Existentialism and Its Relevance to Contemporary Psychological Practice

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Existentialism and Its Relevance to Contemporary Psychological Practice

Psychology of Personality · Chapter 10: Existential Theories of PersonalitySection 10.7 · lesson 66 of 83video coming soon

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In this lesson

A school few practise, whose ideas are everywhere.

  • Trace existential influence in modern therapies
  • Summarise what well-being research shows about meaning
  • Explain why the themes suit contemporary life
  • Argue for integration rather than revival

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Existential Theories of Personality

Existentialism and Contemporary Psychological Practice

Very few therapists today describe themselves as existential therapists. And yet existential ideas are almost everywhere in modern practice. In acceptance-based therapy. In well-being research. In end-of-life care. Usually without the label attached. This section traces where those ideas went. What the evidence now says about the central one, meaning. And why the themes fit this cultural moment so closely.

The Paradox

Not Widely Practised, Widely Absorbed

Start with the paradox. Existential therapy is not among the most widely practised stand-alone approaches today. And its influence on contemporary psychology is substantial, and enduring. Both things are true at once, and the second matters more. Its core concerns travelled without the label. Meaning. Freedom. Responsibility. Authenticity. These have been absorbed into many modern therapies. Consider two features now common across almost every orientation. Emphasis on the therapeutic relationship. And emphasis on the client's active agency. Both owe a great deal to existential and humanistic thought.

Descendants

Where the Ideas Live Now

Several contemporary approaches carry existential ideas forward in updated forms. Meaning-centred therapies apply Frankl's insights directly. Helping people who are facing serious illness, or serious loss. Acceptance and mindfulness-based approaches carry a different piece of the inheritance. They echo the existential call to face difficult realities, rather than avoid them. One inherits the content. The other inherits the stance. So influence travels through descendants, not only through the original form. Which is worth remembering when judging the approach's importance. Counting practitioners of existential therapy badly underestimates its actual reach.

The Evidence

Meaning Turns Out to Be Measurable Enough

Here is where the story gets interesting, given the criticism about testability. The existential emphasis on meaning has found strong support in contemporary well-being research. Studies consistently link a sense of meaning and purpose to better mental health. And to greater resilience. And even to physical outcomes. That body of work lends empirical weight to a central existential claim. That experiencing one's life as meaningful is vital to psychological flourishing. Note the irony there. The claim the approach struggled hardest to test is the one that got confirmed elsewhere.

Positive Psychology

The Same Questions, a Different Method

Positive psychology in particular has taken up meaning, purpose, and the good life. Themes that existential thinkers raised decades earlier. The methods, though, are quite different. Positive psychology favours measurement and experiment. Existential psychology favoured philosophical analysis, and clinical encounter. What they share is the concern itself. Meaning is treated as a serious psychological variable. Rather than a private matter sitting outside the field. That shared concern shows how existential questions entered mainstream scientific psychology. And gained a renewed, testable relevance in the process.

Five Channels

Contemporary Practice Carrying Existential Ideas

Five areas of contemporary practice carry these ideas most visibly. Meaning-centred therapy, drawing on Frankl's will to meaning. Acceptance-based therapy, which asks people to face difficult realities. Well-being research, which studies meaning and purpose empirically. Coaching and development, built around authenticity and choice. And end-of-life care, which confronts mortality directly. Which is precisely why the influence is easy to miss. Most of these do not describe themselves as existential at all.

The Moment

Why the Themes Fit Now

Existential themes seem especially relevant to contemporary life. Consider what is currently true of the environment people live in. Rapid social change. The weakening of traditional sources of meaning. Constant digital distraction. And widespread reports of anxiety and emptiness. The fit is not a coincidence of fashion. Those echo the very concerns existential psychology was designed to address. Many people today wrestle openly with questions of purpose, and of identity. And with how to live well amid uncertainty.

