Philosophical counseling
March 21, 2004 12:25 PM Subscribe
The Socratic Shrink. This is an interesting article on philosophical counseling, and the rivalry between Lou Marinoff's American Philosophical Practitioners Association and the
American Society for Philosophy Counseling and Psychotherapy.
Thanks for this. I had heard of this trend a while back and its good to get an update.
Special thanks for allowing me to discover Philosophy Talk which is a great radio show, like Car Talk, but about philosophy.
posted by vacapinta at 1:55 PM on March 21, 2004
Special thanks for allowing me to discover Philosophy Talk which is a great radio show, like Car Talk, but about philosophy.
posted by vacapinta at 1:55 PM on March 21, 2004
Being against psychology as it stands (this book sums it up for me), one of my complaints is that therapists don't very often rationally challenege their patients.
If someone who is in a temporary snag (debt, divorce, etc.) explains their suicidal feelings, I get the sense it will rarely be met with "But, you do realize that that is an unacceptable choice rationally." As far as psychology is concerned, "emotions are real too." Basically, clients are told that no feelings are "bad" in any way, which includes explaining to them that their thoughts are not based on reason.
In the aforementioned case, If a psychologist asks, "why do you think your circumstances will last forever, or you will feel sad forever?" and there's no rational response, just a gut feeling, and the patent can't articulate it, that's progress. Better than just dodginf the issue. When the patient realizes their feelings are irrational (assuming they are), or at least realizes they're not able to even explain how they're reasonable, then they're less likey to cling to them. But due to the touchy-feely psychological establishment,such tactics would be considered negative and brutish, in even the mildest delivery.
Anyway, this Philosophy therapy stuff sounds good in that it's the sort of "logic therapy" that I fantasize about, though perhaps a bit more etheric and soul-searching.
posted by abcde at 1:59 PM on March 21, 2004
If someone who is in a temporary snag (debt, divorce, etc.) explains their suicidal feelings, I get the sense it will rarely be met with "But, you do realize that that is an unacceptable choice rationally." As far as psychology is concerned, "emotions are real too." Basically, clients are told that no feelings are "bad" in any way, which includes explaining to them that their thoughts are not based on reason.
In the aforementioned case, If a psychologist asks, "why do you think your circumstances will last forever, or you will feel sad forever?" and there's no rational response, just a gut feeling, and the patent can't articulate it, that's progress. Better than just dodginf the issue. When the patient realizes their feelings are irrational (assuming they are), or at least realizes they're not able to even explain how they're reasonable, then they're less likey to cling to them. But due to the touchy-feely psychological establishment,such tactics would be considered negative and brutish, in even the mildest delivery.
Anyway, this Philosophy therapy stuff sounds good in that it's the sort of "logic therapy" that I fantasize about, though perhaps a bit more etheric and soul-searching.
posted by abcde at 1:59 PM on March 21, 2004
one of my complaints is that therapists don't very often rationally challenge their patients....If someone who is in a temporary snag (debt, divorce, etc.) explains their suicidal feelings, I get the sense it will rarely be met with "But, you do realize that that is an unacceptable choice rationally." As far as psychology is concerned, "emotions are real too." Basically, clients are told that no feelings are "bad" in any way, which includes explaining to them that their thoughts are not based on reason.
This is a straw man. There are, in fact, psychologists who understand their work almost purely in terms of challenging the irrational thoughts and assumptions of the people they work with. This approach emerged in its purest form all the way back in 1955 when Albert Ellis started developing what he called Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, which arguably served as a foundation for the other cognitive-behavioral approaches that have become so prolific today. All of these approaches concern themselves with challenging irrational thoughts, and I'd bet that Ellis' approach is precisely the "logic therapy" you say you fantasize about.
You're making an argument that was novel back in the 1940s. Nowadays anyone who has had anything beyond Psych 100 has probably written a term paper on the role of irrational thought in mental distress.
In the aforementioned case, If a psychologist asks, "why do you think your circumstances will last forever, or you will feel sad forever?" and there's no rational response, just a gut feeling, and the patent can't articulate it, that's progress. Better than just dodging the issue....But due to the touchy-feely psychological establishment,such tactics would be considered negative and brutish, in even the mildest delivery.
As someone who was trained by that touchy-feely establishment, and who worked on a suicide hotline for 2 years, I can tell you that encouraging the kind of rational perspective you're describing is widely viewed as absolutely central to crisis intervention work. By everyone I trained under and worked with, anyway. Your impression of psychology seems to be that it began and ended with Carl Rogers.
