What is life for, existentially? We are born and then we die and our life task is to make something of the time in between with no way of knowing how long we have got.

In living towards an unknown future we are challenged daily with the paradox that while life will always be a mystery, it is this that makes life worth living.

So, what do we mean when we say that human beings develop, and what are the limits to human potential?

In the first part of this talk, Martin will look at what six existential philosophers, Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Simone de Beauvoir have said about how we become who we are.

In the second part, he will draw out some common themes and relate these to everyday life and by implication, to therapeutic practice.

Martin Adams is an existential psychotherapist, lecturer, supervisor and writer.

He is a visiting lecturer at Regents University and the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling in London.

Martin is the author of several books, including: ‘A Concise Introduction to Existential Counselling’, ‘Skills in Existential Counselling and Psychotherapy’ which he co-authored with Emmy van Deurzen, and most recently: An Existential Approach to Human Development’, which was published by Palgrave in 2018.

He has contributed to Case Studies in Existential Therapy and to the Wiley World Handbook for Existential Therapy. In his spare time, he is also a sculptor.

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