Existential Therapy

Existential therapy focuses on themes of personal autonomy, isolation and connectedness, experiences of loss, and the search for meaning. The approach emphasizes your capacity to make rational choices and to develop to your maximum potential. Our work together will focus on increasing self-awareness, fostering personal growth, and living your authentic truth.

Existential therapy is a humanistic approach that focuses on the here and now. Emotions and feelings are a part of life and are a natural part of the human experience. In this approach, we aim to explore various forms of existential anxieties including meaninglessness, isolation, freedom of choice, death/dying in order to build a life worth living for. We may also explore how the way we relate to these existential concerns may keep us from living our life to it's fullest and how to change this.

What is it all for? Existential therapy tackles the deep, powerful questions that reside in each of us, to unlock the purpose and meaning that defines our life. Often feelings of sadness, loneliness, "stuck"ness & fear come from a place of living out of alignment with what we truly want and desire. Human concerns such as mortality, responsibility & freedom also impact how we move through the world, and existential therapy aims to explore these powerful concerns to unlock a happier life.

Especially in this political and social climate, anxiety, dread, and depression can be attributed to the human condition; that is, being a human in this deeply imperfect world is bound to bring with it anxieties, worries, and a sense of loneliness sometimes. Viewing it as a normal, although unpleasant, part of life can help to shift the narrative from pathology, to a temporary feeling that we can use to explore these emotions and how they impact us globally.

I work from an Existential-Humanistic lens, meaning that our work together will be phenomenological; I will ask you to be with what is true for you, what you experience, in each present moment. This will be something we practice, and come back to, again and again in our work together.

Our therapists are experienced in existential therapy, humanistic therapy and other holistic therapies incorporating several modalities into their individual practices.

When clients first begin therapy, one of the questions that often comes up is what it means to work through emotions or traumas. From the perspective of Existential Therapy, we address the meaning that these experiences hold for you, which comes from our ability to build context foresight around them. If the past still hurts, or if the future holds too many mysteries, it is worth exploring the meaning that we derive from our life's story as a whole.

“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.” This quote by Viktor Frankl changed my life. I was in the middle of my own therapy journey and needed a lifeline. This was it: permission to choose my own way, no matter how hard the situation. Existential therapy is all about finding meaning in your experiences, and giving you back the power to create change in your life.

An existential approach to therapy emphasizes the importance of the meaning that each person makes in life and that the path that one takes can only be understood in the context of their unique life experience. This means that the questions, "Who am I?" and "What is the meaning of life" is a personal journey that, ultimately, only the individual can discover for themselves.

"What is the meaning of life?" is an eternally joked about question, but when we do not have our own personal answer to this question it often leads to mental health challenges such as depression, anxiety, and interpersonal conflict. I support clients to ask the deep questions, seek and understand their core values, and find meaning in their life as a way to reduce negative symptoms and bring about positive mental health.

I have a deep appreciation for the place of meaning in human life.

"What is the meaning of life?" is an eternally joked about question, but when we do not have our own personal answer to this question based on our values and beliefs, it often leads to mental health challenges such as depression, anxiety, and interpersonal conflict. I support clients to ask the deep questions, seek and understand their core values, and find meaning in their life as a way to reduce negative symptoms and bring about positive mental health.

I have been interested in the meaning of life since I first read Man's Search For Meaning 30 years ago. As a cancer patient, I have had a lot of time to consider my own purpose, and I think most people at some point (or many points) in their lives have moments where they contemplate what this all means. I love helping my clients explore the existential concerns of death, freedom, isolation, and meaning.

I have a background in existential philosophy and psychology. Discovering deeper meaning by confronting the difficult questions that arise from the unique nature of the human condition. What does it mean to be alive? How do my choices define me? How can I live a life committed to action and purpose? How can I embrace my failures and celebrate my success?

We are free beings to choose as we see fit and create meaning out of those experiences that fulfills and enriches us. Yet, too many times we allow our perceptions to be shaped by biased meaning projected upon us and not authentic to our true self. What you have been through was not to diminish you. It was to equip you to receive more out of life.

Life is about finding your individual meaning, purpose, and direction. This is the only defense we have against the random horrible things that happen to us. Perhaps the best way to describe this type of therapy is to give you the name of two books to read: "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl and "The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients" by Irvin D. Yalom.

My experience and studies in literature paved the way for my current philosophical and therapeutic approach in counseling. It was the influence of French authors like Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus that left a huge mark on my professional development. I would later consolidate their teachings with experts in Psychology, such as Viktor Frankl and his emphasis on the "will to meaning." How we make meaning out of the suffering we endure can be one of the most powerful questions in counseling.