Neuroexistential Psychology  can be defined as an integrative approach that brings together existential (western and eastern) thought with neuroscience and the overall biological sciences. From a clinical perspective, this integration clarifies how individuals encounter the givens of existence at the level of their embodied mind, illuminating the ways in which the brain both constrains and enables the realization of freedom, meaning, and change. In the context of research, this society aims to engage these fields in dialogue in service of mutual enrichment and growth.

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According to Irvin Yalom, “Existential Psychotherapy is a dynamic approach to therapy which focuses on concerns that are rooted in the individual’s existence” (p.5). From a neuroexistential perspective, neuropsychology does not explain why these existential concerns (i.e. death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness) are built into our condition, nor does it provide their ultimate purpose or meaning. Instead, it illuminates how our brains and bodies register, defend against, or open to these concerns: how mortality is encoded in neural networks, how freedom and responsibility are experienced through executive and regulatory systems, how isolation and meaninglessness shape affect, attention, and motivation. In this way, neuropsychological understanding cannot resolve the “why” of existence, but it can help make the “how” of living within that why more workable, by clarifying mechanisms and offering ways to reduce unnecessary suffering, enhance regulation, and expand flexibility. Neuroexistential psychotherapy thus uses neuroscience to soften the burdens of our embodied “how,” so that individuals can more lucidly and courageously engage their existential “why.”

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Existential vs existentialism

“Existential” refers to human existence as it is lived in its raw, situated, finite, and embodied condition: we find ourselves “thrown” into a particular time, culture, and world not of our own choosing, aware of life, death, suffering, and possibility. It highlights the basic structures of existence (e.g. temporality, embodiment, relationality, vulnerability, and the ongoing project of becoming who one is). Existential therapy identifies working with such "givens" of existence as a fundamental dimension to well-being.

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“Existentialism,” by contrast, is a specific philosophical movement that emerged in the 19th and 20th centuries (e.g., Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty). It is marked by themes of authenticity, freedom, responsibility, and the absence of pre-given essences or ultimate guarantees. Existential psychotherapy draws on this movement but is not reducible to it; it uses these philosophical insights to orient clinical work with concrete individuals facing anxiety, despair, and questions of meaning.

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By identifying convergences, we hope to update older systems that may be antiquated, and even develop new frameworks which are coherent at both existential and biological levels.

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A neuroexistential therapy can be articulated as follows:​ an approach in which therapist and client explore freedom, finitude, and meaning within the context of an embodied nervous system, recognizing that every shift in stance toward existence is grounded in and constrained by neural, bodily, and evolutionary processes.