Existential-Phenomenological Psychotherapy and Counseling

Abstract

Existential-phenomenological therapy was founded by R. D. Laing in the 1960s in Great Britain. His groundbreaking book The Divided Self was mostly about the phenomenological-existential understanding of schizoid phenomena and not about therapeutic interventions. Laing’s therapeutic approach was eclectic: he used psychoanalysis, LSD therapy, rebirthing methods and community psychiatry. In his writings, such as The Politics of Experience , he formulated his basic idea about therapy as “social phenomenology.” According to him most psychological problems are related to restriction of experiencing by the family and the society, and as a result of this the individual is estranging from their potentials, developing a false self in order to adapt to the environment on which they depend. Social phenomenology means that the person has to start re-experiencing the estranged parts by connecting to a person who is experiencing them as a someone, who is experiencing the therapist who is experiencing them. Laing was not able to actualize his illuminating insights systematically and to organize a training system, so this work largely anticipated Emmy van Deurzen. who started to work on this in the 1980s. She and her colleagues wrote several books about the basics and the methods of existential therapy and counseling.