Philosophical Counseling
“The philosopher’s treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness.”
How should we live? Why be moral? Can we ever know the Truth? Does anything matter? What does it mean to love? Do we really have free will? How can I feel more fulfilled? How can I be a better partner, parent, person? Why do we suffer? Is there a god? Why is there evil in the world? When do the ends justify the means? Are our problems due to nature or nurture? What does it mean to have a mental disorder? Is there a difference between addiction and habit? How should I meditate? Can psychedelics help with my anxiety and depression? How do I become a better listener? Is forgiveness always possible? How should we understand karma? Can physical science develop a theory of everything? Are scientific laws discovered or invented? What is the mind? Who am I? Can we really know anything at all?
Philosophy as therapy
Our culture affords few opportunities to examine and discuss philosophical questions in any depth. And yet, engaging them is necessary for living our best lives.
As Socrates famously taught, the unexamined life is not worth living. Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, prescribed a similar method of skeptical contemplation as remedy for our worldly suffering. Likewise, Epictetus, a Greek slave turned teacher, argued that it is not things in themselves that disturb us, but rather our attitudes about them. Many centuries later, Friedrich Nietzsche, appointing himself physician for culture, modeled an even more radical approach of seizing control of our own life-story to transform our struggles into richly meaningful lives.
These positions and many others like them form the basis of psychotherapy, counseling, and coaching—all of which are rooted in philosophy. Long before psychiatry and the wellness industry, we looked to teachers of philosophy to ease our suffering and find fulfillment, helping us to see that it is our perspective—how we think about the world—that shapes the world itself.
Philosophic Medicine is a form of discussion-based counseling that helps people better understand themselves, form healthier habits of thinking, and improve their lives.
This practice helps us adopt a broader view of things, one that lets us examine any number of worldviews without needing to commit to a single one. It teaches us how to interpret our lives in many different ways, it furnishes us with the vocabulary needed to tell our own story beautifully, and teaches us how to listen to others in a way that builds trust via understanding.
With practice, these skills lead to experiencing the world more completely, more openly, with more joy, and a deep sense of awe. By learning ideas from a wide variety of philosophic systems and how to apply them to everyday problems—that is, by opening your mind and forming new habits of thinking—you can quite literally transform your entire life.
Things we can work on
Ethical Dilemmas/Decisions
It can be hard to know what to do when the stakes are high and the outcomes uncertain. And when an issue involves an ambiguous moral puzzle such as abortion, end of life issues, or substance use (to name just a few), other people’s loud opinions and strong biases can make reaching a resolution even more difficult. Philosophical counseling offers a judgment free space to consider difficult ethical choices with more care, in more depth, and from a variety of different perspectives so you can feel confident with your decision. A single session with a philosopher may be all you need to find comfort in knowing you’re doing (or have done) the right thing.
Existential Crises
The existential crisis has become such a cliché in our culture that even mental health professionals sometimes dismiss these experiences as merely self-indulgent. But anyone as anyone who has suffered one knows, the effects can be devastating and far reaching! Sometimes referred to as mid-life crises, these events can really happen at any age. They often begin with the realization that the life we’ve been living up until now and the goals we’ve been toward no longer seem valuable to us and we can’t even imagine why they ever did. In some cases, we are no long able to even identify with the person we once were, we’re left utterly confused about what to do next, isolated from our friends and families, and hopeless that we will ever feel okay again.
The good news is YOU ARE NOT ALONE—in fact, you’re in esteemed company! For millennia, some the most brilliant minds of humankind have experienced the unique despair of these upsetting life events and offered many tools to help guide us through them. With these figures as our models, we can do better than merely “recovering” the life and values we held before we saw through them, we can instead learn to make sense of these difficult experiences and come out the other side better than ever.
Major Life Changes
Shit happens! Things change. And when they do, we often face challenging periods of adjustment. Losing a loved one, receiving a terminal diagnosis (or caring for a loved one who has), suffering a debilitating injury, the end of a long-term intimate relationship, losing a job, even moving can all result in existential crisis and a sense of hopelessness that feels deeper than just our mental or emotional health. But a major change doesn’t have to be a bad thing to send us through a loop: becoming a parent, coming out as queer or transitioning, sharing a home with a partner, starting a new career, graduating from school, getting off drugs and alcohol. These things, too, take time and space to process and learn to live with. Philosophic medicine operates with the belief that amidst these transitional periods there is room for profound and lasting healing and growth—indeed, so much of the philosophical canon was developed specifically to help us adapt to the volatility of a life in which everything changes and so much is out of our control.
