The Existentialists Podcast

Ep. 16: Grief - Turning towards loss

In this episode, the hosts engage in a dialogue about grief understood as a personal response of turning towards the losses that we experience. Grief is a quintessential human experience that reveals an experienced loss of the value of life- we may grieve over the loss of a person dear to us, a pet, a dream that we did not have the chance to fulfill, a valuable possibility,  and even the loss of ourselves. Anything that we experience as personally valuable gives rise to grief once we lose it. Given the omnipresence of grief in our lives, this episode will focus on how to turn towards our losses intentionally, how to make space for grieving, and how to support those who are grieving. As painful as it feels, grief is, in fact, a way to reconnect with life and with the value of life in the aftermath of a loss.

Ep. 15: Freedom & Responsibility -The Capacity to Respond

In this episode, the hosts discuss how freedom and responsibility are understood in existentialism and in Existential Analysis, the relationship between freedom and responsibility, the significance of these concepts in our lives, and how to cultivate freedom and responsibility in clinical practice. Freedom represents the human beings’ capacity to make a choice in a given situation, and, in so doing, to be responsible or able to respond to the demands of a particular situation. Understood this way, freedom and responsibility go hand in hand: we are responsible only to the degree that we are free. We are responsible only when and where we are free, and where we can give our free consent. 

Ep. 14: Inner Consent - Saying Yes to Your Life

In this episode, the hosts are discussing about what is inner consent and its significance in personal life and clinical practice. Inner consent means saying “yes” with a full, felt sense agreement to what we say yes to. The dialogue on this topic explores what is inner consent, how do we know that we live with inner consent, the importance of inner consent in everyday life, the experience and consequences of not giving our inner yes to various life experiences or possibilities, the risks of inner consent, and how to cultivate inner consent in our daily life as well as in our clinical practice.

Ep. 13: Practicing the Phenomenological Attitude in Therapy - Personal Existential Analysis (PEA)

Personal Existential Analysis (PEA) is a phenomenological psychotherapeutic method developed by Alfried Laengle and is the primary method used within Existential Analysis. In this episode, co-hosts Mihaela Launeanu and Janelle Drisner demonstrate the PEA process by example, followed by an explanation of the PEA process. Through this process of understanding phenomenologically, Janelle and Mihaela deepen the experience cognitively, emotionally, and somatically. It is a rigorous process which requires openness, bracketing, trust, humility, and courage. 

Ep. 12: Seeing Beyond Appearances - Embodying a Phenomenological Attitude

In this episode, the hosts talk about what is phenomenology and how to cultivate a phenomenological attitude in our everyday life and within the therapeutic context. Phenomenology means to pay attention and attend carefully to what appears- the phenomenon-in order to understand it and allow its essence to be disclosed. Phenomenology is a form of seeing through appearances, which means that how something or somebody appears is intrinsically connected with its essence. There are many instances in our daily life when we have encountered the essence of someone, of an experience or an event. For instance, we might have stumbled upon something essential when we noticed the sudden, rich, perhaps sensual appearance of natural beauty, and are moved by it to the point of having a sense of transcending our regular ways of being. We can cultivate this phenomenological way of seeing or phenomenological attitude towards the world and ourselves by slowing down, taking our time, paying close attention and putting on the side our preconceived notions of what something or someone must be, in favour of discovering them with curiosity and openness. This kind of phenomenological attitude is also very important in psychotherapy as it allows clients to be seen and understood as well as to reclaim their own experiential access to themselves and to the world.

Ep. 11: Finding Meaning in Our Everyday Existence

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Ep. 10: Becoming who we are - Authenticity and the Therapeutic Encounter

In this episode the hosts engage in a lively dialogue about authenticity, instantiated both in the everyday life and in the therapeutic encounter, and reflect on the ways in which we can live more authentically and becoming more ourselves. As therapists, it is important to nurture our own authentic presence with our clients by being open to be moved by them and responding openly and immediately. Equally important is how we live outside the therapeutic context. It is critical to discover the myriad ways in which we can be ourselves outside our therapist’s role in order to become more authentic therapists.

Ep. 9: Who are we, really?

In this episode, the hosts engage with the question “who are we, really?” by sharing candidly and quite humorously their first impressions of each other when they first met. The aim of this sincere and at times vulnerable dialogue is to offer a live, uncensored illustration of how we can be real with each other, provide sincere feedback about how we perceive each other, and receive this feedback. This dialogue represents one way to cultivate authenticity and honesty in relationships, and provides an opportunity to reflect on how much congruency or discrepancy there is between how we experience ourselves inwardly and how we are perceived by others.

Ep. 8: Emotional (Dis)Honesty and Relational Responsibility

In Existential Analysis, we recognize that telling the truth at all costs could be an act of violence, as it holds the power to be extremely wounding if the other person lacks the capacity to receive it and hold it. There is an ethical dilemma that presents itself as we assess what to reveal emotionally and what may be too overwhelming. This speaks to the importance of open dialogue with oneself, the other person, and the context to determine what would be the most relationally responsible emotional disclosure. The hosts offer practical ways of entering into authentic emotional engagement with self and the other.

Ep. 7: Loneliness

In this episode, the hosts are dialoguing about loneliness as a fundamental existential experience, the difference between loneliness and solitude, the felt experience of loneliness, and how to deal with loneliness. We invite you to listen to a dialogue about how to turn towards and be with our loneliness rather than frantically seeking to eliminate it, how to create moments and spaces of solitude where we can be alone without feeling lonely, and how to understand loneliness as a state of being that represents an opportunity to encounter our existence and ourselves more deeply, and to live more gracefully in the tension between our existential separateness and aloneness, and the longing for being in relationships and belonging.