Understanding Philosophical Counseling

International Journal of Philosophical Practice, 2004

Philosophical practice or counseling has been described as a cluster of methods for treating everyday problems and predicaments through philosophical means. Notwithstanding the variety of methods, philosophical counselors seem to share the following tenets: 1. The counselee is autonomous; 2. Philosophical counseling differs from psychological counseling and 3. Philosophical counseling is effective in solving predicaments. A critical examination shows these to be problematic at both theoretical and practical levels. As I believe that philosophical practice is a valuable contribution both to philosophy and to psychology, though not devoid of potential dangers and misuses, I suggest that philosophical counselors reconsider the theoretical and empirical validity of their tenets. Using my experience as a philosophical counselor, I attempt in this paper to contribute to this task while introducing the reader to what are, in my opinion, the main problems in the field.

Certified that the dissertation entitled "AN INQUIRY CONCERNING THE NATURE OF PHILOSOPHICAL COUNSELING" is a record of bonafide research done by Abhishek Shukla under my guidance and supervision and that it has not previously formed the basis for the award of any degree, diploma, associateship, or fellowship. He is permitted to submit the dissertation.

Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 2005

Interdisciplinary Research in Counseling, Ethics and Philosophy - IRCEP

Nowadays we can find a wide plethora of philosophical practices ranging from the classic philosophical counselling to educational programs for children or even prevention and rehabilitation programs. How should a client know what is suited for him? What is the philosophical practitioner promising to their clients? Is it wisdom and truth as some would associate with philosophy? Is it healing and therapy? This paper tries to shed some light over the field of philosophical practices. I present the emergence of philosophical counselling, it’s historical evolution and the situation nowadays. I talk about the worldview concept and about its importance in the healing paradigm. I will analyze different critiques brought to fields of philosophical and psychological counselling and common aspects that concern both fields, trying to find both similarities and differences that would help me conclude on what is the relationship between psychotherapy and philosophical counselling and how can each...

The model to understand human problems has been outlined by Pierre Grimes in his Philosophical Midwifery: a new paradigm for understanding human problems, and that study presupposes the study of the Self. This article argues a return to the Homeric-Platonic thought and dialectic as a basis for counseling.

International journal of philosophical practice, 2003

When philosophers cultivate a professional interest in philosophical practice as a form of counseling therapy, the implicit bias of their practice is likely to emulate the “helping profession” model of client engagement. The effort seems noble enough, but emulating the model of the helping professions might actually be incommensurate with the philos­pher’s calling. The philosophical temperament emulates a less constraining but more aggressive model of intervention than we find operating in the professional domain of therapeutic counseling practices. While the philosophical temperament resolves to question and analyze its subject-matter without the encumbrances of social constraint or the promise of utility, it employs methods of philosophical questioning and analysis decidedly more agonistic than can be motivated under the auspices of the “helping profession” model of therapeutic intervention. The philosophical temperament is a challenging temperament, a probing, testing, exploring, engaging temperament whose only vested commitment is to further inquiry. After setting up this distinction between philosophical practice and the helping professions I pose some thoughts regarding the philosophical encounter within a counseling situation, with emphasis on the challenge of translating back and forth between the client’s subject matter and the philosopher’s frame of reference. In the course of negoti­ating these challenges, the philosophical temperament encounters two divergent paths we must learn to travel with equal facility: we must make room for beneficial critique in philosophical counseling while motivating effective critical perspective within the client’s own world-view. The challenge is to see such a philosophical encounter as a place of translation, in which the counselor’s philosophical temperament is exposed to the alterity of the client’s domain of experience without losing its critical facility. In this way, the philosophical encounter is exercised in a movement between worlds, as an interweaving dance of translation and innovation characteristic of a “place” of mutual engagement. The resulting tension in these dialogical encounters is a direct consequence of the philosophical intervention in a client’s personal life. The philosopher’s challenge is to negotiate carefully between two domains of translation (between the cognitive-emotive domain of lived-experience and the philosophical domain of conceptual thinking, reflective inquiry and critical analysis), and to establish connections between these domains to facilitate philosophical encounters in a space of shared listening.

