Existential Therapy
Institutional affiliation
Student Name
Introduction
For the longest time, vocational rehabilitation has dealt with assessing patients with disabilities and other various vocational difficulties to determine how suitable they are for employment and match their skills and abilities with the proper qualification. Vocational counselors, on most occasions, are going to be employed within counseling centers and also medical facilities where they collaboratively work with other teams to handle patients with similar disabilities. Their scope of work largely entails the assessing of patients to determine the skills and also viability to work in normal work environments. They have to keep updating the patient records after every session to determine the progress of the treatment process. They primarily deal with patients suffering from employment challenges that are considered a disability. One also crucial mandate that falls under vocational rehabilitation counselors in the development of training programs that will address the needs and challenges of the patients related to job skills and qualifications. In this paper, we are therefore going to look at what are the available options in terms of theoretical frameworks that vocational rehabilitation counselors can apply during their training and development sessions in order to solve a patient specific problem (Van, & Craig, 2019)—keeping in mind that during the training and development, vocational rehabilitation counselors will have to apply critical and communication skills while assessing the patient and also perform in depth research to understand the core issue at hand.
Hypothetical Client
Our hypothetical client is an individual who has gone through the realms of education and achieved good grades in schools. The individual may be coming from abusive family background and most likely faced emotional torture from a close family member. As they transition into adulthood and start living alone, meaning that they are responsible for their own decisions, they start relapsing. They start comparing their past experiences with their current situation and therefore not able to remain constantly under employment. There are days they want to report to work, and there are others they want to relax and sleep all day to the extent of even contemplating suicide. This patient is, on most occasions, unable to form meaningful relationships with friends and colleagues and is always viewing themselves as being on the receiving end. They tend to feel guilty of their past, and this consequently has affected their romantic relationships since they tend to lose it all and even turn abusive to their partners. With these kinds of characteristics, our hypothetical client is unable to interact and follow authority like other human beings and is always being rebellious toward systems. We, therefore, recommend such a patient case to be handled by a vocational rehabilitation counselor who is better placed to administer existential therapy to this patient. This therapy session could last for quite some time, ranging from 6-18 months, depending on the patient’s response towards the treatment therapy.
The Model
In this case, we are going to recommend existential therapy as a model to be used to treat the above condition. Existential therapy largely entails the exploration of the underlying difficulties and is viewed from a philosophical lens. This form of therapy strives to understand what is the human condition in general and then highlights what strengths lie within the individual, then encourages the patient to take charge of their success. Existential therapy tends to view emotional and psychological issues as arising from within an individual due to confrontation with their inner feelings and emotions (Plock, 2018). Thus, rather than focusing on past existential therapy, exploring the existing human condition and what their current attitudes and emotions mean to them.
Existential therapy has its background from philosophy and is commonly associated with Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche. These two philosophers took a particular interest in understanding the ideologies revolving around human conditions and their experiences every day. They introduced the idea of every human being at liberty of themselves and having the free will to act and, on the other hand, hold themselves accountable for their emotions and actions. In the early 1900s, these philosophers began to explore the significance of interpretation of human experiences and investigate how the healing process would be viewed from an internal perspective of the patient. Through these consecutive studies, they started to appreciate and acknowledge the great importance of having experience as a means of achieving psychological well-being.
Application of Theory
Comparing existential therapy to another form of therapy is that existential therapy does not place much emphasis on the past events and rather puts more consideration on the individual to understand the impact these past experiences have had on them. This means that existential therapy does not blame a patient’s condition on their past experiences; rather, it uses those experiences as insights and therefore turning them into useable tools to achieve freedom and assertiveness. This process by itself offers great relief to the patient since the vocational rehabilitation counselor will enable the patient to realize that their history does not define them and gives them hope for a brighter future towards liberation and freedom (Bazzano, 2021). Therefore, vocational rehabilitation counselor has a significant role in facilitating the understanding of an individual’s personal past encounters and help the patient recognize that these experiences form certain prejudices and assumptions that need to distinguish from reality. This will call for the existential therapist to avoid any form of biasness and being judgmental towards the patient will approaching them and give the patient a chance to express their own feelings and experiences how best they can.
Vocational rehabilitation therapists approaching patients through such sessions need to be open minded as this will offer them a better chance to recognize the biases and assumptions that are within the patient experience. Therefore, the goal of the therapist now becomes to clearly understand the patient’s assumptions with utmost clarity in a manner that they themselves would find it difficult to declutter. Existential counseling strongly believes that human beings are essentially lonely beings who are seeking to make meaningful connections with fellow human beings. This belief certainly helps explain why human beings have fluctuated emotions all through their life experiences. The existential theory also believes that there exists a form of internal conflict whereby individuals are in confrontation with their existence, and through human interactions, they tend to look for meaningful experiences.
Influential psychotherapist Irvin Yalom noted that human beings constantly search for freedom and responsibilities by creating meaningful experiences. He also noted that there exists existential isolation when an individual thinks about death, and therefore everyone lives in fear. Human beings tend to believe that the only guarantees available are death and taxes, and this provokes anxiety among them since their wish is to consciously avoid these remedies. Give the major concerns that form existential psychotherapy that is freedom and responsibilities, existential isolation, and death; they now guide us on how best a treatment formula can be formulated and become effective based on those tenets (Barnett & Madison, 2012). However, due to the all encompassing of existential therapy, it proves difficult to then understand what the single causing effect of psychological upsets is. For this reason, existential therapists have to treat each individual case with utmost independence and strive to understand their unique experiences in relation to their past, then develop a customized treatment framework that will work best for the individual patient.
