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- Title
Six Traits Providing a Family Resemblance between Existential Psychotherapy and Philosophical Practice.
- Authors
PASTORINO, MATTEO
- Abstract
This paper analyses the disciplines of philosophical practice and existential psychotherapy focusing on their similaritie. Both disciplines are characterized by the important role they ascribe to philosophical notions and methods. For example, some of the practitioners understand their work to be about a philosophical exploration of the topics raised by the client. These topics, depending on the different perspectives, may or may not be strictly related with the client’s personal issues. Another traits shared by the two disciplines is the wide range of methodologies they employ. In fact, every philosophical practitioner or existential psychotherapist have developed a particular approach, even though there are a number of basic assumptions shared by the totality of the practitioners. The major differences between philosophical practice and existential psychotherapy stem from the demarcation of their respective fields. On one hand, there are a few philosophical practitioners considering their activity a form of counselling and open to label their discipline philosophical counselling. Others, instead, prefer to stress their link with academic philosophy, rejecting any view that takes philosophical practice to be a form of therapy. Among existential psychotherapists there is a similar division, with a group accepting the idea of discussing philosophical topics and assuming a philosophical perspective (one questioning the client’s system of belief rather than applying the traditional framework following the scheme symptoms-identification, diagnosis, cure) as part of their discipline, while other therapists prefer to keep any intellectual discussion away from the therapeutic sessions. Some of them, however, endorse a philosophical preparation for therapists in order to improve their understanding of their discipline. This paper focuses on the traits of the disciplines that determine the resemblance between philosophical practice and existential psychotherapy. These traits are the anti-psychiatric tendencies, the notion of the practitioner’s authenticity, the cooperative character of the relationship between practitioner and client, the priority given to a flexible approach over a structured one, a tragic understanding of the idea of life and a shared intellectual background, namely a humanistic conception of the practice.
- Subjects
PSYCHOTHERAPY; PSYCHOTHERAPISTS; CLINICAL drug trials; PSYCHOANALYSIS; HUMAN beings; SELF-analysis (Psychoanalysis)
- Publication
Philosophical Practice: Journal of the American Philosophical Practitioners Association (American Philosophical Practitioners Association), 2019, Vol 14, Issue 3, p2372
- ISSN
1742-8173
- Publication type
Article