Becoming Existential

Paulo Ribeiro lost his sight after a near-death experience and discovered a new way of seeing. On embodiment, alchemy, and presence.

What happens when a therapist can't see their client?

Paulo Ribeiro is an existential psychotherapist and senior clinical supervisor at Headstrong Counselling in London. He holds a BA in Social Communication, an MA in Integrative Psychotherapy, and is completing an Advanced Diploma in Existential Psychotherapy. Before entering therapy, Paulo worked in journalism and PR across Brazil and the UK.

More than ten years ago, Paulo experienced Stevens-Johnson syndrome — a severe allergic reaction that nearly killed him, destroyed his skin from the inside out, and ultimately took his sight. After two years housebound and 39 eye operations, he made a radical decision: stop chasing what was lost and start building what was possible.

In this episode, Paulo shares how blindness reshaped his understanding of presence, embodiment, and what really happens between two people in a therapy room.

We explore:

— How a near-death experience led to a new life in psychotherapy

— What "seeing" means when sight is gone — and what sighted therapists might be missing

— Merleau-Ponty's idea that "we are vehicles, not machines" and what that means in practice

— Therapy as alchemy: why the most powerful moments are the ones you can't predict or explain

— Wittgenstein, language games, and what it's like to do therapy across two languages

— The existential lens at Headstrong — working with complex presentations without totalizing the other

— Advice for trainees: "Go prepared to suffer. Go prepared to cry. Go prepared to laugh."

Chapters:

00:00 Navigating the Journey of Therapy

11:01 The Transformative Power of Training

22:29 Embodied Presence in Therapy

36:36 The Role of Language in Therapy

37:55 The Fluidity of Language and Meaning

42:41 The Art of Togetherness in Therapy

46:24 Existential Perspectives in Psychotherapy

51:36 The Role of Philosophy in Therapy Training

55:22 Navigating Emotional Labor in Therapy

01:00:04 The Journey of Becoming a Therapist

Referenced in this episode:

— Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception

— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

— Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity

— Del Loewenthal, Existential Psychotherapy and Counselling after Postmodernism

— R.D. Laing on indescribable therapeutic moments

— Martin Buber on togetherness

— Headstrong Counselling, London (headstrongcounselling.co.uk)

About the host

I’m Max Karlin, a psychologist, counsellor, and UKCP trainee existential therapist at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling, London. On this channel I share existential therapy insights, interviews, and reflections to explore how psychotherapy can help us live more authentically and meaningfully.

Connect with me linktr.ee/maxkarlin

Becoming Existential is a podcast about the journey of becoming a therapist and what that process reveals about the human condition. Hosted by Max Karlin, a trainee existential therapist at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling in London.

Other episodes

https://podfollow.com/becoming-existential/view

In this conversation with Paola Pomponi, we explore what existential therapy really means — not just as a theory, but as a way of being with others.

We talk about therapist training, authenticity, absurdity, everyday existential encounters, and why humor may be one of the deepest forms of connection.

Paola reflects on what first drew her into existential therapy, including the impact of reading Irvin Yalom and the call she felt to change direction and train in the field. From there, the conversation moves into the core of existential practice: what it means not simply to think about life, but to encounter it directly and relationally.

Together, they explore existential therapy as something embodied before it is intellectual; something lived before it is explained. Paola describes therapy not as a technical act of fixing, but as one human being sitting beside another, “breathing the same air,” discovering what it means to be with someone rather than act upon them.

The dialogue then opens onto wider questions: is existential therapy only for a small, intellectual niche, or can it become part of everyday life? Paola argues for the latter, suggesting that existential dialogue can happen anywhere — with a coffee maker, a postman, a child, a stranger — if we meet others with curiosity and depth.

They also talk about how existential training changes the therapist, the courage required to enter that process, the absurdity of life, and the little freedom we still have in choosing how to respond. The episode closes with one of Paola’s most memorable themes: humor, not as avoidance, but as another way of meeting reality and deepening connection.

This is an episode for therapists, trainees, students, and anyone asking deeper questions about how to live, how to relate, and what to do with the life they have.

About Paola Pomponi

UKCP-accredited Existential Psychotherapist

Certified EMDR Practitioner

Existential Coach (EMCC Practitioner Level)

Chair of the Society for Existential Analysis (SEA)

Practices in London and Rome, bilingually (English/Italian)

Author of Bach in the Park - a story about living, loving and dying, temporality, rationality and emotionality.

Available on Audible and Amazon

https://amzn.eu/d/j9dFBSK

Connect with Paola

https://ppomponi.com

https://www.instagram.com/paola_pomponi_ukit/?hl=en

About the host

I’m Max Karlin, a psychologist, counsellor, and UKCP trainee existential therapist at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling, London. On this channel I share existential therapy insights, interviews, and reflections to explore how psychotherapy can help us live more authentically and meaningfully.

