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What is Existentialism? What is its history? In what directions is it moving? Why are there so many varieties of it? Does it express a need and present challenge, or is it a passing fad? Does Existentialism prompt echoes from our own philosophic traditions? Can the untranslatable texts of the most significant European contributors be communicated via the American idiom? Does Existentialism add a necessary and essential dimension? Can it integrate or be integrated into extant motivational theories of the nature of man? What does it mean for psychiatry? Does it have practical values for psychotherapy?
Freud's image of man shocked his Victorian world and vitalized descriptive psychiatry with psychodynamics. His theories, now part of common parlance, are inadequate to many of modern man's problems. Existentialism confronts us with an image of man being-in-the-world. Misunderstanding, confusion, hostile criticism and outright rejection have been some of the responses to its formulations. Currently, many books and three journals devoted exclusively to it have appeared. Also, an increasing number of conferences and courses with training programs have been projected.
Some clarification will be attempted of the many issues raised by this modern phenomenon and of the question: Is there an Existential Psychotherapy?