Existential Dialogue 2025: "Opening" with Dr. Yaqui Martinez

Description

I want to discuss the existential-phenomenological challenges of viewing the human condition and explore alternatives for openness.

We aim to explore the lived experiences on irregular perceptions of reality with an open mind. Each Saturday includes: a live dialogue between Prof. Ernesto Spinelli and an International Existential Therapist; a moment to share your thoughts and feelings with the teachers; and a final integration facilitated by Bárbara Godoy.

This series of ten dialogues set out to explore the multifaceted dimentions and complexities associated with Existential Therapies. It attempts to engage with various interpretations of insanity through the lens of patients often painful, confounding, and deeply unsettling life experiences.

Opening- between Prof. Ernesto Spinelli and Dr. Yaqui Martinez

“From my early days studying psychology, I never felt comfortable with psychopathological nosologies. They seemed exaggerated to me and demonstrated the intense human desire to classify all possible expressions of our existence. Likewise, I have not been comfortable with the tendency to promote dualistic perspectives that compartmentalize our reality into separate aspects where one is not only different from the other but even in opposition, such as the sane/insane dichotomy. During this dialogue, I want to talk with Ernesto about the difficulties involved, from an existential-phenomenological perspective, in viewing the human condition from this position. Perhaps we can ask ourselves together what advantages they offer and what alternatives for openness we can propose.”

Dr. Yaqui Martinez.

Dr. Yaqui A. Martínez-Robles is a psychologist with Masters, PhD and PsyD in Psychotherapy. He has training in Gestalt Therapy; Music Therapy; Transpersonal Psychology and Holotropic Breathwork (with the Grof Transpersonal Training Association); Narrative and postmodern therapies and Social Constructionism; and in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (with the Integrative Psychiatry Institute and MAPS-Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies). He is the author of four books, and co-author of another two, focused on the existential perspective. He has participated with chapters in several books and with articles in several journals. Yaqui is the founder of the Circle of Studies in Existential Therapy, in Mexico City and in Medellin, Colombia,. He teaches existential-phenomenological psychology and therapy in Mexico and different countries of South America. He is the current president of the Latin American Association of Existential Psychotherapy (ALPE). He works in private practice as an existential-phenomenological therapist and coach, in modalities one-on-one, couples and groups.

Prof. Ernesto Spinelli was Chair of the Society for Existential Analysis between 1993 and 1999 and is a Life Member of the Society. His writings, lectures and seminars focus on the application of existential phenomenology to the arenas of therapy, supervision, psychology, and executive coaching. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society (BPS) as well as an APECS accredited executive coach and coaching supervisor. In 2000, he was the Recipient of BPS Division of Counselling Psychology Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Profession. And in 2019, Ernesto received the BPS Award for Distinguished Contribution to Practice. His most recent book, Practising Existential Therapy: The Relational World 2nd edition (Sage, 2015) has been widely praised as a major contribution to the advancement of existential theory and practice. Living up to the existential dictum that life is absurd, Ernesto is also the author of an on-going series of Private Eye novels.

Date and Time: Saturday 19 June from 2 pm to 3 pm – (UK time)

Individual Dialogue Fee: £70

Venue: Online Zoom

FULL PROGRAMME 2025:

Read the full programme here >

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