Existential counselling is a philosophical form of counselling which addresses the situation of a person's life and situates the person firmly within the predictable challenges of the human condition. Existential counselling considers human living to take place within four dimensions: physical, social, psychological and spiritual. It shows each of these dimensions to be constituted like a force field, within which predictable paradoxes, tensions and dilemmas play out. Human beings can learn to deal with these tensions and conflicts more effectively by facing up to the negatives as well as the positives of their lives, including the tensions of life and death, love and hate, strength and weakness and meaning and absurdity.
Best known authors on existential counselling are Irvin Yalom in the USA through his book Existential Psychotherapy (1981) New York: Basic Books and Emmy van Deurzen, who created the British School and who published her bookExistential Counselling and Psychotherapy in 1988 (London: Sage Publications; second edition 2002, third edition 2011).
Existential therapy essentially helps deal with the problems of everyday living, such as relationship difficulties (both with Individuals & in Couple Therapy), anxiety/fear, food/body-image issues, addictions, mood disorders, social anxiety, panic, trauma, low self-esteem, unresolved childhood issues, sexual issues and others. It is a clear, direct and honest approach helping clients work on their particular, unique, experiences, problems, dilemmas and issues. It is appropriate for both short and long term therapy. It ideally suits those who wish to examine themselves and their relationship with others and the world.

Existential psychotherapy and counselling draws its frame of reference from a philosophical tradition rather than medical or diagnostic principles. Unlike other, more prescriptive approaches, existential therapy acknowledges that within all our lives we may face times when our own particular/unique struggles can feel overwhelming. ‘Existential – Phenomenology’ takes the human condition as the focus of investigation and therapy focuses on the uniqueness of each individuals, particular experience.

Through the therapeutic relationship, existential practice creates an opportunity for clients to develop new awareness of the challenges they feel confronted with, and therefore uncover new choices and paths in overcoming life’s emotional difficulties.

By building self-knowledge and self-awareness clients are able to grow and conquer issues which may at times feel all consuming or overwhelming. Suffering from severe anxiety or panic attacks, for example, can be addressed through an understanding that anxiety is not similar to a virus, which can be caught (in the same manner as a cold or flu), but is the outcome of choices we have made in the past, and can make in the future, in life and the context we find ourselves in.

By exploring your context or ‘worldview’ in therapy, it becomes possible to understand these choices and create new opportunities to develop and see a way out of your personal suffering/situation. In exploring our relationships we also explore the way that everything we do is dependent on the context of our lives. The fluid and relational nature of existential psychotherapy/counselling makes it a relevant and useful approach for the hugely varied and individual challenges life presents to each one of us, in a unique way.
Existential therapy is a branch of psychology that deals with the relationship each human being has with the rest of the world and how each person handles the challenge of essential life decisions. Existential therapy aims to capture the spirit and passion that exists in each person and to make them feel like they choose their destiny through the making of choices, as opposed to living a robotic life and existing as reaction to someone else’s decisions.

What isExistential therapy?
When we are confronted with challenges and experience traumatic events, we behave in ways that may seem irrational or self-defeating. We may even choose actions that cause harm to ourselves or to others. Reflecting on these behaviours, with the help of a psychologist, gives us insight into the reasons we chose these actions and helps us to learn from our mistakes and make better choices in the future.
You do not need to be an ‘existentialist’ to benefit from existential therapy; you need only a desire to be happier and a willingness to reflect upon how your choices are part of the solution.
Existential Therapy is an approach to counselling that helps us to understand ourselves, other people and the world we all inhabit together. Existential Therapy helps people to build confidence that they are making good choices.
Existential Therapy is not reserved solely for people who suffer from severe psychological problems; it is for everyone who is having trouble making a good decision when they experience the kind of challenges issued by life.
Existential Therapy provides an opportunity to explore the world including the dreams, fantasies and spiritual dimensions of our existence. Talking about it helps to identify dilemmas, develop a strategy to deal with them and then grow from the experience.
Irvin David Yalom, M.D. (born June 13, 1931), is an American existential psychiatrist who is Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University, as well as author of both fiction and nonfiction.
Irvin David Yalom was born June 13, 1931 in Washington DC.[3] About fifteen years prior to his birth in the United States, Yalom's parents immigrated from Russia and eventually opened a Washington DC grocery store on 1st Street and Seaton Place. Yalom spent much of his childhood reading books in the family house above the grocery store and in a local library. After graduating from high school, he attended George Washington University and then Boston University School of Medicine.
After graduating with a BA from George Washington University in 1952 and as a Doctor of Medicine from Boston University School of Medicine in 1956 he went on to complete his internship atMount Sinai Hospital in New York and his residency at the Phipps Clinic of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and completed his training in 1960. After two years of Army service at Tripler General Hospital in Honolulu, Yalom began his academic career at Stanford University. He was appointed to the faculty in 1963 and then promoted over the next several years and granted tenure in 1968. Soon after this period he made some of his most lasting contributions by teaching about group psychotherapy[4] and developing his model of existential psychotherapy[5]
His writing on existential psychology centres on what he refers to as the four "givens" of the human condition: isolation, meaninglessness, mortality and freedom, and discusses ways in which the human person can respond to these concerns either in a functional or dysfunctional fashion.
In addition to his scholarly, non-fiction writing, Yalom has produced a number of novels and also experimented with writing techniques. In Everyday Gets a Little Closer[6] Yalom invited a patient to co-write about the experience of therapy. The book has two distinct voices which are looking at the same experience in alternating sections. Yalom's works have been used as collegiate textbooks and standard reading for psychology students. His new and unique view of the patient/client relationship has been added to curriculum in Psychology programs at such schools as John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.
The American Psychiatric Association awarded Irvin Yalom the 2000 Oskar Pfister Award (for important contributions to religion and psychiatry).[7]
Yalom has continued to maintain a part-time private practice and has authoried a number of video documentaries on therapeutic techniques.[8] Yalom is also featured in the 2003 documentary Flight From Death, a film that investigates the relationship of human violence to fear of death, as related to subconscious influences. The Irvin D. Yalom Institute of Psychotherapy, co-directed by Prof Ruthellen Josselson, works to advance Yalom's approach to psychotherapy.

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