Pre & Post Conference Workshops

June 2nd: Pre-Congress Morning Sessions 9am – 12pm:

This workshop invites participants to explore the art of facilitating existential group therapy through a phenomenological and deeply relational lens. Drawing on the metaphor of the Vestal—the guardian of the sacred fire—it proposes an understanding of the group therapist as one who tends the living flame of human encounter, safeguarding the conditions for authentic presence, openness, and dialogue.

Participants will experience and reflect on the group as a living organism that reveals itself through relationships, tensions, and silences. The workshop integrates conceptual and experiential learning, combining brief theoretical framings with shared dialogue and a central experiential segment in which participants will directly engage the phenomenology of “tending the fire.” Through this process, they will explore how to sustain a non-directive and relational attitude that allows the group’s life to unfold rather than be directed or controlled.

Co-facilitated by Yaqui A. Martínez-Robles and Bárbara Godoy, this session offers an opportunity to deepen the therapist’s attunement to the immediacy of group experience and to rediscover the sacred responsibility of holding a space for others’ becoming—an act of care, attention, and wonder that lies at the heart of existential-phenomenological practice.

Despite love being the most powerful human force for healing, transformation, and meaning-making, it remains taboo in psychotherapy discourse. The very topic of “love” is avoided and often discouraged in training institutions and is often met with embarrassment when brought up amongst colleagues. This workshop invites clinicians and scholars into a courageous, ethically grounded, existential-humanistic exploration of love as a substantive factor in therapeutic presence, relationship, and transformation. Drawing from existential philosophy, humanistic psychology, ethics, theology, neuroscience, and lived clinical experience, participants will explore love not as boundary violation—but as responsible, conscious, relational presence. This workshop challenges fear-based clinical practice and calls therapists into the courage to love responsibly.

The presentation provides an overview of the foundations of Zhi Mian Therapy, which originated in China and has been described as an indigenous Chinese existential therapy. The presentation begins with an overview of Zhi Mian Therapy, specifically its core concepts, common questions, and key texts. This includes a discussion of the meaning of “zhi mian,” which can be translated as “face-to-face” or “to face directly.” The translation does not capture the full richness of the idea of zhi mian, which includes facing oneself directly, facing the world directly, and facing others directly. Next, the presentation considers what is meant by “It is the truth that heals” in Zhi Mian Therapy, including how this concept is applied in psychotherapy. Drawing from this, cultural analysis and cultural issues will be explored.

It is anticipated that this approach of Zhi Mian Therapy, originating from China, will spark dialogue in an international setting. It is an intended dialogue in the hope of benefiting individuals from various cultures. Related to this, consideration will be given to the idea of “speakers in the public square,” which considers the contributions of influential voices from around the globe who have contributed to existential psychology and therapy. It will be considered how these diverse voices contribute to advancing existential thought.

This workshop presents a systematic overview of state-of-the-art research findings on existential therapies, counselling, and coaching. One of the workshop’s innovative highlights is the presenter sharing his cutting-edge systematic reviews and meta-analyses on existential and meaning-centered therapies and therapeutic competencies, differentiating between theories and competencies supported by strong evidence and those supported by little. This session may benefit practitioners seeking evidence-based existential concepts, models, and interventions, as well as tools for assessment and outcome measurement. Researchers in all career stages may enjoy learning about state-of-the-art methods in existential therapies, as well as their strengths, limitations, and future opportunities; the presenter will share an ambitious research agenda for our field. Training institutions, such as lecturers and managers in psychology and psychotherapy programmes, may want to attend this workshop to learn about the evidence-based knowledge and competencies that their programmes should ideally cover. 
Policy-makers and lobbyists may join to learn how to position themselves and promote evidence-based existential therapies to mental health care institutions, health insurers, and national health services. Finally, the workshop offers innovative, evidence-informed applications of existential principles within societal, political, and economic contexts. Through a combination of didactic presentations, interactive discussions, and experiential exercises, participants will explore research developments, practical applications in their practice, and research projects. Participants can attend this workshop on its own, but are recommended to also attend the afternoon workshop, which the presenter will give on the evidence-based overview of meaning in life and working with meaning. Content draws, amongst others, from the presenter’s 25-year research line, with systematic reviews, meta-analyses, clinical trials, and published handbooks (joelvos.com). Participants may enhance their learning by reading beforehand: Vos, J. (2023), Existential psychological therapies: a review of the empirical literature in Pratiques Psychologiques (free download). Recommended supplementary research reading: Hoffman, L. E., & Lac, V. E. (2025). The evidence-based foundations of existential-humanistic therapy. American Psychological Association.  Hoffman, L. 2025). APA handbook of humanistic and existential psychology. APA. Vos, J. Doing research in psychological therapies (Sage, 2023). 
 

