Mexican relational existential-phenomenological therapy

1. Introduction

Version followed: Yaqui Andrés Martínez Robles's relational existential-phenomenological approach (the "Mexican School" of existential therapy and analysis). I worked from his 2017 Aoristo article on phenomenological-existential practice, his 2017 conference abstract on the four languages of experience, and the publisher descriptions of his two-volume book Terapia existencial: teoría y práctica relacional para un mundo pos-cartesiano (2015). The practice volume itself is not drawn on here. [source: Martínez Robles 2017a; 2017b; Goodreads listing of 2015 book] [uncertain]

What it is. This is an existential-phenomenological and hermeneutic therapy developed in Mexico by Martínez Robles. He also trained in Gestalt therapy and has practised as a Gestalt and existential therapist in Mexico since 1996. He founded and directs the Círculo de Estudios en Terapia Existencial (CIREX), which has offered existential-therapy training in Mexico and Colombia since 2002. The Wiley World Handbook calls it "Círculo Existencial México"; no formal founding year is stated for the institute. [source: WCET4 speaker page; NYIGT member page; Wiley World Handbook sample] [uncertain: founding date]

It is better understood as a school and training tradition than as a manualised protocol. The 2015 book presents existential psychotherapy as a style of professional practice, a relational paradigm and a mainly philosophical framework. It offers this as one valid option, not the only model. [source: Goodreads listing of 2015 book] Martínez Robles calls the school's position "mestizo". It combines English, German and French existential traditions with North and South American ones, and with Latin American history and experience. [source: Martínez Robles 2017b] Later work frames it as relational existential therapy with an "ethic of non-colonization" of the client's experience. [source: WCET4 speaker page] Related names include "Mexican School of Existential Therapy and Analysis" and "movimiento mexicano de análisis y terapia existencial" (the title of his chapter in the 2020 Universidad del Norte volume). [source: Martínez Robles 2017b; de Castro & Signorelli 2020 sample]

How change happens. The aim is not to cure or fix. Therapy should "no busque curar o solucionar problemas, sino clarificar la situación existencial del cliente" (not seek to cure or solve problems, but to clarify the client's existential situation). [source: Martínez Robles 2017a, p. 319] Change happens through description rather than explanation, done jointly in a relationship. Client and therapist describe experience at increasing depth. This includes how the client lives the tension between where they are and where they think they should be, and what their current way of being does for them. Exploration starts in the "language" the client uses to narrate experience. Through dialogue, the client's expressiveness, perspective and understanding of that experience widen. [source: Martínez Robles 2017a, pp. 321–323; 2017b] He describes his own style as "non-repairing": it aims to deepen understanding and awareness, not to change the experience. Any change follows from that clarification. [source: psychedelic.support profile]

2. Framework

No published phase model is given in the sources. The 2015 book has two volumes: volume 1 covers philosophical and epistemological foundations, and volume 2 covers specific ways of doing this therapy. Volume 2 is not drawn on here, so any phase structure it contains is unknown. [source: Goodreads listing of 2015 book] [uncertain]

Influence on structure. Martínez Robles cites Spinelli (2015) for the not-knowing attitude. [source: Martínez Robles 2017a, p. 325] Spinelli's Practising Existential Therapy: The Relational World sets out a "three-phase structural model" for existential therapy. [source: Bookshare listing of Spinelli 2014/2015] Spinelli's three phases are: co-creating the therapy-world; living within it; and closing it down. They are not drawn on here, and nothing confirms that the Mexican School formally adopts them. [uncertain]

Working sequence for practice [synthesis built from the principles in Martínez Robles 2017a and 2017b; not a published phase model]:

Format and length. The core is individual talk therapy. Martínez Robles also teaches and runs existential group therapy and Gestalt group therapy, an annual six-day residential workshop on death, dying and grief, and Holotropic Breathwork and psychedelic-integration work. Those are separate offerings, not documented parts of this model (see 5). [source: psychedelic.support profile; WCET4 speaker page] No session count or frequency is stated. Treat the therapy as open-ended and agree the length with the client. [uncertain]

3. Guiding principles

[source for 1–10: Martínez Robles 2017a, pp. 319–330, paraphrased; 11–13 as tagged]

