 |
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHYTHE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR PHILOSOPHY IN PRACTICEwww.practical-philosophy.org.uk www.society-for-philosophy-in-practice.org |
|
|
|
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHYTHE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR PHILOSOPHY IN PRACTICEwww.practical-philosophy.org.uk www.society-for-philosophy-in-practice.org |
|
Philosophical Counselling: Theory and Practice
Peter B. Raabe
Westport, Conn.: Praeger
Practical Philosophy (Book Reviews) November 2000 Volume 3.3
Reviewed by: Michael Picard
This book, perhaps the first attempt at a comprehensive synthesis of approaches to philosophical counselling, is remarkable above all in its clear-headed look at the claims and practices that comprise this new movement, which has sprung unexpectedly from ancient but long dormant roots.
It distinguishes itself from Lou Marinoff’s Plato Not Prozac (which, because of its lighter and less scholarly style, is likely to remain a more popular work) by presenting a more intuitive counselling methodology. The method Raabe presents is not only more satisfying intellectually, but has some claim if not to represent then at least to synthesise the best of the recent theories and practices that aim at making philosophy useful and beneficial to everyday life and regular people.
Raabe has distinguished himself in a fledgling field by moving beyond the defensive turf wars fought against existing disciplines and by avoiding the many pitfalls characteristic of the crisis of identity-formation. And I think it can be said that he advances the field with a counselling methodology that is flexible, balanced and non-dogmatic. With this book, philosophical counselling comes a long way into its own.
The book has three parts. In the first, competing conceptions and methodologies of philosophical counselling are critically reviewed, and a chapter devoted to the distinction between psychotherapy and philosophical counselling. The second part offers a four-stage model of the practice, which is presented not only as a synthesis of existing approaches, but as an outgrowth (or at least an analysis) of the author’s own practice. Each stage includes illustrative case studies, but the third part of the book presents four additional cases in considerably more depth. These case studies are intended both to illustrate and to empirically confirm the author’s model.
To my mind, the best part of the book is the second section. The model presented is not beyond reproach but at least avoids courting the controversy so useful to a new field trying to make a name for itself. The case studies of the third part are engaging and go some way to showing both competitors in counselling and cloistered philosophers exactly what the activity of philosophical counselling is all about. They also illustrate the model, especially its flexible character (since not all cases deal with all four stages), but they can’t be said to add a lot of empirical support to his approach. Perhaps they show that philosophical counselling is possible, and can do the things his model says it can; but they don’t show that his model is more empirically grounded than, say, Marinoff’s. What the cases do show, however, is Raabe at his best, as a philosopher concerned and caring about people he is presented with.
The recent literature on philosophical counselling is not huge, but large enough that a survey will be welcome to most people interested in the field. Raabe is impressively impassive as he sifts through the extravagant claims and non-claims that are pointedly made to define and distinguish a field that mostly knows itself as not psychotherapy and not academic philosophy. The partisan politics of recognition have led some to claim philosophical counselling is not therapy at all (because therapy, after all, logically implies standardised medical diagnosis and formulaic treatment), certainly not teaching (which is the paternalistic imparting of preconceived information to docile recipient-vessels), and even innocent of all method (which implies, quite obviously, unthinking algorithmic reactions and invariable, mechanistic responses to client situations). Raabe is consistently unmoved by these fallacious attempts to distinguish philosophical counselling from its psychological competitors and its philosophical detractors.
There is comforting common sense throughout Raabe’s patient and unflappable discussion of existing theories and approaches. But these sections of the book are also the least durable. Although he firmly resists being taken in by the claims that philosophical counselling could not possibly be therapy, he dallies with the idea repeatedly after having rejected it, as if he is not able to shake it from himself. This makes some passages rather repetitive and the text overall disorderly. Only in Chapter 5 does a definition of therapy emerge which, if accepted, would silence those who insist on narrow and mean-spirited definitions in order to set themselves off favourably. Even then the definition comes almost incidentally, and is stated less rigorously than it might be. Logically, such a definition should have been introduced and defended much earlier, say in Chapter 3, which has the merit of considering a broad spectrum of actual psychological therapies, some of which are decidedly philosophical in their approach. It is a credit to Raabe that he looks at these psychotherapeutic approaches in some detail (rather than simply criticising therapy in general on semantic grounds), and even more so that he does not shrink from concluding that certain of these approaches (like existential therapy, Victor Frankl’s logo-therapy, and Albert Ellis’s Rational-Emotive Therapy) are ‘substantively philosophical’. It is positively refreshing that a thinker in a field still craving an identity of its own is able consistently to admit the basic philosophical goal and nature of many psychotherapeutic modalities. To be unique, we don’t have to be totally new. To be credible, we don’t have to discredit competitors.
