Why am I here? Is there a purpose to all of this? Does it even matter? Who decides on the rules for how I live my life? Do I even have any control at all? Is everything predetermined by some kind of god, or by the universe?

Practical Philosophy

I encourage people to engage with these problems in session, and I take them seriously. While it’s certainly fun to talk about life and what it means, your personal philosophy has a very real and surprisingly large impact on your emotional health. Namely, it is impossible to feel confident in your perceptions and actions if you don’t have a solid sense of what is true and what is not; what is real and what is not; what is important and what is not.

The insecurity of not having answers to these questions often leads us to feel helpless; too dumb, too weak, and too small to make any change in our lives. We become passive, and frustrated, and deeply unhappy with our place in the world and the universe.

Choice and Self-Determination

So, the purpose of existential therapy is this: to help you see that you are an active agent in your own life. The feelings you feel and the actions you take are real and meaningful. You are really here, and this is really happening. More importantly, even if you have no control over a given situation, you always have a choice about how to look at it, and how to react.

This idea is at the heart of nearly every major religion and philosophical system humanity has ever devised. Basically, there are things you can control, and things you can’t. The challenge of being alive, conscious, and self-determining has three parts:

  • How do I figure out what I can control and what I can’t?
  • How do I tolerate sometimes being out of control?
  • How do I make confident decisions about the things that are within my control?

Existential Security

These questions cut right to the heart of what we call “self-confidence,” “self-esteem,” and “agency.” It’s not easy to find satisfactory answers for them, but it absolutely is possible. Chances are, you already know how you want to answer, but there’s something getting in the way.

From the existential perspective, this something is the source of existential insecurity, and this insecurity is the root of much of what we think of as “mental illness.”

The trick to building confidence and existential security is therefore to start finding places where you do have control and actively deciding what to do about them. In this, I can help you identify your central questions, work with you to finding satisfactory answers, and then support you as you start to take control over your own life.

This is the real foundation of self-confidence and self-esteem, and you can build it for yourself. Existential security builds just like our muscles do, just like our minds: the more you practice, the stronger it gets.