1. Clarify, don't cure. The task is to clarify the client's existential situation, not to remove problems. Practical meaning: judge a session by what has become clearer, not by what has been fixed.
2. Describe rather than explain. The article says "renunciamos al intento de explicar, para abrazarnos a la posibilidad de describir" (we give up explaining to embrace describing). Practical meaning: ask "what / how is it?" before "why?". Offer descriptions of what you observe (tone, posture, your own reactions) and do not interpret causes.
3. No-moral stance on the A–B tension. Do not assume the present state is bad or the desired state is good. Practical meaning: explore the pull between smoking and quitting. Do not work to make the client quit.
4. Relativity of possibilities. Every event has several versions, tied to context and co-constructed: lower-case "v" truths, not one "V" truth. Practical meaning: look for "this and that" instead of "this or that".
5. Respect the complexity of existence. A pattern that persists is doing something for the person. Practical meaning: ask what it protects, what it gives, and what makes it important to continue.
6. Dare to ask naive questions. Do not fear looking foolish. This is not the same as ignorance. Practical meaning: ask about the obvious, such as what a word means to this client.
7. Own your preferences; share interpretations as versions. Therapists are never neutral: "Existir humanamente, es interpretar" (to exist humanly is to interpret). Practical meaning: when you offer a reading, mark it as yours and as one view among others.
8. Horizontalization. Treat all perspectives as initially of equal value. If you or the client rank them, explore the ranking. Practical meaning: do not jump to the "real" issue; explore why one theme seems more important.
9. Show your doubts and misunderstandings. Practical meaning: say when you don't understand. The client's correction teaches both of you.
10. Not-knowing as a discipline. The article gives five propositions:
    • full truth cannot be known and experience keeps changing;
    • no situation can be named definitively, so hold diagnoses lightly;
    • another person's experience is never fully understood;
    • the therapist does not know the direction or solution in advance;
    • the therapist will forget all this, so a disciplined practice is needed.
    The article adds that not-knowing is not ignorance, improvisation or a rejection of expertise. It rests on years of training, supervision and philosophical reading. Practical meaning: use supervision and personal practice to catch yourself steering the client. Not-knowing never excuses you from being unprepared.
11. Relationship over technique. In the existential therapy his 2009 book presents, technique is secondary to the capacity to build a relationship. Therapy is an attitude and an approach more than a theory. Practical meaning: when unsure, attend to the relationship before reaching for a method. [source: Maurial Chávez 2012 review of Martínez 2009]
12. Attend to power; dissolve normal/abnormal. The 2009 book draws on Foucault: it questions the normal/abnormal split, accepts many developmental paths, and treats the therapeutic relationship as shaped by power. It also draws on Gadamer and Ricoeur: interpretations are always shaped by prejudgements and are always incomplete. Practical meaning: ask whose language and norms are being applied. Leave interpretations open to enrichment. [source: Maurial Chávez 2012 review of Martínez 2009]
13. Do not colonize the client's experience. The relational task is to hold open, respectful spaces where the client's singular voice can emerge. Practical meaning: do not replace the client's words, culture or cosmology with your theory. Use their terms. [source: WCET4 speaker page, 2026 talk description]

4. Intervention inventory

This inventory covers every procedure named or described in the primary texts. These texts describe stances and kinds of questions, not scripted exercises. Each item is anchored to a source; the step sequences and all example wording are my own operationalisation [synthesis] unless a quote is cited. No homework, worksheets or structured exercises appear in the sources. The practice volume of the 2015 book may contain more [uncertain]. Items 1–13 are in roughly the order you would use them; items 14–17 run throughout.

1. Contracting for clarification rather than repair

• Purpose / when: First sessions, and whenever the client asks to be fixed. Martínez Robles argues that the phenomenological method fits only when the aim of therapy is clarification. If the aim is problem-solving, it may not fit. [source: Martínez Robles 2017a, pp. 319, 321]
• Steps:
  1. Ask what brings the client and what they hope will be different.
  2. Explain in plain words that you work by exploring and describing their experience together, not by giving solutions.
  3. Name the likely gains (clearer understanding of themselves and their situation, choices they own) and the limits (no technique-based symptom removal).
  4. Ask whether this fits what they need. If they need structured symptom treatment, crisis management or skills, discuss referral or a combined plan.
  5. Agree frequency and a review point. [synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "I won't hand you a plan to fix this. What I can offer is to look at it carefully with you, so it becomes clearer what is happening and what it means for you. Does that sound useful, or were you hoping for something different?"
• Watch for: A client who agrees politely but keeps asking for answers. Revisit the contract and don't treat the requests as resistance. It is working when the client starts to bring material to explore, not just problems to solve.

