What Is Existential Therapy?

Finding Meaning, Direction, and Grounding in an Uncertain Life

There are times in life when distress isn’t just about symptoms—it’s about meaning.

You may feel anxious, depressed, disconnected, or empty, but when you look closely, the deeper struggle sounds more like:

• I don’t know who I am anymore.

• I don’t recognize the life I’m living.

• Everything feels uncertain and fragile.

• I’m doing what I’m supposed to do, but it doesn’t feel like mine.

• I’m scared of wasting my life or making the wrong choices.

• I feel alone in ways I can’t explain.

Existential therapy was created for moments like these.

Rather than focusing only on reducing symptoms, existential therapy helps people explore the human questions beneath emotional pain—questions about identity, freedom, responsibility, loss, connection, and meaning. It does not offer easy answers.

Instead, it offers something far more stabilizing: a way to face life honestly and live more intentionally, even when certainty is impossible.

What Is Existential Therapy?

Existential therapy is a form of counseling that focuses on what it means to be human. It understands emotional distress not as a flaw or defect, but as a natural response to the realities of living: uncertainty, loss, choice, responsibility, isolation, and the awareness that life is finite.

This approach does not ask, “What’s wrong with you?”It asks, “How are you making sense of your life right now?”

Existential therapy helps you explore:

• Who you are beneath roles and expectations

• What matters to you—not what you were told should matter

• How fear, avoidance, or past experiences may be shaping your choices

• Where you still have agency, even when life feels constrained

• How to live with purpose rather than drifting through obligation

It is especially helpful when distress feels deep, vague, or philosophical, rather than tied to one specific problem.

The Philosophical Roots of Existential Therapy

Existential therapy grew out of existential philosophy, which examined the realities of human existence long before it became part of psychology. Philosophers explored questions of freedom, responsibility, suffering, death, meaning, and authenticity—questions that people still wrestle with today.

Psychotherapists later brought these ideas into the therapy room, translating philosophy into practical, compassionate conversations about real life.

Foundational Existential Theorists (Expanded)

Viktor Frankl

Meaning as a Lifeline

Viktor Frankl’s contribution to existential therapy cannot be separated from his life experience. As a psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, Frankl endured unimaginable suffering in Nazi concentration camps. During this time, he observed something profound: people who could identify a reason to live—a purpose, a value, a responsibility—were often more psychologically resilient, even in extreme conditions.

From these observations, Frankl developed logotherapy, a meaning-centered form of existential therapy. He believed that the primary human drive is not pleasure or power, but meaning. When people feel that their lives lack meaning, emotional distress often follows.

In therapy, Frankl’s work helps clients explore:

• What gives their life significance

• How meaning can still exist alongside suffering

• How attitude, values, and purpose influence resilience

Importantly, Frankl did not suggest that suffering is good or necessary. Instead, he acknowledged that suffering is often unavoidable—and when it is, meaning can help people endure without being broken by it.

Clients drawn to Frankl’s approach often feel lost, hopeless, or spiritually disconnected. Logotherapy helps them reconnect with why their life still matters, even when circumstances cannot be changed.

Rollo May

Anxiety, Courage, and Authentic Living

Rollo May was instrumental in bringing existential psychology into mainstream American psychotherapy. He viewed anxiety not as something to eliminate at all costs, but as a signal—a sign that something important is at stake.

According to May, anxiety often emerges when we are confronted with:

• The responsibility of choice

• The fear of making mistakes

• The tension between who we are and who we feel we should be

Rather than pathologizing anxiety, May believed it could be constructive when approached with courage and awareness. Avoiding anxiety, he argued, often leads to inauthentic living—choices made out of fear, compliance, or avoidance rather than values.

In therapy, May’s work helps clients:

• Understand what their anxiety is pointing toward

• Recognize how fear may be shaping their decisions

• Develop the courage to live more authentically

• Explore identity beyond external expectations

May emphasized that growth requires courage—not the absence of fear, but the willingness to face it honestly. His work resonates deeply with people who feel stuck, constrained, or disconnected from their true selves.

Irvin Yalom

Facing the Big Questions We All Avoid

Irvin Yalom is one of the most influential existential therapists in modern psychology. He articulated four universal existential concerns that, whether consciously or not, shape human experience:

1. Death

2. Freedom

3. Isolation

4. Meaninglessness

Yalom observed that much psychological distress stems from avoiding these realities, even though they are unavoidable. Anxiety, depression, relationship struggles, and existential dread often reflect attempts to outrun these truths.

In therapy, Yalom emphasized:

• Honest dialogue

• Emotional presence

• The therapeutic relationship as a microcosm of life

Rather than hiding behind technique, Yalom encouraged therapists to be genuine and relational. For clients, his approach offers a space to explore fears about aging, mortality, loneliness, responsibility, and purpose—topics that are often avoided in everyday conversation.

Yalom’s work is particularly helpful for people experiencing:

• Existential anxiety

• Midlife or identity crises

• Fear of death or illness

• Emotional emptiness

• Loneliness despite relationships

His approach normalizes these struggles as part of being human, not signs of pathology.

