 Hello and welcome to Mitt TV and with me is Bob Cutfrey's regular review of psychotherapy books and we've got an interesting book here tales of unknowing existential perspectives by any still Spinelli. Correct, so what's this book about Bob? I think this is our 73rd book I just wanted to tell you. 73rd book review I think. Yes. And over 50 of them come from the world of transaction analysis. Yes. However this is a departure. So I'm 68 so something like 36 years ago I just started psychotherapy training and I want to see this young energetic teacher of psychotherapy existential psychotherapy. So a long time ago and I met Ernesto Spinelli. Wow. And it was beginning of his journey in some way. He went on to become a famous existential teacher. Started up in his own school and could be argued that maybe one of our finest which is existential psychotherapist. So when we talk about existential psychotherapist like Yellum, people like that in the States, I think when we talk about UK existential psychotherapist along with people that woman who lives in Sheffield, I can't remember her name now. Ribondous, is it? Yeah, that's right. He would sort of drip off the tongues person. And in 1997 he wrote a fascinating book which is this one tells of the un-knowing which we'll get to in a moment. A bit like a Yellum book in some way. He took eight of his tales of his psychotherapy counters and through these tales he wanted to demonstrate number one some of the basic existential issues or themes that we face in life and also to use them to teach some of the methodology of existential psychotherapy. I think the book is fascinating not only for its sort of wonderful therapeutic tales if you like which I can resonate with as a psychotherapist but also a sort of glimpse into the whole world of existential psychotherapy. How does existential psychotherapy differ say from the TA world or the humanistic world Bob? Oh whoa whoa whoa whoa it's a good question. Now if you're going to study to be an existential psychotherapist you are usually really have a passion for philosophy. So existential psychotherapy and philosophy go together. So we go back to people like Martin Hardiger. Is it Martin Hardiger? It's his first name Hardiger and then Hirstle and Sartre, Camus, all these early philosophers which actually were as you know you know a lot about this were the originator of a lot of the thinking of our early existential psychotherapy. So number one is that you would have that you would have a passion if you like to philosophy and the really existence issues of the client that would walk in the room. So for example transaction analysis which is a lot more direct if you like especially the early transaction analysts in the early 1960s Eric Byrne. Well and maybe this is a bit unfair you would say but I'm gonna say it anyway we're really quite interested in symptom removal. In other words find out with us and you know removing the symptom rather than what you know staying in the adult estate you know rather than what I think and many of the existential psychotherapy would think let's look at what's underneath the symptoms and the lived-in world of the client that comes to the door. Yes I mean so many times that early TA was in fact a CB almost a CBT approach and you mentioned some philosophers you know Husserl, Heidinger, of course with a German phenomenologist and phenomenology is the philosophy of lived experience. That's right. In times referred to as back to the things themselves in philosophy and then he talks about people like Sartre Kamu who you know Sartre was the existentialist of course Albert Kamu was he kind of pioneered nihilism to some extent and on this idea of life being a bit of a kind of weird thing really you know the idea that we're here but you know there's no reason for us to exist we just hear you know. Absolutely right and an existentialist would really look at the phenomenology of the client in other words how the client lives their life just the way you just said it we are going to look at joining the client in a therapeutic journey but most of all how they live their life is you know get in touch with the lived-in experience if you like the phenomenological experience of the person in front of us rather than an obsession or focus on symptom removal if you like or what Byrne called you know in some of his books you know same process really but symptom cure I think you talked about that's why so this existentialist psychotherapy is looking at excess you know really deep core issues around existence like hopelessness helplessness, anxiety, death anxiety not so much these behavioral aspects that the early TA therapy thought about. Absurdism is what I was struggling with with Kamu. That's right. Life's just absurd it's just a ridiculous endeavor that we you know we're just here by accident and yeah so really working with with the lived experience of the clients yeah yeah so one of the methods if you like or concepts that you know Ernesto talks about is this idea of un-knowing in other words as you join the client in their therapeutic journey you need to be open and curious to whatever the session goes to so you have a concept really of un-knowing between the two of you so you could go anywhere it's isn't isn't about making the session predictable or having treatment plans or having diagnosis. Yes, un-knowing. It self-sales to be familiar so those of us in humanistic world Bob. Well that's why I