The existential approach is first and foremost philosophical. It is concerned with the understanding of a person's situation in the world and with the clarification of how an individual constructs meaning in his or her life. It focuses on the relation of an individual with mortality, personal identity, social relationships, understanding of the natural world, and spirituality. It is also committed to exploring these questions with a receptive attitude rather than a dogmatic one, looking forward as well as backward. The aim is to search for truth with an open mind and an attitude of wonder instead of fitting a client into pre-established categories and interpretations. The existential approach considers human nature to be open-ended, flexible, and capable of an enormous range of experience. According to this approach, there is no essential, solid self, no given definition of one's personality and abilities, and thus we each have the potential to create our lives within a wide range of free attitudes and behaviors. Existential thinkers avoid restrictive models that categorize or label people. Instead they look for new horizons of historical, cultural, and transcultural possibility and attempt to completely immerse themselves in their clients' worlds. Methodologically, existential thinkers, therapists, and analysts proceed by rendering description, not explanation.