Time-Limited Existential Therapy

The Wheel of Existence

Alison Strasser, Freddie Strasser

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781118713716
• eBook ISBN: 9781118713709
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

Explore the concept of time as it applies to the therapeutic setting 

Following the innovative first edition which she co-authored with her late father, Freddie Strasser, in the newly revised Second Edition of Time-Limited Existential Therapy: The Wheel of Existence, distinguished therapist Alison Strasser delivers an insightful aid to integrating and working with existential givens as they arise within a therapeutic encounter. She locates the concept of Time as central to all therapies, regardless of their theoretical modality, and demonstrates how it can be used in brief, short-term, and open-ended therapies. 

The book relies on the concept of The Wheel to provide a framework for understanding existential and phenomenological philosophies and to help readers put them into practice with clients. It includes meaningful case vignettes that bring existential themes to life and is accessible to both therapists and interested lay members of the public. 

Finally, the author highlights how our experience with COVID-19 has impacted, and been impacted by, the existential themes we all deal with on a regular basis. 

• A thorough overview of a commonsense existential approach and a discussion of the mystery of time
• Practical discussions of the limitations and possibilities of time-limited existential therapies, as well as concepts and methods in the area. 
• Comprehensive explorations of the tyranny of high morality, and examinations of the body, the "givents" and "connectedness". 

Time-Limited Existential Therapy: The Wheel of Existence is an indispensable resource for experienced psychotherapists, counsellors, social workers, coaches, and psychologists, as well as trainees in these fields seeking a common-sense approach to existential ideas in the context of therapy. 

Part I

1
Existential and Phenomonological Philosophies and the Wheel of Existence

My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and … surround myself with obstacles … The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self of the chains that shackle the spirit.

Igor Stravinski, Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons (1970)

Existentialism and Phenomenology Overview

Existentialism and phenomenology are different and yet complementary philosophies that attempt to understand what it means to be human. In simple terms, existentialism focuses on human existence, reflecting on the issues of what it is to be human, while phenomenology concerns itself with how human beings subjectively interpret their existence. These philosophies stem not from a traditional, objective, rational, scientific focus or impetus but from an examination of how humans understand themselves in the midst of their lived experience.

The word ‘existence’ has its roots in the Latin word ex‐istere – translated variously as ‘to stand out’, ‘to emerge’, ‘to proceed forward in a continuous process’.

Rollo May, the distinguished American protagonist of existential philosophy, defined this existential approach to understanding the human condition in his book The Discovery of Being:

For the very essence of this approach is that it seeks to analyse and portray the human being – whether in art or literature or philosophy or psychology – on a level which undercuts the old dilemma of materialism versus idealism. Existentialism, in short, is the endeavour to understand man¹ by cutting below the cleavage between subject and object that has bedevilled Western thought and science since shortly after the Renaissance.

(May, 1983, p. 49)

Existential philosophy is concerned with the science of being – with ontology (Gk ontos, ‘being’). It examines the attitudes we adopt towards being and what we can do about it. Existential philosophy observes that each individual makes his or her own unique pathway in the world, that each of us will experience our own existence in our own distinctive manner. Simultaneously, each individual exists in a relational or co‐constituted mode to others and to the world. In other words, as soon as we exist we are inexorably connected to other people, objects and even ideas.

Kierkegaard, the grandfather of existentialist philosophy, explored the anxiety and aloneness humans experience as they struggle in their attempts to find their own truth, their personal freedom, against the backdrop of the ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts’ that life inevitably demands. Heidegger pertinently asked, ‘What is it to be human?’ and spent his life’s work defining and redefining both his questions and answers, emerging with the concept that humans are inextricably connected to the world, are perpetually in a state of ‘being‐in‐this‐world’, known as Dasein (Heidegger, 1962). Similarly, we are always ‘comporting’ or choosing how we act in the world at the same time as the world interacts with us.

Many people associate existential philosophy with complicated ideas and a leaning towards pessimism. They hear words such as ‘death’, ‘isolation’, and ‘meaninglessness’, without realising that these concepts form only a part of a richer and more complex whole. It is just as significant, for example, to explore hope as it is to examine despair. The polarity of existential themes creates the constant tension between life and death, meaning and meaninglessness, isolation and relationship. Existence is about understanding and living within these constant tensions.

Phenomenology, on the other hand, concerns itself with subjectivity, with how human beings interpret things to themselves (Husserl, 1977) as opposed to the natural science framework that seeks to find objective truth. The importance of phenomenological exploration is that it excludes this objective reality and instead seeks a subjective explanation of the individual’s relationships with objects, others, and his or her sense of being.

