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.
Antidepressant efficacy, especially for rapid-acting agents like ketamine and esketamine, depends on coordinated phases of synaptic plasticity and neuronal excitability. Induction occurs through NMDAR and AMPAR signaling, consolidation involves TrkB, eEF2K, and SV2A to stabilize changes, and maintenance relies on intrinsic excitability governed by Kv7, HCN, and GIRK potassium channels that prevent relapse. The proposed Induction-Consolidation-Maintenance (ICM) framework links these phases to distinct therapeutic windows and candidate biomarkers such as SV2A PET, EEG, and fMRI, offering a hypothesis-generating roadmap for future studies rather than validated clinical tools.