Evidence-Based Therapy
Some struggles are not symptoms to be fixed, but questions worth facing. Existential therapy helps you meet life’s deeper challenges — meaning, freedom, and change — with honesty and courage.
WorkCover, NDIS or TAC approved? YOU PAY NOTHING.
If your claim has been approved, we bill your funder directly. Zero out-of-pocket cost — no gap, no upfront payment, nothing.
Existential therapy is a philosophical, humanistic approach that helps you engage with the fundamental challenges of being human — meaning and purpose, freedom and responsibility, connection and aloneness, and living well in the face of uncertainty and loss. Drawing on the work of clinicians and thinkers such as Viktor Frankl, Irvin Yalom, and Emmy van Deurzen, it takes your deeper questions seriously rather than treating them as symptoms.
Rather than offering ready-made answers, existential therapy provides a thoughtful, honest space to examine how you are living, the choices in front of you, and what genuinely matters to you. It assumes that much anxiety and distress are understandable responses to the real ‘givens’ of life — and that facing them directly can be freeing.
Existential approaches are supported by research: a meta-analysis of existential therapies found they can improve people’s sense of meaning in life and reduce psychological distress. They are especially valued during major life transitions, loss, and times when the usual answers no longer fit.
Existential therapy explores four dimensions that many struggles share: meaning (purpose and value), freedom (choice and responsibility), connection (relationship and aloneness), and mortality (living fully within life’s limits). Facing these honestly can bring real clarity and relief.
Existential therapy is especially helpful when distress is bound up with life’s bigger questions:
Existential therapy is a collaborative, reflective conversation rather than a fixed protocol. Your psychologist helps you to:
Examine your values, priorities, and the questions that are alive for you, without judgement.
Look honestly at the difficulties and choices in front of you, including the ones that feel daunting.
Recognise the choices you do have, and the responsibility and possibility that come with them.
Move toward a way of living that fits your values and feels genuinely your own.
Existential therapy can be brief or longer-term. Because it is led by your questions, your psychologist shapes the depth and pace together with you.
We believe cost should never be a barrier to quality mental health care. There are several ways to fund your sessions at The Talk Shop:
Medicare Mental Health Care Plan — up to 10 rebated sessions per calendar year with a GP referral. Bulk billing may be available.
WorkCover & TAC — no out-of-pocket cost with an approved claim; we bill your funder directly.
NDIS — supported for plan-managed and self-managed participants.
Private Health & self-funded — extras may apply; affordable rates from $50, no referral needed.
Not sure what you are eligible for? Call 1300 224 665 and our team will help you work out your options before your first session.
We offer existential therapy in-person at all four Melbourne clinics and via secure Telehealth Australia-wide:
No. Existential therapy explores meaning, values, and life’s big questions, but it is not tied to any religion or belief system. It respects your own worldview, whether secular, spiritual, or religious.
It is informed by philosophy, but it is a genuine psychological therapy delivered by a registered psychologist. The focus is on your lived experience and wellbeing, not abstract debate.
Yes. Research, including a meta-analysis of existential therapies, has found they can improve a person’s sense of meaning and reduce psychological distress, particularly for people facing life transitions, illness, or loss.
It helps with anxiety, depression, grief, life transitions, loss of meaning, and identity or purpose questions — especially when distress is connected to life’s bigger challenges.
Yes. The reflective conversation at the heart of existential therapy works very well over secure video.
No referral is needed to book. A Mental Health Care Plan from your GP lets you access Medicare rebates for your sessions.
Vos, J., Craig, M., & Cooper, M. (2015). Existential therapies: A meta-analysis of their effects on psychological outcomes. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 83(1), 115–128. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037167
Yalom, I. D. (1980). Existential Psychotherapy. Basic Books.
van Deurzen, E. (2012). Existential Counselling & Psychotherapy in Practice (3rd ed.). Sage.
Our Melbourne psychologists offer thoughtful, meaning-focused existential therapy. Book online or call — no referral needed to start.
