The humanistic and existential trends arose in the middle of the last century in Europe as a result of the development of the philosophical and psychological thought of two recent centuries, being, in fact, a consequence of the sublimation of such currents as Nietzsche's "philosophy of life", Schopenhauer's philosophical irrationalism, Bergson's intuitionism, Scheler's and Jung's philosophical ontology, and the existentialism of Heidegger, Sartre and Camus. In the works of Horney, Fromm, Rubinstein, in their ideas, the motives of this trend are clearly traced. Pretty soon, the existential approach in psychology became very popular in North America. The ideas were supported by prominent representatives of the "third revolution". Simultaneously with existentialism in the psychological thought of this period, a humanistic trend was also developing, represented by such prominent psychologists as Rogers, Kelly, Maslow. Both of these branches have become a counterbalance to the already established trends in psychological science- Freudianism and behaviorism.

Existential-humanistic direction and other currents

The founder of the existential-humanistic direction (EHP) - D. Budzhental - often criticized behaviorism for a simplified understanding of the personality, disregard for the person, his potentialities, mechanization of behavioral patterns and the desire to control the personality. Behaviorists, on the other hand, criticized the humanistic approach for giving supervalue to the concept of freedom, considering it as an object pilot study and insisted that there is no freedom, and that the basic law of existence is stimulus-response. Humanists insisted on the failure and even the danger of such an approach for a person.

The humanists also had their own complaints about the followers of Freud, despite the fact that many of them started out as psychoanalysts. The latter denied the dogmatism and determinism of the concept, opposed the fatalism characteristic of Freudianism, and denied the unconscious as a universal explanatory principle. Despite this, it should be noted that the existential is still to a certain extent close to psychoanalysis.

The essence of humanism

At the moment, there is no consensus on the degree of independence of humanism and existentialism, but most representatives of these movements prefer to share them, although everyone recognizes their fundamental commonality, since the main idea of ​​these trends is the recognition of the freedom of the individual in choosing and building his being. Existentialists and humanists agree that the awareness of being, touching it, transforms and transforms a person, raising him above the chaos and emptiness of empirical existence, reveals his originality and, thanks to this, makes him the meaning of himself. In addition, the undoubted advantage of the humanistic concept is that it is not abstract theories that are introduced into life, but, on the contrary, real practical experience serves as the foundation for scientific generalizations. Experience is considered in humanism as a priority value and the main guideline. Both humanistic and existential psychology regard practice as the most important component. But here, too, the difference of this method can be traced: for humanists, it is important to practice the real experience of experiencing and solving quite specific personal problems, and not the use and implementation of methodological and methodological templates.

Human nature in GP and EP

Time, life and death

Death is the most easily realized, since the most obvious inevitable final given. The realization of impending death fills a person with fear. The desire to live and the simultaneous awareness of the temporality of existence is the main conflict that is studied by existential psychology.

Determinism, freedom, responsibility

The understanding of freedom in existentialism is also ambiguous. On the one hand, a person strives for the absence of an external structure, on the other hand, he is afraid of its absence. After all, it is easier to exist in an organized universe that obeys an external plan. But, on the other hand, existential psychology insists that a person creates his own world and is fully responsible for it. Awareness of the lack of prepared templates and structure creates fear.

Communication, love and loneliness

The understanding of loneliness is based on the concept of existential isolation, that is, detachment from the world and society. A person comes into the world alone and leaves it the same way. The conflict is generated by the awareness of one's own loneliness, on the one hand, and the person's need for communication, protection, belonging to something more, on the other.

Meaninglessness and the meaning of life

The problem of the lack of meaning in life stems from the first three nodes. On the one hand, being in continuous cognition, a person creates his own meaning, on the other hand, he is aware of his isolation, loneliness and impending death.

Authenticity and conformism. Guilt

Psychologists-humanists, based on the principle of personal choice of a person, distinguish two main polarities - authenticity and conformism. In an authentic worldview, a person shows his unique personal qualities, sees himself as a person who is able to influence his own experience and society through decision-making, since society is created by the choice of individual individuals, therefore, is able to change as a result of their efforts. An authentic lifestyle is characterized by inwardness, innovation, harmony, refinement, courage and love.

A person who is outwardly oriented, who does not have the courage to take responsibility for his own choice, chooses the path of conformism, defining himself exclusively as a performer. social roles. Acting according to prepared social patterns, such a person thinks stereotypically, does not know how and does not want to recognize his choice and give it internal evaluation. The conformist looks into the past, relying on ready-made paradigms, as a result of which he has insecurity and a sense of his own worthlessness. There is an accumulation of ontological guilt.

A value approach to a person and faith in a person, his strength allow him to study it more deeply. The heuristic nature of the direction is also evidenced by the presence of various angles of view in it. The main ones are humanistic existential psychology. May and Schneider also highlight the existential-integrative approach. In addition, there are approaches such as Friedman's dialogue therapy and

Despite a number of conceptual differences, the person-centered humanistic and existential currents are in solidarity in trusting a person. An important advantage of these directions is that they do not seek to "simplify" the personality, place its most essential problems in the center of their attention, do not cut off the intractable questions of the correspondence of a person's existence in the world and his inner nature. Recognizing that society also affects its being in it, existential psychology is in close contact with history, cultural studies, sociology, philosophy, social psychology, at the same time being a holistic and promising branch modern science about personality.