Chapter 2 takes up the question of the methodology of philosophical counselling. Raabe begins a promising analysis but fails to carry it through or even maintain consistency. He does, however, admirably resist the narrow redefinition of methodology which equates it with some form of conceptual straight-jacket, thus setting himself apart from many others who have written in the field. He distinguishes techniques, methods and approaches:
an ‘approach’ is a practitioner’s personal style or manner of applying a method; a ‘procedure’ or ‘technique’ is an element within a method; and a ‘method’ is understood to be a cluster of system of practices, procedures or techniques that is often given an appellation by their practitioners’
The attempt at distinction seems useful, but has an air of circularity and arbitrariness about it. Techniques are elements of methods and methods are clusters of techniques. And is having an appellation enough to make something a method? Quizzically, the term ‘procedural methods’ is also used in various places, which only adds to the confusion. Moreover, at the end of the chapter we read: ‘In this chapter the word ‘approach’ was used to mean a procedure or technique within a method.’ This is quite inconsistent with the earlier definition. Finally, the actual list of techniques includes such disparate items as problem-orientation, client autonomy, counsellor input, normative claims and equilibrium and under methods we find ‘philosophy as a way of living’ and ‘group counselling’. Is the group setting itself the method, or is it what is done with the group? Is a normative claim a technique? Are autonomy and equilibrium not goals rather than procedures? One is left with the feeling that the literature has been surveyed but a genuine analysis has only just begun.
On the chapter on teaching within philosophical counselling, similar problems arise, despite the overall level-headed approach that Raabe advances. He argues squarely for a role for teaching in philosophical counselling, but not a necessary role. Showing balanced judgement, Raabe argues that teaching is one of the features that makes philosophical counselling distinct from psychotherapy, but he does not consider it a necessary condition of philosophical counselling. Again, narrow dogmatism is averted here. However, rather than complain squarely of the fallacy committed by those who would narrowly define teaching as paternalistic information dissemination, Raabe simply articulates a place for the development of critical thinking skills in philosophical counselling. His approach is compelling enough, but seems ignorant of the massive and diverse literature on education that goes beyond this paternalistic model, including recent theories of adult learning. There is a wealth of developed ideas that could be of tremendous importance to the new field of philosophical counselling if only it could see beyond its petty concern with and parochial hangover of self-identification and take advantage of disparate research. There is room here for the same kind of manoeuvre Raabe uses with regard to the question of whether philosophical counselling is therapy. (For that matter, Raabe relies on an embarrassingly narrow research base in psychotherapy to make his points, mainly a single book that survey various approaches. So here, as in the case of teaching theory and in the issue of methods vs. techniques vs. principles, the scholarly backdrop of this book is less than satisfying.)
As mentioned above, the second part of the book, in which Raabe’s own method is presented, is, as I see it, the best. He considers philosophical counselling to have four distinct stages, which do not come in any necessary order and are not necessarily required in all cases. Termination after only one or two of the stages is not seen as failure. One might almost say that what is presented is not so much a method as a way of understanding actual practice.
The first stage (which is the one indispensable preliminary to counselling) he calls ‘free floating’. It is in fact listening, through which the counsellor comes to know the circumstances, thinking and issues of the client. Listening is a complex communication skill that should be part of the training of philosophical counsellors, and Raabe offers some useful advice in this area. He also nicely suggests that this stage is most consistent with the ‘non-method method’ that some have advocated as distinctive of philosophical counselling. The bulk of Raabe’s book is against these approaches, but here he sympathetically explains why anyone might have been tempted to such a view.
The second stage is problem solving. In this state immediate particular problems distressing the client are addressed. This logic-based and analytical stage helps clients sort out their thinking in regard to the issue troubling them, but which may or may not be of a psychological nature. Again, Raabe has some useful cautions here for the practising philosophical counsellor.
In the third stage, teaching comes to the fore. Raabe has some compelling arguments that the sort of intentional teaching involved here (which may include discussion of logical fallacies, ethical theories, critical thinking skills, various philosophers or philosophical systems) has the potential to distinguish philosophical counselling from psychotherapy. The controversy about whether philosophical counselling should be construed as teaching has thus prevented a truly unique factor from being identified as such. While most philosophical counsellors speak about respecting client autonomy, Raabe contends that through intentional teaching of thinking skills client autonomy can be not only respected but augmented.
The fourth stage Raabe calls transcendence. I am tempted to call it everything else, since it is described in broad, all-inclusive terms and is ill-defined. He compares it variously to emerging from Plato’s cave; grappling with universals instead of concrete personal concerns; a liberation from the passions; seeing each tree and also the forest for what it is, as well as their inter-relationship; freeing ourselves from non-critical everyday absorption in our lives; a shift away from abstract thinking, but also a careful rethinking of first principles; a dialogue with self; an (almost) equal dialogue between client and counsellor; a potentially infinite communication; and much else besides. There is altogether too much here, and it is not always obviously distinct from the second and third stages. One feels that here finally the philosopher-counsellor can discuss all that the regular philosopher can. In fairness, it must be said that the case studies Raabe gives lend more definite content to this fourth stage, and mark out the transition to it more clearly; but they remain examples only and particular cases. Also, there is some risk that overly specifying this stage would tie his methodology down to a particular philosophical system. Still, the stage of transcendence seems to transcend all limits and definition. More could be said about this rich and exciting book. Let us simply hope it achieves its aim of adding some clarity to the wealth of ambiguous promises that philosophical counselling offers to contemporary society.
|
|
|