At the heart of Existential Analysis (EA; Längle, 2003) is the aim to help people live with an inner ‘yes’ to their lives. EA is an existential and person-centred approach to therapy that draws on phenomenology as a basis of practice. Exemplifying the phenomenological approach to therapy is the primary psychotherapeutic method of Länglean Existential Analysis, called Personal Existential Analysis (PEA). PEA has been developed to work on unprocessed themes and experiences to be able to integrate them into one’s life. The aim of PEA is to free the person from being blocked by these unprocessed themes in order to renew their access to authentic being and behaving. 
PEA facilitates a realistic engagement with one’s situation, self-acceptance through connecting with one’s felt sense and spontaneous emotions, inner dialogue and understanding, and then coming to an authentic and personal response in one’s life situation. This method is applied in continuous dialogue with the patient/client, in which they are invited step-by-step to their own essence and the inner resonance of their own being a person. Through PEA, the therapist supports the client/patient’s authentic ego in regaining power and resolving unprocessed themes. Part I of this two-part workshop presents the background and practical application of PEA through examples and demonstration. 
Part II: Facilitated Practice of Personal Existential Analysis (3 hours)
Part II of the two-part workshop builds on the content and examples from Part I, inviting participants to practical skill development of Personal Existential Analysis (PEA) through exercising the content of Part I. Participants will benefit the most from Part II if they have participated in Part I. 
 
The main application of the method will be trained through live therapeutic engagement with a real-life practical situation brought from a volunteer workshop participant. With guidance from the workshop facilitators, all participants will be invited to take part in this live demonstration, proceeding step by step through the specific procedures of PEA. The challenges and difficulties that present will be discussed as they emerge, through reflective dialogue. This structured practice, reflection, and facilitated discussion of the process and the challenge of PEA is the heart of the learning, allowing participants to integrate and translate the learning into their own therapeutic work. 
 

June 2nd: Pre-Congress Afternoon Sessions 1pm – 4pm

This workshop explores how existential-phenomenological perspectives can enrich the emerging field of psychedelic-assisted therapy. It invites participants to reflect on what these two worlds—the existential-phenomenological approach and the psychedelic renaissance—share in their deepest intentions: a commitment to presence, openness, and curiosity toward the unknown dimensions of human experience.
The session will examine how existential-phenomenological principles can expand the ways we prepare for and integrate psychedelic experiences, highlighting the value of attending to the relational, embodied, and temporal dimensions that emerge in these non-ordinary states of consciousness. Through a combination of theoretical presentation, group dialogue, and brief experiential exploration, participants will consider how a phenomenological foundation can enhance both safety and depth in psychedelic work.
Rather than proposing a specific technique, this workshop emphasizes an existential stance that honors uncertainty and fosters genuine encounter. The aim is to offer participants a conceptual and practical framework to approach psychedelic-assisted or psychedelic-informed therapy in ways that align with existential and phenomenological values.

