Emmy van Deurzen

Emmy van Deurzen (born 13 December 1951 in The Hague, Netherlands) is an existential therapist and honorary Professor at the University of Sheffield. After moving to the UK in 1977 to work with anti-psychiatrists, she founded the Society for Existential Analysis in 1988, and later created a london-based training institute for the approach at Regent's College in 1985, before leaving to found The New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling in 1996 at Schiller International University, where she is currently a Professor in Psychotherapy.

Her therapy work is based in existential philosophy, as a form of philosophical counseling, and focuses on enabling people to reflect on their lives with equal attention to past, present and future in order to draw on their strengths, talents and abilities, whilst facing up to the inevitable limitations of life.

Biography

Emmy van Deurzen received a classical education in the Netherlands, before moving to Montpellier in France to study French and Philosophy, before doing a Masters Degree in Phenomenology and Existentialism. She followed this by working for a number of years in the psychiatric hospital of Saint Alban in Massif Central and then a psychotheraputic centre in Agen, during which she undertook a Masters Degree at the University of Bordeaux in Clinical Psychology.

After moving to the United Kingdom in 1977 to work in a psychtheraputic community in London, she began teaching at Antioch University International, rising to Associate Director of the MA in Humanistic Psychology. From this position she developed an MA in Psychology of Therapy and Counselling, becoming Director of it in 1982 and stayed with the course through its move and merge with Regent's College in 1985 and 1989 respectively, becoming Head of the Psychology Department with the merger. Whislt working at Regent's she founded the Society for Existential Analysis, and its accompanying journal, Existential Analysis in 1988. This was followed by the founding of the School of Psychotherapy and Counselling in 1991, validated by City University, the former of which van Deurzen became Dean.

In 1996 she left Regent's College to establish the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling (NSPC), a school which specialises in training students to become existential therapists, where as of 2011 she remains Principal, and is associated with Schiller International University, where van Deurzen is a Professor of Psychotherapy.

Van Deurzen has become a noted figure in the school of psychotherapy, being the first chair of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy, and an ambassador for the European Association for Psychotherapy to both the European Commission and Council of Europe. Her work has been translated into a number of other languages, including Russian, Chinese and Spanish, and her Existential Counselling and Psychotherapyin Practice book was a bestseller.

Contributions to existential therapy and psychotherapy

Existential therapy has its origins in applied philosophy, where Hellenistic philosophers used the Socratic method to reveal truths about personal dilemmas. The practice was largely neglected until the twentieth century when existential theory began to be applied to clinical work undertaken by psychiatrists, mainly in Germany and Switzerland. By the mid-twentieth century the idea had spread to the United States and the United Kingdom.

Deurzen has been instrumental (Cooper, 2003) in establishing the existential approach in the United Kingdom in the nineteen eighties and nineties, through her publications, through the creation of the Society for Existential Analysis (SEA) in 1988 and the creation of the International Collaborative of Existential Counsellors and Psychotherapists (ICECAP) in 2006. She founded the International Journal Existential Analysis, in 1988, which continues to publish important articles in the field of existential therapy. She has also facilitated the training of hundreds of existential therapists in the UK by founding and directing the School of Psychotherapy and Counselling at Regent's College along existential principles and by setting up the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling specifically for the purpose of existential training (Cooper, 2003). NSPC is associated with Middlesex University and offers joint doctoral programmes.

She further enabled the recognition of the approach in the UK when she was chair of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy 1993-1995 and at a European level when she was co-Chair of the training standards committee of the European Association for Psychotherapy. She also established a new approach to life improvement for the wider public, by setting up the Existential Academy and offering 'life training' classes for lay people as well as existential coaching training for professionals.

Her idea that human living takes place on four fundamental existential dimensions (physical, social, personal and spiritual), each of which is dominated by specific paradoxes, dilemmas and conflicts between polar opposites, has been widely built on by other psychotherapists (Jacobsen 2007, Barnett 2009).

Honours

As listed by the University of Sheffield.

• 2007 - Visiting Associate, Darwin College, Cambridge University
• 2006 - Fellow, United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy
• 2005 - Honorary Fellow, Sweedish Association for Existential Psychotherapy
• 2005 - Honorary Professor, University of Sheffield
• 2001 - Fellow, British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy
• 1999 - Fellow, British Psychological Society
• 1999-2002 - Official Delegate to the Council of Europe, for the European Association for Psychotherapy
• 1998-1999 - Chair of the British Psychological Society, Psycotherapy Section
• 1998 - Honorary European Certificate for Psychotherapy
• 1997-1999 - Chair of the Universities Psychotherapy Association
• 1995-2002 - European Association for Psychotherapy ambassador

Key Publications

As listed by the University of Sheffield. Her books have been translated into a dozen languages.

• Psycotherapy and the Quest for Happiness (2007), London: Sage
• Dictionary of Existential Psychotherapy and Counselling with Raymond Kenward (2005), London: Sage
• Existential Perspectives on Existential and Human Issues edited with Claire Arnold-Baker (2005), Basingstoke: Palgrave, Macmillan
• Existential Psychotherapy and Counselling in Practice Second Edition (2002), London: Sage
• Paradox and Passion in Psychotherapy (1998), Chichester: Wiley
• Det Existentiella Samtalet (1998), Stockholm: Natur och Kultur
• Eksistentielle Dimensioner I Psykoterapi (1998), Copenhagen: Hans Reitzels
• Everyday Mysteries: Existential Dimensions of Psychotherapy (1997), London: Routlegde
• Eksistentielle Samtale Og Terapi (1995), Copenhagen: Hans Reitzels
• Existential Counselling in Practice (1988), London: Sage

See also

• Existential therapy