PS275 Lecture Notes - Existential Therapy, Existentialism, Gestalt Therapy
Document Summary
It holds that if unfettered by groundless fears and societal restrictions, human beings will develop normally, even exceptionally. Although it embraces free will and responsibility, it stresses the anxiety that is inevitable in making important choices. Avoiding choices may protect people from anxiety, but it also deprives them of living a life with meaning. Encourage clients to confront their anxiety concerning choices about how they will live, what they will value, and how they will relate to others. Life is not easy for those who would be true to themselves. People create their existence anew at each moment. The potential for disorder as well as for growth is ever present. Best understood as a general attitude taken by certain therapists toward human nature rather than as a set of therapeutic techniques. Both emphasize the creative and expressive aspects of people rather than the problematic features on which psychoanalysts seem to concentrate.
