observe yourself. Be.
• Self reflection, observation, compassion, respect, understanding are the
building blocks
• The eye of the self is a passage towards clarity and vision, focal point,
portal.
• You are the source and the place and the space and the moment.
@Emmy van Deurzen 2023
YOUR SPIRIT
• What are you connected to? What greater and ultimate reality are
you addressing?
• Inner peace comes from alignment and openness and trust in your
harmony with the infinite
• Your consciousness is a window on eternity
• Learn to live in time: learning from past, being fully awake in the
present, foreseeing and anticipating a creative future
• Have a vision of the complete picture
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
So that we can find ourselves
again, know where we are and
have a sense of direction and
purpose
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
When it is dark enough,
you can see the stars.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
You may have
been lost in space
and time, but
eventually: earth
rises again,
and you know
how to find your
way home
1968 Earthrise picture from Apollo 8 mission
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
THANK YOU
for listening
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
@EmmyvanDeurzen2022
www.dilemmaconsultancy.com
www.nspc.org.uk
www.existentialacademy.com
www.emmyvandeurzen.com
www.existentialtherapies.org
FETE: Federation for Existential Therapy in Europe
www.existentialmovement.world
Existential Movement
09/04/2024
Books to read for Existential Therapy
• Basic intro: Existential Therapy Distinctive Features
• Existential Practice: Existential Counselling and Psychotherapy in
Practice
• Skills: Skills in Existential Counselling and Psychotherapy
• Existential Philosophy and its applications: Everyday Mysteries
• Everything:
Wiley World Handbook
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022
Self reflection
Di d I get an understanding of the Di d I help her gain greater Wha t a re my cl ient’s va lues and Wha t a re her ma ny connections: Wha t a re her greatest, gra vest How ca n we help her progress
cl i ent’s world? What was my pers pective? What limited us i n purpose? Their l osses a nd do we ha ve a beginning of a concerns? What emotions are towa rds greater truth and
bi as? doi ng s o? regrets ? ma p? expressed or s uppressed? coura ge?
09/04/2024 @EmmyvanDeurzen2022