* to learn to accept the natural limits of life
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.