Existential Therapy in Social Work

Social work is a profession and science that aims to increase community welfare in macro, mezzo and micro dimensions, to protect and respect human rights, to ensure social justice and social development. Making people's lives better, protecting and supporting them, promoting social justice and finding solutions to social problems are among the main goals of social work. Social workers use various intervention approaches to achieve these goals. One of these approaches is existential therapy. Existential therapy is a psychotherapy approach that aims to discover the meaning, purpose and essence of life. This approach, which combines existential philosophical thought and psychotherapy, aims to question the individual's inner world, values, beliefs and experiences. Humanity has been in search of the meaning of life and existential questioning for most of its life. In some cases, this process can create new problems. However, the individual can gain functionality by finding solutions to problems and gaining meaning in life. In this article, the historical process, leading names, basic assumptions and aims of existential therapy will be explained. It will be tried to explain how the social work approach can be in the perspective of existential therapy and its application example through a fictional case.