Gianina Frediani

Existential empathy is an emerging construct within humanistic and person-centered psychology. It refers to the therapist’s capacity to remain present with a client’s existential concerns, to resonate with these concerns, and to communicate this resonance empathically. Recently, an experiential–existential psychotherapy (EEP) training program was developed to cultivate existential empathy by enhancing therapists’ openness to existential concerns and their ability to engage with them. This qualitative study explores how therapists experience the development of their existential empathy following participation in EEP training. It also explores which elements of the training they perceive as most helpful. Ten therapists were interviewed before and after the 1-year training program using two methods: a Change Interview and an Existential Cue Interview, the latter involving a video stimulus of a client expressing her existential concerns. Findings suggest that training can enhance therapists’ existential awareness, their capacity to remain present with existential issues, and their ability to engage with these issues from a human-to-human stance. Effective training appears to require a combination of cognitive components, such as theoretical frameworks, and experiential components, including personal engagement with one’s own existential issues.

Research shows how therapists struggle to stay present with their clients' existential concerns. Our goal was to explore what hinders and enables therapists to stay present and engaged when existential concerns surface in the session. We invited 22 therapists (12 novice and 10 experienced) to engage in a role-play with a client expressing her existential concerns using a standardized script. Subsequently, the therapists were interviewed using a videotape-assisted recall procedure. Data were analyzed according to the descriptive-interpretive qualitative research approach. When confronted with existential themes in the session, novice therapists experienced overwhelming feelings of powerlessness and uncertainty, blocking their ability to remain open to the client's existential experiences. Lack of knowledge and encountering their own existential vulnerability were mentioned as triggers. For experienced therapists, the main challenge was to stay present while feeling impacted by the existential topic, which they managed by grounding and reanchoring themselves. Our findings support the idea that embracing one's own existential issues and being at ease with existential themes may be essential conditions for staying present and fostering an authentic therapeutic encounter. Furthermore, our findings suggest that gaining knowledge about the existential process and learning to ground and reanchor oneself are essential for therapists. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Research shows that shame can have a severe negative impact on intimate relationships, leading to negative shame loops between partners. In this article, we aim to provide a theoretical analysis of how attachment theory can help us understand that shame loops within couple relationships may not only be triggered by negative cues, such as criticism from a partner but can also innocently be triggered by a partner seeking connection or even offering comfort. We also elaborate on how therapists may unexpectedly trigger and intensify a client's shame. We conclude by providing a case description and discussing the therapeutic implications that can be helpful when working with the paradoxes of shame in couple therapy.

This study examined which themes therapists identify as existential and explored what happens when therapists engage with their clients’ existential concerns. Over two simultaneous studies, 19 participants were interviewed about working with existential themes. The first study consisted of experienced person-centered and existential psychotherapists and the second study of counselors or therapists working in a setting that would evoke existential themes. The data were first analyzed separately for both groups using Consensual Qualitative Research. Subsequently, a general cross analysis was conducted to achieve a meta-synthesis. Four existential themes were identified: Death and boundaries of life; Freedom, choice and responsibility; Connection and isolation; and Meaning and meaninglessness. In addition to providing a descriptive model of these themes, this study suggests that existential training might help therapists notice more implicit existential dynamics in the therapeutic process. Furthermore, engaging with clients’ existential concerns might make therapists more aware of their own existential reality which would help them to relate to existential themes differently. Experienced therapists can identify existential themes in their clients’ stories. However, specific existential training and personal reflection can deepen therapists’ openness towards existential issues and expand insight in existential processes.