Embrace subjectivity: Existentially-informed clinical psychological science, practice, and teaching.

Abstract

Emerging findings on the transdiagnostic etiologic role of death anxiety in psychopathology, ongoing refinement of terror management theory, and other recent advances have led to an increased focus upon death anxiety in clinical psychology. These efforts are important and noteworthy. However, we argue that a fully existentially-informed clinical psychology would not simply include death anxiety as a static, objective, categorical consideration alongside other positivistic studies. Rather, an existential lens upon teaching, research, and applied professional practice of clinical psychology should yield a perspective emphasizing the subjective, phenomenological, qualitative, person-centered, and dynamic nature of how self-aware existence necessarily affects mental health. Here, we briefly review four ongoing lines of inquiry (philosophical existentialism, existential psychotherapy, death anxiety psychometrics, and terror management theory), and argue in favor of their increasingly intertwined integration with one another and with the broader field of clinical psychology. We propose methods for both academics and practitioners alike to more fully embrace an existentially-informed mindset, including articulating a set of recommendations across clinical work, research, and pedagogy. Examples include increased use of qualitative data via case study and mixed-method approaches in scholarship, enhanced incorporation of existential themes (including and beyond death anxiety) into clinical assessment and case conceptualization, and adoption of a student-focused freedom-enhancing existential mindset in pedagogy. Our field has made great strides in deepening the understanding of how life’s ultimate concerns inform functioning in recent years, and we argue for an even more robust endorsement of existential frameworks in clinical psychology.