Humanistic and existential psychotherapies use a wide range of approaches but are united by an emphasis on understanding human experience and a focus on the client rather than the symptom. Psychological problems (including substance abuse disorders) are viewed as the result of inhibited ability to make authentic, meaningful, and self-directed choices about how to live.

Within the framework of existential theory, human beings are seen to be motivated primarily to satisfy basic needs and to fulfill certain aspirations. The payoff for such satisfaction and fulfillment is a sense of personal wholeness and well being. The failure to secure basic needs and self-enhancing aspirations leads to a sense of disease and despair, which, in turn, gives rise to both destructive and productive activities.