What is existential therapy?

What is existential therapy?

Existential psychotherapy

Existential psychotherapy offers a space to reflect, especially during times when life feels uncertain, disrupted, or somehow misaligned. It is not a method designed to diagnose or fix, but rather a way of approaching your experience with care, honesty, and curiosity.

Rather than asking, “What’s wrong with me?”, this approach gently opens space for questions like: What am I going through? How do I relate to this? What matters to me now? Existential therapy acknowledges the complexity of human life—its tensions, paradoxes, and uncertainties—without rushing to resolve them.

A human approach to therapy

Existential psychotherapy is based in philosophical ideas but focuses on the real-life struggles we all face—loss, change, freedom, responsibility, identity, and the search for meaning. These aren’t abstract ideas. They appear in the form of decisions we face, relationships we navigate, and the quiet weight of time passing.

This approach allows for thoughtful engagement with what’s happening now, without requiring you to fit a theory or diagnosis. You’re not viewed as a problem to be solved, but as a person in the process of making sense of things.

Anxiety

Anxiety is a natural part of being human. It often arises when we confront life’s big, often unspoken questions—what it means to live fully, make meaningful choices, or face the reality that life is finite.

Some of us try to ignore these feelings by staying busy or pushing them aside. Others feel weighed down by them, unsure how to move forward. But here’s the thing: anxiety doesn’t have to be an enemy. It can actually remind us that we’re alive, that we care, and that we’re paying attention to what matters.

In therapy, we explore what your anxiety might be trying to tell you. Together, we look at how to live alongside it, instead of letting it hold you back. It’s not about getting rid of anxiety completely, but finding ways to let it guide you in making choices that matter to you.

The therapeutic relationship

Central to this approach is the therapeutic relationship itself: a space of dialogue, where two people meet with attentiveness and respect. The therapist brings presence and perspective; the client brings their lived experience, however clear or uncertain it may feel.

This isn’t a relationship built on interpretation or advice-giving. It’s one of shared reflection, where patterns, values, and assumptions can come into view—and where new possibilities may quietly begin to take shape. It’s not about having the right answers, but about creating space for deeper contact with your own voice and direction.

The process

There is no fixed formula. Some people come for a short time, seeking clarity around a specific situation. Others stay longer, using the space to explore more enduring questions. Sessions unfold in conversation—grounded in what is real and immediate.

We go at your pace. The aim is not to move toward a particular outcome, but to stay close to your experience, and from there, consider how life might be lived with more awareness, integrity, or depth.

What to Expect from Therapy Sessions

Therapy sessions are conversations that explore your experience of yourself, others, and the world around you. We typically meet once a week to establish a steady rhythm—creating both continuity in our work and space for deeper connection, with yourself and with me as your therapist.

Each session can feel like stepping outside your everyday life, gaining a clearer view of it, and imagining new possibilities. What begins as an inner murmur or vague feeling can, through dialogue, take shape and lead us into what truly matters—or into what feels most difficult to face. These conversations often move between the ordinary and the profound, and together we begin to untangle the tightly held narratives that shape your life, allowing room for new directions to emerge.

Existential therapy is not about applying a fixed model or method. It treats the psychological encounter as a form of art—grounded in human relationship and meaningful dialogue. Rather than relying on any single theory or ideology, it invites you to examine and reimagine the frameworks that inform how you see yourself and the world.

This work is rooted in existential philosophy and phenomenology—disciplines that take our human experience seriously in all its complexity, culture, and connection. It’s also a quiet resistance against reducing our inner lives to systems and labels, offering instead a space for depth, honesty, and possibility.

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