SEVEN PAPERS ON EXISTENTIAL ANALYSIS ... - Wagner College

psychotherapy. In 1960, Benjamin Wolstein and others had written vigorously against the
movement. Still others in the mainstream of psychoanalysis and medical psychology, however,
including Henry Ey (1960) and Gregory Zilboorg (1960) supported it. By the late 1960's, there was
a fair amount of confusion about the differences between existential psychotherapy, existential
analysis and existential psychoanalysis, on the one hand, and existential-phenomenological
praxis, on the other. For awhile, at least in print, existential analysis was identified by some with
Frankl's logotherapy. During the 1970's and 1980'9, existential and humanistic psychotherapies
were further eclipsed by cognitive-behavioral treatment and their influence was less visible,
although they were still covered in textbooks and handbooks of psychotherapy.
It seems to me that the present decade will prove to have been transitional to a large
scale renewal of interest in existential analysis. During the second half of the twentieth century,
the professionalization of psychotherapy, chiefly in social work, following on its medicalization,
seems to have had the effect of foreclosing its inherent possibilities. The involvement of
professional psychotherapists in the contemporary managed health care industry in this country
often precluded the establishment and maintenance of the covenant formed between
therapist and patient partner. Finally, the current exclusive domination of a biological approach
to the study of behavior and the concept of experience it implies, rather than an existential
interpretation of embodied existence – that is, of human be-ing as being in a world and not
merely as an organism understood to be a very complicated mechanism – has encouraged
therapists to take their start far past the place where experience arises for any of us.
Nonetheless, there are many psychotherapists (perhaps many more than we know) who
yearn to break free from these constraints. Such a liberation happened in the 1950's and 1960's,
resulting in the first wave of existential analysis. And as I have suggested, we are encouraged to
see that in the work of the British school of existential analysis, a fresh wave of interest is
underway. It is important to bring together as many representatives of existential practice (in all
its diversity) as possible, in order to hear from each other about what existential psychotherapy
now means. Equally important, we also want to review the philosophical background of
existential psychotherapy, in order revisit our common sources. We will make a start at doing
some of that today. The questions that this conference raises, then, include the following:
What is meant today by existential psychotherapy or existential analysis?
How is existential psychotherapy related to Sartre's phenomenologica ontology and to
Binswanger's Daseinsanalysis?
How is existential psychotherapy related to psychoanalysis, in particular the reading of
psychoanalysis given by Jacques Lacan?
What is its relation to other forms of psychotherapy, such as Gendlin's focusing?
Finally, to what extent is the practice of existential psychotherapy possible in the current climate
of psychobiology and medical psychology, which dominates the field of clinical psychology?
Today we will make a start at responding to them.
_______________________________________________________
Bibliography
Allers, R. (1961). Existentialism and Psychiatry: Four Lectures. Springfield: Thomas.
Arbuckle, D. (1975). Counseling and Psychotherapy: An Existential-Humanistic View. Boston: Allyn
and Bacon.