chose to talk about the difference between TA and the existential world because a lot of the humanistic philosophy of course and this is your world you know in terms of the client centered world it's a lot about isn't it staying behind the client and exploring their journey but I think there's a step forward that Ernesto would talk about is that you enter the space you're far more proactive you have a sense of curiosity and a sense of phenomenological inquiry and helping them to really not I suppose in the end reframe their lived in existence if you like yes towards health and aspiration. Yeah it's interesting isn't it I always thought that you know when you were talking about the differences what flashed into my mind was it's a bit like being on a bus isn't it the TA bus is one with a conductor on who tells you all the stops yeah the existential slash humanist bus is a bit of a mystery tour you get on the bus yeah yeah so you've got a journey of un-knowing un-knowing yeah yeah and I like that concept un-knowing because if you're in the world of un-knowing or on the bus which is un-knowing if you like that un-knowing journey you have to clear your and it takes a long time you have to clear your the therapist needs to clear their psychological structure of assumptions yes because once you enter the world of assumptions you're moving away from that concept of un-knowing. Yes it's almost a difference isn't it between between a philosophical model and almost a medital model in you're not sitting there setting guess in the client what you're doing is you're just working with the material you know and I guess that that's such a big crossover in the humanistic existential and TA world I'm sure that you know there's a huge amount of common ground I think on the edges there may be diagnosis and treatment plans but I think I think we all kind of exist in that kind of shared space that's my view anyway no no that that's absolutely right so if we look at Ernesto's eight therapeutic tales let's start with the first one which is one particularly pertinent to myself and perhaps people go into their 60s and 70s you know and it's called the actual title is growing old disgracefully you know in a growing old and in a sort of disgraceful way but the whole story if you like is about a 52 year old man that walks into Ernesto's room and talks about the fact he's paralyzed by anxiety and he has panic attacks and he can't sleep very well and Ernesto starts to enter his world and as I've just talked in the phenomenological way this journey I've lived an experience of this man and it turns out that he is obsessed with youth and fitness and he has an anxiety about letting go of his youth so what he's doing instead in terms of compensation yes you know again to very very fit going to the gym four times a day seven times a week making sure he has sex at these four times a week with his wife and he plays with his seven or eight year old boys who've got in the football team he joins into the football team and he's keeping himself in this sort of youthful position or childlike position because he finds it so hard to let go of his younger self and the whole tale is about how he compensates for that and how Ernesto takes him into this journey of phenomenological curiosity if you like and through metaphor interestingly enough he allows the person to reframe this in a different way so it's a very interesting tale and really does show the hallmarks of this lived-in world relationship that Ernesto goes into with his client. It's interested the phenomenal field that Roger talks about and of course Cal Rogers got a lot of his ideas from from a philosopher from philosophy itself you know so yeah that's really interesting so yeah it's a book if you're interested in the more existential life yeah yeah that's right and just two three four more stories because he picks these tales to hallmark some of the existential issues so he talks about the counter-transference experience where he turned into if you like the client he turned into from the therapist into his own client yes that's through the counter-transference he became so evoked in the material he actually became the client so that's an interesting story. Another one is how he works essentially with couples which I think is really interesting because there's not many books written around how you work essentially with couples and his last chapter I'll still go through our book is a fascinating tale about how he was working with somebody who was terminally ill in their last hours of life and I think that's a really wonderful wonderful story of compassion as it goes through that journey and real curiosity in meeting that person in the existential position or their lived in position yeah so it's a wonderful book to read yeah well this sounds like a really essential book so you know if you're if you may be doing a more clinical kind of course that has lots of techniques maybe maybe one just to take the foot off the gas and just think about the the other side of it the more philosophical side tales of unknowing Ernest O Spinelli in 1997 will put a link in the in the bar below and if you want to inspect the book just click on it Bob doesn't get paid for book reviews he does it for the love of it and if you click on it you can have a look at it and join in the existential angst of clients world of unknowing world of unknowing yes so until next book review Bob Cook thank you very much