Existentialism in Counseling: THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW

Abstract

The behavioral scientist can readily agree that existentialism is a powerful and meaningful movement for the counseling profession. However, to achieve its fullest usefulness it must grow to meet the scrutiny characteristic of the behavioral scientists' methods. Its weakness from this point of view include the reluctance to formulate public definitions of its most prized concepts and its rejection of rigor in methodology. The possibilities of a scientific existentialism which by no means destroys the magnificence of its concepts are demonstrated in a number of available experiments. Counseling as a helping profession cannot responsibly accept existentialism wholly as it comes from contemporary philosophy but must extrapolate and develop it into an adequate science of man.

A Qualitative Study of Selected Organisations’ Reward and Recognition Policies to Motivate People with Disability Employees

“…[230][231] of animaIs, [288][289] child. 242 and motivation theory, [241][242][243][244][245][246][247][248] as need gratification, [244][245][246][247][248] and need level, 100 relationships in, 24 1-242, 246-248, 248-258 for scientists, IO and society, [255][256][257][258] techniques used in. 259-260 theory of.…”

Counseling Research, Theory and Practice--1965.

“…(1) the downward oi inward phase during winch the counselor focuses upon the therapeutic relationship in pioviding high levels of understanding and other facihtative conditions so that the client will expenenee the rapport and freedom necessan for the self-exploration of his problem areas (Pallone tc Grande, 1965;Truax & Carkhuff, 1965a) and (2) the upward or outward phase or the period 468 Robert R. Carkhuff of emergent directionality where the counselor does whatever is necessary to enable the client to achieve his goals The existential approach is applicable during the first phase, where the interaction of variables is relevant; the behavior-i^t:c and traditional trait-and-factor orientation constitute potential "preferred modes of treatment" during the second phase. As Krumbolt'/ suggests, ultimately the criteria for the success of counseling for any given client must be based upon the goals of that client, goals which, we might add, he was unable to achieve without the assistance of a counselor Oh, if the "tenderminded" could only open up the contributions of the "tough-minded" and vice versa' A distinct advantage of the more deterministic behavioral and tiait-and-factor positions is their research orientation, a built-in mechanism which will not only discern the unique contributions but, ultimately, the limitations of each position A limitation of the existential position is its inability to articulate and opeiationalr/e its dimensions and subieet them to public scrutiny in order to develop an adequate science of man (Landsman, 1965).…”