Kirk J. Schneider - Existential-Integrative Psychotherapy: Guideposts to the Core of Practice

Existential-Integrative Psychotherapy

GUIDEPOSTS TO THE CORE OF PRACTICE

EDITED BY
Kirk J. Schneider

NEW YORK LONDON

Routledge
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International Standard Book Number-13:978-0-415-95471-6 (Hardcover)

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Existential-integrative psychotherapy : guideposts to the core of practice / edited by
Kirk J. Schneider.
p. ; cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13:978-0-415-95471-6 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10:0-415-95471-1 (alk. paper)
1. Existential psychotherapy. 2. Integrative psychotherapy. I. Schneider, Kirk J.
[DNLM: 1. Psychotherapy--methods. 2. Existentialism. WM 420 E95m 2007]
RC489.E93E95 2007
616.8914--dc22 2007007149

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KIRK J. SCHNEIDER

ANN BASSETT-SHORT AND GLENN A. HAMMEL

LILLIAN COMAS-DAZ

DONADRIAN L. RICE

ROYAL ALSUP

LAURA S. BROWN

JOAN MONHEIT

ILENE SERLIN

JAMES F. T. BUGENTA

JOHN GALVIN

BARBARA BALLINGER, ROBERT A. MATANO, AND ADRIANNE C. AMANTEA

LOUIS HOFFMAN

BARRY E. WOLFE

KARA BUNTING AND STEVEN C. HAYES

DANIEL DORMAN

ED MENDELOWITZ

DENNIS PORTNOY

ROBERT D. STOLOROW

DIANA FOSHA

STEPHEN CURTIN

ELIZABETH K. BUGENTAL

TOM GREENING

This book opens a new chapter in existential-mainstream collaborations on practice. Drawing on the foundations of my original existential-integrative text, The Psychology of Existence, co-authored with the late Rollo May (1995), this book advances the therapeutic conversation to a new generation of students and practitioners. This is a generation that has witnessed the ascendancy and subsequent dilution of influence by the managed care and standardization movements in psychology, and a parallel rise in new, more diversified practices. While these practices do not yet dominate the therapeutic landscape, they are increasing in salience, as this book attests.

This book, accordingly, represents both an update and expansion on the clinical chapters in The Psychology of Existence; it also signals an urgent plea. It is a plea to the psychotherapy community to wake up and recognize existential dimensions of diversified practices; for without the existentialthe understanding of a persons relation to beingsuch practices too often devolve into adjustment rituals, rarified or removed strategems, that quell but do not necessarily transform. This book, then, is a repositoryboth impassioned and broadof existential dimensions of diverse practices. These dimensions are applied to a remarkable array of approaches, theories, and clinical populations, and they demonstrate, convincingly, in my view, that existential-mainstream collaboration is not only desirable, but imperative, if we are to advance the cause of whole and substantive transformation of lives. Among the domains that are addressed in this text are existential-integrative practices with racial and ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, single women, children, clients with severe disturbances, older persons, alcoholics, phobic clients, and clients who are dying. Equally, the book illustrates the compatibility of existential sensibilities with a variety of ostensibly contrasting theoretical orientations. These include the integration of existential practices with cognitive-behavioral, psychoanalytic, religious, and even short-term orientations and interventions.

In sum, this book accentuates the value of an existential attitude across cultures, diagnoses, and orientations. To the extent that students develop this attitude, they will be worthier and more complete facilitators. What is this attitude that bolsters so much of the core of what we practitioners prize? It is presencedeep, abiding, and emancipatoryand it is one of the avowed tragedies of our contemporary era that precisely these elements are neither nurtured nor prized in standardized training and service facilities throughout our land.

This book will illuminate the value of presence, depth, and emancipatory practices across a diversity of settings and methodologies, and it will provide to both the developing trainee and the interested practitioner step-by-step skill repertoires to guide and cultivate their ministrations. At the same time, however, this book is not simply a how-to manual designed to systematize integrative therapeutic practice. By contrast, it is a compendium of discovery that, in keeping with its existential-integrative philosophical base, provides guideposts to therapys inmost domains.

Finally, this book owes its incarnation to many caring and dedicated souls within the existential-integrative therapeutic community, but first and foremost to my great teachers, Rollo May (19091994) and James and Elizabeth Bugental. They never shrank from bold inquiry or the advocacy of bold inquiry. May was the original inspiration for this existential-integrative undertaking, and James Bugental and his remarkable wife, Elizabeth, were my hands-on facilitators in existential-integrative practice. To each, I convey my unwavering gratitude.

Second, I am indebted to the participants in this volume who sacrificed their time, energy, and even professional comfort zones to plow new fields in therapeutic theory and application. You have my enduring appreciation.

Third, I am grateful to the acquisition editor, George Zimmar, for his own daring vision, as well as commitment to this undertaking.

Kirk J. Schneider