Psychedelic Integration & Preparation Counseling
The evidence keeps pouring in! Psychoactive compounds such as MDMA, LSD, DMT, ketamine, and a variety of plants and fungi (even a few animals) with naturally occurring “entheogens” (“spirituality” enhancing chemicals), have been demonstrated to have profoundly beneficial effects on an array of mental health conditions and problems of living (PTSD, depression, anxiety, addiction, relationship issues, and more). Beyond merely alleviating the symptoms of these conditions, these treatments appear to do so by creating a lasting sense of general wellbeing (when used therapeutically, under certain conditions, of course). Unfortunately, despite the ancient medicinal relationship humans have shared with these “teachers,” most of them are currently illegal in many countries and so, accessing their healing potential remains a challenge for many of us. As such, Philosophic Medicine cannot currently provide any of these substances, nor do we explicitly encourage their illegal use. But philosophical counseling can be an excellent way to help you get the most benefit from your own work with psychedelic medicines.
Spiritual Counseling
Whether you’re having a crisis of faith, “a dark night of the soul,” or something a bit less dramatic, philosophical counseling is an ideal format to delve deeper into the metaphysical and ethical tenets of religious and spiritual systems. Many of the world’s greatest philosophers were also people of profound faith: Kierkegaard, Kant, Spinoza, Maimonides, Buddha, and Berkeley. These thinkers and so many others offer us beautifully communicated ideas that challenge us to go beyond our inherited notions of religion and can breathe new life into our spiritual practices. Philosophical counseling can provide new ways of thinking and speaking about our relationship to the divine, the sublime, our neighbors, and ourselves.
Other Areas
If your issue does not neatly fit into any of these categories, that does not mean philosophical counseling couldn’t help. In fact, if you’ve got a problem but you’re not quite sure what kind of problem you’ve got, then you can be quite sure it’s at least a philosophical one!
Frequently Asked Questions
What is philosophical counseling?
Most fundamentally, it is a conversation. The method is highly collaborative and varies depending on the client’s needs. Using methods of skeptical reasoning that have been practiced for thousands of years, a philosopher poses incisive questions intended to challenge the foundations of belief and expose unknown assumptions, creating a perspective shift that can be transformational in a variety of ways.
Who is philosophical counseling for?
The range of topics treated by philosophy is vast and still expanding, so, in short, philosophical counseling is potentially beneficial for anyone. You don’t need to have a background in philosophy. The only requirement is a willingness to think about things in different ways.
How does working with a philosophical counselor differ from working with a licensed mental health professional?
Like other forms of talk therapy, Philosophic Medicine is principally administered in conversation. While both vocations must practice listening with an open mind, licensed psychologists, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, and the like are trained to interpret what they hear through a specific practical perspective: one of health and disease, function and dysfunction, normal and abnormal. Practicing philosophy on the other hand can train us to adopt a broader view of things, one that lets us examine and learn to understand the world through many different perspectives without needing to commit to a single one. So while mental health professionals are not required to develop expertise in ethical reasoning but instead evaluate success and failure by institutional norms, my expertise is in considering the norms themselves, how they relate to the ethical attitudes about mental disorders and how these attitudes about ourselves affect our ability to heal.
But to be very clear, I am not a licensed mental health professional. The lens of mental health and disease is one of many perspectives I use to help clients gain a better understanding of themselves and their relationships with the world--it is frequently highly useful, but overconfidence in any method can be harmful.
Philosophy not only allows many systems of thought to co-exist, but by focusing our critical inquiry on any subject, relationship, or method the aim is to elucidate the subject or relationship and even enhance an existing method’s effectiveness.
What does it mean to be certified as a philosophical counselor?
I was certified by the American Philosophical Practitioners Association (APPA) in 2019. While certification is not required to offer philosophical counsel professionally, it is a guarantee that the practitioner has attained a certain level of expertise in philosophy and its application as a therapeutic instrument. To be certified in client counseling by APPA one must have an advanced degree in philosophy and/or be a practicing licensed mental health care professional with a demonstrated interest in philosophical methods, as well as attend a 30-hour training seminar and practicum in New York City. We must also adhere to the APPA’s Code of Ethics.
Do you take insurance?
I do not take insurance. My hourly rate for individuals is on a sliding scale based on need. The cost is comparable to many professional services: massage therapy, personal training, lifestyle coaching, etc.
Donations make possible additional accommodations for people with financial/existential hardships, students and recent graduates. If you think you may qualify for a reduced rate, please inquire by email or set up a free consultation.