Frequently Asked Questions:

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Many personal or interpersonal problems are rooted in philosophical issues such as meaning, value, purpose, identity, dignity, autonomy, responsibility, happiness, fulfillment, morality or justice. Philosophical counseling can be therapeutic in these cases by helping you develop new tools for understanding and new ideas for moving beyond your problems. If you are not suffering from immediate problems, philosophical counseling offers a chance to look at your implicit or explicit philosophy of life, your worldview. It offers a chance to examine your assumptions and to build a better outlook on life. An examined life is a better life and this will be reflected in both you and your relationships.

The practice of consulting philosophers on a broad range of important issues--from the value of life to the practical decision, ethical dilemma, or life-course—is as old as civilization. Emperors, queens, religious leaders, generals and entrepreneurs have consulted philosophers in their libraries and studies throughout history and in all parts of the globe. They have seen philosophers as guides in their personal and world-historical planning, thinking and deliberating. But since its inception, philosophy has also been practiced in the streets—Socrates began his practice in the public market in Ancient Greece—and in the countryside, the commerce house, the monastery, the union hall, the café, in exile, and in prison. Over the centuries philosophers have helped people in every walk of life and with a vast array of personal problems, decisions, and meditations. Philosophy, which means literally the love of wisdom, is an ancient discipline that has evolved time-tested techniques for approaching wisdom, applying wisdom to living, and reaping the inherent benefits of leading the examined life.

Philosophers are uniquely trained to address life problems in ways that bring you closer to life’s most profound meanings, goals, and intrinsic joys. Philosophy is an examination, but not in the medical sense in which life’s problems are viewed as diseases. Philosophy is an examination in an inquisitive sense in which life’s challenges are viewed as insights. To consult a philosopher is to ask questions about oneself and about everything. It is to examine your worldview and to employ the tools of reason and description to approach the wisdom embedded within. To consult a philosopher is to engage your deepest life questions as a motive force in personal change.

Philosophical counseling deals with everyday issues and my counseling sessions involve talking in everyday language about these issues. Philosophical counseling is also client centered and focuses on your own descriptions, explanations and insights. My role as a philosopher is to help you to elucidate these insights, recognize both their flaws and their wisdom, and see their consequences and implications. This can help you clarify your worldview, establish direction, make decisions clearer, and open exhilarating new creative vistas. Another primary role of the philosopher is to raise incisive questions and bring assumptions into question in ways you may not have previously considered. This can help bring you out of entrenched ways of thinking which are destructive or holding you back. Philosophy also deals with emotions to the extent that they are directly associated with philosophical issues. Emotions are explored for their significance and with the time-tested knowledge that with understanding comes consolation and growth. Every philosophical counseling session generates new ideas and perspectives. These are the gifts of the examined life.