Freedom drives all other existential concepts. Existential psychology holds that we are all born into the world with the freedom to shape our path through life. Rather than handing over decisions to religion, family, cultural norms and expectations, or some other...
Existential authenticity is the ongoing process of living in harmony with what we know to be most true about ourselves, our values, and our clear-eyed sense of reality. To do this, you’ll need to understand your beliefs, desires, needs, and personality traits. You can...
Meaning is at the heart of existential therapy: being born into the world without predetermined meaning, and creating (or failing to create) personal meaning as we go through life. A maxim of existential philosophy is “existence precedes essence,” from Jean-Paul...
A Brainspotting therapy session starts with identifying the issue you want to work on. It may be a long-ago memory or a recent experience, an emotion, a thought, an image, a physical sensation, or something else. You don’t need to focus on a distressing memory; any...
I became an existentialist in high school. I didn’t know that’s what I was doing, just that I was caught up in what the point of being alive was. That question and similar ones (“Why are humans the way we are?” “Am I real?”) drove me for the next 20 years. Then, when...
The neuroscientific foundation of Brainspotting is based on functions in areas of the brain below the prefrontal cortex, partly in the limbic system. This part of the brain is crucial in processing emotions, including ones related to difficult experiences and traumas....
Brainspotting is a somatic (body-based) therapy based on concepts from neuroscience, mindfulness, and other body-based therapies. Brainspotting therapy uses eye position and bilateral stimulation to access and release memories, feelings, and sensations that are stuck...
Severance, on Apple TV, is a bizarre psychological thriller (and darkly comedic). It is also a fun way to explore Internal Family Systems (IFS), a therapeutic modality. Quick overview of the premise of the show: some people opt to be severed—to have their...
Most people have some sort of existential crisis around authenticity, often but not always in our teen years, when our brains have developed enough that we find ourselves thrown into a complex world full of risks and choices. It is during these years when we first...
The characters on Six Feet Under are contending with the biggest questions we have: Why am I here? What’s the point of life? Of death? Am I a good person? Do I know how to love? Their internal and outward struggles ground the plot in existential matters of...
