here-and-now Archives - Existential-Humanistic Institute

Existential Moment series

The Existential Moment: An E-H Understanding of Relational Distress and Healing

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.

June 1, 2026

Existential Moment series

The Existential Moment: Toward an E-H Informed Couples Therapy

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.

May 1, 2026

Existential Moment series

The Existential Moment: Resistance and Self-World Constructs

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.

April 1, 2026

Existential Moment series

The Existential Moment–Existential-Integrative: Defenses

Holden Caulfield, the main character in the classic novel The Catcher in the Rye, imagines himself standing in a field of rye, catching children before they fall over the edge

March 1, 2025

Existential Moment series

The Existential Moment—Existential Integrative: The Unconscious

In 19th-century Vienna, Sigmund Freud confronted a mystery that medicine couldn’t explain: patients with symptoms like paralysis and seizures, yet no physical cause. One case, Anna O., became a turning

February 1, 2025

Existential Moment series

The Existential Moment: Accepting Fear and Anxiety

It was a dark, windless night in upstate New York in 1790; the only sound was the pounding of hooves on the narrow path. A schoolteacher, heart racing, galloped through

October 1, 2024

EHI Events

New Salon: Examining the Limitations to Presence

On June 25th, EHI Is hosting a 90-minute virtual community space for contacting and cultivating therapeutic presence. Personal, relational, and cosmological aspects are considered in group discussion, practical demonstration, dyad practice, and will be flexible in nature to follow prerogatives emergent from the group.

May 14, 2024

Existential Moment series

The Existential Moment – Focus on the Interpersonal

Say what comes to your mind!

Researchers have unveiled a powerful adaptation of the classic Rorschach inkblot test in a groundbreaking development that some say is set to revolutionize therapeutic diagnostics. Dubbed “The Existential Rorschach,” this innovative tool is designed not only to probe the depths of the unconscious but to directly confront individuals with existential angst and the most profound existential givens: the inevitability of death, the quest for meaning in a seemingly indifferent universe, the terror of freedom, and the weight of personal responsibility. Using computational models based on chaos math and non-linear dynamics theory, a carefully curated series of AI-generated inkblots resembles cosmic disorder and the intricate patterns of life.

April 1, 2024

Existential Moment series

The Existential Moment: Micro-skills: Reflecting

Reflection is a bit like the work of the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. We mirror or reflect our client’s experience—the content presented, the process or experience in the moment (e.g., nonverbals, tone, pattern of speech, etc.), self and world constructs (e.g., “I am…”), protective patterns and inner tensions, and core vulnerabilities or wounds.

January 1, 2024

Existential Moment series

The Existential Moment: Bringing there-and-then into here-and-now

E-H Therapy is experiential and relational. The approach leverages several “micro-skills “to develop experience in the room, including tagging, slowing down and tuning in, reflecting back, etc. Each works to deepen presence “here-and-now.”

One skill is “bringing there-and-then into here-and-now.” It looks like, for example, the therapist’s statement above, “How does that feel to say?” The client narrated a story “there-and-then.” However, the realization of PTSD occurred in the present moment, suggesting a critical path to explore. Working in the present offers tremendous therapeutic potential. While nothing is wrong with narrating, experiencing offers immense possibilities for growth.

December 1, 2023

Existential Moment series

The Existential Moment – Authenticity

Authenticity is a core concept of existential philosophy and an essential touchstone in E-H therapy. Moral connotation (i.e., socio-political ideal) aside, authenticity means congruence with oneself – who we really are. It stands opposite ideas like “bad faith” or “alienation.”

Clients often grapple with societal pressures, parental expectations, an oppressive conscience, self-deceptions, internal conflicts, past traumas, etc., that deter them from seeing and living their authentic path.

August 31, 2023

Existential Moment series

The Existential Moment – On Freedom and Responsibility

Unfairly imprisoned for 27 years in apartheid-ruled South Africa, Nelson Mandela refused to succumb to the chains of victimhood, blame, and rage, instead embracing the powerful message of self-mastery and determination of the poem “Invictus.” For Mandela, “Invictus,” meaning “unconquered” in Latin, was a guiding light of inner freedom in dark times of brutality, isolation, and hopelessness. The mindset helped turn a prison into a crucible of resilience and a man into a beacon of inspiration of hope, forgiveness, and unwavering strength

August 1, 2023

Existential Moment series

The Existential Moment: On Transparency

Existential-Humanistic therapy is experiential and relational. Transparency stands as a central issue for both.

For the client, openness and honesty are the ground for healing and growth. Closedness and self-deception ensure the status quo. However, when basked in presence, transparency leads to revelation. The process of transparency is therefore worth reinforcing and encouraging with sensitivity.

February 1, 2023

Existential Moment series

The Existential Moment: The Parable of the Good Samaritan

The standard interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan is about having compassion and charity for those in need, without expectation of reward. But what if we think about it slightly differently?

September 1, 2022

Existential Moment series

The Existential Moment: The Interpersonal Dimension

“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

October 1, 2021

Existential Moment series

The Existential Moment: The “here and now”—Our best friend

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)

May 1, 2021

Existential Moment series

The Existential Moment: Begin Within

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

February 1, 2021

Tag: here-and-now

The Existential Moment: An E-H Understanding of Relational Distress and Healing

The Existential Moment: Toward an E-H Informed Couples Therapy

The Existential Moment: Resistance and Self-World Constructs

The Existential Moment–Existential-Integrative: Defenses

The Existential Moment—Existential Integrative: The Unconscious

The Existential Moment: Accepting Fear and Anxiety

New Salon: Examining the Limitations to Presence

The Existential Moment – Focus on the Interpersonal

The Existential Moment: Micro-skills: Reflecting

The Existential Moment: Bringing there-and-then into here-and-now

The Existential Moment – Authenticity

The Existential Moment – On Freedom and Responsibility

The Existential Moment: On Transparency

The Existential Moment: The Parable of the Good Samaritan

The Existential Moment: The Interpersonal Dimension

The Existential Moment: The “here and now”—Our best friend

The Existential Moment: Begin Within

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