Philosophical counseling (pc) is a branch of philosophy which emerged in early 1980s in Europe as an independent discipline. Some philosophical counselors maintain that "many philosophic schools of antiquity" did not regard philosophy as "merely teaching abstract theory, or the exegesis of texts", but rather "the art of living". They mean by that, pc has a long history as philosophy itself. As is widely known, the Socratic idea of "dia+logos" had the purpose of curing human soul. Gerd Achenbach, who launched the contemporary pc, expressed the central element of it with the term "interaction". According to him, interaction between people constitutes the core of pc.
Anything goes? - Identity problem
It looks like that asking the identity of pc is still a legitimate question. Above all, there is no unified opinion about its method. Some say, there must be a definite method for pc while others argue that there is no need to have a clearly articulated one. Indeed, there are many models in pc and these models have different views about the theory, characteristics and even the purpose of pc.
Susan Robbins, for instance, adopted L. Wittgensteins point of view about philosophy: the use of studying philosophy is not limited to logical thinking, it improves thinking about the important questions of everyday life. The practice of pc is, so to speak, nothing other than to do precisely what a genuine philosophy has done throughout its history.
Peter Koestenbaum attempts to integrate philosophy and psychotherapy in pc. He argues that lots of "patients treated today with conventional therapy or medicine are in truth people who suffer from philosophical conditions, rather than psychological disease". He goes on, if therapists "go one level deeper that psychological approaches permit, we discover a foundation, a home and answers at the core of every human being. This is where philosophic therapy must reach".
Most philosophical practitioners are agreed with the argument that they can help people while they attempt to understand "the nature of client's problem, and to clarify what is at stake". They believe, they can help their clients through the "clarification of life-ordering values and conceptual orientations". But most of them do not believe that the relation between counsellor and client should be the therapeutic one as is the case with psychological counselling or psychotherapy. It is just "interaction" between people. Interaction for the purpose of clarification of problem and for the progress of philosophical insight.
Ex) the case "Eun-Joo Lee":
Her real problem was not (at least in its core) a psychological or a psychopathological one. If we can rely on the media report, she has been suffered by her existential situation for a long time. She had to make money, but she could not adjust herself to her job because of her conservative character. Can we say that it was just a case of depression? Definitely not.
Achenbach, Gerd B., Philosophische Praxis, Verlag für Philosophie Jürgen Dinter, Köln, 1987.
Adler, M. The Conditions of Philosophy: Its Checkered Past, Its Presents Disorder, and Its Future Promise, New York: Atheneum, 1965.
Beck, Aaron T.: Cognitive Therapy, Penguinbook, New York 1979.
Botton, A., The Consolation of Philosophy, New York: Pantheon, 2000.
Cohen, Elliot.,What would Aristotle do?: Self-control through the Power of Reason.
Faiver, Christopher et al., Explorations in Counseling and Spirituality: Philosophical, Practical and Personal Reflections, New York: Wadsworth, 2000.
Hadot, P., Philosophy as a Way of Life, London: Blackwell, 1995.
Howard, A., Philosophy for Counseling and Psychotherapy: Pythagoras to Postmodernism, London: MacMillan, 2000.
Koestenbaum, Peter., The New Image of the Person: The Theory and Practice of Clinical Philosophy, Westport: Greenwood Press, 1978.
Lahav, R. and Tillmanns, M., (ed.), Essays on Philosophical Counseling, Lanham: University Press of America, 1995.
Lipman, M., Sharp, A., and Oscanyan, E., Philosophy in the Classroom, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986.
Marinoff, L. Philosophical Practice, San Diego: Academic Press, 2002.
_________, The Therapy for the Sane.
Morton, Adam, Philosophy in Practice: An Introduction to the Main Questions, Melden: Blackwell, 2004.
Nelson, L., Socratic Method and Critical Philosophy, trans. by Brown III, T., New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1949.
Nussbaum, M., The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.
Raabe, P., Philosophical Counseling: Theory and Practice, Westport: Praeger, 2000.
_________, Issues in Philosophical Counseling, Westport: Praeger, 2002.
Sharkey, P., (ed.), Philosophy, Religion and Psychotherapy: Essays in the Philosophical Foundations of Psychotherapy, Washington D.C.: University Press of America.
Schuster, S., Philosophy Practice: An Alternative to Counseling and Psychotherapy, Westport: Praeger, 1999.