Existential Psychotherapy With a Person Who Lives With a Left Ventricular Assist Device and Awaits Heart Transplantation.

This is a case report about long-term existential psychotherapy with a person who lived with a ventricular assist device after a fulminant heart attack and who awaited heart transplantation. The therapeutic relationship lasted over 2.5 years with over 120 therapy sessions in total. The frequency of meetings was flexible. Most meetings took place in the therapy office at the hospital, with 50 minutes per session on a weekly basis. In the acute care phase and in a subsequent crisis, this frequency was increased to daily meetings in the inpatient unit. Using heuristic inquiry as a methodological approach, a co-constructed case report was generated, including verbatim transcript from recorded therapy sessions. Core existential-humanistic themes are highlighted and discussed against the background of the underlying theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]