In this workshop we explore how an experiential-existential approach can help us to resonate with the existential concerns of the client in the here-and-now, in order to help unfold the pre-conceptual carrying-forward tendencies of the client’ s situation. 
We introduce Experiential-Existential Psychotherapy (EEP) as a crossing of the works of Rank (1936), Taft (1932), Rogers (1961, 1980), and Eugene Gendlin (1962, 1970, 1996, 1997), as laid out in the book “Carrying existence forward: Introducing experiential-existential psychotherapy” and other publications (Vanhooren, 2019, 2022a, 2022b, 2026). We introduce concepts such as the micro-, meso-, and macro-dimensional layers of our experiencing, existential empathy, one’s right to exist (Frediani et al., 2025; Vanhooren, 2022a, 2022b, 2026; Verdegem et al., 2025), and Gendlin’s (1962, 1970, 1996, 1997) ideas about the living process, and the carry forward tendency of the situation.
After discussing these concepts, we explore what this approach could mean to us in our clinical practice. First, and through concrete experiential-existential and focusing-oriented embodied exercises (Gendlin, 1996; Vanhooren, 2022a, 2022b, 2026) we will approach and contact our own existing in the here-and-now. We will make space for our pre-conceptual embodied felt sense about our existing (Gendlin, 1978; Vanhooren et al., 2022). We will explore our needs in relation to our concrete situation but also broaden it in relation to existence as such. We will attend to the micro-, meso-, and macro-dimension of our experiencing (Vanhooren, 2019; Vanhooren & Cooper, 2024). In these series of experiential steps, the clinician engages in we engage in experiential carrying forward meaning-making (Vanhooren & Cooper, 2024; Vanhooren et al., 2022). We will practice listening in an existentially empathic way to the other, which will help us to get a sense of how it would be to work with a client from an experiential-existential approach (Frediani et al., 2025; Vanhooren, 2022a, 2022b; Verdegem et al., 2025).

This workshop presents a systematic overview of state-of-the-art research on meaning in life and meaning-centered practices. One of the workshop’s innovative highlights is the presenter sharing his latest cutting-edge research on the evolutionary and neurocognitive foundations of meaning-making, and its revolutionary implications for how we conceptualise and work with meaning in practice and society. This session may benefit practitioners seeking evidence-based concepts, models, and interventions about meaning in life, as well as tools for assessment and outcome measurement. Researchers in all career stages may enjoy learning about state-of-the-art methods on meaning, as well as their strengths, limitations, and future opportunities; the presenter will share an ambitious research agenda for our field. Training institutions, such as lecturers and managers in existential and positive psychology and psychotherapy programmes, may want to attend this workshop to learn about the evidence-based knowledge and competencies that their programmes should ideally cover. Policy-makers and lobbyists may join to learn how to position themselves and promote evidence-based meaning-centered practices to mental health care institutions, health insurers, and national health services. Finally, the workshop offers innovative, evidence-informed applications of existential principles in societal and political-economic contexts. Through a combination of didactic presentations, interactive discussions, and experiential exercises, participants will explore research developments, practical applications in their practice, and research projects. Content draws, amongst others, from the presenter’s systematic reviews, meta-analyses, clinical trials, and published handbooks. Participants can attend this workshop on its own, but are recommended to also attend the morning workshop, which the presenter will give on the evidence-based overview of existential therapies. Content draws, amongst others, from the presenter’s 25-year research line, with systematic reviews, meta-analyses, clinical trials, and published handbooks (joelvos.com). Participants are asked to fill-in beforehand the Meaning Sextet Questionnaire and the Meaning Approach Questionnaire, downloadable from https://joelvos.com/questionnaires/ and read Vos, J. (2022). Meaning in life across cultures and times: an overview of the empirical literature. In: Chen, Y. (Ed.) Meaning in Life (freely downloadable). Other recommended reading: Vos, J. (2018), Meaning in Life: An evidence-based handbook for practitioners; Vos, J. (2020), The Economics of Meaning in Life; Vos, J. (2025). Measuring meaning in life at macro- and micro-level. Journal of Positive Psychology.  Hoffman, L. E., & Lac, V. E. (2025). The evidence-based foundations of existential-humanistic therapy. APA.  Batthyany, A.,&Russo-Netzer, P. (Eds.). (2014). Meaning in positive and existential psychology. Springer. Researchers may benefit from Vos, J. Doing research in psychological therapies (Sage, 2023).

