Existential Psychotherapy in London – Finding Meaning in Uncertainty

You’re lying awake at 3 am, asking questions that won’t shift. What’s the point of all this? Why does nothing feel meaningful anymore? How do I live knowing I’ll die? These aren’t the thoughts that respond to positive affirmations or breathing exercises. They’re existential questions – fundamental concerns about meaning, purpose, death, and authentic living – and they deserve more than surface-level solutions.

Mark Shiels offers existential psychotherapy in Central London, combining Core Process Psychotherapy with Jungian and Gestalt approaches. This integrative method addresses life’s deepest questions without religious requirements, creating space for genuine exploration of what it means to be human.

What Brings People to Existential Therapy?

Perhaps you’ve achieved everything you set out to accomplish – the career, the relationship, the house – yet still feel hollow. Success hasn’t delivered the satisfaction you expected, and now you’re wondering what you were chasing in the first place. Or maybe you’ve received a diagnosis that confronted you with mortality, and suddenly every conversation feels absurd whilst this knowledge sits heavy in your chest.

Life transitions trigger existential questioning. Redundancy doesn’t just mean losing a job; it means losing the identity you built around being productive. Relationship endings force you to ask who you are without that person. Milestone birthdays – 30, 40, 50 – arrive with uncomfortable awareness that time is finite and you’re not certain you’ve spent it wisely.

Then there’s the persistent dissatisfaction that standard therapeutic approaches haven’t touched. You’ve tried CBT for your anxiety, perhaps even medication, but the unease remains because it isn’t really about anxious thoughts. It’s about confronting freedom and not knowing what to do with it. It’s about recognising that you’re fundamentally alone in your experience, even when surrounded by people. It’s about death awareness that won’t be managed away.

Existential therapy addresses these concerns directly. Not as symptoms to eliminate, but as profound aspects of human existence requiring exploration and integration.

More Than Philosophy – A Therapeutic Approach to Life’s Fundamental Questions

Existential psychotherapy in London examines what Irvin Yalom calls the “givens” of existence: death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness. Where cognitive behavioural therapy focuses on changing thought patterns and psychodynamic work explores childhood patterns, existential therapy asks bigger questions. How do you create meaning in an uncertain world? What does it mean to live authentically? How do you bear the weight of freedom and responsibility for your life?

This approach suits people who think deeply, who sense their distress connects to fundamental questions about existence rather than simply faulty thinking or past trauma. The therapeutic relationship becomes a genuine encounter between two humans rather than an expert diagnosing a patient. You’re not broken. You’re confronting difficult truths about being alive, and that confrontation requires courage rather than pathology.

The existential tradition, developed by therapists like Rollo May and Viktor Frankl, recognises that anxiety isn’t always dysfunction – sometimes it’s awareness. Frankl survived Nazi concentration camps and developed logotherapy from observing that those who found meaning endured better than those who didn’t. Meaning-making isn’t luxury; it’s survival.

Core Process Psychotherapy: An Integrative Existential Approach

How Buddhist Psychology Addresses Existential Questions

Mark Shiels practises Core Process Psychotherapy, an integrative approach trained at the Karuna Institute – the only UKCP-accredited Buddhist psychology training in Western Europe.

This isn’t religious therapy. You don’t need any spiritual beliefs. Core Process Psychotherapy offers a practical framework for existential work through its concepts of ‘core’ and ‘process’. Your core represents your essential, unconditioned self – what Buddhist psychology calls your ‘brilliant sanity’. It’s the part of you that remains whole despite everything you’ve endured, that existed before life’s disappointments and conditioned responses took hold. Your process encompasses the patterns, reactions, and coping mechanisms you’ve developed over time, some serving you well and others creating unnecessary suffering.

This framework directly addresses existential concerns. When you’re asking “who am I really?”, you’re seeking your core beneath conditioned identities. When you’re struggling with meaninglessness, you’re recognising how process – your learned patterns – might obscure your inherent capacity for meaning-making. The Buddhist concept of impermanence doesn’t minimise your concerns; it acknowledges the existential truth that everything changes, including your suffering.

Jungian and Gestalt Elements

The integrative approach combines Buddhist wisdom with Western psychological depth. Jungian psychology addresses existential themes through concepts like individuation – becoming who you’re meant to be rather than who others expect. Shadow work explores the parts of yourself you’ve disowned, whilst archetypal understanding situates your personal struggles within universal human patterns. When you’re experiencing existential isolation, Jungian work helps you recognise you’re participating in timeless human experiences.

Gestalt therapy contributes present-moment awareness and personal responsibility. Rather than endlessly analysing your past, Gestalt asks: how are you right now? What are you experiencing in this moment? The approach recognises that awareness itself transforms, that insight without action changes nothing, and that you’re responsible for your choices even when you wish you weren’t. That’s uncomfortable. It’s also profoundly existential – you’re free, which means you’re responsible, which means you can’t hide behind determinism or fate.