It originates in humanistic psychology and the works of its founders - K. Rogers, R. May, A. Maslow and others. The essential core of this approach is in understanding a person as an indivisible and fundamentally integral unity of the body, psyche and spirit, and, accordingly, in addressing integral experiences (happiness, grief, guilt, loss, etc.), and not to separate isolated aspects, processes and manifestations. The categorical apparatus of the humanitarian approach includes ideas about the "I", identity, authenticity, self-realization and self-actualization, personal growth, existence, the meaning of life, etc.

A wide range of methods is associated with this approach: non-directive client-centered psychotherapy (K. Rogers), psychological counseling(R. May), bioenergetics (W. Reich), sensory awareness (Sh. Silver, C. Brooks), structural integration (I. Rolf), psychosynthesis (R. Assagioli), logotherapy (W. Frankl), existential analysis P May and J. Bugenthal, etc. Art therapy, poetic therapy, creative self-expression therapy (M. E. Burno), music therapy (P. Nordoff and K. Robbins) and others can also be included here.

In the course of his existence, a person is faced with the givens of existence: death, freedom, isolation, meaninglessness. They perform a dynamic function in relation to a person - they encourage the development of his personality, his formation. But confronting them is painful, so people tend to defend themselves against them, which often leads to only an illusory solution to the problem.

Faced with this kind of experience, people can go both along a destructive (numerous forms of psychological defenses) path of development, and along a constructive path - despite fear, people allow themselves to be immersed in this kind of experience, which contributes to a different understanding of the situation, greater calmness, productive functioning.

Constant encounters with a problem with the inability to survive it constructively for the development of one's personality make a person neurotic.

The main goal of working with a client within the framework of this approach is to help the client switch from the destructive path of psychological defenses to the constructive path of a clear understanding and experience of the realities of his existence.

The existential approach is applicable in cases where clients find themselves in extreme situation associated with some existential problem: death, transition periods in personal life and work, making important decisions, isolation.

Let us consider the givens of existence that cause an existential crisis and anxiety associated with it.

1 K - awareness of the inevitability of death and the desire to continue to live. Objective: to lead the client to such an in-depth awareness of death that would lead to more highly appreciated life, would open prospects for personal growth and make it possible to live an authentic life.

2 K - between the awareness of freedom and the need to be responsible for your life. Objective: to help the client realize personal freedom and encourage them to take responsibility for their feelings, thoughts, decisions, actions, life.

3 K - between awareness of one's own global loneliness (isolation) and the desire to establish contacts, seek protection and exist as part of a larger whole. Objective: To help the client emerge from the state of interpersonal fusion and learn to interact with others while maintaining and nurturing their own individuality.

4 K - between people's need for the meaning of life and the lack of "ready-made" recipes for a meaningful being. The realization that the world does not exist in order to determine (systematize, streamline) the life of an individual, or even at all, is indifferent to a person, causes great anxiety and activates defense mechanisms.

According to existential consultants, it is important for a person to feel the meaning of life, whether it is cosmic or earthly. The cosmic meaning implies a certain plan that exists outside and above the personality and necessarily implies some kind of magical or spiritual ordering of the universe. The earthly meaning or “meaning of my life” includes a purpose: a person who has a sense of meaning perceives life as having some purpose or function that needs to be fulfilled, some leading task or tasks for applying himself. It is important to note that PP clients who experience anxiety associated with a lack of meaning in life should be helped

to make a decision of involvement, and not to plunge into the problem of meaninglessness, ”thus, the task of the consultant in resolving the existential conflict associated with the feeling of meaninglessness is to help the client become more actively involved in life and help overcome / eliminate obstacles along the way.

The existential approach of Irvin Yalom and Rollo May

Yalom: In the process of work, life concerns are explored that are experienced during life and cause existential anxieties:

Death is the main source of anxiety associated with death (conscious/subconscious). They try to bring the client to such an in-depth awareness of death that would lead to a higher appreciation of life, would open up the possibility for

personal growth. People should start overestimating values, try not to commit meaningless actions.

Freedom is the conflict between the fear of existence and being. A person who can choose his needs. The client is helped to take responsibility for his life.

Mei: want -> choose -> act

Insulation. The client is helped to understand that ultimately everyone is alone. He is encouraged to take a realistic look at what he can and cannot get out of a relationship.

Interpersonal - as "loneliness"

Internal - pathology

Existential - everyone comes into this world alone and leaves the same way.

Meaninglessness is the absorption of time, because they do not see the meaning in their existence. It is argued that when people complain that there is no meaning, they essentially cannot find it. That people give meaning to something rather than get it ready-made. Thus, people are responsible for creating their own meaning.