The American Psych Association (APA) advocates that the science of psychology can contribute to addressing societal inequities and achieving genuine systemic change (Abrams, 2020). Arthur C. Evans, Jr. (2020), APA CEO, stated, “We have to look at our role as a discipline in perpetuating some of the things that are being protested. That has to be a part of our commitment.” How do we actualize such aspirations?  
Justice is a core ethical principle that guides psychologists to ensure that all persons can access and benefit from psychology and to not condone unjust practices.  However, perhaps with good intentions and limited awareness of impact, we have documented psychology’s historical/contextual harms and contemporary epistemological issues. How do we employ critical self-reflection that allows us to sit in the discomfort, breathe through to possibilities, and stand in responsibility? 
The challenge (opportunity) that psychology faces is to advance epistemological justice in meeting the complex mental health issues today and make structural and systemic changes, including reimaging knowledge production, confronting historical harms (commission and omission), promoting institutional change, and addressing inherent bias in teaching, research, and practice.  
Toward this end, the APA Council of Representatives has approved several critical policies and practices; now we must do the work.  This interactive talk will interrogate what is entailed in doing the work and the implications for the practice of psychology.  We will consider which paradigm shifts are warranted to actualize the promise of psychology, acknowledging its role in the complex pain that the field is poised to heal. “You can choose to look the other way, but you can never again say you did not know.” ~William Wilberforce

Part II of the two-part workshop builds on the content and examples from Part I, inviting participants to practical skill development of Personal Existential Analysis (PEA) through exercising the content of Part I. Participants will benefit the most from Part II if they have participated in Part I. 

The main application of the method will be trained through live therapeutic engagement with a real-life practical situation brought from a volunteer workshop participant. With guidance from the workshop facilitators, all participants will be invited to take part in this live demonstration, proceeding step by step through the specific procedures of PEA. The challenges and difficulties that present will be discussed as they emerge, through reflective dialogue. This structured practice, reflection, and facilitated discussion of the process and the challenge of PEA is the heart of the learning, allowing participants to integrate and translate the learning into their own therapeutic work.

June 2nd: Pre-Congress Full Day Sessions 7:30am – 5:30pm

Participants will be taught specific skills of analysing dream imagery, whilst cataloging it as pertaining to physical, social, mental or spiritual issues. They will also learn to see the tensions and conflicts of polarities that figure in the dream images. They will be shown how to use this observation to work with the paradox and to enable clients to move from apparent contradictions to dialectical transformation, thus transcending current problems in their lives that are represented in the dream.

*This full-day experience will be held off site at the International Archives of Existential and Humanistic Therapy in Colorado Springs, and an afternoon visit to the Garden of the Gods and other tourism locations. Workshop fee includes a half-day workshop, tourism attractions, and transportation to and from the Hyatt Denver/Aurora Conference Center. Participants will meet at badge pickup no later than 7:00 a.m. to be transported to the designation.

This 3-hour experiential and didactic workshop integrates existential psychology with nature- and hiking-based metaphors to support clinical orientation, humility, responsibility, and meaning-making in an increasingly unstable cultural context. Using the concept of bushwhacking—movement through terrain where trails are unclear or absent—the workshop invites clinicians to examine disorientation as a sane response to uncertainty rather than a symptom to be eliminated.

Participants explore core existential foundations (e.g., freedom, responsibility, authenticity, isolation, mortality, meaning, absurdity) (Yalom, 1980; van Deurzen, 2012) through embodied metaphors drawn from hiking, wilderness ethics, and Leave No Trace (LNT) principles. The workshop emphasizes therapist congruence, ethical restraint, and experiential self-reflection as prerequisites for clinical application. Rather than prescribing techniques, the workshop models an invitational stance that prioritizes orientation before intervention and responsibility before technique acquisition. 

Participants will leave with a grounded conceptual framework, practical metaphors adaptable to diverse clinical populations, and an increased awareness of the risks, limits, and ethical considerations inherent in experiential and metaphor-based clinical work.

*This full-day experience will be held off site at the International Archives of Existential and Humanistic Therapy in Colorado Springs with a morning hike in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains Guided by Backpackers. Workshop fee includes a half-day workshop, tourism attractions, and transportation to and from the Hyatt Denver/Aurora Conference Center. Participants will meet at badge pickup no later than 7:00 a.m. to be transported to the designation.

