FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
1. What is philosophical about philosophical counseling?Philosophical counseling has a different approach towards therapy. It uses the traditional as well as modern philosophical wisdom imparted by the philosophies through ages. The approach of a philosophical counselor is not the established way of diagnosis-assessment, but rather to change the world view of the client. It takes resorts to techniques like Socratic dialogue, existentialism, LBT, stoicism as a therapeutic exercise to aid the client to help himself/herself. The philosophical counselor works upon the way in which the world is perceived by the individual with special emphasis on its epistemic under-currents.
2. Is LBT for everyone?Any individual can seek philosophical counseling as it does not harm the individual during the therapy process in any ways whatsoever. Although the pre-requisite is that the client should be a rational individual who possesses the ability of abstract thinking and is open enough to work on the problem with the help of the counselor; and not depend on the counselor completely. The task of philosophical counseling is to help the client to think on his/her own terms thereby helping to solve the issue. Hence it is implicitly required for a client to be a rational and thinking individual.
3. Why should one visit a PC?Not every mental problem one experiences requires a psychological intervention yet it has some effects on the individual. Problems like loss of a loved one, writer’s block, life changing decisions, job dissatisfaction etc are not psychological issues but something that bothers all of us at some levels. Philosophical counseling comes into picture to solve such issues. One can visit a Philosophical practitioner in time to heal such issues before they magnify in a bigger problem. Furthermore, Philosophical counseling does not have any side effect on the side of the client as it helps the client to deal with the problem without any psychological labelling and medications.
4. Are there other PC approaches other than LBT?A Philosophical Counselor depending on his/her skills, expertise and the diagnosis of the client can use different approaches. A person who is finding a purpose in his/her life can be approached with an existentialist approach whereas a Socratic dialogue might be accepted to work upon finding the real underlying cause of the problems. Hence, the combination of the client’s nature of problem and the ability of the counselor determines the approach a PC will use. Although there are different approaches towards philosophical counselling, we rarely find an approach which is as developed as LBT.