Logotherapy. Viktor Frankl is the founder of logotherapy. Logotherapy is sometimes referred to as the third Viennese school of psychotherapy (the other two being Freud's psychoanalysis and Adler's individual psychology). Viewed from a different perspective, logotherapy is presented more as an adjunct to psychotherapy than as a therapy that can replace psychotherapy (Frankl, 1975a). Logos is a Greek word that means both "meaning" and "spirit", the second meaning not having any religious connotation. Humans are meaning-seeking beings, and the search for meaning is not pathological in itself. Existence (existence) confronts people with the need to find meaning in life. The main goal of logotherapy is to help clients in their search for meaning. The desire for meaning is the primary motivating force in humans. The search for meaning includes both conscious activity and establishing contact with the spiritual unconscious.

Consciousness, whose sources are in the spiritual unconscious, can intuitively reveal the unique meanings of the individual in certain situations.

Human freedom is the "freedom to" take responsibility for the realization of meaning in a realm limited by death and destiny. Self-transcendence, in which people reach for a meaning outside of themselves, is an important characteristic of human existence. Sources of meaning include work, love, suffering, the past, and supermeaning.

An existential vacuum occurs when people suffer from a sense of inner emptiness and a lack of meaning in life. The existential vacuum itself is not neurotic, but can lead to the development of a noogenic neurosis. Humanity is becoming increasingly neurotic, with a widespread neurotic triad of depression, drug addiction, and aggression.

The reasons for the formation of an existential vacuum are as follows: the presence in people of an instinctive basis of behavior that is less powerful than in animals, the destruction of ideas about values ​​and traditions, the tendency to reductionism (to consider people as rather determined than determining beings).

The ways in which people maintain an existential vacuum include repression, evasion of responsibility, and under-emphasis on self-transcendence.

The goal of logotherapy in the presence of existential vacuum and noogenic neuroses in clients is to help clients find meaning in life. Logotherapists are educators of responsibility. In addition, logotherapy is effective in cases of psychogenic neuroses and somatogenic psychoses.

Paradoxical intention and dereflexia are logotherapeutic methods used to work with psychogenic neuroses.

Medical "shepherding," by which logotherapists help clients find meaning in suffering, is recommended for somatogenic psychoses.

48 Cognitive Counseling

cognitive approach. It relies on ideas about the decisive role of thinking, cognitive (cognitive) processes in the origin of disorders. Like the psychodynamic approach, he addresses the implicit, hidden causes of disorders and, like the behavioral approach, to maladaptive behavioral stereotypes. The focus of this approach is on thought patterns: Any response to external circumstances is mediated by the internal organization of mental processes, thought patterns. The failure of these patterns triggers "negative cognitive circuits", which is fundamentally comparable to programming errors and viral distortions of computer programs.

The most famous representatives of the cognitive direction in psychology were J. Kelly, A. Ellis, A. Beck

The essence of the cognitive direction is to explain how a person interprets and predicts his life experience, anticipates (constructs) future events, manages experienced events.

Various schools within this approach emphasize the importance of individual cognitive styles, cognitive complexity, cognitive balance, cognitive dissonance, etc. The goals and objectives of psychotherapy are focused on "reprogramming" thinking and cognitive processes as a mechanism for the emergence of problems and the formation of symptoms. The range of methods is very wide - from rational psychotherapy according to P. Dubois to rational-emotive psychotherapy by A. Ellis. Like the behavioral approach, the cognitive approach is based on the directive position of the therapist.

The cognitive approach is based on theories describing personality in terms of the organization of cognitive structures. It is with them that the psychologist works in a correctional plan, and in some cases we are talking not only about violations of the actual cognitive sphere, but also about the difficulties that determine the problems of communication, internal conflicts, etc. Cognitive psycho-correction is focused on the present. This approach is directive, active and focused on the client's problem, used both in individual and group form, as well as for the correction of family and marital relations. The following features can be distinguished: The focus is not on the client's past, but on his present - thoughts about himself and the world. It is believed that knowing the causes of violations does not always lead to their correction. Correction is based on learning new ways of thinking. Widespread use of the homework system aimed at transferring the acquired new skills to the environment of real interaction.

The main task of correction is to change the perception of oneself and the surrounding reality, while recognizing that knowledge about oneself and the world affects behavior, and behavior and its consequences affect ideas about oneself and the world.

The cognitive approach can be divided into two directions:

