History of existential therapy
- Its origins go back to the existential philosophers of the 20th century, mainly to Jean-Paul Sartre, who declared in 1943 that we are “condemned to be free.”
- Viktor Frankl wrote Man’s Search for Meaning in 1946, and coined logotherapy as a method of creating meaning.
- Rollo May moved his perspective of the “existential-humanistic” approach in the 1950s from Europe to America.
- In 1980, Irvin Yalom defined the basis of the field of existential therapy, by establishing the four “givens” of the human condition: death, meaning, isolation, and freedom.
- Today there are a few different branches of existential therapy, but they all emphasize the fact that we can deal with existential givens in a way that can move us toward a free, authentic existence.
196
672 reads
CURATED FROM
IDEAS CURATED BY
The idea is part of this collection:
Learn more about personaldevelopment with this collection
How to communicate effectively with difficult people
How to handle conflict
How to stay calm under pressure
Related collections
Similar ideas to History of existential therapy
Criticism of logotherapy
In 1961, psychologist Rollo May, founder of the existential movement in the United States, argued that logotherapy was equivalent to authoritarianism, where the therapist dictates solutions to the patient.
It may be that logotherapy argues that there are always clear solut...
What is existential therapy
Existential therapy concentrates on free will, self-determination, and the quest for meaning. It views experiences like as anxiety, alienation and depression as normal phases in the human development and maturation.
This process involves a philosophical examination of a p...
Jean-Paul Sartre and Existentialism
Jean-Paul Sartre was born in 1905 in Paris, France and is considered to be one of the main popularizers of existential thinking. For Existentialists, life has no fundamental meaning or truth beyond what is created by our decisions and actions within it.
The core of Existential thought is t...
Read & Learn
20x Faster
without
deepstash
with
deepstash
with
deepstash
Personalized microlearning
—
100+ Learning Journeys
—
Access to 200,000+ ideas
—
Access to the mobile app
—
Unlimited idea saving
—
—
Unlimited history
—
—
Unlimited listening to ideas
—
—
Downloading & offline access
—
—
Supercharge your mind with one idea per day
Enter your email and spend 1 minute every day to learn something new.
I agree to receive email updates