Now I will certainly join in with those who criticize the way psychology is practiced, because a lot of pre- and pseduo-scientific assumptions and practices and a scary amount of pop psychology still pervade the discipline, but I think your critique throws the baby out with the bath water. The real problem is that we have people practicing voodoo along with people who are practicing techniques that have been demonstrated to be effective for particular problems, and without knowing what questions to ask you can't know what you're getting yourself into when you approach someone for help. (And that's only the beginning of the rant I could dump on you -- suffice it to say for now that there are good reasons why I got out of the field, despite still having hope that it will continue to evolve in a good direction.)
posted by boredomjockey at 3:14 PM on March 21, 2004
This is a straw man. There are, in fact, psychologists who understand their work almost purely in terms of challenging the irrational thoughts and assumptions of the people they work with. This approach emerged in its purest form all the way back in 1955 when Albert Ellis started developing what he called Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, which arguably served as a foundation for the other cognitive-behavioral approaches that have become so prolific today. All of these approaches concern themselves with challenging irrational thoughts, and I'd bet that Ellis' approach is precisely the "logic therapy" you say you fantasize about.
You're making an argument that was novel back in the 1940s. Nowadays anyone who has had anything beyond Psych 100 has probably written a term paper on the role of irrational thought in mental distress.
In the aforementioned case, If a psychologist asks, "why do you think your circumstances will last forever, or you will feel sad forever?" and there's no rational response, just a gut feeling, and the patent can't articulate it, that's progress. Better than just dodging the issue....But due to the touchy-feely psychological establishment,such tactics would be considered negative and brutish, in even the mildest delivery.
As someone who was trained by that touchy-feely establishment, and who worked on a suicide hotline for 2 years, I can tell you that encouraging the kind of rational perspective you're describing is widely viewed as absolutely central to crisis intervention work. By everyone I trained under and worked with, anyway. Your impression of psychology seems to be that it began and ended with Carl Rogers.
Now I will certainly join in with those who criticize the way psychology is practiced, because a lot of pre- and pseduo-scientific assumptions and practices and a scary amount of pop psychology still pervade the discipline, but I think your critique throws the baby out with the bath water. The real problem is that we have people practicing voodoo along with people who are practicing techniques that have been demonstrated to be effective for particular problems, and without knowing what questions to ask you can't know what you're getting yourself into when you approach someone for help. (And that's only the beginning of the rant I could dump on you -- suffice it to say for now that there are good reasons why I got out of the field, despite still having hope that it will continue to evolve in a good direction.)
posted by boredomjockey at 3:14 PM on March 21, 2004
Your refutation is less biting when I clarify that I didn't think it was a new idea, or one that hasn't been practiced. It would be pretty pathetic if no one had thought of such an idea.
I was using more dramatic examples to explain it, but the lack of reason I described is more common in everday counselling for mildly afflicted people (the "disgruntled housewife" phenomenon that has caused so great a growth in therapy).
posted by abcde at 4:29 PM on March 21, 2004
I was using more dramatic examples to explain it, but the lack of reason I described is more common in everday counselling for mildly afflicted people (the "disgruntled housewife" phenomenon that has caused so great a growth in therapy).
posted by abcde at 4:29 PM on March 21, 2004
Today's Demographic: disgruntled housewife.
Interesting stuff. I have to at least give Marinoff credit for getting press - publicizing the idea.
posted by rainbaby at 5:06 PM on March 21, 2004
Interesting stuff. I have to at least give Marinoff credit for getting press - publicizing the idea.
posted by rainbaby at 5:06 PM on March 21, 2004
Marinoff sounds to me like a stuffed shirt, more interested in his organization and his power/fame than in what he is supposedly promoting.
This philosophical counseling concept opens deep metaphysical questions. No, wait, I mean it seems like the sort of things I've always discussed with friends and even strangers. People are willing/needing to pay for this?
It always kills me when I discover people getting money and fame for things I've always taken for granted. I guess you can sell air, if the marketing is right.
posted by Goofyy at 12:31 AM on March 22, 2004
This philosophical counseling concept opens deep metaphysical questions. No, wait, I mean it seems like the sort of things I've always discussed with friends and even strangers. People are willing/needing to pay for this?
It always kills me when I discover people getting money and fame for things I've always taken for granted. I guess you can sell air, if the marketing is right.
posted by Goofyy at 12:31 AM on March 22, 2004
More bullshit from the 'profession' that knows bullshit like nobody's business.
The thing is, if you approach rationalism as a tool for convincing your patients of what you already believe to be correct, rather than as, you know, a means of ascertaining truth, well, you're kind of missing the effing point then, aren't you? "Suicide is Bad, you want to kill yourself, therefore you are irrational." None of this comes anywhere near addressing the root problems with the profession: that most of its practitioners are idiots whom I wouldn't trust to flip burgers at McDonald's, that it feels a ridiculous need to enforce a newspeak-ish positive perspective on everything up to and including Rwandan genocide. Sometimes black crushing despair is the only rational response, and no amount of ham-handed sophistry from the mouth of some two-bit shrink who couldn't hack it in a real profession is going to change that.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 5:36 AM on March 22, 2004
The thing is, if you approach rationalism as a tool for convincing your patients of what you already believe to be correct, rather than as, you know, a means of ascertaining truth, well, you're kind of missing the effing point then, aren't you? "Suicide is Bad, you want to kill yourself, therefore you are irrational." None of this comes anywhere near addressing the root problems with the profession: that most of its practitioners are idiots whom I wouldn't trust to flip burgers at McDonald's, that it feels a ridiculous need to enforce a newspeak-ish positive perspective on everything up to and including Rwandan genocide. Sometimes black crushing despair is the only rational response, and no amount of ham-handed sophistry from the mouth of some two-bit shrink who couldn't hack it in a real profession is going to change that.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 5:36 AM on March 22, 2004
The conclusion that suicide is irrational is only evident if you start from the premise that life is good, or that, well, suicide is irrational (or something). For a severely depressed person, that argument isn't even going to make sense.