Borrowed Vocabulary

Burnout, Languishing, and Unlabelled Existentialism

This cultural moment has renewed both public and professional interest in meaning. Listen to how the conversations are framed. Burnout. Languishing. The search for a meaningful life. These draw, often unknowingly, on existential ideas. And the approach offers a specific counterweight worth naming. Its insistence that confronting freedom and mortality can deepen life, rather than diminish it. That stands against purely symptom-focused responses to modern distress. And against consumerist ones.

In Practice

Facing Death Rather Than Avoiding It

Take one concrete application. Programmes that help patients with terminal illness find dignity in their remaining time. And find meaning in it. Nobody in that setting calls it existential therapy. These draw directly on existential ideas about confronting mortality. And the result is counter-intuitive, which is exactly the point. By facing death honestly, rather than avoiding it. Patients often report greater peace, and a renewed sense of what matters most. That is the existential wager made visible. Avoidance was never the safer option. It was simply the more expensive one.

Why It Lasts

Permanent Questions, Technical Field

So why does this body of thought last, given its methodological weaknesses? Because of the universality and importance of the questions it raises. Freedom, responsibility, meaning, and mortality. These are permanent features of the human condition, not passing concerns. Any complete psychology must reckon with them somewhere. And part of the approach's job now is to keep them on the agenda. Within a field that grows steadily more technical, and more biological. But that relevance is best realised through integration, not revival. Combined with evidence-based methods, with neuroscience, and with cultural awareness. Existential insight supplies the depth and humanity that mechanistic approaches can lack.

Consolidate

Where the Influence Shows Up

Pull the influences together, area by area. Meaning-centred therapy carries Frankl's will to meaning into support during serious illness. Acceptance-based therapy carries the commitment to facing difficult realities. It shows up as mindful acceptance of anxiety. Well-being research carries meaning and purpose, linking purpose to health outcomes. Coaching carries authenticity and choice, as values-based goal setting. And end-of-life care carries the confrontation with mortality. Into dignity and meaning at the end of life. So the practical instruction is not to switch schools. It is to integrate existential attention to meaning and freedom with evidence-based methods. In order to address the depth of modern distress, and not only its symptoms.

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FAQ

Questions students ask us

About Existentialism and Its Relevance to Contemporary Psychological Practice

Is existential therapy still practiced today?
Existential therapy is still practiced, but few therapists describe themselves as existential, and it is not among the most widely practiced stand-alone approaches. Its influence is much larger than that suggests. Core existential concerns such as meaning, freedom, responsibility, and authenticity have been absorbed into many modern therapies, and the common emphasis on the therapeutic relationship and the client's active agency owes a great deal to existential and humanistic thought.
Which modern therapies are based on existential ideas?
Several modern approaches carry existential ideas forward. Meaning-centered therapies apply Viktor Frankl's idea of the will to meaning to people facing serious illness or loss. Acceptance and mindfulness-based therapies echo the call to face difficult realities rather than avoid them. Existential themes also shape values-based coaching and end-of-life care programs that help patients find dignity and meaning, usually without using the existential label at all.
Does research show that meaning in life matters for mental health?
Yes, studies consistently link a sense of meaning and purpose to better mental health, greater resilience, and even better physical outcomes. This well-being research, much of it from positive psychology, lends empirical weight to a central existential claim: that experiencing life as meaningful is vital to flourishing. Positive psychology studies meaning through measurement and experiment, while existential psychology relied on philosophical analysis and clinical encounter.
Why are existential ideas relevant to burnout and modern anxiety?
Existential ideas fit modern distress because rapid social change, weakened traditional sources of meaning, constant digital distraction, and widespread reports of anxiety and emptiness echo the problems existentialism set out to address. Conversations about burnout, languishing, and finding a meaningful life often draw on these ideas without naming them. The approach offers a counterweight to purely symptom-focused responses: facing freedom and mortality honestly can deepen life rather than diminish it.

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Psychology of Personality (Psychology 300) carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.
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