Existential limits in psychotherapy

So what are the existential limits in psychotherapy?

1. Death
2. Authenticity
3. Possibility

These existential limits are the playing field for a human existence, whilst a person can have desires outside of these they are by and large impossible to achieve.

Death
I wont discuss death, to an existentialist death is the end of human existence, sort of analytic truth really. Shame theres no after life, or indeed after party but there you have it youre done thats it, youre out. Its a scary limit that most people bury, or make up stories about whats next to deal with this terror. Ive seen death in my life, my family, now for a short while I really felt what death was, what it meant that I would die, and now this box has been shut and I can continue on in my everydayness.

Authenticity
Okay here we have the collection of values that we have as humans, and the feeling generated by our living or otherwise towards them. Indicators of an authentic life would seem to be a person at peace with themselves, and of an inauthentic life, someone who needs to distract themselves constantly through, and the distractions are as you find them, but alcohol, shopping, promiscuity, virtual living to name but a few in excess would appear to be some of them.
So here's why our authenticity limits us, given my values as they are I can either live by them or ignore them, but them be doomed, to fly as an eagle round a post it is tied to, with the numbing affects I need to be able to live a lie. The wonderful thing is you can change your values, but not in the same way you can change a jumper on some random shopping experience

Possibility
Now here's a bitch that will offend the Human Potential Movement. If I have them right they within the laws of physics see anything as possible, as being pure nurture, no nature.
Possibilities, now the idea is that your possibilities come from the history of yourself and your community, or your world, in Heideggarean terms. As you see a child in a world without language the only thing they know are their desires and the fulfillment of them, even through interaction and language acquisition they are amoral pre-social creatures that through inculcation of their parents and the world around them turn them into a little social bunny.

Now in the process of so doing they have been given their first set of possibilities what they can expect of themselves and if you'll pardon me this is where genderisation comes in seeing girls wearing dresses and playing with make up and boys not crying unless their football side lost. So one possibility can lead to another, I'm bright at school, I like physics I can be a rocket scientist. Each step of the chain of possibilities, will have a reality check like oops Im not bright at school and so Im not going to be a rocket scientist. So our possibilities are a combination of true ones and false ones, but there is some sense of limitation of our experienced possibilities, such that a guy that grows up on a council estate is much less likely to see running the country as one of his possibilities than someone who grows up in rich london suburbs. Myself I couldnt see myself being a film director, there has been nothing in my family or my world or my upbringing to lead this as one of my possibilities, so Im not.


So the point of existential limits within psychotherapy is that you need to work within them, those who deny them are destined to unhappiness. Sure there are a very few who reinvent the world according to them, they make quantum shifts(ooh that was almost a bad typo), such as the people who declare the world to be round. The safer money is to get to the step before so get good at school, get good at phsycis and then prove the world not to be flat, is a safer way to go than be driven by your conclusion. More relevant is when applied to people, for me to be a Film director the safe option would be show that part of my values, holds film highly, and that after that without endangering the rest of my life show that I have a capacity within that.

Film goers will be pleased to know that I will not be performing this dangerous experiment


References
Again the seed idea comes from Emmy Van Deurzens Existential Counselling and Psychotherapy in practice, page 10