ABSTRACT
Tillich is another important, but often unacknowledged, influence on existential psychotherapy. He was a theologian rather than a philosopher, but his religious thinking was highly unorthodox and entirely compatible with that of other existential explorations. Although a Lutheran himself, his wife was Jewish and they fled from Germany to the United States in the 1930s. Tillich had a considerable impact on many psychotherapists in the United States. Rollo May considered Tillich to be his spiritual mentor and wrote a very personal book about Tillich called Paulus: Tillich as Spiritual Teacher (May 1973). Tillich is well known for a best-selling book called The Courage to Be (1952), though his seminal three-volume work Systematic Theology (1951-1963) is far more significant.
