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Inasmuch as the ontological layer is made up of elements that are common to all humankind, the ontic layer reflects our individualised and cultural responses to the universal ‘givens’.

Hans Cohn succinctly describes the distinction between ontological and ontic thus:

an ontological enquiry explores those aspects of Being which are ‘given’ and inescapable … But each of us responds differently to these ‘givens’ of Being and creates his or her specific world within the all‐encompassing world of Being. An exploration of the specific way in which each of us is in the world is called ‘ontic’.

(Cohn, 1997, p. 13)

The inner segments of the wheel that circle the central core are known as our ontic responses and give flavour and depth to our personal being‐in‐the‐world. They both reveal our personal relationship to each of the ontological givens and represent the various different processes used during therapy. Each of these segments indicates both the descriptive ‘how’ of working within the phenomenological process and the ‘what’ of the existential theme under inquiry.

Each of the individual segments within this central part of the wheel illustrates the principal themes that indicate our lived experience, our individual responses to the immutable, ontological givens described above. The segments are both separate and flow into each other, framing the exploration that occurs with clients. As with all themes, they can be explored individually but are not seen in isolation as everything is connected to the whole of an individual’s experience.