On learning from experience: existential perspectives on teaching and writing about Psychotherapy

Adams, Martin Clifford (2021) On learning from experience: existential perspectives on teaching and writing about Psychotherapy. [Doctorate by Public Works]

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Abstract

This context statement is a reflexive audit of the process and development of my public works, concentrating on the last five years, and is submitted to fulfill the requirements of the Doctorate in Psychotherapy by Public Works.

The public works under consideration are my work teaching and writing about therapeutic practice and also human development, both from an existential and phenomenological perspective.

My contention is not just that both teaching and writing facilitate learning, but that the way psychotherapy is taught and the way psychotherapy is written about determines whether what is learnt makes a difference to how students and readers live. The determining factor is the extent to which both teacher and student, and writer and reader, are engaged in what is taught and written. This context statement examines this question of engagement.

Like everything, my public works have a history and prior to reviewing them and evaluating their impact I look firstly at my informal research into experiential learning and then I look at my own history of learning about learning. Moustakas’ Heuristic Inquiry is used as a loose framework to describe both this learning and also the writing of this context statement.

While the principle written works within the five year window are Skills in Existential Counselling and Psychotherapy (2016), and An Existential Approach to Human Development: Philosophical and Therapeutic Perspectives (2018), I also review and evaluate the impact of my contribution to the publication of the journal Existential Analysis, both as book reviews editor and also as co-editor.

As a result of this review, in the penultimate chapter I examine what it means to teach existentially, rather than to teach about existentialism, and to write existentially, rather than to write about existentialism.

In the conclusion I summarise the whole context statement with a Creative Synthesis and also make some suggestions for the future.

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