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Thoughts on Philosophical Discourse and Guidance: Problems, Examples, and

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Thoughts on Philosophical Discourse and Guidance:
Problems, Examples, and Methods

Jorge Conesa-Sevilla (2001, 2021) ©

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Abstract

Comparisons are made between convergent or close-ended modes of

therapy and counseling and dialectical or open-ended modes of
philosophical guidance. Although it may be well said that a
diversity of guidance approaches satisfies an equally diverse
clientele looking for a preferred counseling niche,
nevertheless, a clearer understanding of what these various
approaches have to offer might be helpful to potential clients.
Keywords: Philosophical guidance, philosophical counseling, eco-
therapy, religious-based counseling

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 1. Introduction: Problems
Although most aspects related to mental health have a clear
epistemological core (and linguistic--semiotic), oftentimes both
therapists and clients, in writing and in person, conflagrate
issues of “knowing” specifically, within, and with other
branches of philosophy (logic, ethics, and metaphysics) in odd
amalgamations. To make matters less legible, both therapists and
clients confuse ultimate and proximate causes (Tinbergen, 1963)
in matters pertaining to epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics.
One is conflagrating ultimate and proximate causes during
approaches to “knowing” in Tinbergen’s thinking (1963), while
confusing questions of “how” (proximate explanation) with “why”
questions (ultimate explanation). In a continuum, questions
about ‘mechanism,’ ‘ontogeny,’ ‘function’ and ‘phylogeny’ yield
very different explanations for world phenomena including
psychology. It is also not known how many mental health
practitioners possess enough basic evolutionary biology
knowledge (even biologists get these categories wrong from time
to time) to have an appreciation of evolutionary processes.
Language, or rather, the way one uses language in professional
settings matters--has consequences. Long after philosophers,
ethologists, and psychologists like Wittgenstein, Derrida,
Tinbergen, and Albert Ellis presented robust arguments that
underlined the difficulty of thinking and existing with “words,”
in semiotic space, the educational foundations of psychological
clinical training and/or counseling (“therapy”) have failed, it
is here maintained, to integrate their insights into pragmatic
and effective systems of communication.
To make matters murkier, other attempts at translating the
foundational thinking of some philosophical schools (e.g.,
existentialism and phenomenology) into psychological practice
have had the effect of biasing a certain methodology above
others--systematizing ‘bad habits.’ One aspect of this confusion
comes from a phenomenological approach in psychology. To
caricaturize, to the extent that one takes the client’s
perspective at face value, while accepting his descriptions of
“reality” and emotional life “as presented,” then a certain
enabling and/or complicity has already taken place between him
and his counselor—both victims of unexamined discourse.

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Moreover, there seems to be at least tacit agreement that if a
client holds dear specific religious or spiritual sentiments and
ideas, at least some attention must be paid to the interface
between these and h/his psychological challenges/needs (Koenig,
2008). Others, including Freud (1962), might have only taken
religious and spiritual motifs to be part of a larger cultural
tradition, rich in its symbolism, but not viewed or treated,
epistemologically speaking (ontologically speaking as well), as
having a supremacy over other forms of analyses or techniques.
It is at this point that it pays to clarify a distinction
between philosophical counseling and guidance. Although
philosophical counseling may have to accommodate religious and
spiritual concerns, their epistemological basis, philosophical
guidance needs not make this appeasement. This is true insofar
philosophical guidance is conducted as an unbiased semiotic
approach in search of text clarification which includes
criticisms of preferred or habitual forms of thinking about
metaphysics--the nature of “belief” itself.
In short, these distinctions are about therapy, counseling (and
guidance) that operate under all-too-obvious teleological and/or
theological programs, outside the guidelines and professional
parameters of scientific psychology, and more dialectical and
open-ended (fact-finding) approaches. These distinctions are not
trivial when the health and wellbeing of clients is a concern,
and particularly, in the present socio-political climate of
“alternative truths” seeking equal time and validation; another
case for the distinction between truly “false news” and
empirical approaches.
2. Examples
Not to unduly forestall, a mental health practitioner might, in
one such dichotomy, be biased toward exalting the emotional life
of a client marking it as the preeminent epistemology and
metaphysics of the clinical exchange and nevertheless be blind
to (willfully neglectful or ignorant) the logic of discourse--
its semiotics. Furthermore, the mental health practitioner might
become fairly adept (and superficially convincing from a naïve
client’s perspective) at rationalizations based on personally
meaningful themes that might “explain away” her distaste for
more eclectic, systematic and inclusive counseling methods.
One observes this often, for example, when a certain
practitioner readily embraces a “Jungian” perspective while

