Existential Group Counselling and Psychotherapy

Existential Group Counselling and Psychotherapy provides a theoretical and practical foundation for practice. It serves as a guide that provides a solid grounding in the ?why? and ?how? of therapeutic group-work from an existential perspective.

The first section of the book, Modern Origins, offers a review of modern western sources: a survey of early developments, what formats have endured, and to what extent these antecedents have informed, but are distinct from, current paradigms. The second section, Being and Doing, provides a description of the existential phenomenological paradigm for group therapeutic groupwork, reviewing possible therapeutic effects, as well as risks and disappointments that may affect both members, and facilitators. Part three, Doing and Being, covers practice, procedure, and possible problems.

Written in a practical, accessible style, and incorporating clinical vignettes and anecdotal material, the book will be relevant for counsellors and psychotherapists in training and practice, as well as for special interest organisations that sponsor groups.

00. Introduction; 01. Part One: Modern Western Origins; Historical Overview; 02. Kurt Lewin; 03. Wilfred Bion; 04. S.H Foulkes; 05. Carl Rogers; 06. Irvin D. Yalom; 07. Conclusion and Summary part one; 08. Part Two: Being and Doing; Towards an Existential Phenomenological Model for Group psychotherapy and Counselling; 09. Why Group; 10. The Existential ‘Givens’ Human Existence; 11. Time and Temporality; 12. Relatedness; 13. Uncertainty, Angst and Anxiety; 14. Freedom, Choice, and Change; 15. Death; 16. Meaning, Meaninglessness, and Nothingness; 17. Embodiment and Spatiality; 18. Emotions; 19. Language; 20. The World-View; 21. The Contributions of Existential Phenomenology; 22. The Contributions of Hermeneutics; 23. The Nature of Problems and the Process of Change; 24. Relational Issues; 25. Conclusion and Summary part two; 26. Part Three: Doing and Being; Forming, Maintaining, and Ending the Group; 27. Risks, disappointments, benefits, and therapeutic effects; 28. Focal points: responsibilities of the facilitator, the members, the group; 29. The Ways of Dialogue; 30. An existential phenomenological model for dreamwork in group; 31. Difficult and Challenging Behaviours; 32. The Ambiguity of Ethics (with apologies to Simone De Beauvoir); 33. Conclusion and Summary part three

Karen Weixel-Dixon is a psychotherapist, supervisor, and accredited mediator in private practice, and a visiting lecturer at Regent's University London. Her paradigm is existential phenomenological, and she is particularly interested in how people experience, and engage with, time.