1. Cognitive-analytical.

2. Cognitive-behavioral

Gestalt and existential therapy are related types of psychotherapy. Gestalt therapy initially developed within the existential-phenomenological direction and, as you know, existentialism and Gestalt psychology, which are the origins of Gestalt therapy, are derived from phenomenology.
In the 50s. F. Perls and L. Perla called Gestalt therapy an existential analysis and considered it one of the forms existential therapy. Later in the 60s and 70s. Gestalt therapy acquired quite clear boundaries: it formulated its own conceptual and methodological apparatus and took shape in a completely independent psychotherapeutic school. In our opinion, today the theoretical boundaries of gestalt and existential therapy are quite clear, but in practice this clarity is lost, often the sessions of a gestalt therapist and an existential therapist look very similar. Bob Resnick, a well-known Gestalt therapist from Los Angeles, sharing his impressions of the practical work of Jim Bugental, says that his real work with a client looks almost the same as the work of a Gestalt therapist, but Jim explains his therapy in a different way. Indeed, Gestalt therapy makes extensive use of the existential approach in its practice. What is the essence of the existential approach? To answer this question, we turn to the work of the founders of the existential-humanistic direction in psychotherapy, which was developed in the USA and is associated with the names of Rollo May, James Bugenthal and Irvin Yalom.
The existential approach focuses on the fact of the existence of a person, his being, the life of a person as a whole. The existential approach encourages a person to look for an answer to the questions: “What does it mean to be alive? What do we do with the wonder of our conscious existence? How can we most fully and consciously realize what is potentially inherent in our nature?
The specificity of the existential approach is that, unlike other approaches, it is based on certain philosophical positions and serves as the basis for a number of other psychotherapeutic approaches. So in the West you can meet psychotherapists who consider themselves existentialists and at the same time classify themselves as other psychotherapeutic schools, also calling themselves psychoanalysts, Jungians, Gestaltists and humanistic psychologists. In essence, the existential approach provides a general context for psychotherapy (Bugental & Sterling, 1995).
The essence of the existential approach is that it returns attention to the integral human existence: "Man transcends the sum of his parts" (Mau, 1958). This idea is widely developed in Gestalt therapy. The existential therapist refers to the whole person, and sees the suffering of ethics not as some kind of disease or violation that can be studied through objective analysis and cured, but as an experience that has a meaning that can be understood in relation to the holistic way of being a person in the world and can become source of his inner development.
Fundamentally important to the existential approach is that human beings are the only organisms in nature that have the ability to be aware and at the same time aware of their awareness. This capacity for reflective awareness underlies the process of personality change in psychotherapy. Reflective awareness makes it possible to reduce and transform obstacles and blocks to authentic life, which is the central task of existential-humanistic psychotherapy.
A specific concept of existential therapy is the concept of existential "givenness" (Yalom, 1999). Existentialists believe that life confronts people with certain, permanent and unchanging conditions of existence, which are called "givens", each of which brings inevitable circumstances or "confrontations" into the life of a particular person, which must be dealt with. Yalom identifies 4 "givens": death, freedom, meaninglessness. isolation, Bugental describes 5 "givens": corporeality, finitude, freedom and capacity for action, meaninglessness and the search for meaning, separation and connectedness (Bugental & Kleiner, 1993).
And although people's responses to these "givens" vary widely, certain patterns of such responses can be identified, which are embodied in the system of constructs "I-and-World" (Bugental, 1987). This system contains the main ways in which people cope with anxiety, achieve goals and at the same time limit the scope of their existence. From the point of view of the existential-humanistic approach, the clinical symptoms and stresses with which clients come to therapy are deeply rooted in the patterns of responses to these "givens" of human existence.
The specificity of the practice of the existential approach is that it equips psychotherapists to a greater extent with a special way of seeing the client than it offers a certain set of specific techniques and methods of work. The consequence of this is a wide variety and freedom in the use of techniques that existential therapists use, the main thing for them is not the techniques, but the observance of the principles of practical work.
Despite the difference in concrete ways implementation of psychotherapeutic work, there are a number of basic principles that unite psychotherapists who adhere to an existential-humanistic approach.
D. Bugental names 4 main principles of clinical practice of an existential therapist (Bugental & Klainer, 1993):
1. The existential approach assumes that the psychological distress with which clients come to therapy hides more
deep and often hidden existential problems. Over time, the existential therapist develops a special "existential ear" that allows, behind the façade of the patient's complaints and problems, to catch the sound of these hidden existential problems.
2. The existential approach is based on unconditional respect for the uniqueness of each individual. This means that the value of the client's personality, its autonomy and originality, the therapist puts in therapy above any psychotherapeutic theories and interpretations.
3. The existential approach focuses on the client's experience of his being, awareness or subjectivity. The focus of the work of the existential therapist is the subjectivity of the client or the inner flow of his experiences. An existential therapist develops in his clients the ability to have a deeper inner awareness and feeling of their forces and resources, their emotions and intentions, as well as to be aware of the obstacles to this process, patterns of defenses and resistances. The loss of a person's sense of the connectedness of his existence with the feeling of his inner being is considered in existential therapy as a source of distress, an obstacle to a full bright and authentic life.
4. The existential approach emphasizes the importance of the living present of subjective life for the process of psychotherapy. All other time frames - past and future - are considered in their relation to the immediate present. Without denying the influence of past experience and ideas about the future on the emotions and actions that arise in the present, the existential psychotherapist constantly focuses his attention on what is really "alive" and relevant in the client's subjectivity. That is why the existential therapist listens not only to what the client has to say about his past and future, but also to how he talks about it. It is important to emphasize that the patient's existential problems and his life concerns acquire their meaning only in the context of a person's direct experience of his being in the world.