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criticizing Freudian principles on the basis of one or two
examples or experiences. The practitioner might say something
(justify and rationalize) along the lines of “My specialty is
inquiring about the metaphysical nature of my client’s
circumstances. I am a ‘heart’ rather than a ‘mind’
psychologist.”
The rationalizations are as follows (Therapist #1):
1. I am an emotive person and a believer of some faith
(particular or generic).
2. I have had some experiences that confirm my transcendental
beliefs which also inform the manner in which I conduct my
therapy.
3. Both questions of ‘how’ (proximate) and ‘why’ (ultimate)
are answerable but only in metaphysical terms that are
consistent with my faith. There is no other way to make
sense of the psychology of the individual.
4. In fact, because my esoteric experiences are transcendental
in nature these cannot be understood in scientific terms
(rational or systematic). This is why science is wrong and
my intuitive, subjective, and emotional life always right.
5. This is why I detested math and science in school and why
today I do not trust statistics.
6. My client’s discourse is profoundly shaped and directed by
mysterious and otherworldly forces that only I can
decipher. Science or scientists definitely cannot!
In this pseudo-epistemological context, if two people seek
counsel from the above fictional therapist, one young and the
other middle-aged, and both casually declare “I believe in
fairies,” the inquiry process into what makes a middle-aged
person or a child believe in these entities it is likely not
pursued. If explored, the belief captured in the above
declaration is likely to come ready-made and off-the-shelf with
its own metaphysics (where fairies originate and why most people
cannot see them) and ethics (fairies are here to teach humans
how to behave--be ‘good’). Therapist, child and middle-aged
client may have interesting and highly speculative arguments
about the metaphysics of fairies and their purported ethics but
the epistemological declaration “I believe in fairies,” is the
knowledge fabric that brings and holds them together—
unenlightened and unemancipated.
Let’s examine another example, uneasily common, in so-called
“ecopsychological” circles and transpersonal psychology. A

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similarly trained mental health provider might have conflagrated
two personal ‘missions’: her idea of ‘feminism’ and an unfounded
belief that Earth is some type of feminine agentic and sentient
entity.
Mixing any number of ‘facts,’ experiences, and proclivities,
some actual and some imagined, that a more meticulous, eclectic,
and unbiased therapy might untangle, the rationalizations for
this second therapist could be as follows (Therapist #2):
1. I believe women have been and continue to be subjugated,
abused, mistreated, violated and persecuted (Yes, these are
undeniable facts that any reasonable person must accept).
2. I believe all men are responsible for our circumstances
(all men?).
3. I am justified in assuming the worst when I meet men.
4. If men are to be useful at all they must transform
themselves into my ideal image: They ought to be gentle,
strong, funny, serious, responsible, care free, emotionally
available at my beckoning call, and yet, equally,
mysterious and alluring.
5. Men and only men are responsible for Mother Earth’s
(“Gaia”) destruction.
6. Bringing both women and men closer to ‘indigenous
wisdom’(however this is described) will heal and harmonize
our relationship to each other and Mother Earth.
To highlight one of her concerns, the above therapist never
defines ‘indigenous wisdom,’ for example, or does so as a
fetish: picking and choosing some ideas and practices that she
deems important--never mind that most of the culture or people
she attempts to emulate, usually, no longer exist. This lack of
epistemological material, with its richer potential, does not
bother her because, the vaguer and more esoteric (subjectively
interpreted) the facts are, the greater her flexibility to “make
them her own.” If an ancestral culture and their culture still
exist, is it even possible to quantify what vital percentage of
their once ‘pristine’ and predominant culture exists today? Of
what remains, is it even possible to quantify why what survives
matters more than what has already passed? In matters
epistemological, if they existed as an authentic link to past
practices and knowledge, one would be equally obligated to
scrutinize their thinking in systematic ways. No person gets a
free pass just because they are said to be ‘indigenous.’ And
greater scrutiny is required particularly when the non-native

