1st Edition

Existential Group Counselling and Psychotherapy

By Karen Weixel-Dixon Copyright 2020
    186 Pages
    by Routledge

    186 Pages
    by Routledge

    Existential Group Counselling and Psychotherapy provides a theoretical and practical foundation for practice. It serves as a guide that provides a solid grounding in the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of therapeutic group-work from an existential perspective.

    The first section of the book, Modern Origins, offers a review of modern western sources: a survey of early developments, what formats have endured, and to what extent these antecedents have informed, but are distinct from, current paradigms. The second section, Being and Doing, provides a description of the existential phenomenological paradigm for group therapeutic groupwork, reviewing possible therapeutic effects, as well as risks and disappointments that may affect both members, and facilitators. Part three, Doing and Being, covers practice, procedure, and possible problems.

    Written in a practical, accessible style, and incorporating clinical vignettes and anecdotal material, the book will be relevant for counsellors and psychotherapists in training and practice, as well as for special interest organisations that sponsor groups.

    00. Introduction; 01. Part One: Modern Western Origins; Historical Overview; 02. Kurt Lewin; 03. Wilfred Bion; 04. S.H Foulkes; 05. Carl Rogers; 06. Irvin D. Yalom; 07. Conclusion and Summary part one; 08. Part Two: Being and Doing; Towards an Existential Phenomenological Model for Group psychotherapy and Counselling; 09. Why Group; 10. The Existential ‘Givens’ Human Existence; 11. Time and Temporality; 12. Relatedness; 13. Uncertainty, Angst and Anxiety; 14. Freedom, Choice, and Change; 15. Death; 16. Meaning, Meaninglessness, and Nothingness; 17. Embodiment and Spatiality; 18. Emotions; 19. Language; 20. The World-View; 21. The Contributions of Existential Phenomenology; 22. The Contributions of Hermeneutics; 23. The Nature of Problems and the Process of Change; 24. Relational Issues; 25. Conclusion and Summary part two; 26. Part Three: Doing and Being; Forming, Maintaining, and Ending the Group; 27. Risks, disappointments, benefits, and therapeutic effects; 28. Focal points: responsibilities of the facilitator, the members, the group; 29. The Ways of Dialogue; 30. An existential phenomenological model for dreamwork in group; 31. Difficult and Challenging Behaviours; 32. The Ambiguity of Ethics (with apologies to Simone De Beauvoir); 33. Conclusion and Summary part three

    Biography

    Karen Weixel-Dixon is a psychotherapist, supervisor, and accredited mediator in private practice, and a visiting lecturer at Regent's University London. Her paradigm is existential phenomenological, and she is particularly interested in how people experience, and engage with, time.

    Elegantly written and highly accessible to all practitioners interested in group work, Karen Weixel-Dixon's Existential Group Counselling and Psychotherapy provides a much-needed exploration of group therapy as understood and practiced from an existential perspective. In addition, Weixel-Dixon's emphasis on the possibilities of a dialogue-driven approach both reflects the principles of existential therapy and clarifies their relationally-grounded implications.

    Professor Ernesto Spinelli, author of Practising Existential Therapy: The Relational World

    The "doing" of therapy is essentially grounded in a philosophy of Being. This idea is found throughout this formidable book where we learn about the origins of an existential-phenomenological model for working with groups, going deeper into the themes, processes and aspects of this approach to both counseling and psychotherapy. It will undoubtedly become a classic for understanding the possibilities of the Existential Approach.

    Yaqui Andrés Martínez Robles, Ph.D., Founder of the Círculo de Estudios en Terapia Existencial (Circle of Studies in Existential Therapy) Mexico