In accordance with the above principles of existential thinking, the resolution of distress is possible only in the present. It is impossible to go back to early trauma, growth and change can only occur through confrontation with the emotions and ideas that arise in the present. (The last principle found the most wide application in Gestalt therapy).
These are the clinical principles of existential therapy. Let us now turn to the actual processes that take place in psychotherapeutic practice. What does an existential therapist actually do?
The third principle of the existential approach cited above emphasizes that much of the therapist's effort is to help the client focus on the client's inner sense of being, an area of ​​inner experience that is often overlooked in psychotherapy. Rollo May wrote: “The central task and responsibility of the psychotherapist is to understand the patient as being, as being in his special world. All technical problems are secondary to such an understanding, having laid this foundation, the psychotherapist is able to help his patient to realize and directly experience the experience of his own existence, which is the main process of psychotherapy ”(Mau, 1958). To feel one's own being means to be constantly aware of the intensity, depth and continuity of the inner flow of subjective experiences. Bujengal defines subjectivity as follows: “It is the inner separate and intimate reality in which we live most authentically. The elements and structures of this reality are our perceptions, thoughts, feelings and emotions, values ​​and preferences, expectations and fears, fantasies and dreams - and everything else that flows in an endless stream inside us day and night, in the waking state and in sleep, determining how our actions outside world, and what we do in relation to what is happening to us there ... Subjectivity is a source of "concerns" that prompts us to seek help from a psychotherapist. It is also the root system of our intentionality, without the mobilization of which psychotherapy cannot be successful” (Bugental, 1987).
Existential-humanistic therapy pays special attention to answering the questions that life poses:
“What are you and who are you? What is this world? What brings satisfaction? What causes pain and disappointment? What sources of strength can you draw on to help yourself in life? It is important to emphasize that confrontation with these questions can give a feeling of vitality and satisfaction, or create a feeling of frustration and emptiness, but it is through the study of the subjectivity of clients that the basic life patterns that structure their inner world and are responsible for their sense of their existence are most revealed and worked out. in the world. In the event that the existing life patterns customers are not satisfying and holding back too much pain, they need to be re-examined and changed. It is a difficult, often frightening, and painful process that places demands on both the client and the therapist, who must maintain the client's courage and self-resilience through the stages of withdrawal and even rejection by the client (Bugental & Kleiner, 1993).
Thus, the study of subjectivity and the opening to the client of access to the experiences of one's own being constitute the main task of existential-humanistic therapy.
In order for the process of existential therapy to proceed effectively, it is important that the therapist and the client are sufficiently involved in the therapy, that is, it is necessary that they are "present". The concept of presence was developed by D. Bugental and called by him the cornerstone of psychotherapeutic art (Bugental, 1987).
Presence is the quality of being in a situation or relationship where the client and therapist are as integrally and deeply involved in the psychotherapeutic process as possible. Presence develops through the mobilization of sensitivity, which exists in two forms as internal sensitivity to subjectivity, and as external sensitivity to the situation and other people.
An effective existential therapist is sensitive to how sincerely and authentically the client is present in the psychotherapeutic situation, how much he avoids this presence, participates in the psychotherapeutic situation rather detachedly as an observer, commentator, critic or judge. The therapist also pays attention to the extent to which the problem with which the client has approached is actually experienced by him and described on the basis of a living internal and felt subjectivity, and not presented to them in an objective and detached manner. In the latter case, the essence of the problem being presented is not actually experienced by the client, remains abstract and impersonal, and the client is not fully present in the therapy.
This inability to be fully present is the client's way of avoiding bringing his subjectivity into the psychotherapeutic work. In exactly the same way, the client avoids his true involvement in life. The existential psychotherapist directs his efforts to increase the client's involvement in therapy, and, consequently, in life. From the point of view of the existential approach, all ways of avoiding full presence are forms of resistance of the client, which must be worked out by the psychotherapist. It is important that the psychotherapist not only monitors the presence of the client, but also maintains his own presence, and even seeks to manifest a deeper presence than the client in order to deepen the latter's immersion in his own subjectivity.
Emphasizing the importance of studying the client's subjectivity, existential-humanistic psychotherapy treats the client's problem as a source that sets the motivation for work and the direction of the psychotherapeutic process. Existential-humanistic psychotherapy emphasizes that the locus of therapeutic change is only within the client, and that potential changes occurring within the client only come about through clients' exploration of their internal subjective experience. The existential therapist believes that it is only in this way that significant and lasting changes in life structures become possible. For existential-humanistic psychotherapy, the approaches of psychotherapeutic schools that try to introduce a specific theory and interpretation to the client are of little interest. Existential therapists believe that the therapist cannot give insight to the client, insight can only serve as a source of change when it follows from the client’s experience and corresponds to it. internal subjective experiences. The existential approach does not deny the value of the therapist's observations, analysis, interpretations, and feedback, but emphasizes that they all make sense if they expand and deepen the client's own vision and draw on his experience.
From the point of view of existential-humanistic psychotherapy, the goal of the psychotherapist is not so much to treat, define and change the patient, but to help him show the ability to internally explore his own subjective experiences, as well as to remove the resistances that serve as an obstacle to this internal research.
