Existential therapy cannot be described in terms of a group of techniques commonly used by therapists. In fact, existential therapists are inclined to resist the formulation and application of specific techniques of therapy, believing that psychotherapy is essentially a human endeavor and that the drive to formulate techniques is basically a dehumanizing, objectifying interest. To understand existential therapy, then, we ought not to expect to encounter a set of specific techniques. What really characterizes existential therapy are its self-consciously endorsed attitudes about life. They include these realizations: * Anxiety frequently motivates individuals to change their lives. Anxiety often is present to tell you that you need to change; it is not necessarily a bad feeling from which no good will come. * Eventually each of us will die, and clutching life anxiously will stand in the way of finding real meaning in living. * Past events need not control what you feel and do now; you are free to change old, unsatisfying patterns. * Guilt is often a sign that you have missed opportunities for personal growth: you have not been true to yourself and have "sinned against yourself" in some important way. * If you are to become a mature and genuine person, you must discard the _lies_ you have cultivated. Among these is living the lie of trying _not to be_ the person you really are; another is the lie of trying to be a person you are _not_, and there are many others. * To be content within the limitations of life, it is vital that you have a sense of your own value. You become inauthentic if you base your sense of self-esteem on what others think of you. It is obvious that _individual responsibility_ is central to existential therapy. You are responsible for the person you choose to become. You may choose to be genuine, or you may choose to lie to yourself and others. It is when you abdicate responsibility for becoming authentic that you will often come to feel anxiety and a sense of guilt. Anxiety and guilt are often present, in other {147} words, when there is a fundamental lack of congruence, of being whole, of being in accord with yourself. The main contributors to existential psychotherapy have been the Swiss analysts Ludwig Binswanger (1881-1966) and Medard Boss (1903-1990), along with Rollo May (1909-1994), who was the founder of existential psychotherapy in America. Today, existential psychotherapy is practiced under a variety of names: _humanistic psychology_, _experiential psychotherapy_, and also in the context of the related approaches, logotherapy and reality therapy (see Chapter 11). WHAT EXISTENTIAL THERAPY IS LIKE