The Present State of Existential Interventions Within Palliative Care

Existential psychotherapy is rooted in the European tradition of existential philosophy. Existential philosophers include Husserl and Heidegger, who were German, and Camus, Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Merleau-Ponty, who were French. Their works contain existentially ultimate themes such as death, freedom, meaninglessness, and isolation. Based on their knowledge of existential philosophy, Binswanger, Frankl, and Boss developed the earlier existential psychotherapies such as Dasein-analysis and Logotherapy, while May, Laing, Yalom, May, and Wong started later existential psychotherapies in the British and American culture. Focusing on patients with advanced cancer and/or terminal care, we found nine types of existential psychotherapies which were investigated using randomized controlled trials (RCTs): Meaning-Centered Group Psychotherapy (MCGP), Individual Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy (IMCP), Meaning-Making intervention (MMi), Meaning of Life Intervention, Managing Cancer and Living Meaningfully (CALM), Hope Intervention, Cognitive and Existential Intervention, Dignity Therapy, and Life-Review Interviews, from 19 relevant RCTs. All deal with death, meaninglessness, isolation, and freedom. Particularly, MCGP, IMCP, MMi, Meaning of Life intervention, and CALM emphasize finding and/or making meaning in the individual's life. The effects on existential or spiritual well-being were confirmed in MCGP, IMCP, Meaning of Life intervention, and Life-Review intervention although the number of studies were very few. In the other interventions, there were heterogenous findings and again the number of studies was very small. Further studies are required to investigate the effects of existential psychotherapy on patients with advanced cancer.

GUIDING ASPECTS OF ISLAMIC EXISTENTIAL-COGNITIVE BEHAVIOUR THERAPY FOR EXISTENTIAL DEPRESSION

The CoVid-19 pandemic had again activated the neuronal circuit on our existential crisis as human beings asking basic existential questions: Where were we from, who are we, why are we here, how we supposedly should live here and where are we going? - Instinctively it appears evidently in the soul while facing threats that may lead to death like the pandemic exposes us to. This study critically explores and analyses through content analysis method on available published ‘Islamic’ documents, which are purposively sampled based on relevancy to the existence. We shared what we found related to existential psychotherapy using cognitive behavior therapy for depressed Muslim clients in supporting the current call for integrating Islamic teachings and practice. Mainly, being intersubjective is very crucial for therapists’ competency because Muslim clients are from diverse Islamic backgrounds.