The process of internal exploration has a special role to play in existential therapy and has been called the search process. Search is a natural subjective spontaneous process that begins to turn on when a person is faced with a difficult life situation. This process is the basis of imagination, creativity and discovery. D. Bugental considers this process as a manifestation of vitality and believes that it can become a powerful source that sets the direction of life (Bugental & Sterling, 1995). In essence, existential therapy purposefully uses the natural search process for changes in the course of psychotherapy. To master the search process means to acquire the invaluable art of coping with almost all life situations. In psychotherapy, the search is the main way for the client to perform therapeutic work, it is the way to discover his inner world, the way to gain a deeper understanding of his individuality, a more obvious awareness of his potential. Search is the basis for other psychotherapeutic processes. In the course of psychotherapy, the search process is carried out sequentially and step by step. It requires the client to achieve true concentration within himself, the ability to take the position of a listener, to be attentive in relation to those deep processes that open up inside consciousness. Search is a process of self-exploration and self-awareness, when the client comes into contact with his inner being and begins to realize much that is of value to his life. Consequently, the search is given a central place in existential-humanistic therapy, and the development of the search is the art of the existential therapist.
This is the therapeutic essence of the existential approach. How is this approach used in Gestalt therapy?
F. Perls called Gestalt therapy the only true existential therapy (Perls, 1969). More recent researchers of Gestalt therapy have attempted to argue that Gestalt therapy is the most existential form of therapy that draws on a phenomenological ontology of awareness, Dasein (being there) and corporeality (Dublin, 1976).
First of all, Gestalt therapy adheres to an existential view of a person as a being who is able to endlessly open his world and reveal his new possibilities. The focus of Gestalt therapy is a person who experiences his joys, losses, sufferings. Gestalt therapy opens the way for the client to live authentically, choose his existence, organize his life meaningfully and take responsibility for himself. Like existential therapy, the Gestalt approach makes extensive use of the processes of awareness, it seeks to make direct experiences more clear and distinct, it addresses the direct experience of the present (Robin, 1998).
Like existential therapy, the goal of Gestalt therapy is to help clients become aware not only of what they are doing, but of how they are doing it. In therapy, the Gestalt therapist focuses on the process (what is happening) rather than the content (not what the client is talking about) (Enright, 2000)
Gestalt therapy, as well as existential therapy, trusts the direct conscious mind), she believes true knowledge that which is directly given in experience, in experience. Unlike the existential approach, Gestalt therapy practices not only direct awareness, but also systematic, directed awareness (Perls, 1995). As with the existential approach, insight in Gestalt therapy emerges from the client's experience, but the concept of insight in Gestalt therapy is a field concept. Insight is an understanding of the structure of the situation under study. The extensive use of field theory is what distinguishes Gestalt therapy from existential therapy.
It is important that Gestalt therapy focuses on the therapeutic relationship. The relationship between therapist and client is viewed in an existential context as a meeting of two human beings with a unique and inimitable inner world. The Gestalt therapist is interested in how the therapist and client experience and understand their relationship. Gestalt therapy pays great attention to the development of therapeutic relationships that are based on care, trust, acceptance. The therapeutic relationship is expressed through the dialogic I-Thou relationship. Dialogue is a special form of contact where participants develop an attitude towards the other as a subject, as an independent and independent person, dialogue develops relationships based on authenticity, responsibility and freedom. The nature of these relationships was described in detail by Martin Buber, an existential philosopher (Buber, 1993) .
How else is the existential approach used in Gestalt therapy? As with existential therapy, Gestalt therapy focuses on the presence of the therapist. It is necessary that the therapist share with the client his feelings, observations, personal experiences, thereby helping him learn to trust his direct experiences and use them to increase awareness. It is the therapist's direct experiences that are a more powerful tool for increasing the client's awareness in Gestalt therapy than interpretations and comments based on theories. The personal presence of the psychotherapist is a fairly strong therapeutic factor in Gestalt therapy, which combines it with existential therapy. However, as D. Bugental said, the Gestalt therapist takes a more active, and sometimes even directive position, in comparison with the existential therapist.
All of the above shows that the existential approach permeates Gestalt therapy, and it is the use of this approach, in our opinion, that makes Gestalt therapy so effective and attractive. Despite the similarities between existential and gestalt therapy, both therapies, of course, have a clear boundary of contact, and this boundary lies in the area of ​​significance of the client's internal experience.
We would like to emphasize this point in particular. If existential therapy focuses on internal processes and experiences or subjectivity of the client, then Gestalt therapy focuses on contact, the cycle of building and destroying gestalt, as well as ways to maintain and break contact. Working with contact is the specificity and advantage of Gestalt therapy, however, in practice, reducing the whole variety of psychotherapeutic work events only to the features of contact between the therapist and the client, from our point of view, significantly limits the possibilities of therapy. This limitation may manifest itself in the fact that the psychotherapist does not address the deep inner experiences of the client, to his subjectivity, does not reveal the client's problems in a broader and deeper semantic context. These limitations can also deprive the therapeutic relationship itself of the thrilling intimacy that is so necessary for genuine and real change in the client's life.
In our opinion; these limitations can be removed to a large extent by mastering the knowledge and specific practices and techniques of existential therapy, so akin, as we have sought to show, to Gestalt therapy. Understanding the essence of the existential approach and knowledge of its principles practical application, will help Gestalt therapists develop sensitivity to the existential aspects of the psychotherapeutic process and will allow them to be used more actively and consciously in their work. First of all, the application of the principles of the existential approach will create an opportunity for more effective use in Gestalt therapy of those resources for change that are contained in the processes of studying the internal flow of the client's subjective experiences, in the search processes. This will make the work of the Gestalt therapist more holistic, deeper and more authentic. After all, Gestalt therapy is a therapy aimed at fundamental changes in life.
Literature
1. Bugental D. The science of being alive. M., Klass, 1999.
2. Buber M. Me and you. M. 1993.
3.Perls F. et al. Gestalt therapy workshop. St. Petersburg, 1995.
4. Robin J-M. Gestalt therapy. M., 1998.
5.Yalom I. Existential psychotherapy. M., 1999.
6. Bugental J. The art of the psychotherapy. N.Y. 1987.
7. Bugental J & Kleiner R. Existential psychotherapies. In Comprehensive handbook of psychotherapy integration, (Ed.) Striker G. & Gold J. N.Y. 1993.
8. Dublin J. Gestalt therapy, Existential-gestalt therapy and/ versus Perls-ism. In The growing edge of gestalt therapy. (Ed.) Smith E.N.Y. 1976.
9. May R., Angel E & Ellenberg H. Existence. N.Y. 1958.
10. Perls F Gestalt Therapy Verbatim. Cat. Real People press, 1969.

