The Chinese finger trap is a good illustration of the law of reverse effect: try something and get the opposite. The framework is helpful to remember when working with psychological protections (i.e., “spacesuits”). When we push or confront, we may get resistance.
Working with “spacesuits” is part of the art of therapy. Still, there are points to keep in mind.
“Houston, I feel a lot of water on the back of my head.” Instructed to return forty-five minutes into a maintenance repair spacewalk on the International Space Station, astronaut Luca
“To be or not to be, that is the question.” The legendary words are rather trite today. Their perceptiveness drained with time and abuse. Nonetheless, pain, suffering, and death do
E-H Therapy theory holds that four existential givens (also called paradoxical polarities) pervade The Cosmological Dimension of the Therapeutic Encounter. The third polarity is wishing to be connected but being irrevocably separate.
This problem shows the power of a mental set, an unconscious predisposition to approach a problem in a particular way based on experience and habit. A mental set exemplifies the limitations experience puts on choice. However, the past is simply one of several limitations placed on our freedom.
A picture is worth a thousand words. At Eternity’s Gate by Vincent van Gogh conveys the overwhelming weight of grief. However, the title brings home the meaning of the work
Happy New Year!
The ringing in of the New Year is a time for new beginnings. The celebration of a new year dates back to the Babylonians, and current cultures the world over continue to embrace comparable rites and rituals.
The New Year’s resolution is a celebrated example of ringing in the new in the US. We commit to a change, make a promise to do something different in our lives in a process of growth (sometimes, sadly, a fleeting process). Notably, the promise of the resolution presumes a before and after, an old and new. The new is our goal.
According to Existential-Humanistic Therapy theory, the fourth and final element of the Four Dimensions of Therapeutic Encounter is The Cosmological. In particular, four paradoxical givens comprise the Cosmological: the wish to live and the inevitability of
The rookie cop pulled his squad car up to the group of people standing on the sidewalk and rolled down his window. “Hey,” he barked, “there’s no loitering in this
“That’ll do very well,” said Alice: “and ‘slithy’?” Alice, of course, is the iconic Lewis Carroll character in Through the Looking Glass. She is asking Humpty Dumpty to explain the
A stop sign or traffic light. A comma in a sentence. Intermission in a movie. A timeout in a game. Examples of slowing down and pausing abound in our lives.
In the Oscar-winning film, Good Will Hunting, Will Hunting (Matt Damon) is a brilliant, troubled young man with a traumatic past. After Will is arrested for attacking a police officer,
After the massive leak of information by whistleblower Edward Snowden, the U.S. government released a mountain of classified information to control the message and quell the mob. Predictably, ironically, almost
“As part of this ceremony, women bake their heads in small ovens for about an hour.” This quote is from the article, “Body Ritual among the Nacirema,” published in The
Existential-Humanistic Therapy is experiential and relational. Working in the “here and now” is central to experiential work and a powerful ally in therapy. As Irv Yalom (2002) aptly summarizes, “The here-and-now is the major source of therapeutic power, the pay dirt of therapy, the therapist’s (and hence the patient’s) best friend.” (p. 46)
The Four Dimensions of the Therapeutic Encounter, tools for organizing, orienting, pointing on the therapeutic journey with clients. Part of the Experiential Training Course available in EHI’s Certificate in the Foundations of Existential-Humanistic Therapy Practice.
His words were stoic and straightforward: “I’ve been in well over a hundred firefights. When I picked up pieces of my buddy and put them in a body bag…that’s hard
Welcome to The Existential Moment, EHI’s email digest intended to inform and inspire your healing work and growth in a brief but evocative format. In therapy (and life!), we recognize
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