Henry asked:

Psychology claims to have a direct link to the emotional in terms of mental ailments such as eating
disorders, exhaustion states etc. People often live in a state of denial about their true feelings and a
trained therapist is able to read and identify the patient's true feelings and, in theory, with time help or
even cure the person of their problem. Do you think that philosophy too may have its own direct route
to the emotional, that here too a person may be in complete denial of that which a philosopher may
be able to shed some light upon? What I suppose I am asking is, do you think philosophy has
emotional significance, a world within the human being to answer unto itself with direct connotations
to our lives and sicknesses?

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A psycho-therapist is normally quite dynamic and tries to change behavioural traits in a patient (or so
I believe), but the philosophically influenced existentialist therapist won't try to bring about specific
behavioural changes, as would be necessary in the case of someone with an eating disorder. You
might look at my answer to Carlos (Answers 13) to see the dangers of applying existential philosophy
to specific psychological problems, but this is only one example and involves the application of a
particular existential theory, namely Heidegger's, to a particular psychological problem.

But philosophy does have a root to the emotional life in a quite general way and can also be used in
therapy and its aim is not to heal a type of sickness, but to make a man more human. Martin Buber
asks "Shall a man who is called upon to help another in a specific manner merely give the help for
which is summoned?" — a particular problem with modern Western medicine! Buber has heavily
influenced existential therapy with his account of our relationship with others which he calls the
"I-Thou" relationship. His claim is that man does not grow by relation to himself, but within the I-Thou
relationship which is not just a relationship to others, but to nature and to God. Applying Buber's
account of man at the level of therapy, the therapist aims to show a patient his own subjectivity
through engaging him in an intimate relationship in which he transcends his own concerns to enter
into a full human relationship which loosens the patient's feeling of separateness. When a feeling of
separateness grows it becomes more and more difficult to overcome and a patient takes refuge in his
own world and the world of objects.

The therapist influenced by Buber's philosophy is open and genuine, allowing the patient to trust him
and by entering into a relationship as a partner is able to liberate the patient from harmful emotions
which lead to sickness. By means of seeing and understanding the very nature of the partner and
what gives rise to his behaviour, the therapist can uncover the limitations and lack of full humanity in
a patient's life. Through genuine dialogue which loosens the patient from the limitations of his lack of
humanity and his refuge in objects, the patient is on the path to more expansive I-Thou relationships
with other people than the therapist, with animals and trees, and perhaps with God. Because this sort
of philosophy is a guide to what therapy should be like, it can have an effect of curing some mental
ailments but only those which respond to therapy, which possibly excludes psychosis and eating
disorders, but might help with exhaustion which can result from over-involvement with the world of
objects. You might want to look at Buber's book "The Knowledge of Man".

Other existentialist philosophers try to address man's ailments, but are less optimistic about man's
condition. For instance, Heidegger's dread and Sartre's fear are likely to make us more ill if taken too
seriously!

Rachel Browne

I'm going to put my usual disclaimer here, and preface this by stating that what I'll say below is not
what everyone thinks, by any means. Now, as far as therapy goes... Speaking as someone who a)
has known therapists, b) worked in a couple of mental hospitals, c) done a teeny bit of crisis
counseling, and d) studied experimental (not clinical, mind you) psychology, my general take on
therapists is that about 85% have studied it to help themselves with their own problems, and that
"schools" of therapy are mostly useful in providing education into some aspects of the human
condition and problems, notas a means of teaching one to do therapy. One is an effective therapist if
one listens sympathetically to another and supports that other person's own efforts to work through
their problems, if they are enough in touch with reality to be capable of that; if not, probably nothing
aside from drugs will help, at least to start. Boy, I'm glad I'm not standing in front of an audience of
therapists and saying that; I'd be covered in tomatoes by now. Although, to be fair, I recently had a
conversation with a couple of friends — a psychiatrist and a counselor — and they agreed with the
above. I'm not just speaking off the cuff here, there have been studies of the relative effectiveness of
various schools, and they conclude about the same thing. And when people talk about spending
decadeson a couch, under therapy, my feeling is that there's a problem there. It shouldn't take that
long (sorry, Freudians).

So, in answer to your question as far as philosophy: yes, sure, as much as anything. But what does
"direct route" mean? No therapist, or philosopher, is a mind reader. If you look at Being and Time, for
example, you find bunches of insights into the "human condition". Are they correct? Lots of people
think so. Death, fear, alienation... curiosity, "thrownness," "falling"... and why not, it's not bad stuff,
especially for its time. There are librariesof that kind of thing, starting, more or less, with Nietzsche
and Kierkegaard, through Freud, the existentialists, and on and on. When you ask whether
philosophy has "emotional significance"... how could it not? It has whatever emotional significance
you read into it. And there are lots of people who have read all those volumes and are still just as
screwed up (ooh... more tomatoes) and unhappy as when they started... with maybe a bit more
insight into why (or maybe not).

Now Buddhism is an interesting approach; they don't focus on people with problems so much as
attempt to adjust relatively normal people to what they see as a painful and chaotic world, more or
less. You're enlightened when you just don't care much any more (more tomatoes thrown at me —
"serenely accept" sounds better, but I'm not sure what distinction is being made). But it's not easy
learning to be a Buddhist, either.

The point I'm trying to make here is that if you want help, the absolute best you can get is someone to
listen carefully, and give you some emotional support and a few signposts for your owndifficult,
painful, incomplete, unsatisfying efforts. There are no instant miracle cures or personality makeovers,
whether you're pursuing philosophy, psychology, or religious revelation. It's just hard, constant work,
and no guarantee of results.

Steven Ravett Brown