opathology. Most commonly utilised is the medical model which is limited in many respects, criticised for reducing patients problems to a list of pathological symptoms that have a primarily biological base and which are to be treated behaviourally or ph

macologically (Schwartz & Wiggins 1999). Such reductionistic positivist ways of viewing the individual maintain the medical discourse of ‘borderline personality’, schizoid’, ‘paranoid’ or ‘clinically depressed’, often failing to address the wider socio-

ltural environment of the individual. Pilgrim (1992) suggests that such diagnostic pidgeon-holing does not enhance humanity, nor aid those who are dealing with the distressed individual to find meaning. It also neglects to consider life beyond the physi

l, failing to address the more philosophical questions that abound from our very existence.

Existential psychiatry and psychology arose in Europe in the 1940’s and 1950’s as a direct response to the d

Some topics in this essay:
Britain Ironically, Schwartz Wiggins, Davison Neale, , Medard Boss, World War, Jean-Paul Satre, Peacock Owen, Martin Heidegger, University Press, university press, existential anxiety, yalom 1984, laing 1960, 1984 existential, deurzen-smith 1996, existential psychotherapy, owen 1994, frankl 1963, bugental 1978, existential therapy dryden, buckingham university press, trans lowrie princeton, discontents buckingham university, therapy dryden ed,