The existential layer of depression disorder: Quantitative and qualitative investigation in student, clinical, and therapist samples

The existential layer of depression disorder: quantitative and qualitative investigation in student, clinical an therapist samples

Summary - English version

My experiences as a psychotherapist brought me to the question if there would be a scientific base for the idea that being receptive to existential questions as a therapist, is helpful to the client. I was also curious to learn more about the effect of neglecting these topics in therapy. These reflections boiled down to the research question for this doctoral project: This doctoral project wants to investigate how people deal with the existential concerns of life, and how this relates to depression. Within a humanistic-existential framework, the existential anxiety people exhibit in confrontation with existential questions, and the extent to which they experience meaning will be investigated. Furthermore, we will focus on the role of the ability to attend to one’s bodily felt experience.

The first study is a cross-sectional pilot study investigating the covariation between the way people deal with the ultimate concerns of life (Existential Concerns Questionnaire, ECQ), the extent to which they experience meaning (Meaning in Life Measurement, MiLM), their ability to connect to their bodily felt experience (Focusing Manner Scale, FMS) and depression (Person Health Questionnaire 9, PHQ-9) in a sample of 77 postgraduate students. Existential Anxiety was found to fully mediate the relation between meaning in Life and depression.

The second study  is also cross-sectional and investigates the same variables as study 1 in an international sample (N=3262) of students. The aim of this study is to measure the fit of a theoretical model about the pathways between the latter variables. The data are analyzed at this moment.

The third study is qualitative and aims to investigate the impact of depression on the experience and interventions of therapists (N=26) to the depth, using the method for Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR). Therapists’ (N= 26) reflections after they watched a video-taped therapy-fragment were studied. A substantial amount of the therapists reported the negative experience of constriction and highlighted the importance of a present attitude as a therapist.

The fourth study has a longitudinal mixed method approach. In this last study, therapist-client dyads (N = 200) will be monitored: at four moments on the course of the therapy trajectory, the way therapists and clients deal with existential questions will be measured by assessing their existential anxiety (ECQ). In addition, clients depression level (PHQ-9) and therapists’ existential empathy (EEQ; Existential Empathy Questionnaire) will be measured. The qualitative part uses interviews to investigate the way clients’ (N=10) and therapists’ (N=10) experience existential themes in the therapy process.