Introduction

This textbook reviews for the first time the thinking of six major existential philosophers; Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Simone de Beauvoir with respect to their ideas about human development.

Analysis and Evaluation

Martin Adams presents a philosophical and psychological analysis, and critically evaluates the different ways that existential philosophy can illuminate the way we all strive for meaning and purpose in life.

Purpose and Approach

Written in a detailed, well-structured manner, this text offers a fundamentally different way to understand not only life in general but the practice of psychotherapy in particular.