The argument that no is ever "cured" by therapy is also a little misleading - no one is ever "cured" by taking regular medication either. Some "conditions" just need to be treated continuously.
Whether therapy in its current form works - eh. I can't say. I haven't found psychotherapy enlightening in my own life, but I've also only ever gone to cheap/ sliding scale therapists, and have never really stuck with it for the long haul. I know people who swear it has changed their lives, yadda yadda. But people claim self-help weekends change their lives, too. Personally, I prefer reading philosophy, and I do think it makes me more self aware which makes me more personally satisfied. But I wouldn't go to a philosopher to get that. I would engage directly with the masters through the wonder of the written word :)
posted by mdn at 3:01 PM on March 22, 2004
The argument that no is ever "cured" by therapy is also a little misleading - no one is ever "cured" by taking regular medication either. Some "conditions" just need to be treated continuously.
Whether therapy in its current form works - eh. I can't say. I haven't found psychotherapy enlightening in my own life, but I've also only ever gone to cheap/ sliding scale therapists, and have never really stuck with it for the long haul. I know people who swear it has changed their lives, yadda yadda. But people claim self-help weekends change their lives, too. Personally, I prefer reading philosophy, and I do think it makes me more self aware which makes me more personally satisfied. But I wouldn't go to a philosopher to get that. I would engage directly with the masters through the wonder of the written word :)
posted by mdn at 3:01 PM on March 22, 2004
Here here, mdn. I start from the premise that suicide can be a rational decision (as opposed to necessarily delusional, not as opposed to other non-rational/emotional forms of thought), the trick is being able to make that decision rationally.
The problem with saying that people can just read philosophy is that many people don't have the critical tools, the proper education, to understand most real philosophy, and even more the ability to deconstruct their own lives and view themselves in this same critical, philosophical perspective. In fact, it's the same with psychology, or most any advanced field -- a jargon and a backstore of assumed knowledge develops that makes it difficult for the neophyte to, for example, pick up Wittgenstein or Sartre and jump right in. That's what I'm working on, providing those tools with respect to the question of suicide, and letting people come to their own conclusions. If anyone is really interested, email me (as some already have) and I'd love to talk about this more offsite.
posted by billpena at 8:03 AM on March 24, 2004
The problem with saying that people can just read philosophy is that many people don't have the critical tools, the proper education, to understand most real philosophy, and even more the ability to deconstruct their own lives and view themselves in this same critical, philosophical perspective. In fact, it's the same with psychology, or most any advanced field -- a jargon and a backstore of assumed knowledge develops that makes it difficult for the neophyte to, for example, pick up Wittgenstein or Sartre and jump right in. That's what I'm working on, providing those tools with respect to the question of suicide, and letting people come to their own conclusions. If anyone is really interested, email me (as some already have) and I'd love to talk about this more offsite.
posted by billpena at 8:03 AM on March 24, 2004
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One problem I have with the creation of institutions to certify people as philosphical practitioners is that, well, then the philosophy is institutionalized. I understand that peer review, trust relationships, avoiding charlatans, all that is vastly important, and for those reasons these boards serve a valuable purpose. But my fear is that instutional thought is often degraded, a conventionalized version of the truth that doesn't evolve with the developments of people on the ground. If these boards are used as a way of determining who iss valuable and who is not, who's worthy to practice and who isn't, then they must, by definition, define what's worthy, and exclude certain forms of thought.
Let's say someone is a Post-Structuralist, but the platforms of the certification boards are Positivist. Would the Post-Structuralist be excluded as a practioner of "junk philosophy"? How about a Christian trying to become certified by a board of Nietzcheans? Would they say the Christian is putting forth a "slave morality" that is injurious to a client? There are many trends and fashions to both philosophical and psychological thought, and these fashions amount to ideologies that mediate the relationships between the counselor and the counselee. Being a lapsed Psychology major because of my department's emphasis on "scientific" research and a theory of behavior[ism], I know how misguided by their confidence in their own abilities these well-meaning people can be.
This post is a quick gut reaction to this post, but suffice to say, it got me in the gut. Great info.
posted by billpena at 1:11 PM on March 21, 2004