Humanistic-Existential Therapy for Grief and Midlife Crisis
There are essential qualities that humanistic therapists have to exhibit, including genuineness, empathetic understanding, and unconditional positive regard (Harisiadis, 2021). Genuineness requires establishing open communication between the humanistic therapist and Li Ming. This enables Li Ming’s therapist to feel more comfortable sharing their feelings with her. Consequently, this encourages her to share her own feelings and thus engage in honest conversations. According to Harisiadis (2021), modeling honest and open communication should be the first thing a client should see within the client-therapist relationship. Unconditional positive regard entails offering unconditional patient support since conditional support usually makes the clients develop further from the problem. Unconditional support would enable Li Ming to express her own thoughts and feelings without fear of judgment. Additionally, empathetic understanding is a vital quality in humanistic psychotherapy (Huang & Zhang, 2020). It would help foster a positive relationship between Li Ming and the counseling therapist and represents a reflecting mirror of Ming’s emotions and thoughts, helping her gain more insight into the circumstance she is struggling with and into herself.
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Humanistic therapists are also required to have self-awareness capacity, experiencing tension between responsibility and freedom. When dealing with Li, they should be able to identify and establish meaningful relationships that aim to search for meaning, values of life, and purpose (Huang & Zhang, 2020). This entails accepting anxiety as a condition of living and being aware of non-being and death. When practicing the gestalt approach, the dialogical relationship is necessary where the humanistic therapist is required to harness their whole self to the relational contact with the client. The therapist has to be fully present, authentic, validating, and understanding which helps provide confirmation, presence, inclusion, and open communication.
Humanistic therapists have to consider cultural factors. The therapist has to take into consideration her immigration status, including the worry of isolation, loneliness, and discrimination (Huang & Zhang, 2020). Particularly since she left her parents behind and has recently lost her brother, whom she was close to. It is vital to take into consideration the incredible challenge immigrants tend to face while living in a foreign country, speaking a foreign language, and being away from their family and home. In addition to her feeling lonely, she also longs for a home but wants to continue her education. Understanding culture can help the therapist to understand the root problem of her mental issues. The therapist should also take into consideration her religious background, as religious people may prefer and even benefit from a therapist who shares their beliefs. According to Huang & Zhang (2020), the presence of a willing and sensitive therapist to interact spiritually and religiously with a client can increase rapport and trust with them in case they are religious. This can help them engage in their belief in life, which can help Ming discover meaning in her experience. Other cultural considerations include race, ethnicity, disability, and sexual orientation.
The therapist can use the given methods to guide Li Ming on what to talk about. According to Längle & Klaassen (2021), a humanistic psychologist can use methods such as open-ended questionnaires, interviews, and observations to guide conversations. When conducting the structured interview, the therapist can structure the questions to understand how Ming thinks and feel without focusing the session on a particular topic or idea. During the session, the therapist can observe, making it easy for her to open up and give direct feedback. Such an approach is usually tailored to meet an individual since people tend to have different needs and motives (Huang & Zhang, 2020). The approach must focus on human potential, free will, and self-discovery. This will help her develop a healthy and strong sense of self, find meaning, explore her feelings, and focus on her strength.
This can be achieved through client-centered therapy, gestalt therapy, and existential therapy. The client-centered approach entails active listening. The therapist has to acknowledge, listen, and paraphrase Ming’s concerns. Thus, the conversation can be guided by offering a supportive environment where Ming can feel free to be herself without being judged (Huang & Zhang, 2020). This approach helps her get in touch with herself as she truly is. Gestalt therapy can guide the conversation by allowing the therapist to share their emotions and feelings with Ming. It will aim to encourage Ming to be aware of her here and now and thus accept responsibility for her behavior and actions.
The approach can be effective in leading to positive change. Studies have shown that humanistic therapy can influence positive change among clients. The approach views human nature as fundamentally good, with a need to maintain meaningful, healthy relationships and make choices that are in the interest of oneself and others (Holm-Hadulla, 2020). The approach, therefore, will help Ming free herself from disabling attitudes and assumptions so she can live a fuller life. Since she suffers from the loss of her brother, the therapy will emphasize growth and actualization rather than try to cure or alleviate her issue.
Humanistic therapists refer to those in therapy as clients. They prefer terming them clients rather than patients because they see clients and therapists as equal partners rather than as a professional treating a patient. According to Rusu (2019), clients are usually responsible for improving their life, not the therapist. This is a deliberate change from both behavioral and psychoanalysis therapies, where the patient is diagnosed and receives treatment from a doctor.
Thus, the client rationally and consciously decides for themselves the problem and how to work on it. The therapist plays the role of a counselor or a friend who encourages and listens on an equal level. Smith (2019) explains that even though the symptoms the clients experienced came from a past experience, it is more useful for clients to input effort into the present and future than their past. Thus, the aim is to achieve personal growth and eventually to self-actualize. He explains that there need to be more techniques in employing humanistic psychotherapy based on the unique character of each relationship. The utmost importance is a client-to-therapist relationship rather than what the therapist says or does. If there should be any techniques, they should be listening, understanding, sharing, and accepting, which are more attitude-oriented than skills-based (Holm-Hadulla, 2020). The client plays an essential role in encouraging this growth, which can hardly be achieved if clients feel the responsibility falls to their doctor since they are patients. The approach is essential in treating patients in need of finding meaning in life. However, individuals with severe mental health should not be categorized as clients as a more evidence-based treatment approach should be employed to relieve symptoms. Humanistic approaches use qualitative research in which results cannot be replicated, hence can hardly be effective in treating severe case patients since positive results are not guaranteed. There is no clear-cut approach to patient treatment, with the treatment usually depending on the context and the therapist’s perspective.
