Theory and practice of existential psychology

The names of the authors whose work are collected in this book are firmly associated with existentialism, since these people stood at the origins of the development of the existential direction in psychology and psychiatry. These works are included in the peculiar encyclopedia of existential psychology for American psychologists, their publication has become one of those factors that at one time contributed to the formation of modern psychology and psychiatry.
Rollo May, one of the main conductors of the ideas of existentialism in psychology, believed that only the existential direction would help fill serious gaps that exist in a psychological idea of ​​a person who has developed under the influence of psychoanalysis. The existential approach, in his opinion, gives answers to questions that bother many psychologists and psychiatrists. Existential methods are the best suited for psychological counseling, since in the conditions of consulting work strict schematization, reducing people and their problems in narrow structured frames, do not give an effect. The structure of the individual’s world here is revealed through his life history, linguistic manifestations, dreams, emotional experiences. The existential direction has opened up opportunities for a completely different vision of human problems, as well as for deeper penetration into his experiences.
Psychologists, psychiatrists, specialists who help people find mental health, to everyone who does not leave indifferent issues of being, the existence of man and its formation