Spiritual Counselling Without the Religion

Exploring Meaning, Purpose, and Transcendence

Spiritual counselling in London addresses questions about meaning, purpose, and connection to something larger than yourself without requiring religious belief. Many people experience what might be called spiritual concerns – a sense that life should mean something, that there’s more than material success, that connection and purpose matter – without identifying with any particular faith tradition.

Mark’s background includes a Masters in Philosophy from Trinity College Dublin and academic training in Theology and World Religions, providing rich perspective for spiritual exploration. The practice welcomes people from all faith backgrounds or none. You might be Buddhist, Christian, atheist, or uncertain. What matters is that your questions about meaning, values, and purpose deserve space and attention.

Perhaps you’re questioning the faith you were raised with, experiencing what feels like spiritual crisis as old beliefs no longer fit your understanding. Or you’ve never been religious but sense something missing, some dimension of experience your secular worldview doesn’t address. You might be exploring transcendent experiences – moments when ordinary reality seemed to crack open – and wondering what they mean.

The questions we explore together depend entirely on what you bring. What does it all mean? Why am I here? How do I create purpose when nothing feels given anymore? What happens when I’ve achieved my goals but still feel empty? Where do I belong in this vast, indifferent universe? What’s my authentic self versus the roles I perform? These aren’t abstract philosophical puzzles. They’re urgent, lived questions that affect how you move through each day.

What Happens in Existential Psychotherapy Sessions

The Therapeutic Relationship

The relationship between therapist and client carries particular importance in existential work. This isn’t a hierarchical arrangement where an expert diagnoses your pathology and prescribes solutions. It’s a genuine encounter between two humans, one of whom happens to have training and experience in exploring existential territory.

Mark brings professional expertise without claiming to have answers to your questions. How could he? Your life is yours to live, your meaning yours to create. What he offers is companionship in difficult exploration, professional skill in navigating existential terrain, and a confidential space where uncomfortable truths can be spoken.

The therapeutic space is boundaried but not distant, professional but genuinely warm. You’re not broken. You’re confronting aspects of existence that humans have grappled with for millennia, and doing so requires courage rather than cure.

The Process of Existential Exploration

Initial sessions establish trust and understanding of your particular concerns. What brought you here? What questions won’t let you rest? What meanings have you lost, and what meanings are you seeking? There’s no assessment checklist reducing your experience to diagnostic criteria. This is phenomenological work – exploring how existence appears to you, in your unique situation.

Ongoing therapy involves confronting what existential therapists call the “givens” whilst recognising your freedom to respond. Yes, you’ll die. Yes, you’re fundamentally alone in your subjective experience. Yes, life has no inherent meaning handed down from above. These truths sound bleak, but facing them directly often proves less frightening than the vague dread of avoiding them. Death awareness, paradoxically, can awaken more authentic living.

Present-moment awareness practices help you recognise how you’re relating to existential concerns right now. Are you intellectualising to avoid feeling? Catastrophising to feel something? Dissociating because it’s too much? The work explores both your immediate experience and the broader patterns shaping your existence.

There’s no predetermined timeline. Therapy continues whilst it’s useful, whether that’s a few months focusing on a specific existential crisis or longer-term exploration of meaning-making across your life. Session frequency flexes to your needs – weekly, fortnightly, or adjusted as circumstances change.

Who Is This Therapy For?

You might benefit from existential psychotherapy if you’ve been successful by external measures but feel hollow inside, as though you’ve climbed the ladder only to discover it’s against the wrong wall. Perhaps you’re facing mortality – yours or someone else’s – and can’t shake the questions it raises about how you’ve lived and want to live. Traditional therapy might have felt superficial, like applying plasters to existential wounds when what you needed was someone willing to examine the wound itself.

This approach suits people experiencing what Kierkegaard called “the sickness unto death” – despair as spiritual sickness/misrelation of self. It works for those making major life decisions who need to explore what they truly value rather than what they’ve been conditioned to pursue. You might be caught between competing values without authentic ground, or grieving not just people but possibilities, identities, or belief systems that no longer serve.

Existential therapy requires willingness to sit with uncertainty. There aren’t neat solutions or five-step programmes. It’s depth work rather than quick fixes, though symptoms often improve when you address underlying existential concerns. The approach demands intellectual and emotional engagement – you’re an active participant in meaning-making rather than a passive recipient of treatment.

If you’re seeking someone to tell you what your life should mean, this isn’t the right fit. But if you’re willing to explore that question together, to confront difficult truths whilst recognising your inherent capacity for authentic living, then existential psychotherapy might offer exactly what you’re seeking.

