Death, Freedom, Isolation and Uncertainty

The a u t hor is p ro ba bly best known for hi s co nt ri bu tions to g ro up psych otherapy. H owever, in hi s m ost recent book he atte m p ts to d e m o nst ra t e the a pplica tio n of ex is te n t ia l philosophical ideas to ind ividual psycho t herapy wit h ten patients. Nam es of ex is te n t ia l psych ot hera pist s that come to mind include Rollo May, Abraham M aslow, Carl R . Rod ge rs a nd Gordon Allpo rt. In the 1940s they g rew di ssatisfied with bo th psych oanal ysis a nd posit ivis tic behavorism a nd in the 1950s fou nded a new sc hool they ca lled Hu m anistic Psych ology (1 ,2) . For a sho r t period thei r nati onal influ ence was co ns iderable, leadi ng to the es ta blish me nt of both a j ournal a nd a national co nve n t ion. The founders beca m e in cr easingly a lienat ed by a 1960's cou n te rc u lt u re that e m braced humanist psych ology a nd they wit hd rew th e ir suppor t from the m ovement. Lo osely co nnecte d with the ex is te n t ia l school a nd spo rad ica lly co ncerned wit h their issu es we re a nalys ts lik e Ka re n H orn ey, Ott o Rank a nd E r ich Fromm. Exi st ential psych otherapy is roo ted in the phi losophy of ex is ten t ia lism which begins wit h the Dane So ren Ki e rk egaa rd ( 18 13-1855) a nd leads to t he 20t h ce n t u ry philosophers J ean Paul Sartre and M a rti n H eid egge r. P roba bly more in flue nt ia l t han a ny of the above are the great nove ls by Dost oevsky, T olst oy and Kafka that ca p t u red the ti m el ess and hones t tru ths of t he hu m a n expe r ience. What is the ex is t e n t ia l paradigm? Out of d esp air, whe n fa cing the finit eness of the se lf, the individual becomes awa re of se lf, is se lf, a nd u nd e rst a nd s se lf. W e are doomed to be fr ee, to be responsible for the cho ices we m ake; we a re born a lo ne a nd we will di e a lone in a world of uncert ainty a nd m eaningl essn ess. Thus, ex is te n t ia l psych otherapy d eal s with the " u lt ima te co nce rns," as Yal o m ca lls the m (3) . These basic precepts reveal clearly that the ex is t e n t ia l view deviat es sig nifica n t ly from m ainstrea m psychiatry. While it s language is psycholog icall y a lien , t here is a lso no room for e m pir ica l research because t he ex is te n t ia lis t post u lat es that man is grea te r than the su m of his part s. M an can no t be unders tood from t he study of partfu nction s, a notion that is not co ns ist e n t wi th the pre mise tha t e m pir ica l research is the m ethod of choice in determ ining how a nd wha t we know. The st ruggling