June 7th: Post Congress Morning Session 9am – 12pm:

The Way of the Tao is well known to people all over the world. Indeed, the Tao Te Ching, one of the main texts for Taoism, is the second most published body of work next to the Bible. Existential thought has existed in the form of the Tao in China for over 2,500 years. This presentation will help to introduce or reacquaint audiences with Taoist themes present in the practice of Existential-Humanistic Psychology. In particular, the concepts of Wu Wei (nonintentional intentionality) noninterference, harmony, attunement, emptiness, stillness, following the client’s lead and not over-relying on techniques will be discussed. 
 
The Way of the Tao is well known to people all over the world. Indeed, the Tao Te Ching, one of the main texts for Taoism, is the second most published body of work next to the Bible and the writings of Zhuangzi have been studied for both its literary and philosophical beauty. Existential thought has existed in the form of the Tao in China for over 2,500 years. This presentation will help to introduce or reacquaint audiences with Taoist themes present in the practice of Existential-Humanistic Psychology. Key figures and texts along with the writings of both Taoist Sages of Lao Tzu and Zhuangzi will be highlighted.  In particular, the following concepts Taoist concepts and how they are related the existential-humanistic psychology will be presented:  Wu Wei (nonintentional intentionality) noninterference, and following the client’s lead as related to being minimally directive;  harmony, attunement, emptiness, and stillness as related to trusting the process; the limitation and overfondness for external and book knowledge as related to epistemological diversity; and finally Taoist parables related to congruence and authenticity, listening, attunement and focusing, and the limitation and over-reliance on techniques will be discussed. The participants will have the opportunity to engage in group discussions and the chance to interact with the presenter and each other.

June 7th: Post Congress Afternoon Session 1pm – 4pm:

“Every dream,” said Fritz Perls, “is an existential message” (Perls, 1969, p. 64). This experiential workshop introduces a method of dream exploration grounded in Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential-phenomenological philosophy and the clinical approach of Gestalt therapy (Cannon, 2008; Perls, 1969). Participants will practice a structured, dialogical process for understanding the  “existential messages” in dreams—not by interpreting them according to a universal symbology,  but by embodying, enacting, and dialoguing with their elements. 
Freud called dreams “the royal road to the unconscious” (Freud, 1900/1953, p. 608). Sartre,  rejecting the idea of a hidden unconscious, described a deeper “mystery in broad daylight”  (Sartre, 1943/1956, p. 60). For him, the gap that generates human mystery lies between what we  live and what we can express in words. In attempting to grasp ourselves as fixed entities, we  invent an ego whose function is “to mask from consciousness its very spontaneity” (Sartre,  1936/1957, p. 103). Dreams loosen these rigid self-images and reveal the spontaneity of  consciousness (Stanghellini, 2024). Like works of art, they do not disguise truth but reveal it  through image and symbol—if we can find a way to listen. 
Participants will be guided through a five-step experiential method: (1) Telling the Dream in the  Present Tense, (2) Naming the Characters, (3) Setting Up a Dialogue, (4) Deepening the  Experience, and (5) Discovering the Existential Message. The steps provide not a fixed protocol  but a flexible framework for exploring personal and client dreams from an existential phenomenological perspective. Please bring a dream to the workshop––your own or that of  someone you know well (perhaps a client).  
The session will conclude with discussion of ethical and clinical considerations in dreamwork  and a brief group exercise in which participants weave a “community of dreams”—an integrative  experience linking imagination, freedom, and embodied relational presence.

Pre- and post-Congress workshops offer an opportunity to spend more time with ideas, practices, and conversations, and are designed for deeper engagement in smaller, more focused settings, allowing for reflection, skill-building, and meaningful exchange with colleagues. All workshops will be held conveniently at the conference center and the full-day workshops will take place at the International Archives of Existential and Humanistic Therapy in Colorado Springs. Workshops are available to reserve with or without a Congress registration. Space is limited and require a paid reservation through the Eventify page here.

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June 2 – Pre-Congress Afternoon SessionsJune 7 – Post Congress Sessions