2. Entering through the client's language of experience

• Purpose / when: From the first session onward. Martínez Robles describes experience as organised, integrated and expressed in four languages: physical-sensory, interpersonal-emotional, personal-rational and symbolic-spiritual. Exploration begins in whichever language the client uses to narrate. [source: Martínez Robles 2017b]
• Steps:
  1. Listen for which language dominates. Physical-sensory: body, sensations, actions. Interpersonal-emotional: feelings, other people. Personal-rational: reasons, thoughts, decisions. Symbolic-spiritual: meaning, images, beliefs, faith, the sacred.
  2. Respond first in that same language. Use the client's own words and register.
  3. Ask descriptive questions that stay inside it until the experience is richly told. [synthesis on steps]
• Example language (illustrative): With a client who speaks rationally: "You've worked out several reasons for leaving. Walk me through how you weigh them." With a client who speaks of meaning: "You said this feels like a test. A test of what?"
• Watch for: Translating too quickly into your preferred language, for example pushing a rational client toward feelings in session one. It is working when the client feels understood and gives more detail.

3. Widening into the other languages

• Purpose / when: Once the experience has been told in the client's main language. Through dialogue, the client's narrative expressiveness widens, along with their perspective and understanding. [source: Martínez Robles 2017b]
• Steps:
  1. Pick a moment the client has described well.
  2. Invite the same moment in a second language: body, relationships, reasoning or meaning.
  3. Then invite the remaining languages.
  4. Ask how the descriptions relate. Where do they agree or clash, and what is new? [synthesis on steps]
• Example language (illustrative): "You've told me what you thought when your father called. When you picture that call now, what happens in your body?" Later: "And what does that call mean to you, beyond what was said?"
• Watch for: Mechanical cycling through all four languages like a checklist. Follow the client's opening. It is working when the client links levels unprompted ("so the tightness is the same as my not deciding") and the account becomes less one-dimensional.

4. Descriptive questioning at increasing depth

• Purpose / when: The core move throughout. Questions help the client describe, "en grados crecientes de profundidad" (in increasing degrees of depth), how they integrate and give meaning to experience. Description replaces explanation. [source: Martínez Robles 2017a, pp. 321–322]
• Steps:
  1. Replace "why" questions with "what", "how", "when", "where" and "what is it like".
  2. Ask for a specific instance rather than a generalisation.
  3. Go one layer further: from what happened, to how it was lived, to what it means to the client.
  4. Hold back causal theories, yours and the client's, as theories, and return to description. [synthesis on steps]
• Example language (illustrative): "Rather than why it happens, can we stay with what it's like when it does? Take last Tuesday." Then: "And as you tell me this now, what is it like to say it?"
• Watch for: The client giving explanations ("it's because of my childhood"). Treat the explanation itself as something to describe: "How does that explanation sit with you?" It is working when accounts become more concrete, nuanced and personal.

5. Mutual description of what is happening now, including non-verbal and therapist responses

• Purpose / when: Whenever tone, posture, emotion or your own reaction is figural. Both client and therapist give descriptions, including of non-verbal behaviour, vocal tone and physiological or emotional responses. [source: Martínez Robles 2017a, p. 321]
• Steps:
  1. Notice a here-and-now observable, in the client or in yourself.
  2. Describe it neutrally, without interpreting it.
  3. Ask the client how they experience it, or whether they notice it too.
  4. If you share your own response, own it as yours and ask how it lands. [synthesis on steps]
• Example language (illustrative): "I notice your voice got quieter when you mentioned your sister. Do you notice that?" Or: "As you talk about this, I'm aware of feeling a bit sad myself. I'm not sure what that is. Does it fit anything for you?"
• Watch for: An observation that lands as an accusation or a diagnosis. Keep it descriptive and tentative. Also watch for a client who becomes very self-conscious; slow down. It is working when the client becomes curious about their own present experience.