TRANSFORMATION OF DISTRESS IN EUSTRES

Purpose. Based on a theoretical analysis of the psychology of stress resistance of the individual, the author presents his technique of working with stress issues. Methods.Theoretical analysis of psychotherapeutic areas of work with stress issues in psychological science. Attention is paid to the integrative approach in dealing with distress: cognitive psychotherapy, gestalt approach, neurointegrative psychotherapeutic approach, bodily psychotherapy, existential psychotherapy and symbol-drama.Research of empirical indicators of efficiency of application of a new method of work with distresses: diagnostics of stress, on Max Luscher’s color cards; author’s method “Diagnosis of stress resistance of the individual”; FPI test to diagnose balance; D. Amirkhan’s method “Indicator of coping strategies”, method of research of volitional self-regulation Zverkova-Eidman, test method of research of ability to self-regulation by N.M. Peisahov.Results. Theoretical studies of stress psychology, in particular various psychotherapeutic approaches with stress issues, provided an opportunity to integrate the methods of work of prominent scientists and practitioners and to develop their own approach. An empirical study of the problem of transformation of distress into eustress revealed that most of the participants who became subjects (a sample of more than 100 people) cannot cope with negative stress and perceive it as something unnecessary and negative phenomenon in human life. After the introduction of the author’s method of transforming distress into eustress, most participants immediately recognize the changes and re-evaluate their attitude to stress. Which is confirmed by interview and testing. Conclusions. The results of empirical diagnostics indicate the effectiveness of the method of transformation of distress into eustress. Observations and conversations provided an opportunity to state the following: participants in stress development developed their most current stressful situations, learned skills of self-transformation of negative stress into positive; there was a change of negative programs for successful strategies of stress management, increased self-regulation, stress resistance, balance. The projective method “Color test by M. Luscher” confirmed the absence of internal conflict and the presence of healthy conditions.Key words:transformation, eustress, distress, psychotherapy, integrative approach, development. Мета. На основі теоретичного аналізу психології стресостійкості особистості авторка презентує свою техніку роботи зі стресовою проблематикою. Методи. Здійснюється теоретичний аналіз психотерапевтичних напрямів роботи зі стресом у психологічній науці. Приділяється увага інтегративному підходу в роботі з дистресами, а саме когнітивній психотерапії, гештальт-підходу, нейроінтегральному психотерапевтичному підходу, тілесній психотерапії, екзистенціальній психотерапії та символ-драмі. Досліджуються емпіричні показникиефективності застосування нового методу роботи з дистресами, такі як діагностика стресу за кольоровими картками Макса Люшера, авторська методика «Діагностика стресостійкості особистості», тест FPI для діагностики врівноваженості, методика Д. Амірхана «Індикатор копінг-стратегій», методика дослідження вольової саморегуляції Звєрькова-Ейдмана, тестова методика дослідження здатності до саморегуляції Н.М. Пейсахова. Результати. Теоретичні дослідження психології стресу, зокрема різних психотерапевтичних підхо-дів до роботи зі стресовою проблематикою, дали можливість інтегрувати методи роботи видатних нау-ковців та практиків і розробити свій підхід. Емпіричне дослідження проблеми трансформації стресу дало змогу констатувати, що більшість учасників тренінгу, які стали досліджуваними (вибірка ста-новить більше 100 осіб), сприймають стрес як негативне та непотрібне явище в житті людини. Після упровадження авторського методу трансформації стресу більшість учасників визнають зміни і переоці-нюють своє ставлення до стресу, що підтверджується шляхом співбесіди та за допомогою тестування.Висновки. Про ефективність застосування методу трансформації дистресу в еустрес свідчать результати емпіричної діагностики. Спостереження та бесіда дали можливість констатувати, що учасники тренінгу з розвитку стресостійкості опрацювали свої найактуальніші стрес-ситуації, навчилися навичкам трансформації стресу, а саме відбулася зміна негативних захистів на вибір успішних стратегій опанування стресом, підвищено рівень саморегуляції, стресостійкості, врівноваженості. Проєктивна методика «Кольоровий тест М. Люшера» підтвердила відсутність внутрішнього конфлікту та наявність здорових станів.Ключові слова: трансформація, еустрес, дистрес, психотерапія, інтегративний підхід, розвиток.

Existential Approaches and Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Challenges and Potential

Existential concerns such as death, responsibility, meaninglessness, and isolation not only are the hallmark of existential psychotherapy but also are frequently encountered by CBT therapists—nevertheless, due to epistemological and ideological differences, existential and CBT approaches to psychotherapy had little overlap historically. During recent years, existential issues are increasingly discussed in empirical clinical psychology, e.g., the potential role of the fear of death for a variety of mental disorders by Iverach et al. (Clinical Psychology Review, 34(7), 580–593, 2014), and there is increasing experimental evidence for a causal rather than correlational role of death anxiety discussed by Menzies and Dar-Nimrod (Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 126(4), 367–377, 2017). Further, existential concerns are common themes in CBT discussed by Grober et al. (Psychotherapeut, 61(3), 229–236, 2016) and may play an important role in the training of CBT therapists discussed by Worrell et al. (Journal of Psychotherapy and Counselling Psychology Reflections, 3(1), 9–16, 2018) as well as in personal therapy and supervision.

