The Search for Existential Identity: Patient-Therapist Dialogues in Humanistic Psychotherapy

by James F.T. Bugental

Six detailed descriptions of day-to-day exchanges between a therapist and his patients demonstrate the events and processes that occur during the course of humanistic psychotherapy.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0875892736
• ISBN13: 9780875892733
• Release Date: February 1976
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Length: 330 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

The Search for Existential Identity

James Bugental presents a rare and instructive look at the day-to-day exchanges of intensive psychotherapy. Through six detailed patient-therapist dialogues, he reveals the subtle interactions between patient and therapist, the way they talk to each other, the feelings that develop between them, and the thoughts of the therapist as he listens to his patients. The dialogues disclose - as few descriptions have done - the pivotal events that occur during therapy and show explicitly how the therapist deals with these key occurences. In addition, the dialogues illustrate what Bugental considers the major learning of his many years of experience as a therapist - that there is an inner sense beyond those senses we customarily recognize which keeps people aware of their own unique identities. This inner sense, or subjective awareness, is often submerged because our society emphasizes the tangible and objective, by losing touch with their inner selves, people cannot recognize the deeper meanings of their lives, Bugental demonstrates how psychotherapy can help restore this inner vission. Somewhat fictionalized to disguise identities, the dialogues follow six patients as they progress from periods of despair, through moments of crisis, to the time when they are on the road to greater self-realization. They provide a clear appreciation of the problems presented by each patient, the patterns of intervention used by the therapist, and the wqay problems are resolved. Bugental also includes behind-the-scenes glimpses of the therapist's unspoken perceptions, feelings, and involvements during therapy, and provides a revealing description of his major struggles and search for identity. The Search for Existential Identity brings clarity to work that is often cloaked in abstractions, and it provides as intimate view of a psychology where existential perspectives have been successfully merged. --- from book's dustjacket