Crosstalk between Existential Phenomenological Psychotherapy and Neuroscience in Mood and Anxiety Disorders

Abstract

Psychotherapy is a comprehensive biological treatment modifying complex underlying cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and regulatory responses in the brain, leading patients with mental illness to a new interpretation of the sense of self and others. Psychotherapy is an art of science integrated with psychology and/or philosophy. Neuroscience is a multidisciplinary science of the neuron, the glial cells including oligodendrocytes, ependymal cells, and astrocytes and the neural circuits to understand learning, memory, behavior, perception, and consciousness. Both psychotherapy and neuroscience deal with the brain; nevertheless, they continue to stay polarized far. Existential phenomenological psychotherapy (EPP) has been in the forefront of meaning-centered counseling for almost a century. The phenomenological approach in psychotherapy originated in the works of Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Binswanger, Medard Boss and Viktor Frankl, and it has been committed to account for the existential possibilities and limitations of one’s life. EPP provides philosophically rich interpretations and empowers counseling techniques to assist mentally suffering individuals by finding meaning and purpose of life. The approach has proven to be effective in treating mood and anxiety disorders. This review article demonstrates the development of EPP, the therapeutic methodology, evidence-based accounts of its curative techniques, current understanding of mood and anxiety disorders in neuroscience, and a possible converging path to translate and integrate meaning-centered psychotherapy and neuroscience, concluding that the existential phenomenological approach in psychotherapy is a viable and potent alternative to the currently prevailing medication-based approaches.