6. Exploring the tension between "point A" and "point B"

• Purpose / when: When the client wants to move from a current state (A) to a desired state (B): stop smoking, lose weight, leave a partner, feel better. The therapist does not assume A is bad or B is better. This is the "no-moral" side of the phenomenological stance. [source: Martínez Robles 2017a, pp. 322–324]
• Steps:
  1. Name both poles in the client's words.
  2. Explore A as lived: how is it, and what does it give or do for you?
  3. Explore B as imagined: what would it be like, and what would you lose?
  4. Explore the tension itself: how it shows up and what it is like to live between the two.
  5. Leave any decision with the client. [source for 1–4: the article lists exploratory questions of this kind; step 5 and wording: synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "Before we look at how to stop, could we look at smoking itself? What is a cigarette like for you, at its best?" "If you had stopped already, what would you miss?"
• Watch for: Your own pull toward B, for instance health norms or the referrer's agenda. Also watch for a client who hears neutrality as permission or as indifference; explain it. In eating or weight topics, explore meaning and do not set targets. It is working when the client describes the conflict with less self-blame and owns whatever they choose.

7. Exploring what a persisting pattern does: the complexity of existence

• Purpose / when: When a client keeps doing something they say they don't want. The therapist keeps asking why the pattern persists, what secondary gains exist and what it protects against. The article's dieting example asks what makes it important to keep eating. [source: Martínez Robles 2017a, p. 325]
• Steps:
  1. Accept the pattern as meaningful rather than a failure.
  2. Ask what it makes possible and what it protects the client from.
  3. Ask what would be risked if it stopped.
  4. Describe the answers without judging them. [synthesis on steps]
• Example language (illustrative): "It seems this matters enough to keep doing even though you hate it. What does it make possible, or what does it keep away?"
• Watch for: Asking "why" in a blaming way. Stay with "what does it do". It is working when the client recognises the competing values in the pattern.

8. Naive questions

• Purpose / when: When something seems obvious, or a word could hide several meanings. The therapist should not fear appearing foolish; this is not ignorance. It expresses a not-knowing attitude, citing Spinelli (2015). [source: Martínez Robles 2017a, p. 325]
• Steps:
  1. Notice taken-for-granted words such as "depressed", "normal", "family" or "success".
  2. Ask what the word means for this client in this situation.
  3. Accept the answer and ask for an example. [synthesis on steps]
• Example language (illustrative): "This might sound like a silly question, but what does 'being a good mother' look like for you?"
• Watch for: Overuse, which can feel patronising. Choose words that carry weight. It is working when the client discovers that their meaning is not the one they assumed was shared.

9. Opening up multiple versions ("this and that")

• Purpose / when: When the client holds one fixed account of an event, of themselves or of another person. Every event has several versions tied to context and co-constructed in it. The work moves from one "V" truth to many "v" versions, and from "esto o lo otro" (this or that) to "esto y lo otro" (this and that). [source: Martínez Robles 2017a, pp. 324–325]
• Steps:
  1. Reflect the client's version as their version.
  2. Ask how others involved might tell it, or how the client might have told it at another time or in another context.
  3. Ask what each version makes visible.
  4. Explore holding several at once rather than choosing the "true" one. [synthesis on steps]
• Example language (illustrative): "That's how it looks from where you stand now. How might your brother tell the same evening?" "Could it be both a betrayal and an attempt to protect you?"
• Watch for: Relativising a client's account of abuse or injustice; see section 5. Multiplicity must not invalidate. It is working when either/or binds loosen and the client tolerates ambiguity.

10. Offering interpretations as one version

• Purpose / when: When you have a reading or a preference you cannot help having. Therapists are never neutral; to exist is to interpret. Interpretations are shared as one perspective among many, not as truth. [source: Martínez Robles 2017a, p. 326]
• Steps:
  1. Notice your interpretation or preference.
  2. Decide whether sharing it serves the client's exploration.
  3. Offer it tentatively, marked as yours.
  4. Invite the client to reject, revise or add to it.
  5. Explore their response rather than defend your view. [synthesis on steps]
• Example language (illustrative): "Here's one way I find myself seeing it, and it's just my angle: it sounds as if staying busy keeps the grief at arm's length. How does that sit with you, or where does it miss?"
• Watch for: Compliance, where the client adopts your version to please you. Ask what they would say if it were wrong. It is working when the client uses your version as material and amends it.

