What Existential Therapy Actually Means — And Why It’s Not Just for Philosophy Nerds
Let’s get this out of the way:
Existential therapy is not about sitting around debating Nietzsche while stroking your beard and sipping herbal tea.
It’s not even about having the “right” answers to big questions.
It’s about how you live in the face of questions that don’t have clear answers.
Things like:
- Why am I here?
- What really matters to me?
- What do I do with my freedom?
- How do I live with uncertainty, grief, or regret?
You don’t have to be a philosopher to ask those things. You just have to be human.
So What Is Existential Therapy, Really?
At its core, existential therapy is about how you make meaning in your life—and how you relate to the things you can’t control.
It’s less about symptom management and more about helping you face the reality of being alive:
You’re free. You’re responsible. You’re not going to live forever.
And you’re not given a rulebook.
That can be terrifying… or liberating… or both.
But pretending those truths don’t matter? That usually creates more suffering than facing them ever could.
This Isn’t Woo-Woo — It’s Practical
Think about it:
Most of the time, people don’t come to therapy because of abstract problems.
They come because something in their life feels empty, stuck, or pointless. Or because they’re overwhelmed by a decision they can’t outsource. Or because they’re asking questions like:
“What am I even doing with my life?”
“Why do I feel so disconnected?”
“Is this all there is?”
Existential therapy doesn’t hand you a list of affirmations and tell you to “stay positive.”
It meets you where you are and says:
Let’s be honest about the hard stuff—and let’s find a way to live more fully anyway.
The Four Existential Realities (Whether You Like Them or Not)
Most existential therapists work with four basic realities that every human faces:
- Freedom: You get to choose how you live—and that can feel overwhelming.
- Death: You will die someday, and so will everyone you love. (Welcome to therapy!)
- Isolation: No one else can live your life for you, no matter how close they are.
- Meaninglessness: Life doesn’t come with prepackaged meaning—you have to make your own.
These are heavy topics, yes. But they’re also the doorway to clarity, presence, and purpose—if you’re brave enough to look.
What This Might Look Like in a Session
You’re not going to be handed a textbook. You’re going to be asked questions like:
- What are you avoiding by staying stuck?
- What values are you living out of alignment with?
- If you really let yourself feel how short life is… what would you do differently?
Existential therapy helps you tune into your own voice, your own values, your own sense of what it means to be alive. And then—step by step—it helps you actually live like it matters.
Not Just for “Deep Thinkers”
You don’t have to love Kierkegaard or read Camus to benefit from this work.
You just have to be someone who’s been cracked open by life in some way—grief, burnout, betrayal, aging, change—and wants to find something real on the other side of it.
If you’re feeling unmoored lately, it doesn’t mean you’re broken.
It might just mean you’re ready for a more honest kind of life.
And that’s where this work begins.
We Can Sit With the Big Stuff
At Sandstone Therapy, we don’t rush past the hard questions. We don’t try to fix you—we try to walk with you as you figure out what matters most and how you want to live.
It’s not about finding the right answers.
It’s about asking the right questions—and being brave enough to live into them.
Reach out here. We’re ready when you are.
Sandstone Therapy 