Paulo Ribeiro lost his sight after a near-death experience and discovered a new way of seeing. On embodiment, alchemy, and presence.

What happens when a therapist can't see their client?

Paulo Ribeiro is an existential psychotherapist and senior clinical supervisor at Headstrong Counselling in London. He holds a BA in Social Communication, an MA in Integrative Psychotherapy, and is completing an Advanced Diploma in Existential Psychotherapy. Before entering therapy, Paulo worked in journalism and PR across Brazil and the UK.

More than ten years ago, Paulo experienced Stevens-Johnson syndrome — a severe allergic reaction that nearly killed him, destroyed his skin from the inside out, and ultimately took his sight. After two years housebound and 39 eye operations, he made a radical decision: stop chasing what was lost and start building what was possible.

In this episode, Paulo shares how blindness reshaped his understanding of presence, embodiment, and what really happens between two people in a therapy room.

We explore:

— How a near-death experience led to a new life in psychotherapy

— What "seeing" means when sight is gone — and what sighted therapists might be missing

— Merleau-Ponty's idea that "we are vehicles, not machines" and what that means in practice

— Therapy as alchemy: why the most powerful moments are the ones you can't predict or explain

— Wittgenstein, language games, and what it's like to do therapy across two languages

— The existential lens at Headstrong — working with complex presentations without totalizing the other

— Advice for trainees: "Go prepared to suffer. Go prepared to cry. Go prepared to laugh."

Chapters:

00:00 Navigating the Journey of Therapy

11:01 The Transformative Power of Training

22:29 Embodied Presence in Therapy

36:36 The Role of Language in Therapy

37:55 The Fluidity of Language and Meaning

42:41 The Art of Togetherness in Therapy

46:24 Existential Perspectives in Psychotherapy

51:36 The Role of Philosophy in Therapy Training

55:22 Navigating Emotional Labor in Therapy

01:00:04 The Journey of Becoming a Therapist

Referenced in this episode:

— Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception

— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

— Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity

— Del Loewenthal, Existential Psychotherapy and Counselling after Postmodernism

— R.D. Laing on indescribable therapeutic moments

— Martin Buber on togetherness

— Headstrong Counselling, London (headstrongcounselling.co.uk)

About the host

I’m Max Karlin, a psychologist, counsellor, and UKCP trainee existential therapist at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling, London. On this channel I share existential therapy insights, interviews, and reflections to explore how psychotherapy can help us live more authentically and meaningfully.

Connect with me linktr.ee/maxkarlin

Becoming Existential is a podcast about the journey of becoming a therapist and what that process reveals about the human condition. Hosted by Max Karlin, a trainee existential therapist at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling in London.

Other episodes

https://podfollow.com/becoming-existential/view

In this conversation with Paola Pomponi, we explore what existential therapy really means — not just as a theory, but as a way of being with others.

We talk about therapist training, authenticity, absurdity, everyday existential encounters, and why humor may be one of the deepest forms of connection.

Paola reflects on what first drew her into existential therapy, including the impact of reading Irvin Yalom and the call she felt to change direction and train in the field. From there, the conversation moves into the core of existential practice: what it means not simply to think about life, but to encounter it directly and relationally.

Together, they explore existential therapy as something embodied before it is intellectual; something lived before it is explained. Paola describes therapy not as a technical act of fixing, but as one human being sitting beside another, “breathing the same air,” discovering what it means to be with someone rather than act upon them.

The dialogue then opens onto wider questions: is existential therapy only for a small, intellectual niche, or can it become part of everyday life? Paola argues for the latter, suggesting that existential dialogue can happen anywhere — with a coffee maker, a postman, a child, a stranger — if we meet others with curiosity and depth.

They also talk about how existential training changes the therapist, the courage required to enter that process, the absurdity of life, and the little freedom we still have in choosing how to respond. The episode closes with one of Paola’s most memorable themes: humor, not as avoidance, but as another way of meeting reality and deepening connection.

This is an episode for therapists, trainees, students, and anyone asking deeper questions about how to live, how to relate, and what to do with the life they have.

About Paola Pomponi

UKCP-accredited Existential Psychotherapist

Certified EMDR Practitioner

Existential Coach (EMCC Practitioner Level)

Chair of the Society for Existential Analysis (SEA)

Practices in London and Rome, bilingually (English/Italian)

Author of Bach in the Park - a story about living, loving and dying, temporality, rationality and emotionality.

