Unit 2- Existential and Human Issues

		Unit 1-Well-being and mental health Unit 2- Existential and Human Issues Unit 3- Conflict and reconciliation Unit 4- Overview of different methods of psychotherapy and personal change Unit 5- Ethics and culture in psychotherapy and counselling Unit 6- Development through the life cycle Back to introduction to tutorial pages

Course material overview

There are ten weeks, covering different viewpoints on existential and human issues. We think of them as different places on "Existence Island". They are:

• Week 1- Human nature and the paradox of the human condition: Paradox plantation

• Week 2- Anxiety and emotions: Anxiety bay

• Week 3- Sexuality: Sexuality volcano

• Week 4- Life and death, meaning and purpose: Meaning mill

• Week 5- Crisis and transition: Development dunes

• Week 6- Self in society: Isolation Treehouse

• Week 7- Dialogue and Communication: Dialogue Farm

• Week 8- Closeness: children, parents, partners: Closeness Oasis

• Week 9- Grief and loss: Grief Precipice

• Week 10- Change and maturity: Maturity Treasure Chest

To access these pages, you need to be a registered user. If you are registered, you should use the Atlas link above to navigate to Unit 2.

Aims

This unit will provide students with an overview of an existential approach to the human issues that clients and therapists are often facing together.

The contributions of some of the relevant Western philosophers, such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty will be put in to context with the practical problems raised by the human condition.

A model for understanding and engaging with such issues and therapeutically intervening in them will be discussed.

By the end of the unit, students will be able to demonstrate an integrated perspective on existential and human issues and a sense of how to evaluate individual problems and the best method of intervention in relation to them.

Resources

You will not be required to buy any books, but you may want to look at the main text for the unit which is:

van Deurzen, E. & Arnold-Baker, C. (Eds) (2005) Existential Perspectives on Human Issues: A Handbook for Therapeutic Practice. Palgrave MacMillan.

You may also want to look at the following:

Arendt, H. (1951) The origins of Totalitarianism

Berger, J. (1977) Ways of Seeing, Penguin: London.

Deurzen-Smith, E. van (1997) Everyday Mysteries, London: Routledge.

Deurzen-Smith, E. van (2001) Existential Counselling & Psychotherapy in Practice, London: Sage

May, R., Angel, E. & Ellenberger, H. (1994) Existence, Jason Aronson

Sartre, J-P. (1939) Sketch of a Theory of Human Emotions.

Watzlawick, P. (1967) Pragmatics of Human Communication, Norton: New York.

Yalom, I. (1980) Existential Psychotherapy, New York: Basic.