11. Horizontalization

• Purpose / when: When the client or therapist rushes to decide what the "real" issue is. All perspectives are initially treated as of equal value. If either party sets up a hierarchy, that ranking is itself explored. [source: Martínez Robles 2017a, p. 326]
• Steps:
  1. Collect the elements the client mentions without ranking them.
  2. Give each comparable attention.
  3. If a ranking appears ("the job is the main thing; the rest is nothing"), ask how they decided that and what it is like to put it that way. [synthesis on steps]
• Example language (illustrative): "You mentioned the move, your knee and your daughter's silence, and said only the move matters. Before we decide that, can we hear a bit about each?"
• Watch for: In acute risk, horizontalization does not override safety prioritisation; see section 5. It is working when overlooked themes come forward.

12. Disclosing doubts and misunderstandings

• Purpose / when: When you are confused or unsure, or have misunderstood. The therapist offers interest, doubt and admitted ignorance about the client's experience and context. The client's answers teach the therapist, and the client learns about themselves too. [source: Martínez Robles 2017a, pp. 326–327]
• Steps:
  1. Say plainly what you do not understand or may have got wrong.
  2. Ask the client to help you understand.
  3. Check your revised understanding. [synthesis on steps]
• Example language (illustrative): "I think I've been picturing this wrongly. I assumed your mother lived with you. Can you help me get it right?"
• Watch for: Disclosure that shifts the focus onto the therapist's needs. Keep it brief and in the client's service. It is working when the client explains with more precision and finds new aspects as they do.

13. Holding diagnoses and labels lightly

• Purpose / when: When the client arrives with a diagnosis, or you are tempted to name the problem. No situation can be named exactly or definitively, so diagnostic categories should not be over-trusted. [source: Martínez Robles 2017a, p. 328; Maurial Chávez 2012 on dissolving normal/abnormal]
• Steps:
  1. Acknowledge the label and its uses, such as access to services or medication.
  2. Ask what the label means to the client, how they live it, and what it opens or closes.
  3. Describe experience beneath and beside it. [synthesis on steps]
• Example language (illustrative): "You've been told this is bipolar disorder. I'm interested in that, and also in how you'd describe what happens in your own words."
• Watch for: Discouraging needed psychiatric care. Holding labels lightly is not dismissing them. It is working when the client relates to the label as one description among others.

14. Exploring the therapeutic encounter here-and-now

• Purpose / when: Throughout. This is especially useful when something happens between you and the client, or when the client's relational world shows up in the room. The school treats therapy as relational and draws on being-in-the-world and being-with-others. The 2020 Latin American volume frames the shared framework as encounter, here-and-now, presence and the dialectical or relational character of therapy. [source: Maurial Chávez 2012 review of Martínez 2009; de Castro & Signorelli 2020 preface] [uncertain: the specific procedure is not described in the texts]
• Steps:
  1. Notice a relational event: a pause after your remark, the client apologising, a sense of distance.
  2. Describe it and ask how the client experienced it.
  3. Share how you experienced it, owned as yours.
  4. Explore whether it connects with how the client lives with others, without forcing a link. [synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "Just now, when I asked about your partner, you said 'sorry for going on.' What happened for you there? I didn't feel you were going on."
• Watch for: Over-focusing on the relationship when the client needs to talk about their life outside. It is working when insight about relating is lived in the room, not just talked about.

15. Attending to power, culture and non-colonization

• Purpose / when: With clients whose culture, class, language, gender, sexuality, spirituality or cosmology differs from yours or from the dominant norms. Do this also when therapy itself carries power. The 2009 book treats the therapeutic relationship as shaped by power, after Foucault. The 2026 framing is that the therapist's task is not to colonize the client's experience. [source: Maurial Chávez 2012; WCET4 speaker page; Martínez Robles 2017b on the "mestizo" position]
• Steps:
  1. Use the client's own terms, including spiritual or Indigenous concepts, without translating them into your theory.
  2. Ask whether your questions or framings fit their world.
  3. Name the power differences in the room when relevant.
  4. Invite disagreement with you explicitly. [synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "You said a susto started all this. I don't want to turn that into my vocabulary. Can you tell me what a susto is, as you understand it?"
• Watch for: Exoticising the client, or imposing your own decolonial politics. It is working when the client corrects you more freely and uses their own words.

