A very accessible guide to existential therapy in Yalom’s Existential Therapy (1980). The author describes the human concerns in a simple, yet deep manner. He introduces the ‘givens of existence’: 1) Death, 2) Isolation, 3) Freedom, and 4) Meaninglessness. We all need to come to terms with these facts about our lives.
In existential therapy we think about issues on a continuum. For example:

- freedom, responsibility, and agency;

- human limitation, and finiteness;

- isolation and connectedness;

- meaning and meaninglessness;

- emotions, experience, and embodiment

As a therapist I want to ask myself where is my client in this continuum?

Another series of dimensions that need to be considered, are those proposed by Cooper (2007). As therapists, we can either move between these dimensions, or be consistent in one.
- Knowing / Not-knowing

- Directive / Non-directive

- Explanatory / Descriptive

- Pathologizing / De-pathologizing

- Techniques / Non techniques

- Immediacy / Non-immediacy

- Psychological / Philosophical

- Individualising / Universalising

- Subjective / Inner-worldly
I can ask myself where I want to place myself in this spectrum at any given point during the therapeutic encounter. It is something that changes and needs to serve the best interest of the client.

At this point it is important to introduce some philosophical terminology. First of all, we call hermeneutic the interpretation of something. So, for instance, Heidegger’s approach is hermeneutic, because it’s interpretative.

Another way to understand reality is via phenomenology. This is an approach to knowledge, based on description. The phenomenon is the event, ‘what is happening’, so phenomenology is the study of what happens. There are different ways to understand phenomenology in psychotherapy. For existential therapy we refer to the work of Edmund Husserl (1859-1938).

Another important point is the difference between ontic and ontological. In Heidegger we call ontic the everyday reality of existence. For example, my ontic experience is that I’m sitting in front of my laptop typing. The other side of the coin is ontology. Ontology deals with existence as such. This aspect is fundamental for existential therapy.
“The distinctive character of existential analysis is [...] that it is concerned with ontology, the science of being” (May, 1958 p.37).
We always move between the two dimensions: the everyday one and the ontological one. This ontic-ontological analysis is a central part of the existential analysis as such. We want to think about our existence from an ontic perspective, as well as from an ontological one.

Hidegger’s most important and successful publication on human beings (Dasein) is ‘Being and Time’ (1987/2001). Erik Craig (2019) individuates three important points to Being and Time:
1) My own being can relate to other beings, including itself.

2) The being is necessarily a ‘being-in-the-world’.

3) The ontic-ontological analysis is essential to understand what it means to be human.

Hidegger is mainly concerned with ontological questions, such as: what does it mean to be? The therapist would not necessarily need to find an answer to such questions, but the activity of questioning existence can be a valid topic of reflection.

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