Connect with me linktr.ee/maxkarlin

chapters:

00:50 Meet Paola

03:00 From Business to Therapy

05:25 Yalom’s Influence

10:20 Training and Being With the Client

15:00 Practising Existential therapy

18:00 Children, Curiosity, and Meaning

20:00 How Therapy Changes the Therapist

22:00 Advice for Trainees

27:00 Existential Therapy Beyond the Room

28:00 Is Existential Therapy for Everyone?

34:00 The Power of Humor

36:40 Final Reflections & Closing Thoughts

Professor Ernesto Spinelli - one of the founders of the existential psychotherapy in the UK, author of foundational texts including The Interpreted World and Practising Existential Therapy, and one of the most influential voices in the field globally.

WE DISCUSS:

[02:00] "An old man with a young mind" — Ernesto on aging and unfinished projects

[05:00] How he "fell into" existential therapy

[08:00] Reading Husserl for the first time: "What is this?"

[10:00] The birth of existential therapy in the UK

[14:00] Curiosity as the heart of good therapy

[16:00] "Psychotherapy is seen as treatment rather than engagement — that's been a terrible error"

[18:00] Explanatory vs. understanding-focused psychology

[25:00] "We have honest conversations" — Ernesto's simplified approach

[28:00] What your symptoms might be giving you

[29:00] The question that changes everything: "Would you miss it?"

[34:00] AI therapy: why people find it empathic

[37:00] "Like a super person-centered therapist"

[38:00] "I find that terrifying" — but also revealing

[40:00] Sartre on conflict and the possibility of constructive engagement

[45:00] The "dictatorship of I" and why relatedness matters

[50:00] Advice for therapists-in-training: "Stay with what drew you here"

[52:00] "It's like a poem that finally says what you always felt"

[54:00] Writing novels, cinema, and the road not taken

KEY QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:

"If you're not genuinely curious about your client, you won't be a good therapist."

"Psychotherapy is seen as a form of treatment rather than a form of engagement and relation. That's been a terrible error."

"What mostly happens in my engagements with my clients is that we have honest conversations."

"Is your problem giving you anything worthwhile? And if you were to lose it — would you miss it?"

"People are turning to AI therapy because they're getting something from it that they're not getting from day-to-day human relations."

"The world is increasingly dominated by a kind of dictatorship of I."

GUEST:

Ernesto Spinelli, PhD is an existential psychotherapist, psychologist, a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, former Chair of the Society for Existential Analysis, and author whose work has consistently challenged psychotherapy’s reliance on diagnosis, technique, and cure. A former Academic Dean at Regent’s University London, he is known for advancing existential-phenomenological psychotherapy through his emphasis on relatedness, uncertainty, and therapy as an act of understanding rather than intervention.

ABOUT THE HOST:

I'm Max — a psychologist, counsellor, and trainee existential therapist at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling (NSPC) / Middlesex University in London.

After 25 years in business, I'm now exploring what it means to become a therapist — and what that journey reveals about being human.

This podcast documents that unfolding.

📚 Books:

The Interpreted World: An Introduction to Phenomenological Psychology

https://a.co/d/eMQmy3y

Practising Existential Psychotherapy: The Relational World

https://a.co/d/hljWmsb

Tales of Un-Knowing: Therapeutic Encounters from an Existential Perspective

https://a.co/d/43q1StD

The Mirror and the Hammer: Challenging Orthodoxies in Psychotherapeutic Thought

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014FVQY72?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_3F1YW0TCAYD8NP57XDYF

🔗 Links:

Ernesto Spinelli & Associates

http://www.plexworld.com

Society for Existential Analysis:

https://existentialanalysis.org.uk

CONNECT:

🎥 Watch the full video interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/4u39LZ_M3Uk

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maxkarlintherapy/

🌐 Website: maxkarlin.com

📧 Contact: https://linktr.ee/maxkarlin

SUPPORT :

If this episode resonated with you:

- Subscribe https://podfollow.com/becoming-existential/view

- Leave a rating and review — it helps others find the show

- Share with a colleague or friend who might benefit

In this episode of Becoming Existential, I sit down with Dr Claire Arnold-Baker — Principal of the New School of Psychotherapy & Counselling (NSPC), existential psychotherapist, psychologist, researcher and current Chair of the Federation for Existential Therapy in Europe (FETE).

Claire is one of the course leaders on my training programme and someone whose clinical, academic and organisational work continues to shape how existential psychotherapy is practiced today. Speaking with her offered a way to come back to the foundations of our approach through the lens of her own lived path into existential work.

Our dialogue travelled widely.

From the tensions and contradictions that characterise human existence to liberty and restriction, togetherness and solitude, accountability for ourselves and, at times, unavoidably, for others.

