PHILOSOPHICAL COUNSELLING

What is Philosophical Counselling?

Philosophical counselling is an approach to counselling that uses philosophical insights and techniques to help you think about your life. Your problems are not seen as illnesses to be cured. Instead your counsellor will engage with you in a dialogue whose aim is to help you think and feel more clearly and deeply about your issues.

Philosophical counselling uses philosophical dialogue to help individuals reflect on their lives and deal with "problems in living" such as relationship issues and career dilemmas. It may perhaps most accurately be classified as a branch of both applied philosophy and counselling; what distinguishes it from other branches of applied philosophy is that it involves philosophising about concrete personal issues; what separates it from other approaches of counselling is the extent to which it embraces both a philosophical attitude and philosophical methods and insights.

Philosophical counselling may be a recent development (Gerd Achenbach opened the first practice in 1981) but the idea that philosophy can help with living goes back at least as far as Socrates, who arguably practised a type of philosophical Counselling in the Greek marketplace. The practical application of philosophy through "spiritual exercises" continued in Greece and Rome through the Stoics and Epicurians, amongst others, who practised "philosophy as a way of life"

For articles about philosophical counselling see the journal Practical Philosophy.

If you think you would like a philosophical counsellor please consult the Register to find one or email David Arnaud for more information