16. The therapist's not-knowing discipline (between sessions)

• Purpose / when: Ongoing. The therapist will forget the propositions of not-knowing, so a disciplined practice is needed to keep remembering that they see only through their own eyes. This rests on years of training, supervision, practice and philosophical reading. [source: Martínez Robles 2017a, pp. 328–329]
• Steps:
  1. After each session, note where you explained instead of described, steered toward a goal, ranked themes, or assumed shared meaning.
  2. Take these points to supervision.
  3. Maintain personal therapy and philosophical reading. The 2009 book surveys Heidegger, Gadamer, Ricoeur, Foucault and others. [synthesis on 1–2; source for reading list: Maurial Chávez 2012]
• Example language: Not applicable; this is therapist self-practice.
• Watch for: Using "not-knowing" to excuse lack of preparation. The source explicitly rejects this. It is working when you catch yourself steering earlier and more often.

17. Clarification review and ending

• Purpose / when: At review points and at ending. Since the goal is clarification, review what has become clearer rather than which symptoms have reduced. [synthesis grounded in the clarification aim, Martínez Robles 2017a, p. 319]
• Steps:
  1. Invite the client to describe how they now see their situation, their choices and their tensions.
  2. Add your own description, owned as a version.
  3. Discuss whether to continue, pause or end.
  4. Explore what ending this relationship is like. [synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "When you think back to how you described things when we began, what looks different now? What still feels unclear?"
• Watch for: Abrupt endings that skip the relational meaning of ending. It is working when the client can articulate their situation and stance in their own words.

5. Handling problems

The primary texts address one difficulty directly: a mismatch between the therapy's aim (clarification) and the client's aim (problem-solving). They also warn against misusing not-knowing. Everything else below is my own synthesis consistent with the stated principles, and is marked [synthesis].

• Client wants answers, techniques or a cure. The source says phenomenology may not be the right lens if therapy's purpose is to solve problems. [source: Martínez Robles 2017a, p. 321] Revisit the contract (intervention 1). Treat the request itself as material: what would an answer give you? If the client needs a symptom-focused or skills-based treatment, refer them or add it alongside, rather than holding them in a method that does not fit. [synthesis]
• Therapist misuses not-knowing (passivity, vagueness, unpreparedness). The source states that not-knowing is not ignorance, improvisation or a rejection of expertise. [source: Martínez Robles 2017a, pp. 328–329] Prepare, use supervision, and stay active in questioning. Being transparent about the method is part of expertise. [synthesis]
• Stuck: circular retelling or endless explanation.
  • Shift language (intervention 3), for example from personal-rational to physical-sensory.
  • Move from story to the here-and-now of telling it (interventions 5 and 14).
  • Name the stuckness descriptively and ask what it is like to be stuck here with you.
  • Explore what the repetition does (intervention 7). [synthesis]
• "Resistance." Within this stance, a refusal or avoidance is a way of being to be described, not opposed. Explore what it protects (intervention 7) and the A–B tension around changing (intervention 6). Check whether you have been steering toward your own "point B". [synthesis, grounded in Martínez Robles 2017a, pp. 322–325]
• Overwhelm or flooding. Deepening description, especially in the physical-sensory language or with trauma material, can intensify distress. [synthesis]
  • Slow down and widen to a less charged language, such as personal-rational.
  • Describe the present moment and surroundings with the client.
  • Ask what pace they want.
  • Agree a signal for stopping.
  • Do not push for depth for its own sake. For trauma-related dissociation or flashbacks, use standard stabilisation and consider a trauma-specialised referral. [synthesis]
• Risk of suicide or self-harm. Not-knowing and the no-moral stance do not suspend your duty of care. [synthesis]
  • Carry out standard risk assessment and collaborative safety planning.
  • Use lethal-means counselling (safe storage, removal), crisis contacts and escalation per local protocol.
  • It stays consistent with the approach to explore meanings of death and the wish to die descriptively. Do this alongside safety work, not instead of it.
  • Horizontalization never overrides prioritising safety. [synthesis]
• Multiple versions risk invalidating harm. With abuse, violence or discrimination, "many versions" must not become "perhaps it didn't happen" or "you share the blame". First acknowledge the client's account as real and serious. Explore multiplicity only in what the client chooses to examine, such as their own meanings and responses, not the fact of harm. Follow safeguarding and reporting duties. [synthesis]
• Non-adherence and missed sessions. There is no homework in the sources, so non-adherence mainly means attendance. Explore missed sessions descriptively in the relationship (what was it like to not come?) without moralising. Re-contract frequency if needed. [synthesis]
• Ruptures (client feels misread, judged or pushed).
  • Acknowledge your part.
  • Disclose your misunderstanding (intervention 12).
  • Re-offer your view as one version (intervention 10).
  • Explore the rupture as a here-and-now event (intervention 14).
  • Check whether you imposed a norm or a "point B". [synthesis, grounded in Martínez Robles 2017a, pp. 322–327]
• Cultural mismatch or colonizing framings. If the client's cosmology, religion or Indigenous concepts are translated into Western psychological terms, the client may withdraw. Use their language and invite correction (intervention 15). Attend to power, including your own. [synthesis, grounded in Maurial Chávez 2012; WCET4 speaker page]
• Client experiences neutrality as indifference or moral abandonment. For example, the client wants you to say they should stop drinking. Explain that you are not indifferent: you want them to decide in a way that is truly theirs. You can share your concern openly as your own preference (intervention 10). Where there is serious harm to the client or others, state clinical concerns directly. [synthesis]
• Clients with psychosis, severe depression or crisis. Description-centred, non-directive work may be insufficient alone. Coordinate with psychiatric care and treat diagnoses as useful descriptions (intervention 13), not as truths to dismiss. [synthesis]
• Mandated or third-party-referred clients. The referrer's "point B" may not be the client's. Make the referrer's agenda explicit and explore the client's own A–B tension. [synthesis]
• Adjacent practices outside the model. Martínez Robles also offers Holotropic Breathwork, psychedelic-integration therapy and expressive-movement workshops. These are separate offerings, not documented components of this therapy. [source: psychedelic.support profile; WCET4 speaker page] Do not bring altered-state methods into this work without separate, specific training. That also requires informed consent, medical and psychiatric screening (for example cardiovascular conditions, psychosis or bipolar history, pregnancy) and the legal framework of your jurisdiction. [synthesis]

