Existential Group Counseling - Essay Example

Existential group counseling Existential group counseling Existential group counseling characterizes human beings as the creatures undergoing great changes and transformations (Deurzen, 2012). These human beings live finite lives regarding their personal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and their limitations that are created by the environment that they live in. With attention geared towards this, existential group counseling entails exploring the meaning and the value of these individuals in a group and enabling them to live in an authentic manner. This means that such individuals are able to be true to themselves and they are also honest of their own possibilities together with their limitations and they continually create their identity even when everything in the future except the time of their death is uncertain. Thus, these individuals are able to lead deliberate lives instead of living by default. From an existential perspective, psychological health is characterized by one’s ability to navigate life’s complexities, the world and the relationship that individuals have with the world at large. If there is any disturbance, it becomes the outcome of avoiding the truths of life and individuals working under what people expects from them and their values. The arising self-deception of these factors provides a psychological defense mechanism for these individuals in the group. Existential Counseling maintains that disturbance is inevitable for all individuals. Thus, individuals have to come up with ways of facing the disturbance facing them with openness and their willingness to engage with their life instead of retreating or even withdrawing to avoid the responsibilities of the individual. The counselor is very important in all this. He or she should be in a position to facilitate the encounter of the client with themselves and work alongside these clients to understand better values, ideas and assumptions of the clients (Emmy van Deurzen, 2010). He or she is concerned with seriously engaging with what matters most to the clients to avoid coming up with their own judgments and assist the client to elaborate on own perspective for them to live well. Considering that this group therapy is concerned with older adults, the counselor should focus on aging death and grief. Most of these older adults are grief stricken from various old age ailments. Most of them are tired of living already and all they wish for is God to take them out of this world and end their suffering. Some are confined to elderly homes while others are taken care of by their loved ones. However, they view themselves as a burden to their loved ones since some of them cannot accomplish anything on their own. Their loved ones have to take care of them in every way including feeding them. It is the role of this counselor to engage their clients in this group counseling with what matters most (Yalom, 2008). The counselor should ensure that they understand what matters most to their clients and clear any arising misconceptions about life to ensure that they do not jump into a conclusion about their clients. They should ensure that their clients are able to go past their weaknesses and maximize on their strengths and their opportunities in life to ensure that they make the most out of their remaining life period. A lot of emphases are made on the responsibility of this counselor to be self-aware of their prejudices and biases and put them aside as much as possible. This is considering that the counselor is faced with a great challenge of enhancing the well-being of everyone in the group. Considering that different group members in this existential group counseling has their own misconceptions about death, grief and aging, the counselor has to come up with what works for every elder adult in the group. Thus, existential group therapy should have three main goals. The first one is enabling members to cultivate a high level of honesty to themselves. Secondly, it broadens the perspectives that members have on themselves and their surroundings. Finally, members are able to discern what gives them the meaning to their current and their future lives. From these goals, existential group counseling is capable of enabling members to work on their own responsibilities and build their personal relationships (Cox, 2009). This group therapy with its existing factors of normalization in the universal world is a good modality of addressing the existential concerns of individuals. Existential group counseling begins with making individuals aware that they do not have to rely on others for their validation. It is true that although human beings are often alone in the world, they have the will to be connected to others. Thus, they have to realize that they should not depend on the validation of others making them realize that they are in a fundamental way alone. This may result into an anxiety that their validation must come from within them but not from others. This makes them able to face their anxieties and take full responsibility of making their own choices. These older individuals do not have to feel meaningless but they can make have new meanings in their lives. They are able to accept their mortality and overcome the overall fear of their own death. These older individuals should be able to understand that death is inevitable but it is not their responsibility to cloud their minds with the thoughts of death. As a result, the existential group counseling is dependent on four forces of dimension which include the physical, social, psychological, and the spiritual dimensions. These four dimensions are related and they are stretched towards a positive side which individuals aspire to become and the negative side which these individuals fear (Glass, 2010). Physical dimensions- in these dimensions, these older adults relate to their surrounding environments. This includes their attitude towards their body, climate, weather, material possessions health and to their own mortality. They struggle between the search for their own domination over the surrounding elements and the need to accept that their natural boundaries have limitations. Though such individuals might aim for their security in this level by their health and wealth, there is a level of disillusionment that arises from their realization that such securities are only temporary. This can bring a lot of tension for these individuals. It is upon the counselor to remove this tension from the lives of these older adults and enable them avoid clouding their minds with the inevitable. Social dimension- here, individuals are able to relate with others as they interact with the people around them. This includes their response to their culture, their class or race. Here, some of these older adults might withdraw from the world while others chase the acceptance of others by not living any stone unturned (Sharf, 2015). The counselor here should be in a position to understand the social dimension of each older individual in the group and make them understand that they do not need the approval of others to feel wanted in the society. They determine which angle that their lives should take. Psychological dimension- here individuals are able to relate to themselves thus creating a personalized world. Individuals view their own character, their own past experiences and their possibilities in the future. They try to search for their identity though many issues face them plunging them into confusion. Spiritual dimension-the individuals relate to the unknown in the society creating an ideal world for themselves in their minds (Corey & University., 2013). This might be done by adhering to a certain religion or finding meaning in a more personalized manner. However, they might be faced with the contradictions to the tensions between the purpose in life and the absurdity. Thus, the counselor has to ensure that the members of the group face their fears and surpass them to live a stress-free life. They should not conceal themselves under their religions or other ideologies that might try to comfort them about what they fear. However, facing their fears head-on should be their main agenda to ensuring that the remaining days of their lives are well spent. They should understand that relating with others is important though they should avoid being influenced by others in what they do. Their decisions should be their own. References Corey, G., & University., C. S. (2013). Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth. Cox, G. (2009). How to be an existentialist. London; New York: Continuum. Deurzen, E. v. (2012). Existential Counselling & Psychotherapy in Practice. New York: SAGE. Emmy van Deurzen, M. A. (2010). Skills in Existential Counselling & Psychotherapy. New York: SAGE. Glass, S. D. (2010). The practical handbook of group counseling. Bloomington, Ind: Trafford Publishing. Sharf, R. (2015). Theories of Psychotherapy & Counseling. New Jersey: Cengage Learning. Yalom, I. D. (2008). Existential psychotherapy. New York: Basic Books. Read More