Existential psychotherapy and counselling in Edmonton providing personal and professional mental health support to live a more fulfilled life.
Individual therapy or psychotherapy is a form of talk therapy or psychological counselling where we walk with clients to improve their lives with our professionally licensed therapists.
Many people are living, but find that life does not feel fulfilling. Existential Analysis focuses on finding the specific psychological conditions for each unique person to live a fulfilled life. This is one of several frameworks for therapy that are offered at Wellwood Counselling.
The core process in Existential therapy is learning to take a position and deciding. To use our freedom responsibly we engage in a personal dialogue with the world. We need access to our inner selves and subjective experience, and we need access to the world with its’ opportunities and limitations. Topics such as inner consent, freedom, responsibility, closeness, authenticity, values, meaning, boundaries, finiteness, and more, become important for us to explore in order to take a position, decide, and act in a congruent way.
Existential therapy doesn’t typically use a standardized set of techniques, but it is based on the relationship between our therapists and our clients, and our clients and the world. Our therapist provides an empathetic, non-judgmental space for our clients to explore their own experiences and experiment with ways of interacting with life that better match their values.
We often include phenomenological exploration, self-reflection, and deep questioning about big issues. We also help clients understand the implications of their choices and the impact these choices have on their lives, encouraging them to build a healthy dialogue with life that allows them to live their values meaningfully.
Viktor Frankl, the founder of logotherapy, is one of the key figures in existential therapy. He believed that the search for meaning is the primary motivator in human life. Alfried Langle worked with Frankl, and further developed a specific type of existential therapy called Existential Analysis. Frankl’s logotherapy is one of four fundamental areas to address in living fully.