“Existential therapy is about uncovering meaning and purpose in living”
- Imogen Koufou
What is existential Therapy?
Existential therapy is not a set of techniques—it is a way of exploring your existence, informed by philosophy and grounded in advanced psychotherapeutic training. My approach is pragmatic and experiential, shaped by embodied experience as much as theory.
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The core belief
We are fundamentally meaning-making beings. Sometimes we get stuck in ways of understanding ourselves and our world that make life feel painful, frustrating, or disempowering. Existential therapy recognizes that we have the power to examine and reshape that meaning—to live more openly and fully.
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How it works
Research shows the most essential ingredient in successful therapy isn't technique—it's the person-to-person connection. In dialogue together, we slow things down, look again at your experience, and create space for new possibilities to emerge.
Therapy isn't always comfortable. Real change—whether practical or perceptual—often requires challenge and courage. But this is how meaningful transformation happens.
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Why this matters
Our world, relationships, and selves are constantly changing. To navigate this flux authentically, we must first take stock of where we are and recognize the power we hold in how we respond.
Existential therapy offers a compassionate space to pause, reflect, and consider how you find yourself. It brings together your cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and embodied experience—because lasting change must include all of who you are.
“We know not through our intellect but through our experience”
- Maurice Merleau - Ponty
Embodied Existence
Our body is not just a vehicle for living—it is how we experience the world. Yet modern life often creates a felt separation between mind, emotions, and body.
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When we reconnect with and listen to the wisdom of our body and emotions, we are no longer overwhelmed by them. Instead, we can welcome what they teach us and find a deeper connection to ourselves and the world around us.
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In practice
This work is experiential and not always comfortable. Many of us have learned to detach from our bodily and emotional experiences as a way of coping—particularly those struggling with eating issues or addictions.
When an 'expert' simply prescribes a 'better' relationship with food or substances, change is often short-lived. I offer a different approach: one that is respectful, empowering, and moves beyond tools to create space for deeper exploration of embodied experience.
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The transformation
When you are more profoundly seen and heard—both challenged and empathised with—given space to clarify your experience —then you can regain a sense of ownership of your existence and make choices about how you want to live. You can recognise that your body is yours.
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It is then that obsessive or addictive relationships with food, alcohol, or substances are no longer necessary, and a more fulfilling way of living becomes possible.
The Existential Family
We never exist in isolation—we're always living in a shared world. Our existence is shaped by our situation: the family we're born into, our history, our place in the world. While we can't change everything, how we navigate and respond to what we're given is where our freedom lies.
When relationships struggle
We may struggle with relationships at home, at work, or elsewhere—whether starting them, sustaining them, deepening them, or navigating crisis within them. The journey of trying to conceive, creating new families, or facing the inability to do so as we'd imagined can also bring us to a point
of crisis.
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As families grow and modern life accelerates, we may need to pause and take stock: How are we responding? Have we lost our sense of meaning and purpose?
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Why relationships matter
Relationships are central to living, and how we navigate them impacts our entire wellbeing. It's often alongside others that we come to know ourselves.
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Coming together in therapy enables communication, restores trust, and establishes deeper understanding. From this foundation, we can grow and change—both individually and together.
“The body is to be compared, not to a physical object, but rather to a work of art”
- Maurice Merleau - Ponty
