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Existential Psychoanalytic
Institute Director
Dr. Kevin Boileau
has drafted the new Code of
Ethics for
Washington State Registered Counselors |
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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.
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