Available on Audible and Amazon

https://amzn.eu/d/j9dFBSK

Connect with Paola

https://ppomponi.com

https://www.instagram.com/paola_pomponi_ukit/?hl=en

About the host

I’m Max Karlin, a psychologist, counsellor, and UKCP trainee existential therapist at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling, London. On this channel I share existential therapy insights, interviews, and reflections to explore how psychotherapy can help us live more authentically and meaningfully.

Connect with me linktr.ee/maxkarlin

chapters:

00:50 Meet Paola

03:00 From Business to Therapy

05:25 Yalom’s Influence

10:20 Training and Being With the Client

15:00 Practising Existential therapy

18:00 Children, Curiosity, and Meaning

20:00 How Therapy Changes the Therapist

22:00 Advice for Trainees

27:00 Existential Therapy Beyond the Room

28:00 Is Existential Therapy for Everyone?

34:00 The Power of Humor

36:40 Final Reflections & Closing Thoughts

Professor Ernesto Spinelli - one of the founders of the existential psychotherapy in the UK, author of foundational texts including The Interpreted World and Practising Existential Therapy, and one of the most influential voices in the field globally.

WE DISCUSS:

[02:00] "An old man with a young mind" — Ernesto on aging and unfinished projects

[05:00] How he "fell into" existential therapy

[08:00] Reading Husserl for the first time: "What is this?"

[10:00] The birth of existential therapy in the UK

[14:00] Curiosity as the heart of good therapy

[16:00] "Psychotherapy is seen as treatment rather than engagement — that's been a terrible error"

[18:00] Explanatory vs. understanding-focused psychology

[25:00] "We have honest conversations" — Ernesto's simplified approach

[28:00] What your symptoms might be giving you

[29:00] The question that changes everything: "Would you miss it?"

[34:00] AI therapy: why people find it empathic

[37:00] "Like a super person-centered therapist"

[38:00] "I find that terrifying" — but also revealing

[40:00] Sartre on conflict and the possibility of constructive engagement

[45:00] The "dictatorship of I" and why relatedness matters

[50:00] Advice for therapists-in-training: "Stay with what drew you here"

[52:00] "It's like a poem that finally says what you always felt"

[54:00] Writing novels, cinema, and the road not taken

KEY QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:

"If you're not genuinely curious about your client, you won't be a good therapist."

"Psychotherapy is seen as a form of treatment rather than a form of engagement and relation. That's been a terrible error."

"What mostly happens in my engagements with my clients is that we have honest conversations."

"Is your problem giving you anything worthwhile? And if you were to lose it — would you miss it?"

"People are turning to AI therapy because they're getting something from it that they're not getting from day-to-day human relations."

"The world is increasingly dominated by a kind of dictatorship of I."

GUEST:

Ernesto Spinelli, PhD is an existential psychotherapist, psychologist, a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, former Chair of the Society for Existential Analysis, and author whose work has consistently challenged psychotherapy’s reliance on diagnosis, technique, and cure. A former Academic Dean at Regent’s University London, he is known for advancing existential-phenomenological psychotherapy through his emphasis on relatedness, uncertainty, and therapy as an act of understanding rather than intervention.

ABOUT THE HOST:

I'm Max — a psychologist, counsellor, and trainee existential therapist at the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling (NSPC) / Middlesex University in London.

After 25 years in business, I'm now exploring what it means to become a therapist — and what that journey reveals about being human.

This podcast documents that unfolding.

📚 Books:

The Interpreted World: An Introduction to Phenomenological Psychology

https://a.co/d/eMQmy3y

Practising Existential Psychotherapy: The Relational World

https://a.co/d/hljWmsb

Tales of Un-Knowing: Therapeutic Encounters from an Existential Perspective

https://a.co/d/43q1StD

The Mirror and the Hammer: Challenging Orthodoxies in Psychotherapeutic Thought

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014FVQY72?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_3F1YW0TCAYD8NP57XDYF

🔗 Links:

Ernesto Spinelli & Associates

http://www.plexworld.com

Society for Existential Analysis:

https://existentialanalysis.org.uk

CONNECT:

🎥 Watch the full video interview on YouTube: https://youtu.be/4u39LZ_M3Uk

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maxkarlintherapy/

🌐 Website: maxkarlin.com

📧 Contact: https://linktr.ee/maxkarlin

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