About EHI
Welcome to the Existential-Humanistic Institute (EHI). The institute’s primary focus is training; offering courses in the practice of existential-humanistic therapy, existential therapy, existential integrative therapy and theory and related workshops. In 1997 EHI was formed as a program under the auspices of the Pacific Institute, a non-profit organization in San Francisco and in 2020 continues to offer educational programs and training, workshops and consultation groups and community gatherings in the Bay Area as a California Benefit Corp.
Education and Training
EHI offers courses on the principles of existential-humanistic practice and case seminars in existential-humanistic (E-H) theory and practice. Most of EHI’s instructors have trained extensively with such masters as James Bugental, Irvin Yalom and Rollo May, and are among the most highly trained existential-humanistic practitioners in the country.
Themes covered in EHI training include: existential-humanistic philosophy and practice, the inner search process, subjectivity and encounter, the responsibility of the therapist. These courses explain existential-humanistic conceptions of resistance, meaning and alignment, existential spirituality, and integrative existential practice.
EHI provides a forum, a “home”, for those mental health professionals, scholars, and students who seek in-depth training in existential-humanistic philosophy, practice, and inquiry. EHI is for trainees who believe that in optimal psychotherapy, as Rollo May said, it is not this or that symptom, but “the life of the client” that is “at stake” – and that it is precisely this life that must be supported, accompanied, and encountered.
The goal of the institute – via both its curriculum, events, and newsletters – is to support existentially and humanistically informed psychologies and psychotherapies throughout the world. By “existentially informed” we mean perspectives that stress freedom, experiential reflection, and responsibility. By “humanistically informed” we mean purviews that address two overarching questions – What does it mean to be fully, experientially human, and how does that understanding illuminate the vital or fulfilled life?
The EHI Training in Existential-Humanistic Therapy Practice
EHI offers four experientially-focused training and certificate programs for licensed clinicians and graduate students in psychology, counseling, and social work programs to learn how existential therapy is practiced in clinical work.
Gain a Foundation in Existential-Humanistic Therapy Practice!
An Award Winning Organization
SHP Charlotte and Karl Bühler Award Recipients
Dr. Nader Shabahangi and the Existential-Humanistic Institute were honored to be the 2016 recipients of the Charlotte and Karl Bühler Award. This award is given by The Society of Humanistic Psychology, Division 32 of the APA, to an institution, and an individual associated with an institution, that have made outstanding and lasting contributions to humanistic psychology.
