Skip to main content

The Rise of Existentialism in Culture & Existential-Humanistic Therapy

 It's interesting to me that the concept of existentialism has caught on on a very wide scale on social media and in culture because when I was 15 or 16 seeing my first therapist since early childhood, I was told that I "think existentially." It was also suggested that I read Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl to get acquainted with the concept, but I forgot the name of the book and author until I entered psychology at university. Instead, I started studying primarily Albert Camus and Franz Kafka, although I have read a large variety of other existentialist thinkers, such as Dostoyevsky. 

I also put absurdism and nihilism under the umbrella of existentialism, although there are slight differences in approaches, but they all seek to better one's understanding of the nature of existence.

Existentialism is what got me initially interested in philosophy, and I took an intro to philosophy course when I was 18, and philosophical ethics more recently. Existential philosophy is likely what got me interested in Leftist political philosophy, and I have also had a strong connection to Eastern philosophy and other types of spiritual and religious thinking as a form of study for decades as well. 

Furthermore, I highly recommend Viktor Frankl and I think existential psychotherapy has a lot to offer. In my opinion, logotherapy is still relevant and should be utilized as an integrative approach to psychotherapy when deemed necessary. In my opinion, it can particularly help in cases of grief or loss. When I was taking Personality Psychology and Clinical Psychology, I was drawn to the existentialist and humanistic approaches to psychotherapy, and I think that if we want to take into consideration Neurodivergence, we should look towards more humanistic approaches if the person is even seeking treatment for anything. For example, it has been proven by studies that cognitive-behavioral therapy does not work well for Autistic people in most circumstances. I tend to stray away from behaviorism because many Neurodivergent people are "treated" with behavior modification as a child, and it leaves a traumatic impact. 

I do not use the term Neurodivergence to just mean Autism, which is how it was intended, but for the full range of neurological difference from a neurotypical. That includes a majority of the DSM-5, along with many other neurological differences, such as epilepsy, for example.

For those who are seeking psychotherapy, I can only hope that with the rise of integrative therapists, there will start to be more humanistic and existential approaches to psychotherapy as well. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Genderfluidity

 Over the years, my gender identity has shifted many times. I knew initially that I was genderfluid, but tried very hard to be a binary trans woman, along with various other non-binary identities until I came to the conclusion of being a genderfluid hypertwink and otherkin (a partially nonhuman entity).  I consider myself a girl, a boy, technogender, and aliencatgender. The latter two can fall under Xenogenders or agender. The reason I call myself a girl and a boy is because I'm uncomfortable with woman or man due to developmental delays caused by trauma that have put me in a near permanent state of regression. I am also a hypertwink and try to take twink aesthetic to its fullest reaches in my presentation, and I am on hormone replacement therapy primarily to preserve my youth, my hair, and make me more twink-like and androgynous. The only gender affirming procedures I find necessary for myself is further laser hair removal. I would also like to describe how my genderfluidity manif
Post a Comment
Read more

Mirror-touch Synesthesia & the "Empath"

 I personally do not like or adhere to the term "empath," but I believe I have figured out the explanation for this phenomenon, which I do experience. It's specifically called mirror-touch synesthesia, and is also related to mirror-pain synesthesia and mirror-emotion synesthesia, which I spoke of at an earlier time. Studies show that mirror-touch synesthetes experience heightened levels of empathy because, in addition to feeling at least an echo of another person's pain, many of us also feel their emotions as if they were our own. This sounds an awful lot like the horrific pop psychology term, "empath," but most people attribute it to a supernatural phenomenon if they're not lying about it, rather than a Neurodivergence. It's a lesser known type of synesthesia, but I experience mirror-touch, as well as more "traditional" types of synesthesia where many of my senses blend together. I was actually misdiagnosed with schizoaffective because I d
Post a Comment
Read more

Trauma Response on the Poet's Stage

 Last night I attended an event locally entitled Poetry Speaks, and it was a celebration of the life of the late Bill Sovern. I have known him since I was 15, and he gave me a stage to read poetry at a young age. The last performance of his that I attended when he was alive was over a decade ago, long before I started transitioning, and he made a comment about Jack Kerouac (likely in relation to my poetry style), and I took offense to it, although I should have taken it as a compliment since I was a voracious reader of the Beats and fashioned my early poetry after them, especially Kerouac. So, that was the last time I performed while he was still alive, but I had planned to start going to more poetry events since the publishing of my book, Cracked Around the Edges, and he tragically passed in a car wreck before I had a chance to read any of it to him. Well, going to Poetry Speaks last night was surreal. It was the loudest and most emotional poetry reading I have ever attended during th
Post a Comment
Read more