Tag: Essays in Existential Psychoanalysis

The Crisis of Experience in Contemporary Psychoanalysis: Returning to Lived Experience

January 10, 2026

The Crisis of Experience in Contemporary Psychoanalysis: Returning to Lived Experience A Reflection on Michael Guy Thompson’s Essays in Existential Psychoanalysis Thompson’s Chapter 6 names a problem that tends to hide in plain sight: many contemporary forms of psychoanalysis risk losing the very phenomenon they claim to treat, the patient’s capacity to have experience, to…

Freedom and Responsibility in Existential Psychoanalysis: Sartre’s Influence on Clinical Practice

October 25, 2024

Freedom and Responsibility in Existential Psychoanalysis:Sartre’s Influence on Clinical Practice A Reflection on Michael Guy Thompson’sEssays in Existential Psychoanalysis The relationship between psychoanalysis and existentialism has long been marked by tension. Psychoanalysis, particularly in its Freudian form, delves into the unconscious, focusing on hidden drives and repressed desires that shape behavior. In contrast, existentialism centers…