Sources

Sources:

• Implicaciones de una práctica fenomenológico-existencial en el mundo de las terapias psicológicas (Martínez Robles, Aoristo 2017) = "2017a"
• The four languages of experience: existential therapy proposal from the Mexican School (Martínez Robles, conference abstract, J Psychol Psychother 2017) = "2017b"
• 2026 invited speaker: Yaqui Andrés Martinez-Robles, PhD (4th World Congress of Existential Therapy)
• Yaqui Andrés Martínez, NYIGT member page
• Terapia Existencial: teoría y práctica relacional para un mundo pos-cartesiano (Goodreads listing)
• Maurial Chávez, I. (2012). Review of Filosofía existencial para terapeutas y uno que otro curioso, Avances en Psicología 20(1)
• The Wiley World Handbook of Existential Therapy, publisher sample (contents and contributors)
• Voces existenciales en América Latina, publisher sample (contents and preface)
• Yaqui Andrés Martínez Robles, practitioner profile (psychedelic.support)
• Practising Existential Therapy: The Relational World (Spinelli), Bookshare listing

Further reading (not drawn on):

• Martínez, Y. A. (2009). Filosofía existencial para terapeutas y uno que otro curioso (2nd ed.). México: Ediciones LAG. [known via review]
• Martínez Robles, Y. A. (2015). Terapia existencial: teoría y práctica relacional para un mundo pos-cartesiano (2 vols.). [practice volume, uncertain]
• Martínez, Y. A., & Signorelli, S. (Eds.) (2012). Perspectivas en psicoterapia existencial. México: Editorial LAG.
• Signorelli, S., & Martínez Robles, Y. A. (2019). Latin American developments. In E. van Deurzen et al. (Eds.), The Wiley World Handbook of Existential Therapy (ch. 35, p. 567). Wiley.
• Martínez Robles, Y. A. (2020). Hacia una perspectiva existencial renovada: movimiento mexicano de análisis y terapia existencial. In A. de Castro Correa & S. Signorelli (Comps.), Voces existenciales en América Latina (p. 91). Barranquilla: Editorial Universidad del Norte.
• Spinelli, E. (2015). Practising Existential Therapy: The Relational World (2nd ed.). SAGE.