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Introduction
Psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioners often rely on different psychotherapeutic
approaches. These approaches serve as a guide, helping them understand patients, their mental
health challenges and develop solutions to address them (Wheeler, 2020). Understanding each
approach's strength, as well as which approach is most appropriate for every patient, is a vital
skill psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioners should possess (Wheeler, 2020). As such, this
paper will compare humanistic-existential therapy to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT),
identifying the strengths and shortcomings of each approach and describing the potential
outcomes of using the psychotherapeutic approaches.
Brief Description of the Psychotherapeutic Approaches
Humanistic-Existential Therapy
As alluded to in the introductory part of the paper, psychiatric-mental health nurse
practitioners use different psychotherapeutic approaches to help clients overcome their
psychological problems. One of these psychotherapeutic approaches is humanistic-existential
psychotherapy. This approach predominantly focuses on helping clients discover their
uniqueness by pushing them to acquire a greater awareness of themselves and the world around
them (Shahar & Schiller, 2016). Psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioners using this approach
will help clients by teaching them how to recognize their resistance to ensure they can have a
more meaningful life.