We explored the question of why existential therapy feels as particularly significant in a current fast-paced, anxiety-driven, and technology-dominated world.

An important part of our conversation was on Structural Existential Analysis (SEA) and the book on that Claire co-authored with Emmy van Deurzen: a structured way of exploring life as it is lived, through five interwoven dimensions:

Space, Time, Emotion & Value, Paradox and Purpose

We also spent time with Claire’s longstanding clinical and research work on motherhood, as a profound, ambiguous, identity-shaping experience — one marked by freedom and boundaries, care and responsibility, possibility and constraint.

And inevitably we arrived at the contemporary themes of human connection in an age of technology and AI. What shifts and what remains essential in the therapeutic encounter and beyond the therapy room.

Regardless of whether you’re a psychologist, therapist, researcher, or just someone interested in understanding how we interpret our experiences, I encourage you to engage with this insightful, meaningful conversation featuring a prominent figure in contemporary existential therapy.

0:00 – Why this series? Introducing the project & Claire

1:56 – Claire’s path into existential therapy (childhood death experiments, family philosophy, choosing psychology)

8:16 – NSPC as the “home of existential training” & what existential training feels like

13:10 – Structure, regulation & uncertainty: freedom within limits in professional practice

16:48 – Motherhood, feminism & giving voice to mothers’ existential crises

20:28 – Bound and free: the paradox of motherhood and responsibility for another life

23:09 – Structural Existential Analysis (SEA): researching life with four dimensions, time, paradox, emotion & purpose

29:12 – Clients turning to AI chatbots: human contact, disconnection & the tension of technology

34:55 – Existential therapy today: FETE, public discourse & why it’s “in its ascendancy”

39:41 – Who existential training is for & Claire’s advice on approaching philosophy and the journey

About Dr.Claire Arnold-Baker

Claire Arnold-Baker is Principal of the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling (NSPC) in London, and also the Course Leader for the DCPsych Programme. She is UKCP-registered existential psychotherapist, HCPC-registered Counselling Psychologist, supervisor, trainer, lecturer and Chair of the Federation for Existential Therapy in Europe (FETE).

🔗 Links:

https://nspc.org.uk/faculty/nspc-faculty/faculty-member/262/claire-arnold-baker/

https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/counsellors/claire-arnold-baker

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Books-Claire-Arnold-Baker/s?rh=n%3A266239%2Cp_27%3AClaire%2BArnold-Baker

https://x.com/DrClaireAB

Federation for Existential Therapy in Europe

https://existentialtherapies.org

Existential Movement

https://www.existentialmovement.world

About the Host:

Max Karlin - psychologist, counsellor, and trainee existential therapist at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling, London.

https://linktr.ee/maxkarlin

https://maxkarlin.com

What happens when the path you’ve followed your whole life suddenly stops making sense?

What does it really take — emotionally, personally, existentially — to become a therapist?

In this intimate and reflective conversation, I sit with my peer and fellow trainee Persefoni Kaltaki, with whom I began my journey at the New School for Psychotherapy and Counselling. Together, we speak openly about the emotional and existential cost of becoming a therapist.

Persefoni shares what it’s like to navigate training with dyslexia and ADHD, to move countries, to learn in a new language, and to start over while trying to hold space for others. She reflects on the limits of neurobiology and psychopharmacology in understanding the human condition and how discovering existential thought offered a way back to meaning.

“I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.” — Nikos Kazantzakis

This isn’t a conversation about methods or theories. It’s about what happens when therapy stops being a profession and becomes a way of being — about the laughter, vulnerability, and quiet courage it takes to keep becoming.

00:00 – 01:20

Intro — Meeting Again

01:20 – 04:00

How It All Began: Psychology, Curiosity & Early Certainties

04:00 – 06:40

Setbacks, Dyslexia, ADHD & the Weight of Academia

06:40 – 09:20

Moving Abroad & The Isolation of Training

09:20 – 12:00

Hitting the Void: Depression & Directionlessness

12:00 – 14:30

Turning Toward Existentialism

14:30 – 17:20

What Existential Therapy Feels Like

17:20 – 20:10

Starting Over: New Country, New Language, New Practice

20:10 – 23:00

The Hardest Thing She’s Ever Done

23:00 – 25:30

Ethics, Responsibility & Knowing When You’re Ready

25:30 – 28:00

Meaning, Capitalism & Going Against the World Around You

28:00 – 30:20

Staying With Uncertainty

30:20 – 32:30

Time as the Real Existential Anchor

Why time, more than death, shapes her awareness, choices, and orientation to life.

32:30 – 34:40

The Mutuality of Therapy — And Some Laughter Too

How connection nourishes the therapist, the thin line between personal and professional needs, and shared humour in the process.

