Existential Therapy
What Existential Therapy is and how trauma-informed therapists may use it.
Existential Therapy
What this modality focuses on
Existential therapy is an approach that explores how people relate to core questions of being human, such as meaning, freedom, choice, responsibility, isolation, and mortality. It often pays attention to how people make sense of their lives and how they wish to live in line with their own values.
Instead of centering on diagnoses or symptoms, this modality usually emphasizes:
- Personal meaning: How someone understands their life story, experiences, and values.
- Choice and responsibility: The ways people experience choice, limits, and the responsibilities that come with both.
- Authenticity: Living in ways that feel more aligned with one’s own beliefs and needs, rather than only following external expectations.
- Uncertainty and vulnerability: How people relate to uncertainty, change, and the fact that some things are outside of their control.
- Connection and aloneness: The experience of being with others and also being an individual with an inner world that is uniquely their own.
Many existential therapists draw on philosophy, literature, and everyday life experiences to explore how people relate to the world, to other people, and to themselves.
How it may support trauma survivors
For people who have lived through trauma, questions about safety, trust, identity, and meaning can feel especially tender. Existential therapy may offer space to gently explore these themes without pressure to reach any particular conclusion.
Some possible areas of support include:
- Reclaiming a sense of agency: Exploring where someone may feel choice or power in their current life, even when past events were outside their control.
- Making sense of experience: Looking at how trauma fits into the broader story of a person’s life, including their strengths, losses, and hopes.
- Exploring beliefs about self and others: Gently examining messages about worth, trust, and safety that may have formed around traumatic experiences.
- Living with uncertainty: Talking about how to move through a world that can feel unpredictable, while honoring protective instincts and boundaries.
- Values and direction: Considering what matters most now, and how someone may wish to shape their life in ways that feel meaningful to them.
Some survivors also explore community-based resources, peer spaces, or informational sites like https://www.dv.support alongside or instead of one-on-one work, depending on what feels most accessible and affirming.
What sessions may typically include (neutral, gentle)
Existential therapy is usually conversational and reflective. While every practitioner has their own style, sessions may often include:
- Open-ended dialogue: Space to talk about whatever feels present, such as relationships, work, cultural identity, spiritual questions, or day-to-day stress.
- Exploring life themes: Gentle questions about freedom, choice, limits, loss, and connection, as they show up in someone’s life.
- Attention to feelings and bodily experience: Noticing emotions, tension, or numbness as signals that may carry information about needs and boundaries.
- Values clarification: Reflecting on what truly matters to the person, separate from pressure or expectations from family, community, or society.
- Looking at patterns over time: Considering repeated themes in relationships, work, or inner dialogue, and how these patterns may have developed.
- Making room for complexity: Allowing conflicting feelings—such as anger and care, hope and fear—to coexist without needing to quickly resolve them.
Some existential therapists blend this approach with other modalities, such as somatic, relational, or strengths-based work. The exact shape of sessions can vary widely, and many practitioners invite feedback to help ensure conversations feel as safe and relevant as possible.
How people can decide if this approach fits their needs
Different approaches resonate with different people. Existential therapy may feel like a possible fit for someone who:
- Finds themselves often asking “why” questions about life, suffering, or meaning.
- Is interested in big-picture reflection as well as present-day coping.
- Wants space to explore values, identity, culture, and beliefs without being pushed toward a particular worldview.
- Feels drawn to conversation-based, reflective work rather than highly structured techniques.
- Wants to explore not just “what happened” but also “what kind of life do I want, given what I have lived through?”
Someone might decide this modality is not their first choice if they are currently looking for very step-by-step strategies, short-term skills training, or a tightly structured plan. Some people appreciate combining existential work with more skills-focused approaches, either with the same practitioner or at different times in their healing journey.
When reading therapist profiles, it may be helpful to notice:
- Whether the therapist names existential therapy as one of several approaches or as a primary orientation.
- How they describe working with trauma, oppression, identity, and culture, and whether their wording feels respectful and inclusive.
- Any mention of pacing, collaboration, or choice, which can be important for people with trauma histories.
Many people explore initial meetings or consultations as a way to get a sense of fit. It can be okay if it takes time to find a person and an approach that feel right for your needs, limits, and hopes.