Delivered by Professor Ernesto Spinelli

Relatedness, uncertainty and anxiety are key foundational principles that underpin the practice of existential therapy and which manifest themselves within the therapeutic relationship from both the focus-point of the therapist and the client.

This seminar will provide a brief overview of a way of considering, understanding and practising existential therapy. It will explore how an existential approach  directs the therapeutic enterprise toward a very uncertain and uneasy form of world-creating relationship that depends to a great extent upon the therapist’s active willingness and ability to abdicate many if his or her most cherished assumptions; not least those of therapist-led change.

Acknowledging the constraints of time as well as the uncertain directions that dialogue undertakes, the format of the seminar might incorporate lecture, discussion, experiential exercises, and exploration of case material that participants bring to the seminars.

Professor Ernesto Spinelli has gained an international reputation as one of the leading contemporary trainers and theorists of existential therapy. Ernesto is Director of ES Associates, an organisation dedicated to the advancement of psychotherapy, coaching, and mediation through specialist seminars and training programmes.  His most recent book, Practising Existential Therapy: The Relational World, 2nd edition (Sage, 2015) has been widely praised as a major contribution to the advancement of existential theory and practice.