God’s knows when, but you’re doing it again.
Subterranean Homesick Blues
Existential therapy is the conversational manifestation of the spirit of Zen. The focus is the now. The unique strength of existential therapy is that the therapist must focus as much as possible, at all times, on what is presented in the here and now. The now is acknowledged and treated as the only available and reliable entry point into reality. The relationship as it is presented between therapist and client becomes an archetype relationship, and furthermore, each moment, each now, present in the session becomes an archetype for every other now that the client will encounter. In this way the therapist prepares the client into the idea of staying consistently in presence, and uncovering the depth and richness of the present at all times. Since life’s mistakes are repeated, enacted and re-enacted, they are always ready to emerge in every new relationship: a story is not even required, just two people. In one of many wonderful Zen parables, the master tells his disciple "wherever you are, enter Zen from there." And where is it that we always are? Here.
Introspection is always retrospection, everything is always right here, and what more immediate and fresh place to start than in the only moment that exists, this one.
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Thank you - a concise way to grasp the 'in-between' and 'co-creative' nature of the client/therapist relationship. The beauty of existential psychotherapy is indeed the present become the future. I very much like R D Laing's Bird of Paradise where he talks about the intersubjective experience of relating with another - and how we can't experience another's experience of us - but can experience them, experiencing us, experiencing them.....
ReplyDeleteClare Mann
Existential Psychotherapist
http://lifemyths.com/