Paper on Personal Model of Helping The following paper discusses the personal model of helping called the existential therapy model. The model of therapy is used to help people in counseling live better, stress free lives by exploring themselves and learning to live an authentic life. This model is effective when the therapist is authentic themselves and are genuine about helping others, which builds a positive relationship between the therapist and the client. This kind of model allows the client to open up and gives them the ability to explore themselves; past, present, and future. Existential therapy allows the client to understand that their lives are a direct response from the choices that they make in their lives. The therapist also gives the client tools to help change the new found negative behaviors. And although change is sometimes hard to adapt to, with the proper tools from the therapist and motivation from the client, the correct path to an authentic live can began and goals achieved. Existential therapy recognizes the problems of the human condition and existence while at the same time emphasizing human beings' great potential and freedom to respond constructively to these challenges. It helps individuals who choose depression as a response to existential difficulties to break this negative pattern ("Ehow.com", 2013).
Existential Model of Helping
From my viewpoint, I feel that the existential approach to counseling model of helping is very effective. I have formed this viewpoint because the existential approach characterizes human beings as creatures of continual change and transformation, living their lives in a context of personal strengths and weaknesses, as well as opportunities and limitations created by their environment from their past, present, and future. The existential approach is all about exploring meaning, value, and learning to live authentically, in accordance with one’s own ideals, priorities and values. Authentic living means being true to oneself and honest about one’s own possibilities and limitations, continually creating one’s own identity even in the face of deep uncertainty about everything in the future except for the eventual arrival of our own death. Authentic living means living deliberately, rather than by default.
View of Helping The personal view of helping is to assist people in any way possible and give them the tools that they need to improve their life. Helping is a way to share your experiences, expertise, and training with people that are in need in different areas. These areas can consist of mental, emotional, or physical. Helping others brings good feelings to the giver and the receiver of the good deeds. Using your special gifts and abilities to help others can be a gift to yourself as you enjoy a self-esteem boost for making others’ lives better, and make the world a better place. You feel more worthy of good deeds yourself, your trust in the decency of people is reinforced, and you feel more connected to yourself and to others.
Creating a balanced lifestyle that includes service to others can help you feel less stress as well, as you feel more connected to your spirit, more grateful for what you have, and less invested in the ‘hustle and bustle’ that causes stress for so many of us. Focusing on the positive in life, and creating more positive things in the world, can help you to maintain greater feelings of happiness and fulfillment.
The Relationship between the Therapist and the Participant
The role of the existential therapist is to facilitate the client’s own encounter with themselves. The therapist needs to work alongside the client with the job of exploring and to better understanding the client’s values, assumptions and ideals. The therapist is concerned to explore what matters most to the client, to avoid imposing their own judgments’, and to help the client to elucidate and elaborate on their own perspective, with an ultimate view to the client’s being able to live life well and in their own way. According to Parrott (2003), Corlis and Rabe maintain that the therapist’s goals are “to stimulate the patient’s willingness to work through pain, to offer help without the jeopardy of undercutting the other’s own effort, to offer him strength without dependence” (1969, p. 13)( (Parrott III, para. Functions of the Therapist, 2003).
Techniques or Approaches to Change
Anyone who has ever made and broken a New Year’s Resolution can appreciate the difficulty of behavior change. Making a lasting change in behavior is rarely a simple process, and usually involves a substantial commitment of time, effort and emotion. Whether you want to lose weight, stop smoking, or accomplish another goal, there is no single solution that works for everyone. You may have to try several different techniques, often through a process of trial-and-error, in order to achieve your goal. It is during this period that many people become discouraged and give up on their behavioral change goals. The key to maintaining your goals is to try new techniques and find ways to stay motivated.
Change might not come easy, but psychologists have developed a number of ways to effectively help people change their behavior. Many of these techniques are used by trained therapists. Researchers have also proposed theories to explain how change occurs. One of these theories, known as the Stages of Change model, has been used to help people understand the change process. This model demonstrates that change is rarely easy and often requires a gradual progression of small steps toward a larger goal.
Existential Therapy
The core idea behind existential therapy is that people are defined by the choices they make. Because people largely control the choices they make, they are responsible for their physical and mental state of being. The goal of existential therapy is to help patients realize in what ways their choices are affecting their lives. Then, the patients are challenged to take control of their decisions and thus, their lives. The main goal of existential therapy is first to help patients realize that they are in control of their own lives through the decisions they make. Once patients realize their autonomy in life, they are challenged to freely make choices about how they want to live. Confrontation is commonly used as part of existential therapy to help patients realize how their actions/choices are responsible for the current condition. In order to do this, the therapist will focus on understanding the patient’s current experience. There are no specific techniques involved in existential therapy. Therapists can use approaches from all ranges of therapy or methods. However, the focus of the therapy is the process of consciously putting aside pre-formed ideas in order to help unveil the patient’s mental being. This existential predicament lies at the heart of the human condition. Existentialists believe that life is either fulfilled or constricted by a series of decisions that we make, with no way of knowing conclusively what the correct choices are. Continually we must decide what is true and what is false, what is right and what is wrong, which beliefs to accept and which to reject, what to do and what not to do (Von Kaam, 1969) )( (Parrott III, para. Functions of the Therapist, 2003).
