How existential therapy can help those with chronic illness find meaning
By
Katie Willard Virant MSW, JD, LCSW
Summary
This article explores how chronic illness triggers an existential crisis by forcing individuals to confront pain, fragility, mortality, and the loss of their pre-illness identity. It argues that existential therapy can be a valuable tool for addressing these deep questions of meaning, freedom, connection, and mortality that arise when chronic illness irrevocably changes one's life.
Source
bskyHow existential therapy can help those with chronic illness find meaningpsychologytoday.comKey quotes
· 4 pulledChronic illness changes everything.
As it sinks in that illness has changed them irrevocably, they realize that their pre-illness self is gone forever.
This painful reckoning with pain, fragility, mortality and identity leads to an existential crisis.
In addressing this crisis, existential therapy can be extremely helpful.
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