Existentially informed person-centred therapy

Domain III · Humanistic, existential & experiential · Mick Cooper · 2003

What it is

This is not a manualised therapy. It is a person-centred practice (core conditions, a non-directive client-led process) re-informed by existential philosophy: Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, Buber, Laing, and existential therapists such as May, Yalom, van Deurzen and Spinelli. Cooper presents…

Format

• Format. Individual, open-ended, client-led sessions. The 2019 EEP case ran 18 sessions. Session length and frequency are not specified in the sources; weekly 50-minute sessions are an assumption. In Cooper's pluralistic framing, check with the client what they want from therapy and adjust.
• What it is. This is not a manualised therapy. It is a person-centred practice (core conditions, a non-directive client-led process) re-informed by existential philosophy: Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, Buber, Laing, and existential therapists such as May, Yalom, van Deurzen and Spinelli. Cooper…

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Version followed: Mick Cooper's existentially informed person-centred therapy as he sets it out in "Between freedom and despair" (Cooper, 2003, Person-Centered & Experiential Psychotherapies 2(1), 43–56). His book chapter of the same name (Cooper, in Sanders (ed.), The Tribes of the Person-Centred Nation, PCCS; 2nd ed. 2012, pp. 131–160) and its updated 3rd-edition version (Vanhooren & Cooper, ch. 8) are not drawn…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Does it use a device, heat, cold, water or a physical procedure? Has a medical professional checked that it is safe for you?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• de-pathologising becoming a reason not to ask.
• in the case, the work improved once the therapist stayed with the heaviness.
• the step becoming your agenda. It is working if the client acts and reports feeling more alive.
• your own frustration. It is working if small shifts appear: new words, images or bodily changes.
• reassurance that skips the loss. It is working if the client stays with the feeling and still acts.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.