Existential therapy does not deny that past events can shape the present. The focus of existential therapy is on the patient’s current state of being and sense of self and choices which will shape the future. An existential therapist will not hold any other diagnosis as valid. Rather, they focus on the traits which are evident amongst all humans. Further, existential therapists believe that all assessments must be done by looking at the patient’s subjective world and not objective world. This personal model of helping is successful on adults; children do not have the mental capacity to understand themselves in such a way that this model will help them. Children are still shaping their personalities and would be more effective are they engaging in behavioral techniques.
Iyanla Vanzant
One professional that practices existential therapy is Iyanla Vanzant. Iyanla is the host of Iyanla: Fix My Life, the number one reality show on the OWN network, produced by Harpo Studios. She is an accomplished author, inspirational speaker, talk show host and living testament to the value in life's valleys and the power of acting on faith. Iyanla goes behind closed doors and deep inside people's lives for emotionally, riveting conversations where she applies spiritual and skilled existential practices to bring forth inner peace and healing to help her clients. (Iyanla Vanzant, 2013) Iyanla after escaping her abusive husband with her three kids, Iyanla set out to fix her own life, enrolling in a Brooklyn college and then the City University of New York Law School at Queens College. Her oratory skills landed her a job with the Philadelphia Public Defender’s Office–without an interview! That would be impressive enough, but as we know, the story doesn’t end there. Iyanla eventually left her position “You have to listen within and it was clear to me that I did not go to law school to become a lawyer, I went to law school to change my mind.” (Marino, M., 2013, Starcasm.net) Shortly after this and a host of personal problems, she embarked on a journey to help people change their lives.
Problems that are addressed with the Existential Therapy
The Existential Therapy is used on clients who view their problems as challenges of living, rather than symptoms of psychopathology, and clients who are genuinely attracted to increasing self -awareness and self-examination, will be well served by existential counselling. The approach will appeal to clients who are interested in the search for meaning and in deeply personal philosophical investigations. The approach is well suited to those who are attempting to clarify their own personal ideology and/or those who are facing significant personal adversity or change; some existential practitioners suggest the approach is particularly appropriate for those who feel at the very edge of existence, including those with terminal illnesses or who are contemplating suicide, or perhaps those who are just beginning a new phase of life in some way.
Clients who are less inclined to examine and explore their personal assumptions and ideals, or who would like to achieve immediate relief of specific psychological symptoms, as well as, those who would like advice or diagnosis from their counsellor will probably find less value in existential counselling.
Multicultural Issues Associated with Existential Therapy
Culture plays an extremely relevant role in psychotherapy. The likelihood of a person seeking help, available treatments used by mental health professionals, and the outcome of treatment are greatly affected by cultural considerations. Depression or other mental health conditions that one culture may view as a reason for therapy may be seen as a matter to be handled by family or religion in another culture. In a psychotherapeutic relationship, both the therapist's and client's cultures play a role in that dynamic. It is important for the therapist or mental health professional to be aware of client's possible cultural differences. Most therapists receive training or education on multicultural counseling.
Limitations and Strengths of the Existential Therapy
One of the main goals of existential counseling is to help the client make meaning out of her life and experiences. Existential counseling focuses on some of the major existential questions that people face in life. Clients are asked to ponder questions such as why they exist, why they suffer, what the point of their lives is, and whether they are alone or part of a larger whole. The advantage of focusing on these types of questions is that it empowers the individual to make choices and take responsibility for his/her actions.
Existential counseling has been criticized as being overly "intellectual." Some argue that those seeking therapy who cannot relate to deep self-reflection and self-examination may not be able to connect to the process of existential work. People seeking a more direct, time-limited approach may benefit more from cognitive-behavioral, rather than existential, forms of therapy. Existential therapy It does this by helping clients to acknowledge life's deep uncertainty and difficult truths and affirm their own lives by living deliberately despite and because of these difficulties ("Ehow.com", 2013).
Conclusion
In conclusion, existential therapy is an effective tool for helping clients find their authentic selves. It helps them to realize that the decision that they make can impact their lives in a negative or positive manner. Once the realization is made from the client, then processes of change can be implemented. Although this model of helping has strengths and limitations, it can be very effective as seen on the OWN network television show called Iyanla. Iyanla uses this model to help people that are in crisis with problems that stem from their past, present, and future experiences.

EHow.com. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.ehow.com/way_5752071_existential-therapy-depression.html
Iyanla Vanzant. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.iyanlavanzant.com/about/
Marino, M. (2013). Starcasm.net. Retrieved from http://starcasm.net/archives/252349
Parrott III, L. (2003). Counseling and Psychotherapy. Retrieved from University of Phoenix.