Complex Numbers

Socra-Tease

Here's one from The New Yorker that, when I first read it, I thought: This has comedic potential.

    When Philosophers Become Therapists  
The philosophical-counselling movement aims to apply heady, logical insights to daily life.

I mean, think about it.

"Doc, I'm distressed because I can't find meaning in life."

"That's because life has no meaning, so stop looking for it."

"Wow! That's deep! Thank you."

"Sure. That'll be $180."

"Here's $200."

"Thanks!"

"Can I have change?"

"You already did."

Around five years ago, David—a pseudonym—realized that he was fighting with his girlfriend all the time. On their first date, he had told her that he hoped to have sex with a thousand women before he died.

All the TNY pieces I've seen start out with anecdotes and then, maybe, bit by halting bit, go around and around in circles until they get to something more general. Sometimes they never even get there, which I call "The New Yorker School of Not Getting to the Fucking Point." This one contains a whole lot of anecdotes. My point, which you'll note I'm getting to very quickly, is that I'm going to skip a lot of it here. In brief, he worked with a philosophical therapist named Lydia Amir.

I might have missed it, but I don't think the article notes whether he had sex with her or not.

Between meetings, Amir sometimes gave him reading assignments: Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Hume.

Oh yes, definitely, if I'm having an existential crisis, those are absolutely the philosophers I want to read.

Amir is one of a small but growing number of philosophers who provide some form of individual counselling. In the United States, two professional associations for philosophical counsellors, the National Philosophical Counseling Association (N.P.C.A.) and the American Philosophical Practitioners Association (A.P.P.A.), list dozens of philosophers who can help you with your problems.

Well. Philosophy tends to pay jack shit. Therapy, however, can bring in the bucks.

Philosophy is both a natural and a strange resource for helping people resolve the problems of life. Ancient philosophical traditions such as Stoicism and Buddhism focussed on practical ethics and techniques for alleviating suffering, but much modern philosophy seems to aim to express suffering, rather than reduce it.

I wouldn't call the aim of those philosophies to be "alleviating suffering," but there's always the possibility that I don't really understand Stoicism or Buddhism.

Some think that the practice of philosophical counselling should be more standardized. Others worry that philosopher-counsellors will miss serious mental-health issues. The two major American professional organizations stress that philosophical counselling can’t address certain severe psychiatric disorders, and urge counsellors to refer clients to mental-health providers when their issues do not fit a philosophical scope of practice.

Well, that's somewhat relieving. It's one thing to seek someone else's point of view, or be able to talk things through with a neutral party. It's another to have legitimate mental health issues that need more medical treatment.

So, anecdotes (and jokes) aside, this kind of thing obviously exists (in the same sense that anything can be said to truly exist), and it mildly amuses me. Does it work? All the TNY anecdotes in the world won't convince me one way or the other; I want to see a study.

I'm sure a philosophical therapist would have something to say about my need for evidence-based science. But, you know. Whatever.