Existential Therapy: A Brief Christian Review

Existential therapy deals with important life themes. European philosophers developed the early works of existential therapy. Some of the early authors of existential therapy included Binswanger, Boss, and Victor Frankl. Binswanger was a Swiss a psychiatrist interested in many of Sigmund Freud's ideas about individual drives and motives. However he was most influenced by Heidegger's concepts of being-in-the-world. This refers to individuals ability to perceive the meaning of the world around them and dealing with specific situations in life.

Boss was another Swiss psychiatrist familiar with the works of Freud. He was trained in psychoanalysis. He too with strongly influenced by the works of Heidegger. Boss emphasize that individuals coexist in the same world and share that world with others. In doing so, individuals relate with varying degrees of openness and clarity to others and do so in the context of time (Sharf, 2004).

Victor Frankl was born in Vienna and approach psychoanalysis differently. Frankl presented logotheraphy. Its concepts deal with the individual freedom and responsibility for self and others. Logotherapy Emphasizes the fundamental drive to seek understanding for one's existence. Frankl wrote the famous book Man's Search For Meaning. He wrote from his personal experience and victimization of the German concentration camps.

Being-in-the-world is the ability to be consciously aware of yourself and separateness of others around you. Existential therapy presents four ways of being-in-the-world that humans exist simultaneously: umwelt, mitwelt, eigenwelt and uberwelt. Umwelt refers to the biological world. Mitwelt means with-world and is concerned with relationships. Eigenwelt means own-world and the first two relationships and individuals have within themselves. Uberwelt Refers to our spiritual or religious values.