The Wheel of Existence

Source: Alison Strasser

The Wheel is used as a diagrammatic representation of the interplay between key existential and phenomenological concepts and as a philosophical attitude when working with clients. It is versatile framework in that it can be used as a specific structure for teaching but also creates a background frame that can be drawn upon when reflecting upon a client either in the session or later in supervision.

In brief, the Wheel’s outer layer depicts existential or ‘ontological’ phenomena, the concerns or ‘givens’ common to all human beings universally.

Radiating from the fulcrum of the Wheel is the next layer, a series of 10 segments or ‘leaves’, which together constitute the essence of individual experience and their attitudes or relationship to the ontological ‘givens’. These leaves are referred to as the ‘ontic’ layer and give credence to a subjective and personal ‘ontic’ experience which differs with each individual and which more closely resembles the concerns of phenomenology.

The self, which can be considered to be in a constant state of flux, shifting between one’s experiences of security and insecurity, occupies the outer section of the core.

At the core of the Wheel of Existence is time, an existential given that permeates all our lives from birth to death and beyond.

The Wheel is a schema for understanding how the different rudiments of existential philosophy are integrated into a whole; it seeks to show how all the above elements both interact with and influence each other, all contributing to the individual’s experience of being‐in‐the‐world and to our worldview. The structure of the Wheel highlights the existential–phenomenological hypothesis that all issues always interconnect and express themselves throughout all facets of individuals’ relationships with the world. As such, the Wheel parallels existential philosophy in viewing the human being as a unified entity rather than split into divisions of mind, thoughts, body, and emotions. It follows that what a client focuses on at any point in time will be connected to many of their other concerns, thus paralleling phenomenology. In keeping with this thinking, the following chapters in which these elements or ‘leaves’ are described do not necessarily follow the clockwise or even anticlockwise direction of the Wheel.

Of course, the paradox is that existentialism by its very nature cannot provide anybody with a framework that guarantees safeguards or stability. If the Wheel is taken too literally or becomes too technical or rule driven, it can easily become counterproductive. Using a loose but clearly defined structure, however, can also highlight the uncertainties of being thrown into this world and the certainty of leaving it, which Deurzen confirms: ‘Although an existential approach [to psychotherapy] is essentially non‐technological, I also believe that one needs some methods, some parameters, some framework, in order to retain one’s independence and clarity of thinking’ (1988, p. 6).

Universalising: The Ontological Layer

The outer edge of the Wheel of Existence in the diagram encompasses what are known as the ontological or existential concerns of existence. These ‘ontological’ characteristics are the elements of being human that are common to all humankind. They are aspects of being human that we cannot change; they are an intrinsic feature to all humans. In existential terminology, they are called ‘givens’ or ‘universals’, meaning facts that we are either born with or encounter during life. Residing in the background of our everyday living, I think about these ontological givens as the relentless ‘hum’. These ‘hums’ are constant and move in and out of immediate awareness as events in life unfold. For Heidegger, this ontological aspect is at the heart of his understanding that certain aspects are manifest and inescapable and are the nature of being human (Heidegger, 1962).

Various authors have described a range of different themes of existence as ‘ontological’. The concerns chosen within this Wheel, and discussed below, are the ontological givens that arise most commonly in my current work and will be discussed in detail in Chapter 5. Other therapists might focus on other givens that give credence to their practice.

The Ontological Givens

• Relationship in the ontological sense describes how a human being is always in a state of relationship not only to others but also to oneself and to the overall culture and environment. This understanding does not make any statements about the quality or the nature of the relationship but simply states the fact that relatedness reveals itself in the relationship.
• Facticity relates to the limiting factors that we cannot fundamentally change including certain features such as our own genetic makeup, our psychological profile, our cultural heritage, and our social world.
• Uncertainty and inconsistency is a feature of life that we cannot avoid and which the world imposes upon us.
• Temporality ‘is the name of the way in which Time exists in human existence’ (Warnock, 1970, p. 62) and nobody can escape from the idea that life is moulded by our finitude, that we are only transitory beings on this planet.
• Mood is the way we are ‘attuned’ to the world and describes how we are both experiencing and responding to our existence. ‘A mood assails us. It comes neither from “without” nor from “within”, but arises from Being‐in‐the‐world, as a way of that being’ (Heidegger, 1962, p. 136).
• Freedom is connected to responsibility in that humans are not determined by external factors which are certain, but, within the limitations of existence, are free to create their own responses to living.
• Embodiment denotes the concept that humans are both physical and non‐physical, are both mind and body. A body–mind experience will both shape and be shaped by our interactions in the world. ‘We are both subject and object, where the subject is his body, his world, and his situation, by a sort of exchange’ (Merleau‐Ponty, 1964, p. 72), where the object is subsumed into this exchange.
• Mortality is our constant awareness that we are moving towa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Part I
• Part II
• Afterword: COVID‐19
• References
• Index
• End User License Agreement