Victoria Nevedrova
Dec 10, 2025


Life-changing existential (or even integrative) therapy is always an antinomy of pain and joy.
But this joy is rarely the one a person imagines when they first articulate a request.
First, they can’t quite name the joy they long for. They simply have no lived experience of it.. only kind of implicit intuitions or hopes..
Second, this joy always sprouts from pain and despair. A person comes because they haven’t been able to find an answer to their question anywhere else. And emotionally, that is a deeply uncomfortable place to inhabit - often for a long, exhausting time.
And so, gradually, through the thicket of carefully examined self-deception, we begin the journey toward joy.
Joy is the foundation.
Yet the stones that form (and transform like in every antinomy) this foundation are pain, humility, and many other difficult experiences. There is the disappointment in the previous image of oneself — or, conversely, the acceptance that one does not live up to the image that had “stuck” for many years.
But none of these feelings negate joy. They enrich the person with more life.
Many clients describe this in their own way - sincerely, honestly, and with a depth meant only for themselves.
Discovering this life-creating depth of inner relationship Self-Self is never super easy, super comfortable, or super fast.
But I haven't heard anyone ever regretted what they found.
#existential_psychotherapy