How existential philosophy influenced psychotherapy

The loose philosophical movement known as existentialism has had perhaps more influence on the field of psychotherapy than any others. As a philosophy, existentialism emphasizes individual freedom and choice, asserting that human beings are free to choose their own meanings and value systems. It was in many ways a response to religion which tended to impose meanings and value systems on to the individual. 

These ideas have greatly influenced psychotherapy, which as a practice tends to focus on exactly that: helping people realize and utilize their own personal autonomy. Existentialism, for the most part, denies the idea that we are helpless and at the whim of social, biological and personal forces. It does not deny them altogether, because there are very obvious constraints on human living. However, its radical proposal is that most of the limits we feel are placed upon us are actually self-imposed. To live as if we were powerless to choose is to live in “bad faith”.

Another key turn in the existential movement which is important for psychotherapy is the focus on human subjectivity. Philosophy had for the longest time been mostly concerned with broad, universal, rational concepts about how to live.

Existentialism, on the other hand, puts the individual at the center. And not the individual in an objective sense, but the individual experience. As in, what is it like, from the inside, to live as a human being? This was a radical turn in philosophy, and paved the way for the various fields of psychology. 

Good therapy, of course, follows in the same tradition. Concepts, labels and diagnoses - although somewhat helpful - are secondary to the subjective experience of the client. The skill of the therapist is being able to enter as closely as possible into the world of the other and share that internal space with them.