EXISTENTIAL ANALYSIS OVERVIEW

 

Existential Analysis (and its subsidiary branch, Logotherapy), is a psychotherapeutic method, which works primarily through verbally induced processes. In view of its method and its anthropology, it can be defined as a phenomenological and person-oriented psychotherapy, its aim being to enable the person to construct (mentally and emotionally) free experiences, to induce authentic decisions and to bring about a truly responsible way of dealing with life and the world. Thus, Existential Analysis can be applied in cases of psychosocial, psychosomatic and psychologically caused disturbances in experience and behaviour.

 

At the centre of Existential Analysis, we find the concept of “existence”. This means a life that is full of meaning, being given its shape in freedom and with responsibility, all within the framework of the individual’s particular world, with which this person maintains a relationship of mutual dialogue and influence.

​

The aim of existential analytical psychotherapy is to free the person from fixations, distortions, one-sidedness and traumatization, which influence his or her experiences and behaviour. The psychotherapeutic process takes place via phenomenological analyses of the emotions as the centre of experiences. Biographical work and empathic listening by the therapist contribute to an improvement in emotional understanding and accessibility. The following work shows the procedure through which patients are going to be freed for those purposes, aims, tasks and values which they conceive of as the authentic content of their lives and for which they want to live.