34:40 – 35:00 Outro

About Persefoni:

Persefoni Kaltaki is a psychologist and UKCP trainee psychotherapist with an MSc in Clinical Psychology and advanced training in existential psychotherapy at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling (NSPC) in London. She currently works both in private practice in Copenhagen and remotely with UK-based clients through Headstrong Counselling.

Her therapeutic work is trauma-informed and rooted in existential and phenomenological approaches, with a focus on relational depth, self-exploration, and psychological awareness. She has supported clients navigating cultural displacement, gender identity, neurodivergence, and systemic marginalisation, committed to inclusive, reflective practice that responds to each client’s unique context and lived experience.

She is also trained in working with survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse and has facilitated group work and psychoeducational spaces focused on resilience, emotional wellbeing, and identity exploration. In addition to her independent practice, Persefoni collaborates with Daggry an organisation supporting LGBTQIA+ communities in Copenhagen.

🔗 Find out more about Persefoni :

🌐 persefonikaltaki.com

📧 [email protected]

📍 Based in Copenhagen | Online therapy across the EU and UK

About the Host:

Max Karlin - psychologist, counsellor, and trainee existential therapist at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling, London. On this channel I share existential therapy insights, interviews, and reflections to explore how psychotherapy can help us live more authentically and meaningfully.

https://linktr.ee/maxkarlin

In this first episode of Becoming Existential, I’m joined by Dr. Kirk J. Schneider — psychologist, author, lecturer, and one of the most influential voices in contemporary existential–humanistic and existential–integrative psychology.

Kirk has written more than a dozen books, including Life-Enhancing Anxiety and The Spirituality of Awe, and has devoted his career to bringing existential ideas beyond the therapy room — into education, politics, and dialogue across divided communities.

Together, we explore the gift of presence, the paradox of anxiety as a life-enhancing force, and what it means to stay human in an age of AI, quick fixes, and polarization. We also talk about the training journey of therapists today, and Kirk offers grounded, compassionate advice for those entering the field.

This conversation challenged and inspired me — and it feels like the right way to begin this series about becoming a therapist, and becoming human.

00:00 – Introduction

01:00 – Kirk’s Childhood & Early Trauma

03:00 First Encounters with Therapy

07:10 – The Essence of Existential Therapy

11:00 How the Existential Approach Shapes Us Professionally & Personally

15:00 – On Presence as the Greatest Gift

18:00 – Family, Relationship & Parenting Reflections

20:00 Advice for Aspiring Therapists

24:00 Getting personal experience of therapy first

25:00 Learning therapy skills

27:00 How Existential Approach contributes to the world

30:00 – Anxiety as a Constructive Force

33:00 The Space for the dialogue

35:00 Existential Question for Society

39:00 The Danger of a Machine-Like Society

41:00 – Final Reflections & Existential Question for Society

Dr. Kirk J. Schneider, Ph.D., is a leading voice in contemporary existential-humanistic and existential-integrative psychology. A licensed psychologist, he is past editor of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, adjunct faculty at Saybrook University and Teachers College, Columbia University, and president of the Existential-Humanistic Institute (EHI).

Dr. Schneider has authored or edited over a dozen influential books — including Awakening to Awe, Existential-Integrative Psychotherapy, The Polarized Mind, and his recent Life-Enhancing Anxiety: Key to a Sane World. His work has been translated into multiple languages and featured in outlets such as Scientific American, The New York Times, and Psychology Today.

He is a Fellow of five divisions of the American Psychological Association and recipient of the prestigious Rollo May Award for his pioneering contributions to humanistic psychology. Internationally recognized, Dr. Schneider has delivered keynote addresses at the World Congresses of Existential Therapy and the International Existential Psychology Conference in China.

At the heart of his work is the idea that awe and anxiety are central to living more fully, authentically, and humanely — both in therapy and in society at large.

Kirk Schneider

https://kirkjschneider.com

Existential-Humanistic Institute:

https://www.ehinstitute.org/

Social Media:

@kirk.schneider.908

@kschneider56

/ kirk-schneider-a526a661

Books by Kirk J. Schneider Ph.D.:

Life-Enhancing Anxiety, Awakening to Awe, Existential-Integrative Psychotherapy and more:

https://www.amazon.com/Kirk-J-Schneid...

Other links:

New Corps of Depth Healers website and Certificate Program:

https://www.corpsofdepthhealers.com

Latest Book: “Life-Enhancing Anxiety: Key to a Sane World”

https://www.amazon.com/Life-Enhancing...

New YouTube Channel-“Corps of Depth Healers” / @corpsofdepthhealers-ws9nq

I’m Max Karlin, a psychologist, counsellor, and trainee existential therapist at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling, London. On this channel I share existential therapy insights, interviews, and reflections to explore how psychotherapy can help us live more authentically and meaningfully.

https://linktr.ee/maxkarlin