ABSTRACT
A profound way in which victims of authoritarian wounding have been harmed is that they grew up not believing that they, their concerns, or their efforts mattered. Any care provided to victims of authoritarian wounding ought to be supplemented with help that looks directly at encouraging clients to "return to mattering." At the heart of existential care is the philosophy known as existentialism. Existentialism is an ambitious philosophy that demands that each human being try his or her darnedest. Existentialism did not allow for an array of things that human beings actually wanted, like permission to be petty and permission to waste vast amounts of time. It did not condone silent acquiescence or slogan-sized commandments. Existentialism never really caught on. For a while after World War II millions of young people read about it, nodded in agreement with its premises, but drifted away from it because of its rigors.