Existential-humanistic approach

Model of mental pathology in the existential-humanistic approach. The main existential problems and their manifestation in mental disorders. Factors of occurrence of neurotic disorders according to K. Rogers. Principles and methods of existential psychotherapy (L. Binswanger, I. Yalom, R. May).

Directions of existentialism:

Boss Research;

Bugental's research;

Binswanger research;

Research by V. Frankl;

Yalom research;

Research by R. Laing;

Research by A. Lenglet,

Research by R. May, etc.

Humanist Approach:

studies by C. Rogers, etc.

R. May's views on existentialism

Existentialism means focusing on the present. In psychology and psychiatry, this means an attitude, an approach to a person. One aspect of the existential approach is revealed by Kierkegaard, who wrote that "truth exists for the individual only when he himself produces it in action." Another postulate on which existential psychology relies is the postulate of W. James - the unity of decision and accomplishment. This refers to the immediacy of experience and the unity of thought and action.

Existentialists believe that human experience more fully reveals the nature and features of reality than the experience of human knowledge. R. May writes that “through direct psychotherapeutic interaction, we gain that knowledge and that understanding of the human essence that we could not have received in any other way, because only in this painful process of self-exploration, which gives hope for overcoming blockades and alleviating suffering, a person can open the deep levels of his own anxieties and hopes, which were tightly closed for others and even for himself” [existential. Psych., p. nine].

The fusion of two sciences - philosophy and psychology points to another aspect of the existential approach: it operates with the psychological categories of "experience", "anxiety", etc. In existentialism, these aspects of life are considered at a deeper level, which Tillich called "ontological reality".

From the point of view of the existential approach, a living human personality, when its ability to make decisions and its sense of responsibility for its own existence for the purposes of the experiment is not temporarily neutralized, always goes beyond any mechanism, and its experience of "motives" or "forces » is always unique. From the point of view of the existential approach, "personality in terms of mechanism" is not considered.

R. May cites differences in the understanding of fear between existentialism and classical psychoanalysis. In the interpretation of R. May, Z. Freud gives the following definitions of fear:

1 - fear - this is the repressed libido that has reappeared on the surface;

2 - fear - a reaction to the threat of losing a loved object.

Kierkegaard defines fear as the struggle of a living being against "non-existence". He considers fear to be a desire for what you are afraid of, it is like an extraneous force that takes possession of the individual, and he cannot escape. One of the consequences of Western civilization, according to R. May, is that there is a repression of the sensation of being, of ontological experience. As a result, the disintegration of a person's ideas about himself, experiences and understanding of himself as a responsible individual. In this regard, existentialism warns of the dangers of dehumanization. Karl Jaspers, as a psychiatrist and existentialist philosopher, also believed that we are approaching the loss of self-consciousness.

Existentialism operates with a number of concepts, including "being", "non-being", which, on the one hand, seem to be generalized, on the other hand, they explain a lot of things. R. May refers to the conflicts of the modern personality the fear of being insolvent.

In the understanding of R. May, the unconscious is the totality of those possibilities, knowledge and experience that the individual cannot or does not want to actualize. The most important thing in psychotherapy is to understand the existing person. The concept of phenomenology reveals an attempt to perceive phenomena in their givenness. Thus, the client is considered as a living human being, a concrete personality, manifesting, becoming, “building the world”, as existentialist psychologists say, here and now. In the patient, they teach to see not their own theories or dogmas, but to experience phenomena in the fullness of their reality, to experience them as they appear before us. The main difficulty of psychotherapy, in the understanding of existentialists, is the position of openness and readiness, the art of hearing. The meaning is not to observe the phenomena, but to experience the phenomena. The experience of experiencing connection with the patient on many levels is simultaneously one aspect of what existentialist psychiatrists like Binswanger call presence. R. May believes that it is impossible to perceive the words of another person, or draw his attention to anything, if you do not know his system of concepts, his conscious attitudes, thanks to which he perceives, with the help of which he is oriented in his world at the moment .