Existential Foundations of the Clinical and Psychological Picture of Our Time Tragedy

The study presents a model of the clinical and psychological picture of our contemporaries' experience of tragic events related to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is shown that the deformation of everyday life under the influence of threatening circumstances sharpened the features of the clinical and psychological picture of everyday life of our contemporaries. As the most significant features, the authors note experiences of the type of traumatic stress (fear of losing a job, experience of limited movement, concern about the problems of the near and distant future, in connection with the transition to remote work, fear of the lack of clear prospects for the future), as well as experiences that create a risk of reducing social interest (a decrease in the level of direct interpersonal contacts, boredom due to a decrease in social and intellectual activity, feelings of helplessness and impotence, fear of loss of autonomy and independence). It is shown that the psychological characteristics of modern people, especially young people and adolescents (representatives of Y and Z generations), create obstacles to the application of the experience of coping with the difficulties of previous generations due to the widespread postmodern worldview with its characteristic features. The tendency of modern existential psychotherapy and positive psychology to accept suffering as an experience necessary for personal growth is shown. As a metaphor for the spiritual life of a contemporary and the inability to help people in need of help, the authors cite the images of the film "Mirror for the Hero" (1987) because of their special relevance in our time. The directions of psychological assistance that allows to release the resources of coping with the situation are revealed. The prospects of studying the clinical and psychological picture of the mental life of people during the COVID-19 pandemic are considered.

Comparison of the effectiveness of existential, cognitive-existential, and humanistic-existential group psychotherapy on psychosomatic complaints in women with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Background and aims: A significant amount of previous studies has confirmed the positive effect of existential, cognitive-existential, and humanistic-existential interventions on psychosocial problems with different populations. However, research on the effectiveness and comparison of the effect of these three independent variables on the problem of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus is novel. So, the purpose of this research is to study the comparison of the effectiveness of existential, cognitive-existential, and humanistic-existential group psychotherapy on psychosomatic complaints among women with type 2 diabetes mellitus.Methods: The method of the research was semi-experimental, and its experimental design includes the pretest, post-test, and two-month follow-up tests with experimental and control parallel groups. Cases of this study included women with type 2 diabetes mellitus referring to the Specialist Diabetes Clinic of Tohid Hospital in Sanandaj in the first three months of 2019. The main criterion for entry participants to research was the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes mellitus by specialists of the Diabetes Clinic of Tohid Hospital in Sanandaj. 32 subjects selected by simple random sampling method of this society and were assigned to three experimental and one control group by substituting random method. The data collected based on the scale of psychosomatic complaints Takata & Sakata (2004). After the pre-test, the experimental groups participated in 120-minute sessions for 9 weeks. Data analyzed by the statistical test of repeated measures of the General Linear Model. Results: The results of repeated measures analysis showed that the effect of the interventions in experimental groups of psychosomatic complaints was significant and stable compared to the control group (computed using alpha = 0, 05). The effect of the group humanistic-existential psychotherapy on reducing psychosomatic complaints about women with type 2 diabetes mellitus is stable and significant compared to existential and cognitive-existential psychotherapy (The mean difference is significant at the 0,05 level).Conclusion: The findings show applying humanistic-existential psychotherapy more benefits than the other two method. So, humanistic-existential group psychotherapy could be a selective therapy for reducing psychosomatic complaints about women with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

A Brief History and Overview of Existential-Phenomenological Psychology

This article surveys the background and theory of the existential-phenomenological approach to psychology, with a particular focus on its reception in the United States. The article begins with a discussion of what exactly existential-phenomenological psychology is, including the theories underlying this approach and its basic practices. The article then discusses how the approach developed, including its roots in the philosophies of existentialism and phenomenology, its first appearances in Europe, its globalization, and finally its arrival in the U.S. The article then discusses struggles that the existential-phenomenological movement in psychology is currently facing and the concerns of those involved in the movement for its future. Finally, the article closes on a summary of all the information presented as well as of the contributions to the field of psychology that it and the existential-phenomenological movement can make. KEYWORDS: Existentialism; Phenomenology; Psychology; United States; Existential Psychology; Phenomenological Psychology; Existential Psychotherapy; Philosophy of Psychology