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In Parts 4 and 5 of this series, I presented several different therapeutic approaches to psychiatric signs, symptoms, and suffering. Here, in Part 6, I briefly discuss and summarize my own approach to addressing these signs and symptoms as it has evolved over the past five decades of clinical practice. (See also Diamond, 1996; 2016; 2022; 2025; and 2027.)

Existential Depth Psychology (EDP) and the Daimonic

In existential depth psychology (EDP), a synthesis of existential analysis and the depth psychology of Freud, Jung, Adler, Rank, May and many others, signs and symptoms are fundamentally considered to be related to what Rollo May (1969) called the daimonic, which he partially defined as "any natural function which has the power to take over the whole person," citing as specific examples "sex and eros, anger and rage, and the craving for power." "The daimonic," writes May (1969), "can be either creative or destructive and is normally both. [It] is obviously not an entity but refers to a fundamental, archetypal function of human experience—an existential reality."

May's controversial but clinically useful concept of the daimonic is, it seems to me, much needed in today's psychotherapy. In this existential and psychodynamic paradigm, psychiatric symptoms are commonly caused by the chronic repression, dissociation, or denial of the daimonic, which is considered to be the primal life force and essential source of energy, vitality, and creativity. However, when habitually repressed, the daimonic can take temporary possession of the personality in........

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