Philosophical Foundations of Psychotherapy - Radical Relationality

Philosophical Foundations of Psychotherapy promotes a critical awareness of the history of ideas, and how cultural, social and political theories inform and shape what we do as relational counselling and psychotherapy practitioners.

It seeks to recover the dialogic ideal of the Platonic notion that -relationships heal- and traverse the relational contours of history through to contemporary thinkers (e.g., McLeod, Slife, Gergen, Gadamer, Taylor, Habermas). The book will demystify technical vocabularies, emphasising the fact we are moral beings living in the real world. It will challenge the unhelpful misconception that philosophy is for philosophers alone. Human reality is too complex for counsellors and psychotherapists to be unaware of the foundations, difficulties and contradictions within our value systems, ethics and philosophical assumptions about what we do. Broader, contemporary themes to be discussed include:

- Key debates in gender, sexuality and feminism