From the point of view of existentialism, questions of technique or diagnostics, and understanding that arises from direct contact with the patient are things different order. You can't mix these levels, or let one of them consume the other. According to existentialists, technical dogma protects the psychologist from his own fear, as well as from understanding the patient. On the other hand, if the phenomenological and existential approaches are not based on strictly scientific clinical research, and the theory that precedes any practice, then the consequences are also deplorable - eclecticism. Knowledge of the techniques and careful study of the dynamics should be an integral part of the psychotherapist's training. The situation of the psychotherapist is similar to the situation of the artist: good school and high qualifications are necessary, but if during the drawing the artist is preoccupied with technique or some technical issues - and this concern, as every artist knows, arises precisely at the moments when fear seizes him - he can be sure that his creative inspiration won't visit. Diagnosis is a justified and necessary procedure, especially at the beginning of treatment; but this procedure is fundamentally different from therapy as such and requires a different attitude and a different attitude towards the patient. It should be added that as soon as the psychotherapist begins to work with the patient and determines the direction of this work, he forgets about diagnostics for a while. In the same way, the question of techniques only comes up from time to time in the course of therapy, and one of the features of existential psychotherapy is that techniques can change. However, these changes are not made at random, but depend on what the patient needs at a given moment.

The main slogan of the existentialists was: despite the might of the forces to which a person becomes a victim, he is capable of realize that he is a victim, which means to influence his attitude to own destiny. It is impossible not to notice that the essence of this position is to take some point of view, to make a decision, even the most insignificant one. This is why existentialists believe that freedom is the measure of human existence.

Tillich put it beautifully in his saying: "A man becomes truly a man only at the moment of making a decision."

Without a doubt, this position is of fundamental importance for psychology and psychotherapy. Other forms of psychotherapy also cannot avoid this dilemma of psychoanalysis - namely, that in the very process of psychotherapy there are tendencies that force the patient to abandon a decisive, effective position. The very word "patient" suggests such a refusal! Psychotherapy is inherent not only in this tendency, but also in the tendency to encourage the patient to lay responsibility for his own problems on anything but himself. ** Naturally, any psychotherapist of any direction or school is aware that sooner or later the patient must come to some kind of decision, must learn to take responsibility for his own actions; but the theory and technique of most of these schools are based on a cardinally opposite premise.

The existential approach in psychology and psychotherapy proceeds from the conviction that we cannot leave will and decision at the mercy of chance, we cannot rely on the fact that in the end the patient will “naturally” accept

decision, or gradually lean towards it at. the process of tedious, thankless and mutually exhausting work with a psychotherapist or will do it out of a desire to get the approval of a psychotherapist (at the moment his supportive parent) if he takes certain steps. The existential approach puts will and decision at the forefront. In self-awareness, that is, in the individual's awareness that the wide, complex, changing stream of experience is his experience, the ability to solve is already laid down.

Of course, the terms "will" and "decision" used here refer not only to vital and fateful decisions - these words have an infinitely broader and more multifaceted meaning. And although cognition always involves a decision (for example, the choice that you are going to make), R. May does not identify these two concepts at all. A solution always contains some element that is not only not predetermined by the external situation, but is not even Dan in her; the solution presupposes a leap, an accident, a movement of the "I" in a direction that cannot be fully foreseen before this leap. And once in this new situation, a mature human individual (that is, one who does not depend on the severe restrictions imposed by the neurotic compulsive behavior model) is ready to accept A New Look, a new "solution". This "new position" that is spoken of can be as simple and as unpredictable as any new interesting idea or any new memory that springs up suddenly in a random chain of free associations. R. May believes that the process of forming a decision is present in every act of awareness.

R. May offers the following working hypothesis: my "being"which, by definition, must have unity, whichremain identical to itself*, has three aspekta, which can be designated as "I", "personality" and"ego". "I" is the subjective center through whichI am aware of myself committing TS or other actions; "lich"ness" is the aspect in which I am perceivedothers are Jung's "persona", the social roles of William James; and "ego" we can take in the originalFreud's clear formulation - that is, as a specialreceiving organ through which the "I" is perceivedaccepts the world around and relates to it.

In addition to the issues already discussed will andsolutions, as well as ego problem, the existential approach in psychology allows us to take a fresh look at other important questions for study: the creative functions of anxiety and guilt; concept and experience being-in-world - a concept that has some formal similarity with a similar concept in Gestalt psychology, but developed at a different level and has an extremely wide field of application - and the significance of timenor, especially the future tense, as shown by Maslow.

The central question in the existential tradition is the question of choice, "either-or", and only a deep awareness of all the above problems and their resolution would make it possible to confront them. R. May believes that the existential approach is the path to individuality (including subjective individuality), which involves not smoothing out sharp corners or avoiding conflicts of reality, the reality in which we are now, the reality of our Western world, but an open confronting these conflicts thanks to encounter with which individuality is acquired.