The creator of EHI’s The Existential Moment blog series, Scott Gibbs, is facilitating an online Lunch-n-Learn on September 11th where he will be discussing the topic of his new book, Toward the Turning: Rethinking the Meaning of 9/11, the Clash of Civilizations, and a Postmodern World. This event is being hosted online by our friends at Existential-Humanistic NorthWest in Portland, Oregon.
At a time when our identities are increasingly reduced to caricatures and simplistic cycles of polarizing tit-for-tat, EHI board member Scott Gibbs offers a formidable challenge to the way we understand our fractured world. Scott typically authors EHI’s monthly Existential Moment, but this month I am stepping in as a guest contributor to review his passionate, brilliant, and methodical new book, Toward the Turning: Rethinking the meaning of 9/11, the clash of civilizations, and a postmodern world.
Kirk Schneider will be our guest writer for the August Existential Moment. He will be reviewing a new book by The Existential Moment series creator, Scott Gibbs, PhD, LMFT. We look forward to sharing that book review by Kirk with you!
As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, it does so in a world pulled toward the edges. Public life increasingly feels like a room in which everyone has backed against opposing walls, left and right, secular and sacred, nation and globe, victim and perpetrator, us and them. At home, Americans argue over who is to blame rather than deliberating
Last month’s Existential Moment suggested that Existential-Humanistic (E-H) therapy, though not a formal couple’s model, naturally extends into relational work. This month begins to give fuller shape to that frame. Watch this brief scene from The Break-Up. Notice how an argument about dishes quickly becomes a disconnected, polarized argument about feeling unseen and unsupported, criticized and unappreciated.
An Invitation from Congress Co Chair Louis Hoffman, PhD Given the many global political events and barriers to travel, the committee for the 4th World Congress is working to ensure that people around the world still have the opportunity to attend and participate. The virtual option includes live stream access during the World Congress and access to recordings from the
Unlike many contemporary approaches to couples therapy (e.g., Gottman), existential-humanistic work does not offer a defined, manualized model with specific techniques or stages for working with couples. Instead, it provides a way of understanding and engaging human experience that naturally extends into the relational space. This piece aims to make explicit what is often implicit in existential-humanistic practice as applied to couples, offering a brief, high-level framework that will be explored in greater depth in future Existential Moments.
Licensed Humanistic and Existential Therapists Needed for Research Study: A qualitative research study exploring how humanistic and existential-oriented therapists develop and intentionally use their “self” (e.g., authenticity, presence, empathy, and self-awareness) within the therapeutic relationship, and how these factors may contribute to long-term client outcomes.
To understand resistance in therapy, we must look beneath activity to the deep personal belief systems that the behavior expresses. These largely unconscious meanings about self, others, and world, which the Existential-Humanistic Institute (EHI) calls self-world constructs, influence our experience, understanding, and behavior, how we feel, think, and act. Protective activity expresses those meanings.
APA Handbook of Humanistic and Existential Psychology Louis Hoffman, L. Xochitl Vallejos, Dan Hocoy, Pratyusha Tummala-Narra, and Eugene DeRobertisAPA Books, 2026 The 2-volume APA Handbook of Humanistic and Existential Psychology provides a comprehensive overview of the rich history, diverse theoretical perspectives, clinical and social applications, and important emerging issues and directions in the field. This Handbook is both a map of the current
Presented by: Bob Edelstein, LMFT Date: Friday, March 20th, 2026Time: 1 pm–2:30 pm Pacific TimeFee: $0-20 Online: via ZoomHost: Existential-Humanistic Northwest (EHNW) Process is how the client expresses themselves in a session. This reveals how the client lives in the present moment. Through focusing on the client’s process, the client can expand and modify their present identity to discover more of
Haven’t we all pushed harder and harder on a door that would not open, only to pause, look at the handle, or see the sign “pull,” realizing then it was never meant to be pushed at all? Existential-Humanistic (E-H) therapy is experiential and relational. Working with “resistance,” therefore, does not mean overcoming an obstacle or dismantling a defense. It means meeting protective ways of being
Seeing a line of windmills as ominous giants, Don Quixote lowers his lance and charges, unable to sense that the world long passed him by. Living in an age of commerce and gunpowder, that of 17th-century Spain, he remains faithful to a medieval, chivalric order that had faded into legend centuries earlier. What appears as resistance to reality is, in
To Our Dear Community, In the midst of these winter months, we wait…we sense our faces turning toward the dark, and then returning again to the light as the earth travels her path. We collectively feel the season shift and sing as Spring whispers quietly and slowly of a new beginning- a new becoming. Each of us here at EHI
Website Difficulties Will be Resolved Soon Existential Humanistic Northwest (EHNW) is our close peer organization up in Portland, Oregon, and they have had some difficulties with their brand new website. Some of you may have noticed that the EHNW website went down on the 10th. The technical difficulties are being worked out, but it is taking longer than they hoped.
The board and instructors are excited to have Chris join EHI as an Affiliate Instructor. Chris was one of the instructors at this year’s recent Core Skills in E-H Psychotherapy workshop, which is held annually each November for 32 clinicians.
Chris Deussing, DSW, LCSW, C-DBT, is a licensed clinical social worker and a leading clinician specializing in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) and contemporary psychoanalysis. He is the owner and director of Integrative DBT & Psychotherapy LLC, a practice dedicated to offering humanistic, action-oriented, and client-centered care to individuals seeking “a life worth living.”
The Existential Moment will return soon. For this mini-break we will share links to some of the posts.
Over time, Scott has shared posts about the relational foundation of E-H therapy, an understanding of which can be deepened by looking at the interpersonal dimension of the therapeutic encounter.
By Kirk Schneider and Orah Krug
“EH therapy blends the European heritage of self-inquiry, struggle, and responsibility with the American tradition of spontaneity, optimism, and practicality. This book helps therapists and trainees understand how to help people address critical life questions and attune to how clients relate to themselves and to others, appropriately reflecting back aspects of themselves that are evident but unnoticed.
New to this edition are significant updates to research and theory, including the work of Otto Rank, an often-overlooked pioneer in EH therapy, and new concepts like existential unconsciousness and life-enhancing anxiety. The cultivation of presence as a central component of the therapeutic relationship is also emphasized.”
lato’s Allegory of the Cave describes people chained in darkness, mistaking shadows on the wall for the whole of reality. Only by turning toward the light—toward what casts the shadows—can they begin to see the world as it truly is. In therapy, we often work in the shadows: the protections, old narratives, and self-world constructs that shape experience. Yet each of these is influenced by something deeper and less visible. Turning toward that source can open the way to meaningful change.
On September 10, 2025, under an open white tent at Utah Valley University, conservative activist Charlie Kirk was debating all comers in front of 3,000 people when everything changed. At 12:23 p.m., a sniper’s bullet struck him in the neck. Chaos erupted—screams, running, ducking, simple panic. The shock was immediate. In that rupture, spectacle gave way to death’s terror. For
Join our mailing list and get the latest in news and events.
© 2026 All rights reserved