ABSTRACT
The expressions ‘existentialism’ and ‘existential philosophy’ are used to refer to a number of nineteenth-and twentieth-century philosophers, most of whom would not have categorized themselves in this way. Its central figures were Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. While the first two were major influences on the other three and on many existential therapists, I shall be focusing in this chapter on Heidegger, whose work has had, without doubt, the greatest impact on existential therapy. His philosophy could be said to underlie every one of the characteristics of an existential perspective in therapy, as summarized in the Introduction.
