Is there a choice you need to make but you don’t know which way to go? Have you experienced an event that has thrown your life into chaos? Are you facing the ending of one part of your life and trying to envisage the next?

When we are faced with dilemmas, change or loss, it can be difficult to know what to do, and how to be. We may experience grief, anxiety, or guilt for example. In some cases, we may feel overwhelmed, and doubt our ability to cope. From the existential perspective, we experience existential anxiety when confronted with the ‘givens’ of life, which for Yalom (1980) are death, freedom, isolation and meaninglessness.

So, when we are experiencing a dilemma or turning point, we have the freedom to choose, and the responsibility for doing so. In existential coaching, you and I would explore this using the four worlds model. This helps us both to understand how you experience yourself in the spiritual, personal, social and physical dimensions of existence. As van Deurzen (?) has put it, you have the ‘time and space to doubt, ponder, reflect and understand’, as a purposeful investigation. We explore together to find a meaningful goal and I help you to stay on track and make progress towards it.

You may not be experiencing any major change or difficulty in life, but have instead that feeling of ‘is this all there is?’ You’re going to work, seeing friends and family, keeping physically fit and getting time away from it all as well.

But. It’s when you recognise that there is a ‘but’ that you sense something isn’t quite working for you, but you can’t put your finger on it. For example, do you sometimes have a niggling sensation that something isn’t quite right, or is something missing but you can’t quite put your finger on what it is? Are you feeling like you’ve stagnated, or that you don’t think that much of yourself, or there’s something lacking in your relationships? Or perhaps you’re just treading water, without any clear purpose or goal.

The question many psychologists have sought to answer is: what does it mean to be well psychologically? Amongst them are Carol Ryff & Corey Lee M. Keyes, Martin Seligman, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Paul Wong and Edward C. Chang. In coaching for psychological wellbeing, I draw on these models to help you to flourish in spite of the challenges and difficulties of life, to explore what you feel is missing and help you to find it, and to attain acceptance and a sense of inner peace.