About Your Therapist: Mark Shiels

Professional Background and Philosophical Foundation

Mark Shiels is a UKCP Registered Psychotherapist trained at the Karuna Institute in Core Process Psychotherapy. His academic background includes a BA, BTh, and Masters in Philosophy from Trinity College Dublin, with studies spanning Psychology, Business Studies, Theology, and World Religions. This philosophical training matters for existential work – understanding Heidegger’s being-in-the-world or Sartre’s examination of freedom and responsibility provides theoretical grounding for therapeutic exploration.

The combination of contemplative practice (25+ years of meditation) and rigorous academic study creates unusual depth. Mark has trained extensively with Buddhist teachers including Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron, and Jack Kornfield, whilst his therapeutic integration draws on Jungian analytical psychology and Gestalt therapy. He’s studied with contemporary therapists including Mark Epstein, Ruthie Smith, and Donald Kalsched, bringing rich theoretical and practical experience to existential work.

What matters beyond credentials is genuine comfort with life’s big questions and unknowns. Mark brings professional expertise balanced with authentic warmth, creating space where you can explore difficult territory without judgment. His approach is inclusive and non-sectarian, welcoming clients from all backgrounds, sexual orientations, gender identities, and belief systems. The practice values equal opportunities and cultural sensitivity, recognising that existential questions arise within specific social and cultural contexts.

Practical Information

Location and Access

The practice is located at 8 Hop Gardens, St Martins Lane, London WC2N 4EH, in the heart of Central London near Leicester Square and Covent Garden stations. The accessible location suits busy professionals who can integrate sessions into their working day.

Online therapy is available throughout the UK for those who prefer remote sessions or whose schedules make face-to-face attendance difficult. Many clients appreciate online therapy’s flexibility – you can have your session from home, eliminating travel time and allowing you to process difficult material in your own space afterwards.

How to Begin

Beginning therapy requires no GP referral. You can contact Mark directly to arrange an initial consultation. Phone 07973 890 164 or 020 7209 3224, or email mark@buddhistpsychotherapy.org.uk. During the first session, you’ll discuss what brought you to therapy, explore whether the approach feels right for your concerns, and begin establishing the therapeutic relationship.

Everything discussed in therapy remains confidential, with standard exceptions around immediate risk of serious harm. The practice welcomes people from all backgrounds and experiences, maintaining a non-judgmental stance regardless of your circumstances, beliefs, or concerns.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is existential therapy the same as CBT?

No. CBT focuses on changing thought patterns and behaviours, which works well for certain conditions. Existential therapy explores fundamental questions about existence, meaning, freedom, and death. It’s depth work rather than symptom management, though addressing existential concerns often improves psychological symptoms.

Do I need to be philosophical or academic?

Not remotely. You need only be willing to explore life’s bigger questions honestly. The therapy meets you where you are – theoretical understanding emerges through lived exploration rather than requiring academic background.

Is this religious therapy?

No. Whilst the approach integrates Buddhist psychology, there’s no religious content unless you specifically want to explore spiritual dimensions. You won’t be asked to adopt beliefs, chant, meditate, or engage with any practices unless they genuinely interest you.

How is spiritual counselling different from existential therapy?

There’s significant overlap. Spiritual counselling explicitly addresses questions of meaning, purpose, and transcendence. Existential therapy examines freedom, death, isolation, and meaning-making. Both explore life’s fundamental questions, and the integration of both approaches offers comprehensive depth.

How long does existential therapy take?

There’s no fixed duration. Some people work briefly on specific existential concerns triggered by life events; others engage in longer-term exploration. Therapy continues whilst it proves useful, with regular review ensuring it remains effective.

Can existential therapy help with anxiety or depression?

Yes, particularly when these conditions have existential roots. Anxiety about meaninglessness, death, or freedom responds differently than generalised worry. Depression stemming from alienation or purposelessness requires more than neurotransmitter adjustment. The approach addresses underlying existential concerns rather than just managing symptoms.

Do you work with LGBTQ+ clients and diverse backgrounds?

Absolutely. The practice is fully inclusive, welcoming all sexual orientations, gender identities, cultural backgrounds, and belief systems. Mark understands that existential questions arise within specific social contexts and works with cultural sensitivity and awareness.

Taking the First Step

Confronting existential questions requires courage. Our culture encourages distraction rather than depth, busyness rather than meaning-making, achievement rather than authentic living. Choosing to explore life’s fundamental questions goes against that current.

These concerns deserve professional attention. Not because you’re damaged, but because they’re profound aspects of being human that benefit from skilled companionship. You don’t need to have everything figured out before beginning therapy – that’s precisely why you’d seek support.

An initial conversation creates no obligation. Contact us to discuss whether existential psychotherapy might address what you’re experiencing. The space is confidential, non-judgmental, and genuinely interested in your unique concerns.

Ready to begin? Call 07973 890 164, phone 020 7209 3224, or email mark@buddhistpsychotherapy.org.uk to arrange your initial consultation.

Central London location: 8 Hop Gardens, St Martins Lane, WC2N 4EH. Online therapy available throughout the UK.