An existential crisis refers to the ensemble of questions and feelings people experience that relate to the purpose and meaning of life. According to Smith (2019), the questions are usually difficult to find answers to and can leave individuals feeling stuck. People tend to feel unsure of how to respond or how to move on, and it has the potential to impact their lives in a negative way when the feelings persist or worsen.
Existential crises are usually associated with negative life impacts. Längle & Klaassen (2021) explains that people usually forget that feelings and questions can have positive effects. When a crisis occurs, it means that an individual has the opportunity to get in touch with their values, purpose, meaning, and what one aims to make of their life. Therefore, it can help individuals evaluate, adapt, and plan their actions and direction to lead the life they want and be happy with. According to Rusu (2019), existential crises are common and occur at any stage of life, and usually happen when individuals are faced with changes, circumstances, or transitions in their lives that tend to be difficult to adapt to or that leave them questioning their life directions.
The existential crisis results from several factors. The causes of existential crises vary from one individual to the next. Big life changes can trigger an existential crisis, including having a first child or even getting married. Unexpected turns in life can also lead to a crisis, as unplanned changes tend to occur suddenly, such as losing a job (Rusu, 2019). When one feels they are not contented with their life decisions, such as not being able to pursue a given career, it can lead to existential crises. Feeling out of control, that is, being unable to be in charge of one decision, can lead to an existential crisis. The loss of someone dear can lead to existential crises. The symptoms of an existential crisis include worry, anxiety or depression, decreased social activity, loss of motivation, substance abuse, or feeling lost and out of control.
From a humanistic, existential psychotherapist, Timothy’s loss of his father has reminded him of human limitations and the inevitable death. Timothy feels like his life choices and judgment are the source of his problems and make his life meaningless. Thus, Timothy lacks self-awareness and does not intend to make a decision that is in his own or loved ones’ interests. Thus, he is stuck in the realization that his will never match his idealistic life.
Humanistic existential therapy aims to assist clients in embracing their choices. Through this approach, Timothy will learn to embrace his plans and choices with an eye toward future possibilities, not the past. The approach will help Timothy learn that his past plays an instructive role, but it is not meant to instruct him about what he currently wants in life (Rusu, 2019). The approach will help him make choices based on creativity, love, and other life-enhancing experiences, making him make decisions that will determine their future behavior. He will also learn to make life decisions without concern for fear or anxiety of messing up his life.
The approach helps clients find their meaning in life despite the basic worries and fears of the givens. When Timothy understands that he has value to offer himself and those around him, he will live an authentic life filled with self-motivation and respect. Thus, he will be able to choose from a place of positivity and not fear. For instance, learning not to make choices based on anxiety and fear will help him to stop living in fear that he may end up not living up to his dreams like his father and appreciate the presence of a functional, loving family that he has. This will also help him to stop trying to live his idealistic life, which may end up breaking up his family. Thus, the approach helps him to grow and understand that his decision in the past is only meant to be learned from and only the decisions he is making in his current life will impact his future. Self-empowerment is essential for Timothy as it helps him enjoy living his life, improve his self-esteem, and address his feelings of despair and hopelessness.
Humanistic and existential psychotherapies tend to use a wide range of approaches. Timothy has to learn that the form of therapy does not entail treating symptoms but rather focusing on his growth. The approach will help them learn about freedom and responsibility. Timothy will learn that the approach focuses on the root concern in his existence (Längle & Klaassen, 2021). Timothy will also learn that in the approach, the aim is not to offer clients advice but to help them focus on personal responsibility for making decisions. Also, the therapist only plays the role of a ‘fellow traveler’ through life, using empathy and support to elicit choices and insight. Timothy must also learn that psychological suffering cannot be treated by expertise, opinions, or advice but by using the process of discovering meaning, replacing his past assumptions regarding the world that no longer are true to his existence. According to Smith (2019), old assumptions can obstruct a client’s sense of inhabiting the world in a free and meaningful way in their current environment. Thus, Timothy has to understand that the previous meaning stops being coherent with his actual world experiences. Therefore, disruption of meaning is the primary humanistic-existential comprehension of trauma.
Quest for meaning will be the top priority in the treatment. According to Längle & Klaassen (2021), meaning helps protect people against anxieties and pain but also helps shed light on how an individual can live a good life. Timothy will be exposed to all aspects of humanistic-existential therapy in a concept referred to as presence. Presence entails a heightened awareness of oneself and opening oneself to learning what is important for them and experiencing the opportunities for and the barriers to change in the here-and-now that therapy offers. Therefore, Timothy will learn to co-exist with his fears and anxiety (Längle & Klaassen, 2021). Additionally, they can explore his religious beliefs to help build his spirit if he is a spiritual person. The treatment will help Timothy become self-aware and develop good relationships with himself and those around him through positive decision-making.
References
Harisiadis, A. (2021). The Wiley World Handbook of Existential Therapy. Existential Analysis, 32(1), 156-160.
Holm-Hadulla, R. M. (2020). Creativity and positive psychology in psychotherapy. International Review of Psychiatry, 32(7-8), 616-624.
Huang, Y., & Zhang, R. (2020). A Commentary of Existential Psychotherapy.
Längle, A., & Klaassen, D. (2021). Phenomenology and depth in existential psychotherapy. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 61(5), 745-756.
Rusu, M. (2019). The process of self-realization—From the humanist psychology perspective. Psychology, 10(08), 1095.
Smith, M. B. (2019). Encounter groups and humanistic psychology. In In search for community: Encounter groups and social change (pp. 57-72). Routledge.
Stevens, R. (2021). Humanistic psychology. In Introduction to psychology (pp. 417-472). Psychology Press.