Between conviction and uncertainty : philosophical guidelines for the practicing psychotherapist

✍ Scribed by Downing, Jerry N.

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 337
• Series: SUNY series alternatives in psychology.
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

"At a time when scores of seemingly incompatible theories and methods are competing for ascendancy in psychotherapy, one could argue that the crucial intellectual and moral dilemmas of this field are largely philosophical in nature. Yet most psychotherapists are never formally exposed to philosophical thinking during their training years or subsequent careers. Between Conviction and Uncertainty: Philosophical Guidelines for the Practicing Psychotherapist makes a significant contribution by bridging this gap. Jerry Downing examines and clarifies the philosophical context - epistemological, scientific, moral - within which psychotherapy functions. He demonstrates the necessity of maintaining a creative tension - a dialectic - between conviction and uncertainty in the work of the therapist and, more importantly, he explores in depth how this might be done. Further, he presents these sometimes complex ideas in prose that is truly reader-friendly. This book should appeal to all practitioners, supervisors, and students/trainees who find value in reflecting on the nature of psychotherapeutic practice, as well as to readers with theoretical or philosophical interests in psychotherapy."--Jacket.  Read more...

✦ Table of Contents

Challenges from the psychotherapy literature: what do therapists know? --
The proliferation of therapeutic theories and methods --
Historical and comparative approaches to psychotherapy --
The empirical literature on psychotherapy --
Subjective factors in theory construction, selection, and use --
Moral and political dimensions of therapy practice --
Challenges from philosophy: what can therapists know? --
Relevant philosophical terms and trends --
A formulation and review of philosophical positions --
Postmodernist implications for nihilism and relativism --
The revelatory and restrictive functions of psychotherapeutic theories --
Misapplications of the paradigm concept to the human sciences --
Kuhn's history and philosophy of science as psychology --
Comparisons to the theories of George Kelly and Carl Rogers --
A theory about human theories --
The range of philosophical assumptions in psychotherapeutic theories --
Does the objectivist-constructivist contrast apply to theories, theorists/therapists, or therapeutic practices? --
What are the varieties of "constructivism" in contemporary psychotherapy? --
How does the objectivist-constructivist contrast relate to subjectivism and transpersonalism? --
Philosophical assumptions as lived modes of knowing --
Toward the integration of philosophy and lived experience --
A framework for lived modes of knowing --
Lived modes of knowing in the therapist's experience --
The realist mode of knowing --
The representational mode of knowing --
The perspectival mode of knowing.

✦ Subjects

Psychotherapy -- Philosophy;PSYCHOLOGY -- Psychotherapy -- General;Psychotherapy;Philosophy