Emmy van Deurzen

Emmy van Deurzen (born 13 December 1951 The Hague, Netherlands) is an existential therapist in the United Kingdom. She initially came to the UK to work with the anti-psychiatrists, but soon created her own school. She founded the Society for Existential Analysis or SEA(1988) and the International Collaborative for Existential Counsellors and Psychotherapists (ICECAP)and created the two most important training institutes for the approach: at Regent's College, London and The New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling initially at Schiller International University, London and since 2010, independently in West Hampstead, London (www.nspc.org.uk).

Her work is based strongly in existential philosophy and focuses on enabling people to reflect on their lives with equal attention to past, present and future in order to draw on their strengths, talents and abilities, whilst facing up to the inevitable limitations of life. There are some similarities between this form of existential therapy and philosophicalpsychotherapy.

Life

She was the second daughter of Arie Marinus van Deurzen and Anna Lamina Hensel. She had a classical education at the Dalton Lyceum in the Hague. After finishing her Gymnasium she went to Montpellier, France, to study French, and then transferred her studies to philosophy. Her master's degree was in Moral and Philosophy and her thesis considered the relationship between loneliness, solipsism and schizophrenia. She began working in the revolutionary psychiatric hospital of Lozère in 1973, as Emmy Fabre, by now married to the psychiatrist Jean-Pierre Fabre. She worked as a group psychotherapist using techniques from psychodrama and psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

She moved to work in the psychiatric community of La Candelie, in Agen in 1975, while completing a 'Maitrise en Psychologie', then training in clinical psychology at the University of Bordeaux. After working with patients from an existential perspective, she was invited to come and work in London.

She moved to an anti-psychiatric community with the Arbours Association in London in 1977. In 1978, now separated, she started working for Antioch University in London, becoming Associate Director of their Masters programme in Humanistic Psychology, and Director of the new MA in the Psychology of Therapy and Counselling in 1982.

She married David Livingstone Smith II in 1980 and had a son, Benjamin Yuri Smith, in 1981. A daughter, Sasha Daniella Smith, was born in 1985.

She transferred the Antioch programme to Regent's College, London, in 1985. It grew into the School of Psychotherapy and Counseling; together with the then President of Regent's College, John Payne, it was founded as limited company in 1990. She became Director of the School and Dean a few years later, and was given a personal chair at the College in 1993.

In 1984 she contributed a chapter to Windy Dryden's Individual Therapy in Britain (most recently published as Dryden's Handbook of Individual Therapy - Fifth Edition, SAGE Publications Ltd. 2007), delineating her existential approach in writing for the first time. In 1988 she published Existential Counselling in Practice, which became a bestseller—it was reprinted each year and re-edited as Existential Counselling and Psychotherapy in Practice in 2002.

In 1993 van Deurzen became the first Chair of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy, and also became active in European political work to establish psychotherapy as an independent profession and was external relations officer to the European Association for Psychotherapy and 'ambassador' for that organization to the Council of Europe and the European Commission for many years.

In 1996 she separated from her second husband, David Smith. She left Regent's College in the same year, and created the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling together with Professor Digby Tantam, at the London campus of Schiller International University, by whom she was awarded an honorary Professorship. NSPC was specifically conceived for the training of existential therapists.

In 1997 Emmy van Deurzen moved to Sheffield, and married Digby Tantam in 1998. They created the Centre for the Study of Conflict and Reconciliation at the University of Sheffield, where Emmy became an Honorary Reader, then an Honorary Professor. Her books Everyday Mysteries and Paradox and Passion were published in these two years.

Van Deurzen and Tantam created Dilemma Consultancy Ltd., in Sheffield, a private practice run entirely on existential principles. They also became co-chairs of the European Association for Psychotherapy Training Standards Committee and were largely responsible for the creation of the European Certificate of Psychotherapy in 1998. They worked together with the European Commission and the Council of Europe to further the status of psychotherapy in Europe. They set up an internet based training programme in psychotherapy, 'SEPTIMUS', funded by the European commission. They founded the International Community for Existential Counsellors and Psychotherapists (ICECAP) in 2006 at the Tenth Anniversary Conference of NSPC.

Deurzen completed a doctorate in philosophy with City University in London in 2003, on Heidegger's approach to self-deception and its relevance to psychotherapy.

More details about van Deurzen's approach can be found at [1].