Felsefix International Journal of Philosophical Counseling and Ethics, 2024

Philosophical counseling grapples with fundamental questions about its nature, methodology and goals. Recognizing the limitations of philosophical counseling and establishing appropriate boundaries with other forms of therapy is essential for ethical and responsible practice. To determine these boundaries, it is first necessary to determine the province of philosophical counseling and establish what qualifies as its “subject matter”. Philosophical counseling effectively begins by precisely identifying the "problem" at hand, which necessitates discerning whether the client's concerns fall within the purview of philosophical exploration. Once the specific problem is identified, the counsellor and client collaboratively establish the goals of their engagement, whether it's cultivating self-awareness, therapy or consolations. After the subject matter and the desired outcomes are determined, they explore and select appropriate methodologies—such as Socratic questioning or reflective exercises—to effectively address the identified concerns and work towards achieving the established goals. To address these fundamental questions, we have to delve into metaphilosophy because we can’t determine the boundary or province of philosophical counseling unless we have clearly determined the boundary or province of philosophy. Similarly, identification of what counts as a problem for philosophical counseling is contingent on the identification of philosophical problems because philosophical problems constitute the subject matter of philosophy as well as philosophical counseling. Furthermore, the methodology of philosophical counseling should be a philosophical method like Socratic questioning, Platonic dialectics etc. or it may be a “beyond method” approach, reflecting the unique way philosophy operates on methods rather than with them. Finally, the goal of philosophical counseling may be therapeutic or non-therapeutic such as conceptual clarity, self-awareness etc. depending on the goal of philosophizing. For example, according to Daya Krishna’s metaphilosophy, philosophy is a self-reflective cognitive activity, and philosophical problems arise when there is “confusion”, “doubt”, “incompatibility” or “incompleteness”, in the self-reflective awareness of concept formation. Thus, philosophy as well as philosophical counseling have a definite starting point. Furthermore, philosophy aims at clarity—philosophy lives in the clarification of its doubts and clarification is the death of philosophy. Philosophy is an occasional activity that begins with philosophical problems and ends when the problem is solved or resolved, indicating that philosophical counseling sessions, too, cannot be endless. Philosophical methods can neither be purely logical nor empirical because philosophical problems exist in the space between empirical problems and logico-mathematical problems; neither can be solved through empirical methods nor logical-mathematical deduction. These philosophical problems are independent of “really real” or the factual world; they are primarily concerned with arguments with factual issues playing a subsidiary role. Anyone who claims to know the “really real” is a mystic rather than a philosopher. A philosopher’s concern is the concept of God rather than God as a reality. Hence, these distinctions determine the boundary or province of both philosophy and philosophical counseling. Thus, we can see how metaphilosophy can respond to the fundamental questions about nature, methodology, goals and limitations of philosophical counseling by providing clarity and a solid philosophical foundation.

This article aims to criticize Philosophical Counseling, and to explore what changes could be made to solve its main problems. The area of Philosophical Counseling is a practice that involves empirical claims, and those claims should be explored through empirical methods. We'll summarize the criticisms in 7 categories: (1)

Practical Philosophy, 2001

The use of philosophy for counseling, directing, and enriching everyday life can already be found at the very beginning of western philosophy, in the 6th century B.C. in ancient Greece. The philosophies of the Pythagoreans, the Stoics, the Cynics, as well as other ancient schools, and in later periods-various religious philosophies, philosophies of the Renaissance, Romanticism, Communism and Socialism, Existentialism, Feminism, and many others, were used to help individuals to understand themselves, live their lives more fully, and deal with their personal problems. However, philosophical counseling as a specific discipline is a relatively young field. It was born in 1981 in Germany, and from there spread to other countries, such as Philosophical counseling Ran Lahav

South African Journal of Philosophy, 2018

As sympathetic outsiders trying to understand and explain the field of philosophical counselling to other (perhaps not so sympathetic) outsiders, we find ourselves repeatedly asking and being asked two questions: "What is philosophical counselling?" and "What is its relationship to psychological counselling?" In seeking to develop satisfactory answers to these questions, we present a taxonomy of philosophical counselling. This fourfold taxonomy was developed by classifying the work of a range of recognised philosophical counsellors in terms of their declared ends. This taxonomy makes sense of the diversity of the field, while also recognising the underlying coherence. Moreover, the categories of the taxonomy align with existing forms of psychological counselling practice, and in this way the taxonomy enables us to pinpoint the relationship between psychological and philosophical counselling. We end with some consideration of what philosophical counsellors can learn from their colleagues in psychology, especially in relation to the role of empathy and the importance of empirical testing.