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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2005

Existential issues do not necessarily result in existential suffering: lessons from cancer patients in Israel.

Existential distress has been recognized as a source of suffering for oncology patients. This study focusses on existential issues and coping mechanisms of a unique culturally diverse Jewish/Middle Eastern oncology population. A qualitative assessment of 40 patients with advanced cancer was undertaken through an interview process addressing the following themes: autonomy, dignity/body image, social isolation, coping mechanisms, guilt/past disappointments, spiritual health, meaning, hope and death/dying. The findings of this study indicate that existential concerns are endemic in this patient population, but that significant distress is relatively uncommon. Early palliative measures, family support, effective coping strategies, and religious belief systems may influence the way patients with advanced cancer deal with existential concerns.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1997

[Anxiety as an existential phenomenon. An existential analytic approach to understanding and therapy of anxieties].

From the existential analytical point of view, anxiety is considered to be a basic theme of existence. The experience of being threatened is most commonly related to the physical and material aspects of life. But on a deeper level anxiety deals with the search for foundational and supporting structures for existence. When one loses the sense of safety of being held and of having shelter in a world that does not offer ultimate securities, one is prone to anxiety. Anxiety can therefore be perceived as a subjective parameter of feeling threatened in the existential structures. This paper gives an outline of an existential analytical approach to the understanding of fear and anxiety, a basic classification of anxieties, and an overview of the following specific methods of an existential treatment search for foundational structures of existence, personal position-taking, dereflexion (Frankl) and paradoxical intention (Frankl).

Anxiety Disorders↗
PubMed1996

[Mental health--personality--existentialism. An empirical contribution from the existential analytic viewpoint].

For the purposes of a survey of the correlation between psychic health-personhood-existentiality 211 predominantly higher qualified and in elevated professional positions working adults at the age of 18 to 70 years (43,6% male, 56,4% female) were examined with the Trierer-Persönlichkeitsfragebogen (TPF-Becker, 1989) and the Existenz-Skala (Längle & Orgler, 1991). The results show, that existentiality was found to be a correlative for psychic health to a medium extent in several subscales of the TPF; personhood correlates with psychic health only in the dimension self-transcendence, but not in the dimension self-distance.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

Existential support in brain tumour patients and their spouses.

UNLABELLED: Caring for patients with brain tumours raises existential questions. The aims of this study were to describe the opinions of nurses, patients and next-of-kin on existential support and how this is prioritised. PATIENTS AND METHOD: a total of 20 brain tumour patients, 16 family members and 16 nurses underwent explorative, tape-recorded, semi-structured interviews about existential issues. RESULTS: the nurses' opinions about the importance and prioritisation of existential support could be divided into four main groups: 1) religion, 2) "a diffuse picture", 3) conversation, and 4) questions of vital importance. They generally had a favourable attitude towards existential issues but thought those issues were difficult to deal with in practice due to lack of time, lack of knowledge and fear. Without exception, patients and family members were satisfied with the medical and physical treatment, but not with the existential support. They had, to a great extent, wished for existential support, and especially for the opportunity of talking about the existential threat that had arisen. Obstacles to this were thought to be due to the staff being under much stress, being afraid and unskilled. The importance of closeness and presence, which decreased existential isolation, was emphasised.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Hypnosis and existential psychotherapy with end-stage terminally ill patients.

Existential Psychological Theory was employed as a conceptual and theoretical foundation for the use of hypnotically facilitated therapy in the management of intractable pain, nausea, and vomiting in 3 end-stage, terminally ill cancer patients. The existential principles of death anxiety, existential isolation, and existential meaninglessness were addressed with a combination of classic and Ericksonian techniques. The intractable nature of the presenting physical symptoms was conceptualized as a possible manifestation of the impact of the terminal prognosis. Direct hypnotic suggestions for the management of pain, nausea and vomiting were avoided. It was hypothesized that, as the existential conflicts associated with the patients' terminal status resolved, the physiological symptoms would become responsive to medication. After 6 sessions grounded in the principles of Existential Psychotherapy, the intractable status of the physical symptomatology remitted, and the patients responded to medical management. This paper addresses the usefulness of Existential Psychotherapy in hypnotic interventions for mediating somatic and psychosomatic symptomatology.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

A new look at existential psychotherapy.

Existential psychotherapy has remained on the fringes of the mainstream practice of psychotherapy. One reason for its limited acceptance is that the literature has tended to be convoluted and existential psychotherapists' ideas heterogeneous. Another reason is the dearth of empirical validation studies. What if a more succinct, well-defined and research-friendly model of existential psychotherapy could be developed? An argument against such a manualized approach is that making the model more mechanized and structured goes against some of the tenets of existential psychotherapy. Another argument is that the heterogeneity of the field prohibits manualization of existential psychotherapy. Although these reservations have some legitimacy, the purpose of this paper is to develop a more clinically oriented adaptation of existential psychology and lay the groundwork for a manualized approach to existential psychotherapy.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Beyond the metaphysical: health-promoting existential mechanisms and their impact on the health status of clients.