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cultural interpreter is passing for a genuine or spokesperson
with some, seemingly, authority. That the above therapist might
find this scrupulous approach to be another form of
‘colonization,’ speaks to their intractable, at times, fusiform
epistemology (and ethics).
Figure 1 and Table 1a suggest a way of visually describing and
classifying the previously termed fusiform epistemology as
convergent therapy. Figure 1 suggests that even a supposed
grandly conceived metaphysics (god in the universe), is, after
closer examination, much reduced in scope as epistemology and
ethics once thinkers begin to interpret what this encompassing
coda of beliefs might be about--the tapering ends of the
fusiform image and/or the narrowing pyramidal apex suggest much
reduced noetic possibilities (Conesa-Sevilla, 2017). Table 1a
lists some philosophical terms and characteristics associated
with this approach.

Esoterically formulated metaphysics are open to interpretation,

and their ensuing ethics and epistemologies can be idiosyncratic
at best or arbitrary at worst. Their highly subjective nature
funnels improbable (unprovable) metaphysics into much reduced
forms of agentic expression (actions), and during situations of
existential crisis, to paralyzing states of agentic moratorium
where the contradictions and the logical inconsistencies between

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their preferred metaphysics and day-to-day realities might come
to a crisis state (Conesa-Sevilla, 2017).

3. Methods
I once met an old psychiatrist who told me that listening
without presumptions (about himself or the patient which is
difficult to do), in the moment, and particularly, paying
attention to the words people use--how they produce them--could
tell him quite a bit about a client/patient. Mind you, after
many years of being in a successful practice, he had
internalized the manner in which people, routinely, express
their beliefs without even being aware they were doing so. This
old hand at reading minds and hearts was also well-versed in
philosophical discourse and was, to boot, a keen practitioner of
philosophical counseling or guidance well before there ever was
a disciplined so named.
From him I learned the following:
1. An old man prefers talking to another older man as long as
they do not call it ‘therapy’. Many lonely men exist who do
not go to therapy for fear that a ‘youngster’ who has not
lived ‘his life’ might presuppose what his ‘problems’ were.
2. One does a great disservice to h/himself and to others if
one does not ask the ‘hard and simple questions.’ Here are
a few hard and simple questions: “When did you begin
believing so?” “Why do you believe so?” “What are the
circumstances under which you believe so?” “Are there other

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 explanations—to the things you believe in?” “What upsets
you the most?” “What makes you happier or more content, and
why?” “What people do you dislike and why?” “Who does the
‘believing’ ”? “Who does all this thinking and emoting?”
“How does believing (or not) these things make you into a
good or a bad person?” “What are you most proud of and
why?” “Who am I in your life at this moment?” “Why are you
not walking in a park instead?”
3. This type of questioning must be engaged in whenever one
finds inconsistencies between thoughts, actions, and
emotions--inconsistencies also in our perception of others
and/or in how they perceive us.
4. These questions, and some others, more often than not
provide useful/telling clues about the ethical,
metaphysical (ontological), and epistemological life of an
individual. Without knowing the basics little progress can
be made about formulating a set of existential procedures
that can then be tested.
The manner of clinical practice and thinking of the above ‘old
hat’ psychiatrist conforms to a dialectical or empirical model
represented in Figure 2. Unlike the singular and tapering
pyramid depicting convergent approaches (Fig 1), the dialectical
or empirical model represents each area of philosophical inquiry
(only logic is missing here) as being equal and in a situation
of dialectics, mediated by evidence-based methodology. Table 1b
lists accepted philosophical terms and characteristics
associated with this second approach.

