I
Existential philosophy and psychotherapy
Heidegger’s being-toward-death, Frankl’s will to meaning, Yalom’s four ultimate concerns, terror management theory.
Offers CBT: a language and clinical stance for finitude, choice and meaning.
About the conference
Where CBT meets the oldest questions about life and death
A three-day immersive conference in Rishikesh that brings existential philosophy, cognitive neuroscience and Indian wisdom traditions into dialogue with cognitive behavioural therapy, and into clinical practice.
Conference theme
Integrating Existential Philosophy, Cognitive Neuroscience and Indian Wisdom Traditions in Clinical Practice: Toward a Next Wave of CBT
Mortality, meaning and spirituality
CBT works well for defined symptoms, but it has few tools for the questions beneath many presentations: death, meaning, and what makes a life worth living. At a time of war, climate stress, economic insecurity and constant digital noise, more clients arrive carrying exactly these questions.
ICCBI 2027 gives the field a shared starting point for working with mortality, meaning and spirituality, and gives Indian CBT a clear voice in that conversation. The conference is evidence-aware and culturally sensitive: it brings traditions into dialogue with clinical science rather than in place of it.
The integrative idea
Grounding
Clinically, grounding steadies a person in the present. Here it is also an existential stance: a stable relationship with uncertainty and impermanence, built from awareness, acceptance and values-based action.
Sthira (steady) and sukha (at ease), the qualities Patanjali links to a good posture, capture the aim.
Why it matters
Five gaps in clinical practice
- 1
Death anxiety is treated indirectly.
Folded into health anxiety, panic, OCD, depression or grief; few CBT protocols target it directly.
- 2
Existential themes are thin in training.
Finitude, freedom, isolation and responsibility rarely feature in curricula or supervision.
- 3
Spirituality is sidelined or stripped down.
Many clients, especially in India and the Global South, understand distress through spiritual frames, yet clinicians are seldom trained to work with them.
- 4
Cultural fit is limited.
Most CBT models come from Western settings; India’s centuries of inquiry into suffering and the mind remain largely unengaged.
- 5
Neuroscience explains more than it guides.
Findings on fear and regulation rarely shape what a clinician does in session, and almost none address mortality.
Three sources, one conversation
What each tradition brings to CBT
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Cognitive neuroscience
Threat detection and fear circuitry, prefrontal regulation, fear extinction and inhibitory learning, uncertainty and predictive processing.
Offers CBT: mechanisms to explain, test and refine how CBT works on death-related fear.
III
Indian wisdom traditions
Nachiketa and Death in the Katha Upanishad, nishkama karma in the Gita, anitya and maranasati, abhinivesha in the Yoga Sutras, sakshi bhava in Vedanta.
Offers CBT: time-tested practices for facing impermanence, in a frame that resonates with South Asian clients.
Sub-themes
Nine areas for sessions and submissions
Abstracts and sessions are organised around these sub-themes. Choose one when you submit.
01
Death anxiety and mortality salience
Across the lifespan and across disorders, with terror management theory, exposure-based approaches and online CBT for death anxiety.
02
Existential philosophy and meaning in CBT
Meaning, values and flourishing; freedom, isolation and responsibility; meaning-centred approaches.
03
Cognitive neuroscience of threat, uncertainty and meaning-making
Intolerance of uncertainty, inhibitory learning, predictive processing and the brain’s response to mortality cues.
04
Indian wisdom and contemplative practice in CBT
Upanishadic inquiry into death (Nachiketa and Yama), nishkama karma in the Gita, kleshas and abhinivesha in the Yoga Sutras, Vedantic sakshi bhava and Buddhist anitya; mindfulness, breath and yoga, with evidence and cautions.
05
Spirituality, religion and culturally adapted CBT
Spiritual history-taking, working with faith leaders, sacred–secular boundaries, spiritual bypass, and telling spiritual experience from psychosis; equity and Global South delivery.
06
Process-based and transdiagnostic CBT
Mechanisms of change, personalised treatment, and what a next wave of CBT looks like across disorders.
07
Grief, loss and serious illness
Palliative and end-of-life care; psycho-existential distress, meaning-centred work and emerging psychedelic-assisted research.
08
Eco-anxiety, collective trauma and community resilience
Climate grief, conflict and disaster; collective grounding and sustainable, equitable community care.
09
Digital, AI and scalable CBT
AI-delivered CBT: evidence, safety and regulation; digital and task-shared delivery; and existential and uncertainty anxiety about AI.
Audience
Who should attend
- Clinical and counselling psychologists
- Psychiatrists and CBT therapists
- Social workers and nurses
- Palliative and end-of-life professionals
- Researchers and academics
- Trainers and supervisors
- Yoga and contemplative practitioners
- Students and trainees
Key takeaways
What delegates take home
For practice
- A shared clinical framework for death anxiety and existential concerns
- A toolkit of grounding and meaning-focused exercises, with guidance on adapting them across cultures
- Ethical guidance for working with spirituality
For research
- A prioritised research agenda on death anxiety, meaning and spirituality
- Collaborations and pilot study proposals across clinicians, neuroscientists and scholars of Indian traditions
- A post-conference consensus statement
For training
- An outline module on existential and spiritual competence
- Core competencies: existential awareness, spiritual and cultural sensitivity, the therapist’s own relationship to mortality
- Experiential learning, with certificates
Be part of the conversation
12–14 February 2027, Rishikesh.