Existential Phenomenological Psychotherapy

"International psychology is receiving increased attention over the past several years. In postmodern times, advancements in communication technologies and increased mobility have made international collaborations a more commonplace reality in the lives of many, including mental health professionals. Additionally, this has opened up “international markets” not just for material products, but also for various social products, such as psychotherapy and mental health ideologies. As an illustration, following the Sichuan earthquakes in China, a significant number of mental health professionals swarmed to China offering training for the relief workers. These approaches were Western approaches that typically made little effort to adapt to the culture or explore culture-based approaches to providing support and healing to the earthquake victims. In a now often referenced presentation, Ren Zheng Jia responded to this with a presentation titled, “Psychology as Dog Shit” (see Moats, Claypool, & Saxon, 2011). In essence, Ren recognized the potential value of many of these approaches, yet maintained they were useless without some cultural adaptation and sensitivity.

The focus on this of paper is to provide a model for international psychology that is rooted in existential and zhi mian psychology. Existential psychology is a Western approach to psychology. Zhi mian is an approach to therapy developed by Xuefu Wang (2011) rooted in the philosophical and literary writings of Lu Xun. Although Wang maintains there is no direct translation of zhi mian to English, zhi mian could be translated as “to face directly” in the context of facing life, oneself, and one’s relationships directly. It has been proposed that zhi mian could rightly be considered an indigenous Chinese existential psychology, and that existential therapy could rightly be considered an indigenous Western form of zhi mian therapy (Hoffman, in press).

The existential/zhi mian approach to international psychology that we are proposing emerged from dialogues, trainings, and other collaborations between United States and Chinese psychologists and therapists. A number of principles provide the foundation of this model:

1. Relationship: International work is best conducted in the context of relationships. In instances where there is merely the exchange of ideas or training, as is common practice, there is minimal benefit or true advancement. The relationships provide a context that allows for deeper forms of exchange and learning. 

2. Mutuality: International psychology should always be a mutual process. Even in contexts where there is involvement between countries in which psychology is more advanced in one country, there are always opportunities for to learn from each other. In cultures where formal psychology has not been developed, there are indigenous approaches to understanding people and engaging in healing that can contribute to dialogue and exchange. Mutuality, in essence, is an attitude in which one remains curious about and open to the other culture.

3. Adaptation: An existential/zhi mian approach recognizes that no psychology can be transported to another culture and applied in the same manner as it was applied in the culture in which it was developed. Effective psychotherapy always considers the cultural context.

4. Universality and Particularity: An existential/zhi mian approach recognizes the universality of the existential givens, which represent challenges that all people must face, and the need for a culturally and individually specific answer to these challenges (Hoffman, 2009). Such consideration considers the needs of the individual as well as the needs for connection and affiliation beyond oneself.

5. Reflection: Engagement in international psychology requires one to move out of their comfort zone. This provides important opportunities to learn about oneself and one’s culture; however, it also brings possibility of one’s own unresolved issues emerging. Given this, self-reflection is an important part of internationally psychology. In many situations, it is important for groups to have opportunities to process what emerges from the cross-cultural experiences.
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