Major contributions

Template:Unreferenced section Deurzen has been instrumental (Cooper, 2003) in establishing the existential approach in the United Kingdom in the nineteen eighties and nineties, through her publications, through the creation of the Society for Existential Analysis (SEA) in 1988 and the creation of the International Collaborative of Existential Counsellors and Psychotherapists (ICECAP) in 2006. She founded (www.existentialanalysis.co.uk) the International Journal Existential Analysis, in 1988, which continues to publish important articles in the field of existential therapy. She has also facilitated the training of hundreds of existential therapists in the UK by founding and directing the School of Psychotherapy and Counselling at Regent's College along existential principles and by setting up the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling specifically for the purpose of existential training (Cooper, 2003). NSPC is associated with Middlesex University (www.mdx.ac.uk) and offers joint doctoral programmes.

She further enabled the recognition of the approach in the UK when she was chair of the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy 1993-1995 (www.psychotherapy.org.uk) and at a European level when she was co-Chair of the training standards committee of the European Association for Psychotherapy (www.europsyche.org). She also established a new approach to life improvement for the wider public, by setting up the Existential Academy (www.existentialacademy.com) and offering 'life training' classes for lay people as well as existential coaching training for professionals.

Her idea that human living takes place on four fundamental existential dimensions (physical, social, personal and spiritual), each of which is dominated by specific paradoxes, dilemmas and conflicts between polar opposites, has been widely built on by other psychotherapists (Jacobsen 2007, Barnett 2009).

Honours

• 2008 Visiting Professor, Middlesex University
• 2008 Visiting Associate, Darwin College, Cambridge University
• 2007 Honorary Founding Member of the European Association of Counselling Psychology.
• 2006 Fellow, United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy.
• 2005 Honorary Fellow, Swedish Association for Existential Psychotherapy.
• 2005 Honorary Professor, University of Sheffield.
• 2001 Fellow British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy
• 1999 Fellow British Psychological Society
• 1998 Honorary European Certificate for Psychotherapy.
• 1996 Personal chair in Psychotherapy, Schiller International Univ.
• 1993 Personal chair in Psychotherapy and Counselling at Regent's College, London.
• 1993 Honorary Life Member, Society for Existential Analysis.

References

Books by van Deurzen

• Deurzen, E. van (1988)Existential Counselling in Practice, London: Sage Publications.
• Deurzen, E. van (1997) Everyday Mysteries: Existential Dimensions of Psychotherapy, London: Routledge. (2nd edition 2010)
• Deurzen, E. van (1998) Paradox and Passion in Psychotherapy, Chichester: Wiley.
• Deurzen, E. van (2002) Existential Counselling and Psychotherapy in Practice, 2nd edition, London: Sage Publications.
• Deurzen, E. van, and Kenward, R. (2005) Dictionary of Existential Psychotherapy and Counselling, London: Sage Publications.
• Deurzen, E. van and Arnold-Baker, C., eds. (2005) Existential Perspectives on Human Issues: a Handbook for Practice, London: Palgrave, Macmillan.
• Deurzen, E. van (2008) Psychotherapy and the Quest for Happiness, London:Sage Publications.
• Deurzen, E. van and Young, S, eds. (2009) Existential Perspectives on Supervision: Widening the Horizon of Psychotherapy and Counselling, London: Palgrave, Macmillan.
• Deurzen, E. van (2010) "Everyday Mysteries: a Handbook of Existential Psychotherapy", London: Routledge, second edition.
• Deurzen, E. van and Adams, M. (2011) "Skills in Existential Counselling and Psychotherapy", London: Sage Publications.

Books and articles about van Deurzen's contribution to existential therapy

• Barnett, L. (2009)When Death enters the Therapeutic Space: Existential Perspectives in Psychotherapy and Counselling, Hove: Routledge.
• Cooper, M. (2003). Existential therapies. London: Sage.
• Cohn, H. (1997). Existential thought and therapeutic practice: an introduction to existential psychotherapy. London: Sage.
• Corey, G. (2008) Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy, Pacific Grove, California: Brooks Cole
• Du Plock, S. (ed) (1997) Case Studies in Existential Psychotherapy and Counselling, Chichester: Wiley
• Dryden, W. (2007) Dryden's Handbook of Individual Therapy, London: Sage Publications.
• Jacobsen, B. (2007) Invitation to Existential Psychology, Chichester: John Wiley and Sons.
• Stiwne, D. (2008)Bara Detta Liv, Stockholm: Natur och Kultur.
• Stiwne, D. (2009) Omprova Livet!, Stockholm: Studentlitteratur.
• Strasser, F & Strasser, A (1997)Existential Time-Limited Therapy, Chichester: Wiley