Book Review: Existential-Integrative Psychotherapy: Guideposts to the Core of Practice

This is a much better book than one might expect from reading the title. It is based on the earlier book edited by Schneider with Rollo May, entitled The Psychology of Existence, but breaks quite new ground.

Two things in particular struck me about it. One is the large quantity of case vignettes in every chapter, which bring these contributions to life in a quite sparkling way. The other is the admission that there is such a thing as the transpersonal – an insight which is missing from so many books which purport to be comprehensive.

Some interesting people have contributed to this book: Laura Brown, Ilene Serlin, James Bugental, Robert Stolorow, Tom Greening, Barry Wolfe, are just a few examples of this.

In Part 1, the editor looks at the cognitive revolution, developments in biopsychology, transpersonal therapy and social constructivism. Ann Bassett-Short and Glenn Hammel contribute a chapter on what it feels like to be training in an existential approach.

Part 2 is entirely by the editor, and consists of a theoretical framework for an existential-integrative approach to therapy, which he describes as a liberation therapy. He says that the four basic stances of experiential liberation are (1) presence, (2) invoking the actual, (3) vivifying and confronting resistance (or protections), and (4) the rediscovery of meaning and awe. He often quotes Bugental and May. At the end of this section he gives some suggestions for instructors trying to teach this method.

Part 3, which comprises the rest of the book, consists entirely of case illustrations. They cover multicultural cases (Comas-Diaz, Rice, Alsup), gender, power and sexuality (Brown, Monheit, Serlin), short-term therapy (Bugental, Galvin), addiction (Ballinger, Matano, Amantea), spiritual and religious issues (Hoffman), cognitive-behavioural innovations (Wolfe, Bunting & Hayes), severe states (Dorman, Mendelowitz), the intersubjective (Portnoy, Stolorow, Fosha), child therapy (Curtin) and death and dying (Elizabeth Bugental, Greening).

There is a two-page Summary and Conclusion.

Obviously this is a rich harvest, and there is a high standard throughout, as if the editor had been quite demanding of his contributors. This book is strongly recommended to anyone who wants to know how existential-integrative therapy has been developing over the past few years. It is also recommended to anyone who wants to see what a wide range of outcomes are possible in therapy – not just restricted to the one person in the room, but extending out into the family and the community.

It is really lovely to come across an open-hearted book like this, which says things like – 'In working with Latino clients, psychotherapists can become more culturally competent by endorsing an existential-integrative approach combined with psychospirituality.' This followed a moving case account where imagery and folklore was used in a very effective way. Similarly, in working with an educated woman the therapist says – 'I mostly listened to Maria, providing a sense of a maternal safe space and supporting her to see this stage as a journey to find her own voice and respect her own decisions. We used artwork and dreams to discover the archetypal and symbolic patterns in her unconscious.' The chapter by Stolorow includes an episode from his own life which is extremely moving.

There is nothing dry about this book, and I found it quite inspiring.

This review first appeared in AHP Perspective - a magazine published bi-monthly for members of the Association for Humanistic Psychology

John Rowan