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In both representations, the bar and the pyramid versions, the
dialectical approach gives preeminence to fact finding, reality
checking, and other empirical methodologies in an attempt to
make sense of the existential situation of a given client. The
equal dimensions of the philosophical areas suggest that the
logical, behavioral, cognitive, and emotive derivations from
metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics could attain better
degrees of harmony--could become more congruent, consistent;
legible and coherent. Their agreement or consistency is checked
against data that can be objectively verified for the most part.
4. Conclusion
In a manner similar to characterizing and then tracking various
ontological approaches to “nature therapy” (Conesa-Sevilla,
2019), one might begin to ascertain what sort of guidance
approaches may be, in the long run, more valuable for a client
(and therapist!). By ‘valuable’ it is meant guidance that
resolves many other types of challenges of a practical nature.
The old adage “If you give a man a fish, he is hungry again in
an hour. If you teach him to catch a fish, you do him a much
better turn,” applies here as well.

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Therapeutical convergence might be, at least initially,
satisfying for both therapist and client. An ‘epistemological’
structure is built which provides a semblance of security and
certainty at least in the short run. The therapist projects an
exotic mystical aura and makes promulgations that pass for
certainty--seem definitive. The clients’ belief systems are
hardly or not at all challenged or scrutinized--the proverbial
teaching to the converted. If so, all manner of biases,
presuppositions, and even prejudice could remain for both
therapist and client. For example, they might both continue
undervaluing science in favor of feelings, intuitions, and
magical formulae.

Under these circumstances, a client is likely to keep coming

back for more piscatorial morsels. Similarly, the therapist
might become addicted to her role as a ‘guru,’ to needing a
confirmation that her metaphysics are superior to most others.
Extrinsic motivation dynamics are suspected under convergent
approaches.

These types of approaches are consistent with a foreclosure view

of human motives and aspirations and their confirmation are akin
to religious practices because, in the words of W. Wright
(1912), they are “the endeavor to secure the conservation of
socially recognized values…[and] socially recognized values
first come into existence, and later some of them become
religious.”

On the other hand, the skills of healthy skepticism, ongoing

questioning, self-criticism, and challenging each other’s
assumptions (client/therapist) are tactics and strategies that
are likely to spill over into other aspects of practical living,
from buying insurance to settling in with a potential mate. In
all these, intrinsic motivation propels one’s questioning. A
person is thus enriched in ways not foretold or foreclosed by
more limiting and convergent approaches.

The open-ended nature of objective questioning might not supply

immediately satisfying answers to all of life’s dilemmas, but by
their exercise alone they open the door to an agentic freedom of
daring to ask such questions without limitations.

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The very best of philosophical guidance aspires to and helps to
exercise responsible individual freedom. It is an open-ended
approach that parallels problem-solving strategies encountered
in real life. It aims to turn beggars into fisher people.

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 References and Citations
Conesa-Sevilla, J. (2017). Dimensions of religious life:
Deficiency, Proficiency, and Sovereignty. Unpublished
Manuscript.

Conesa-Sevilla, J. (2019). Ecopsychology revisited: For whom do

the ‘nature’ bells toll? Arcata, CA: Humboldt State University
Press.
https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=
1012&context=monographs

Freud, S. (1962). Future of an illusion. In J. Strachey’s (Ed.)

Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund
Freud. London, UK: Hogarth Press.

Koenig, H. G. (2008). Religion and mental health: what are

psychiatrists doing and should do? Psychiatric Bulletin, 32(6),
201–203

Tinbergen, N. (1963). On aims and methods of ethology.

Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie, 20, 410-433.

Wright, W. (1912). A psychological definition of religion. The

American Journal of Theology, 16 (3), 385-409.

❦
Notes/Disclaimer: Therapists # 1 and 2 are fictional examples
albeit their positions represent actual conjectures and claims
made by some actual therapists. Item # 1 under Therapist 1
should be qualified emphatically as “Yes, these are undeniable
facts that any reasonable person must accept.” In all the
examples the approach “strongest argument” is made in order to
make clear contrasts between approaches and methodologies. The
“Old psychiatrist” reminds me that he, having a medical degree,
can also prescribe appropriate pharmaceuticals when necessary.

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