Book: Existential psychotherapy

At seventeen, I was convinced that my father was a complete fool. At twenty-one, I was amazed at how much the old man had learned in four years.

Existential wine comes from omissions. Redemption is achieved by immersion in the authentic vocation of human beings, which, said Kierkegaard, is the will to be yourself.

From the man expected, so he made himself what he can become, to fulfill his destiny. Every moral act, an act of self-affirmation man contributes to the fulfillment of a destiny, the actualization of what he potentially is.

When a basic, innate essence of identity is denied or suppressed, a person gets sick, sometimes obviously, sometimes subtly...

Undoubtedly, the acceptance of responsibility for his life is identical with the richness of living and abilities. And what I hope to accomplish is... to lead you to understanding how much you will win, by taking responsibility for every emotion, for every move - off responsibility for all other...
Important in the adult human is the ability to take responsibility for themselves - their thoughts, feelings, etc.

The one who goes with his light, can not be afraid of the dark.

People have reached mid-life and and not approved themselves successfully in professional family plan, or approved, but only because of manic activity and denial with the resulting emotional impoverishment, is badly prepared for the demands of middle age and to get pleasure from its maturity. In such cases, the crisis of life and meeting with an adult view of life as living in conditions approaching personal death are more likely to be felt as a period of psychological disorders and a nervous breakdown. Sometimes the failure can be prevented by strengthening the manic defenses, with the expulsion of depression, thoughts about aging and death, but accompanied by the accumulation of fears of persecution, awaiting the hour when it will be impossible not to recognize the inevitability of aging and death.
Compulsive attempts of many men and middle-aged women to remain young, the hypochondriacal concern over health and appearance, sexual promiscuity, having in order to prove youth and potency, the emptiness of life and lack of genuine enjoyment of her frequent anxiety of a religious nature - all familiar patterns. They represent attempts to compete with time.

First of all, I thought that these women, cancer patients, need no reminder of the inevitability of death that an awareness of death helps them to see things and events in their true proportions and adjusts our usual bad sense of time. Life ahead can be very short. Life is precious, don't waste it! Invest in every day as much as possible of what you value! Reconsider your values! Check your priorities! Don't delay! Do it!
As for me, I've wasted time wasted. In the past, I was keenly aware that I'm only a spectator or a stand-in who watches the play of life from behind the scenes, but always hopes and believes that one day he would be on stage. Of course, there were moments of intense life, but most of life was perceived only as a "rehearsal" of the real life waiting ahead. But if death comes before I start "real" life? Tragic would be to realize when it's too late, that you hardly lived at all.

On a blank sheet of paper, draw a segment.
One end represents your birth, the other your death.
Put a cross in the place where you are now. Ponder this...

Contemplate death if you want to learn how to live.

Existence cannot be postponed.
When we look back on his life - even at the last moment, we are here, living life, live. The present, not the future, there is the eternal time.
Death reminds us that existence cannot be postponed. And there is still time for life. If you happen to meet your death and feel life as "the possibility of possibility," and see death as the "impossibility of further possibility", you realize that while alive, you have the opportunity can change your life before the end will come - but only before.

... although the denial of death is a universal trend, manifested in various forms, it has two basic mechanisms: a belief in personal uniqueness and belief in the ultimate rescuer.
It appears that faith in an external Saviour as a psychological defense by its nature has a certain handicap. Not only is she not quite containerwe primary concern, but also naturally gives rise to additional pathology: a person's belief in something. that his life is controlled by external forces, tied to a sense of powerlessness, inferiority, low self-esteem. One who does not rely on himself or doesn't believe in herself, accordingly, limit itself to the acquisition of information and skills; in dealing with others he tends to try to warm them up. It is easy to understand that low self-esteem, the tendency to self-deprecation, a small number of skills, the possession of which might be based on the experience of self-worth, poor interpersonal relationships - all this sets the stage for psychopathology.

In therapy, as well as in life, the necessary Foundation of the loneliness in work and in self-perception.

Many people in trying to look strong, decide that it is better not to want; desire makes a person vulnerable or exposes him: "If I never wish, I will never be weak." Others, demoralized, make yourself immune to your own inner experience: "If I never wish, I am never disappointed or rejected." Other people hide their desires from their own eyes in the childish hope that a certain perpetual Trustee will be able to read their wishes in their place. There is something infinitely soothing in the belief that someone else will satisfy our unexpressed desires.