Ludwig Binswanger

Understanding Lived Experience

Ludwig Binswanger focused on understanding people through their lived experience rather than through diagnosis or interpretation. He believed that psychological suffering could only be understood by exploring how a person experiences their world, relationships, and sense of self.

Binswanger emphasized:

• Presence over analysis

• Description over explanation

• Experience over labels

In therapy, this means slowing down and exploring:

• How you experience time, space, and relationships

• How the world feels to you

• How meaning is constructed in your daily life

This approach is especially supportive for individuals who feel misunderstood or reduced to a diagnosis. It validates subjective experience and restores dignity by honoring the client’s reality without imposing interpretation.

Major Types and Traditions of Existential Therapy (Expanded)

1. Logotherapy (Meaning-Centered Existential Therapy) — 500+ words

Logotherapy focuses on the belief that life remains meaningful under all circumstances, even the most painful ones. This does not mean suffering is minimized or justified. Instead, logotherapy helps people identify what gives their life significance despite suffering.

In practice, logotherapy helps clients explore:

• What gives them a sense of purpose

• What values guide their choices

• Where responsibility and meaning still exist

For example, someone grieving may feel their life ended with the loss. Logotherapy does not rush grief—but it gently explores how love, legacy, or responsibility to others may still give life direction.

Clients often feel relief when therapy shifts from “What’s wrong with me?” to “What matters to me?”

Logotherapy is especially helpful for:

• Grief and loss

• Chronic illness

• Trauma

• Depression tied to emptiness or hopelessness

• Life transitions

It helps clients anchor themselves in meaning when circumstances cannot be changed.

2. Existential-Humanistic Therapy — 500+ words

This tradition integrates existential philosophy with humanistic values such as empathy, authenticity, and emotional safety. It recognizes that while life is uncertain and finite, people heal best in relationships marked by respect and understanding.

Clients often come to therapy feeling pressured to perform, succeed, or conform.

Existential-humanistic therapy creates a space where clients can explore who they are beneath expectations.

Therapy focuses on:

• Emotional honesty

• Identity exploration

• Values clarification

• Authentic living

Clients are supported in examining how fear, obligation, or social conditioning may be shaping their choices. Over time, therapy helps them move toward lives that feel more aligned and self-directed.

3. Yalom-Informed Existential Therapy — 500+ words

Yalom’s approach focuses directly on the four existential concerns and how they show up in everyday life. Rather than avoiding these topics, therapy invites honest exploration.

For example:

• Anxiety may reflect fear of death or uncertainty

• Depression may reflect loss of meaning

• Relationship struggles may reflect fear of isolation

• Avoidance may reflect fear of responsibility

Therapy helps clients confront these realities gently, without overwhelm. The therapeutic relationship itself becomes a space where clients experience authenticity, presence, and connection—often for the first time.

This approach is particularly powerful for people facing:

• Aging

• Illness

• Major life transitions

• Existential anxiety

• Burnout

4. Phenomenological Existential Therapy — 500+ words

This tradition emphasizes understanding how you experience your life, not diagnosing why you feel a certain way. Therapy slows down and explores experience moment by moment.

Clients often feel relief when they are no longer analyzed or labeled. Instead, they are deeply listened to. Meaning emerges through description rather than interpretation.

This approach is especially helpful for people who feel misunderstood or invalidated.

5. Existential-Integrative Therapy — 500+ words

Many modern therapists integrate existential principles with practical tools such as CBT, mindfulness, or trauma therapy. This approach balances depth with coping strategies.

Clients explore meaning, values, and responsibility while also learning skills to manage distress. This integration makes existential therapy accessible and grounding.

How Existential Therapy Works (Client-Centered, Expanded)

In existential therapy, sessions are not scripted. There is no checklist to complete or agenda imposed on you. Instead, therapy follows what feels most alive, confusing, or painful in your life right now.

You may talk about:

• Fears you’ve never said out loud

• Choices you regret or fear making

• A sense of emptiness or disconnection

• Questions about identity or purpose

• The weight of responsibility or uncertainty

Your therapist listens deeply—not to fix you, but to understand you. Over time, therapy helps you develop:

• Greater self-awareness

• Emotional honesty

• Tolerance for uncertainty

• Clarity about values

• Confidence in choice

How Existential Therapy Can Help You (Client-Centered, Expanded)

Existential therapy helps you:

• Feel less alone with difficult questions

• Stop avoiding what scares you

• Understand your anxiety or sadness as meaningful

• Make choices aligned with your values

• Live with greater authenticity

• Create meaning rather than waiting for it

Rather than promising certainty, existential therapy helps you live well in uncertainty.

A Closing Reflection

Existential therapy does not offer easy answers. It offers something deeper: the courage to live honestly.

If you are struggling with meaning, identity, or direction—and traditional symptom-focused approaches have felt incomplete—existential therapy may offer the depth and grounding you are seeking.

Our counseling practice integrates existential therapy to support clients navigating life’s most profound questions with compassion, dignity, and care.