Crosstalk between Existential Phenomenological Psychotherapy and Neurological Science in Mood and Anxiety Disorders

Summary

Existential phenomenological psychotherapy (EPP) helps people with mood and anxiety disorders find meaning and purpose in life. This narrative review describes EPP's development from the works of Heidegger, Binswanger, Boss, and Frankl, its therapeutic methods, and evidence for its effectiveness. The authors argue that EPP can work synergistically with medication-based treatments for these disorders. They also discuss how neuroscience currently understands mood and anxiety disorders and propose a path to integrate meaning-centered psychotherapy with neuroscience, despite the two fields remaining polarized.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Psychotherapy is a comprehensive biological treatment modifying complex underlying cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and regulatory responses in the brain, leading patients with mental illness to a new interpretation of the sense of self and others. Psychotherapy is an art of science integrated with psychology and/or philosophy. Neurological science studies the neurological basis of cognition, memory, and behavior as well as the impact of neurological damage and disease on the functions, and their treatment. Both psychotherapy and neurological science deal with the brain; nevertheless, they continue to stay polarized far. Existential phenomenological psychotherapy (EPP) has been in the forefront of meaning-centered counseling for almost a century. The phenomenological approach in psychotherapy originated in the works of Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Binswanger, Medard Boss and Viktor Frankl, and it has been committed to account for the existential possibilities and limitations of one’s life. EPP provides philosophically rich interpretations and empowers counseling techniques to assist mentally suffering individuals by finding meaning and purpose of life. The approach has proven to be effective in treating mood and anxiety disorders. This narrative review article demonstrates the development of EPP, the therapeutic methodology, evidence-based accounts of its curative techniques, current understanding of mood and anxiety disorders in neurological science, and a possible converging path to translate and integrate meaning-centered psychotherapy and neuroscience, concluding that the existential phenomenological psychotherapy potently plays a synergistic role with the currently prevailing medication-based approaches for the treatment of mood and anxiety disorders.