To wholesomely address existential therapy, it is crucial that we describe it from four different approaches that confront most patients. With these approaches, a therapist can better understand the concerns of a patient based on their specific experiences. Therefore, our concerns are going to delve deeper into understanding an individual’s orientation towards the world and what realms define their reality. The physical realm focuses on physical issues within a world that we share with other living creatures and processing various body needs. Within the physical realm of the world, we find a lot of tension and anxiety tied around nature, life cycles of birth and death, and the more extensive feelings that every individual feels and experiences as long as they exist. Then there is the social realm that concerns everything about relationships. This realm mainly focuses on how culture, society, and language influence our social lives and shapes an individual’s attitudes towards authority, race, and family (Schneider & Krug, 2017). The social realm is also concerned about how emotions, friendships, and, to a greater extent, romantic relationships form part of the social world. Thirdly, we have the personal realm that focuses on the issues affecting an individual. The issues revolve around intimacy, identity, personal characteristics, and personal identification. To better understand the personal realm, we need to consider the strengths and weaknesses that make an individual be authentic in their character. Lastly, we have the making realm, which focuses on the ideal state of the world. This deals with how our values and beliefs, whether acquired through socialization or religion, shape the transformation of a human being. Through the making realm, an individual stands a better chance to understand their inner self and is thus considered a realm of transcendence.
Existential Counselling
The primary aim of existential counseling sessions for the vocational rehabilitation therapist is to help patients fully face their anxieties and embrace the freedom that comes with making their individual choices and being able to take full responsibility for their consequences. Through these therapy sessions, the counselor aims at helping the patient to be more authentic in their living habits and to be less concerned about the superficial values that exist around them. Additionally, through the therapy sessions, they highly encourage patients to take control of their lives for them to be in a position to enjoy living in the present (Richert, 2010). This existential therapeutical approach is more beneficial to individuals who are more concerned about issues revolving around their living and are looking forward to self examination to eliminate this psychiatric illness. Such individuals tend to also have frequent flash memories about committing suicide, and existential therapy would really work for them as a means of transitioning to a better living condition.
Having noted the modes of application involved during existential therapy, our hypothetical client needs to be approached with great caution and with an open mind to access their situation. The therapist will have to go through their past experience and understand how they are shaping his current behaviours and attitudes towards society. It is well noted that our patient has had an abusive upbringing, and his current condition borrows a lot from this experience. It would be, therefore, necessary that the existential therapist strives to understand what was the relationship between the abuser and the client was like. Through this engagement, the therapist needs to approach the client with empathy and a humanist approach for them to open up with fear or intimidation. This initial engagement will enable the therapist to build upon the transformational journey that led to their current state of behavioural change. Through this, they will be a better place to build on a framework that works best for them and solves their problem conclusively.
The initial therapy sessions with the patient have to be based on mutual respect, and for this to occur, there are several considerations that the existential therapist will have to consider. One is that the therapist needs to approach the client with an open mind and aim to build an alliance based on values for the therapy session to continue. The therapist also needs to emphasize to the client that they are accorded freedom of choice to express their feeling and emotions without any biases or being judged during the therapy session. The freedom of choice will consequently enable the client to open up on their experiences without being coarse in any manner. There is also the need for the therapist to clearly stipulate to the patient what the existential therapy sessions hope to achieve and what they expect from the patient. This avoids any form of ambiguity throughout the session and ensures that the goals of the therapy session are achieved. The therapist will formulate a framework for treatment after listening to the patient’s experiences and who they are influencing his current state of behaviuoral change. They need to work out a formula that will reduce their anxiety levels since this will enable them to be in a better position to cope with social authority and consequently follow instructions in the case of employment environments. The therapist needs to relate to the patient’s personal experiences and show their concern to enable them to appreciate their past and not view it as a source of their troubles. The patient will need to be taken through engaging therapy sessions that at times involve mind games and solving clues as this will make them appreciate the small wins at their disposal. The goal here is to ensure that the patients appreciate their current situate and understand that they need to get formally employed since they are qualified. To achieve this, they will need to be taught how to respond to their actions as a control mechanism for their outrageous behaviour.
Summary
Existential therapy basically emphasizes the capacity of a patient to build self-awareness that comes with being responsible for their actions as they act as free beings. Therapy sessions should aim at ensuring the patients appreciate their unique identity while interacting with other to form formidable relationships (Van, & Adams, 2016). Generally, through existential therapy, the issue here is that every individual is evolving in terms of growth and relationships and thus the need for evaluation and recreation to become a better person since the value of life is constantly changing. The existential theory also propagates the appreciation of death as part of the human condition that gives significance to living and that every human being is exposed to anxiety at every stage of their life.
References
Top of Form
Barnett, L., & Madison, G. (2012). Existential therapy: Legacy, vibrancy, and dialogue. Hove, East Sussex: Routledge.
Top of Form
Bazzano, M. (2021). Re-visioning existential therapy: Counter-traditional perspectives.
Top of Form
Top of Form
Plock, S. . (2018). Case studies in existential therapy: Translating theory into practice.
Bottom of Form
Bottom of Form
Top of Form
Richert, A. J. (2010). Integrating existential and narrative therapy: A theoretical base for eclectic practice.
Top of Form
Schneider, K. J., & Krug, O. T. (2017). Existential-humanistic therapy.
Bottom of Form
Bottom of Form
Bottom of Form
Bottom of Form
Van, D. E., & Adams, M. (2016). Skills in Existential Counselling & Psychotherapy.
Top of Form
Van, D. E., & Craig, E. (2019). The Wiley world handbook of existential therapy.
Bottom of Form
Bottom of Form