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QUESTION: What is philosophical counseling?
ANSWER: Different practitioners have very different notions of what it is. We can only say what we mean by it.
QUESTION: OK, what do you mean by it?
ANSWER: Like a psychotherapist, the philosopher seeks to discover the origins of a person's difficulties. But the philosopher digs much deeper. If successful, the philosopher is able to connect his client's particular problems -- a relationship conflict, or a career difficulty, for example -- to an underlying philosophy of life, or world view. It is amazing to discover that a particular problem, something as specific as an eating disorder, is founded upon an unconscious philosophy of life.
QUESTION: What if one doesn't have a particular problem, but simply a general dissatisfaction with life?
ANSWER: That too is founded upon an unconscious philosophy that needs to be uncovered.
QUESTION:
Doesn't each of us have an answer, but one which isn't succeeding in making us happy.
ANSWER: Yes indeed. Each of us has an answer on which we pin our hopes for happiness, for happiness. It could be something you wish for, like a job promotion, retirement, or a divorce. It could be a new relationship, or going out with your cronies after work. It could simply be a bran muffin in the morning. In our essay,
"What gets you through the day?," we elaborate on this notion. It's the problematical dimension of your answer that leads you back to a question that you didn't even consciously realize that you had. How strange that our life is an answer to a hidden question!
We might add that our way of being -- of which our answer at any particular time is a manifestation -- is founded on a way of seeing.
QUESTION: What is a way of seeing?
ANSWER: Each of us carries a whole set of philosophical assumptions, of which we are unaware. These assumptions are reflected in everything about us -- in our interests, anxieties, desires, and conflicts.
QUESTION: How do you uncover a person's way of seeing?
ANSWER:
Mostly through conversation. We ask questions, just as did Socrates. But the intent of our conversation is quite different than was the intent of Socratic dialogue. Socrates sought to arrive at an objective truth. He asked, for example, "What is justice?" "What is courage?" The philosophical counselor, on the other hand, seeks to uncover a subjective truth, a truth that exists in the heart of the person seeking help. We're seeking to uncover your way of seeing, the laws that are the foundation for your universe. We might call a person's way of seeing, a personal epistemology.
We might add that, if one is perceptive enough, it is not necessary to engage in dialogue in order to detect a person's mode of being, or way of seeing. One can see it, for example, in the manner in which a person prepares and eats the breakfast eggs. (If you become involved with long distance counseling, we often recommend that you send The Philosophy Clinic a video of yourself eating.)
QUESTION:
What is the purpose of philosophical counseling?
ANSWER: It is not merely to become normal, which is the limited goal of psychotherapy. The goal of philosophical counseling -- at least as it occurs at The Philosophy Clinic -- is to become Self-realized. All suffering has one ultimate cause: lack of Self-realization.
QUESTION: What do you mean by Self-realized?
ANSWER: That is a difficult question to answer. Suffice it to say, to become Self-realized is to know who you truly are -- not the empirical ego, but the Self. Follow Socrates' advice, obey the command of the oracle at Delphi, "Know Thyself," and you will become Self-realized.
QUESTION:
Could you elaborate on how philosophical counseling differs from psychotherapy?
ANSWER:
Psychotherapy is theory laden. Each system of therapy is founded upon an unconscious metaphysics, a world view, a weltanschauung. When therapy is "successful," the client's world view is replaced by the world view of of the therapist. Now the client no longer has his or her former problems, but now has inherited a whole new set of problems that derive from having inherited the therapist's world view. (See essay on The Conservation of Suffering, for an elaboration of this notion.)
The philosopher, on the other hand, merely brings to light the clients world view and the problems that derive from it. By not positing another worldview, the philosopher is able to avoid the conservation of suffering.
QUESTION: What type of problems does a philosopher deal with?
ANSWER: The same problems that might prompt a person to contact a psychotherapist. It's the critical, non-dogmatic approach that makes for the difference.
What's also different is the goal. The goal of therapy is mental health, becoming normal, a very limited goal. After all, if normalcy was so great, there wouldn't be so many crazy people. The goal of The Philosophy Clinic, on the other hand, is helping a person to "wake up," to become Self-realized.
QUESTION: How does a philosophical counselor treat people's emotional difficulties?
ANSWER: Philosophers who believe that feeling and emotions can be clarified by means of reason and logic are ignorant of the limits of reason. They are probably also using reason to guard themselves from the dark, mysterious and sometimes disturbing depths of the human soul.
Equally foolish are the psychotherapists who believe that getting in touch with feeling has any value. We can relive a feeling, re-evoke an emotion till we are sobbing with tears or livid with rage. Doing so may have some sort of short term cathartic effect, but it will leave the feeling just as dark as before.
QUESTION:
How then can we be free of the power of negative emotions?
ANSWER:
Feelings and emotions must be illuminated. They must be penetrated by the light of insight, so that we can see what it is that we are really seeing when we have a feeling.
Emotions can be illuminated because emotions are cognitive. When we feel something, we are having a perception about life; we know something. But emotions, or feelings, are cognitions on a prediscriminative level of awareness -- the level of symbol, myth, and dream. We might add that the type of therapy known as "cognitive therapy" is useless because it doesn't descend to the symbolic and mythic level of human cognitions.
The philosophical counselor, and the psychotherapist too, must learn what Erich Fromm called, "the forgotten language," the language of symbols, myths, dreams, and fairy tales. That is the only way to understand emotions. When we consciously know what we unconsciously know, we are freed of the power of a feeling or emotion. If we are to achieve transcendence, we must descend. To put it in Heraclitean fashion, "The way down is the way up."
QUESTION: Is it moral for a philosopher to charge a fee?
ANSWER: Is it moral for a philosopher to eat and pay the rent? It's true that Socrates, didn't charge a fee. But Socrates wife, Xanthippe, had to work, pay the bills, and she was miserable about it. So Xanthippe became a shrew and sought to torture Socrates at every available opportunity. Then again, the misery of Socrates' poor marriage continually inspired him to become philosophical.
Freud said, and it is true, that payment is the most important part of therapy. Without payment, patients are encouraged to be childishly immature.
While we are on the subject of payment, it must be noted that a philosopher or a psychotherapist whose primary interest is in making money is a false counselor. The poet Dante, in his Inferno, relegates the false counselors to a realm in Hades that is even more cursed than the realm reserved for the murderers.
There's a lot more that we could say to you about the subject of payment, but if we went on any more we would have to charge you. (Only kidding!)
QUESTION: What is the best way to get started as a client or student at The Philosophy Clinic?
ANSWER: You can arrange for regular telephone philosophical counseling sessions or E-mail exchanges or both. If you can't afford a session every week, then try to make it once or twice month, or when you feel that you have the need.
There are times when something we see unhinges us from our routines. Then we are more open to deeper questions. Those are times of crisis. But if you contact us, we won't attempt to restore you to who you were before you had the crisis, which is what is done by therapists involved with crisis management. On the contrary, we shall seek to help you use the crisis as an opportunity for self-seeing and inner transformation.
We might add that if you're feeling complacent, and lust for real life, give us a call and we'll ask you some questions that will put you in crisis! But before you do, we recommend that you read about the dangers of self-inquiry.
QUESTION: How can I show my support for The Philosophy Clinic?
ANSWER: Easily! Just click on the link below:
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