Meaning-formation and sense of purpose in Morita therapy.

Morita therapy is one of the leading alternative psychotherapeutic approaches that has emerged from Japan and has adapted with notable success to the mores and demands of the Western medical establishment. Although still on the margin, Morita therapy has the potential to offer a viable option for those who seek therapeutic assistance for various neuroses and psychosomatic illnesses that culminate in psychiatric symptoms such as generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or posttraumatic stress disorder. Diverging considerably from conventional Western psychiatric approaches, Morita therapy has its own modes of conceiving mental illness and offers distinct curative methods that are in some ways akin to the techniques of meaning-centred psychotherapies, but in many other ways are rather different. In this paper, the meaning-formation and the building of a constant sense of purpose in Morita therapy is explored, with a special focus on how these relate to creating a stable psychological framework for the client.

Crosstalk between Existential Phenomenological Psychotherapy and Neurological Sciences in Mood and Anxiety Disorders.

Psychotherapy is a comprehensive biological treatment modifying complex underlying cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and regulatory responses in the brain, leading patients with mental illness to a new interpretation of the sense of self and others. Psychotherapy is an art of science integrated with psychology and/or philosophy. Neurological sciences study the neurological basis of cognition, memory, and behavior as well as the impact of neurological damage and disease on these functions, and their treatment. Both psychotherapy and neurological sciences deal with the brain; nevertheless, they continue to stay polarized. Existential phenomenological psychotherapy (EPP) has been in the forefront of meaning-centered counseling for almost a century. The phenomenological approach in psychotherapy originated in the works of Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Binswanger, Medard Boss, and Viktor Frankl, and it has been committed to accounting for the existential possibilities and limitations of one's life. EPP provides philosophically rich interpretations and empowers counseling techniques to assist mentally suffering individuals by finding meaning and purpose to life. The approach has proven to be effective in treating mood and anxiety disorders. This narrative review article demonstrates the development of EPP, the therapeutic methodology, evidence-based accounts of its curative techniques, current understanding of mood and anxiety disorders in neurological sciences, and a possible converging path to translate and integrate meaning-centered psychotherapy and neuroscience, concluding that the EPP may potentially play a synergistic role with the currently prevailing medication-based approaches for the treatment of mood and anxiety disorders.