Citation

Lewis AM. Death Stud. 2014; 38(6): 412-417.

Affiliation

a Department of Psychological and Quantitative Foundations , The University of Iowa , Iowa City , Iowa , USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/07481187.2012.753557

PMID

24666148

Abstract

Existential psychotherapy and Terror Management Theory (TMT) offer explanations for the potential psychological effects of death awareness, although their respective literatures bases differ in clarity, research, and implications for treating psychopathology. Existential therapy is often opaque to many therapists, in part due to the lack of consensus on what constitutes its practice, limited published practical examples, and few empirical studies examining its efficacy. By contrast, TMT has an extensive empirical literature base, both within social psychology and spanning multiple disciplines, although previously unexplored within clinical and counseling psychology. This article explores the implications of a proposed TMT integrated existential therapy (TIE), bridging the gap between disciplines in order to meet the needs of the aging population and current challenges facing existential therapists.

Language: en