This paper aims to conceptualize the issues that surround the notion of existential health. It also seeks to establish the impact that existential issues have upon the health of the individual client and how these might explicitly be applied in clinical practice settings. The ability of clients to draw upon their own existential resources as a fundamental part of their health care experience often goes unrecognized in nursing. Whilst existential mechanisms may be theoretically recognized, as a valid aspect of an individual's unique and personal identity, they are not an established part of the health care activity of nurses. Entrenched biomedical frameworks of care delivery and the interchangeable use of metaphysical health states with existential health states in the established literature present particular dilemmas for the acknowledgement of existential health in clients. A review of the literature has been conducted. This account argues that the failure to recognize and assess a client's existential health status represents a major omission on the part of the clinical nurse. These nurses are, in effect, denying their clients the right to exercise and mobilize an important and valuable health resource.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed2000

Treating career burnout: a psychodynamic existential perspective.

This article presents an approach for treating career burnout based on a psychodynamic existential perspective. Psychodynamic theory contributes the idea that people choose an occupation that enables them to replicate significant childhood experiences. Existential theory contributes the idea that people attempt to find existential significance through their work. It is suggested that when treating career burnout it is essential to address three questions: Why, psychodynamically, did this person choose this particular career, and how was it expected to provide existential significance? Why does this individual feel a sense of failure in the existential quest, and how is the sense of failure related to burnout? What changes need to take place for this individual to derive a sense of existential significance from work? A case illustration is presented that demonstrates the application of this approach.

Burnout, Professional↗
PubMed2004

Existential pain--an entity, a provocation, or a challenge?

"Existential pain" is a widely used but ill-defined concept. Therefore the aim of this study was to let hospital chaplains (n=173), physicians in palliative care (n=115), and pain specialists (n=113) respond to the question: "How would you define the concept existential pain?" A combined qualitative and quantitative content analysis of the answers was conducted. In many cases, existential pain was described as suffering with no clear connection to physical pain. Chaplains stressed significantly more often the guilt issues, as well as various religious questions (P<0.001). Palliative physicians (actually seeing dying persons) stressed more often existential pain as being related to annihilation and impending separation (P<0.01), while pain specialists (seeing chronic patients) more often emphasized that "living is painful" (P<0.01). Thirty-two percent (32%) of the physicians stated that existential suffering can be expressed as physical pain and provided many case histories. Thus, "existential pain" is mostly used as a metaphor for suffering, but also is seen as a clinically important factor that may reinforce existing physical pain or even be the primary cause of pain, in good agreement with the current definition of pain disorder or somatization disorder.

Caregivers↗
PubMed1985

Logical and conceptual problems of existential psychiatry.

The author has argued that existential psychology and psychiatry are not consistent with existential philosophy, from which they derive their basic concepts. Existential philosophy treats consciousness as an epistemic and ontological absolute while existential psychology and psychiatry acknowledge the existence of unconscious mental processes. It is not possible to base a viable concept of psychodynamic psychotherapy, the nature of transference, or the efficacy of interpretation upon the radical concept of freedom, which is basic to existential philosophy. If psychiatrists wish to experiment with nonpsychoanalytic dynamic psychologies, then it is the author's opinion that the advancement of knowledge would be better served either by using existentialist concepts and principles consistently or by explicitly altering them in clearly defined ways for stated reasons, or by formulating psychodynamic hypotheses that do not lay claim to any foundation in existential philosophy.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Lack of male-female differences in disposition and esterase hydrolysis of ramipril to ramiprilat in healthy volunteers after a single oral dose.

The objective of this study was to identify differences in disposition and esterase hydrolysis of ramipril between male and female volunteers. Plasma concentration and area under the concentration-time curve until the last measured concentration (AUCt) data of ramipril and its active metabolite ramiprilat (-diacid) were obtained from a randomised, cross-over bioequivalence study in 36 subjects (18 females and 18 males). Participants received a single 5-mg oral dose of two different formulations of ramipril (Formulation I and II). Plasma ramipril and ramiprilat concentrations were determined according to validated methods involving liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. A total number of 2 x 34 available plasma concentration-time curves of both the parent drug and the metabolite could be analysed, and variations (50-100% coefficient of variation [CV]) in plasma concentrations of both parent drug and metabolite were found. With both the formulations, the mean plasma concentrations-time curves of males and females were identical. The groups of female and male volunteers showed similar yields (AUCt = microg x h/L) of the metabolite ramiprilat (p = 0.37); however, females showed a higher AUCt/kg than males (p = 0.046). This difference was solely attributed to the difference in body weight between males and females (p = 0.00049). In both male and female groups, a subject-dependent yield of active metabolite ramiprilat was demonstrated, which was independent of the formulation. There is a large variation in the ramiprilat t1/2beta (50-60% CV). There is a group of subjects who showed a t1/2beta of approximately 80 h (15% CV), and two apparent groups with a longer t1/2beta for each formulation (124 h, 22.5% CV; 166 h, 21.6% CV, respectively, p = 0.0013). This variation in the terminal half-life of ramiprilat is not sex related. In all three groups of half-lives, the corresponding Cmax values (mean +/- SD) of ramiprilat in males and females were identical. Thus, with identical Cmax and half-lives, the difference found in the AUCt/kg of ramiprilat must be due to the difference in dose, as the consequence of the difference in body weight, following a standard dose of 5 mg in both males and females. This study showed clearly that despite subject-dependent hydrolysis of ramipril to the active metabolite ramiprilat, the variability in the rate of hydrolysis between males and females is similar. With a fixed dose (5 mg), females received a higher dose/kg than males and consequently showed a higher AUCt/kg of the active metabolite ramiprilat.

Adult↗