Philosophy and Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Psychology

Objective: To explain the illusory nature of the self and explore its implications for psychotherapy.

Conclusions: Our usual experience of the self is an illusion. Rather than a discrete entity, it is a network of processes that maintains apparent irreducible unity via alterations of perceptions, beliefs, intentions and memories. By pro- viding an efficient summary of an individual and its surroundings, the self-illusion allows one to predict, experience and interact with the world efficiently. Targeting mechanisms that preserve the self-illusion could provide a focus for psychotherapy. Viewing the self as a complex network offers a valuable conceptual framework for psychotherapy.

Aim: To identify therapists’ views on sexual boundaries and the strategies they employ to manage them in therapeutic practice. Method: In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with a sample of 13 accredited, experienced practitioners of psychotherapy or counselling. A grounded theory approach, informed by principles from Free Association Narrative methodology, was employed, in which team members used debriefing sessions for extending depth of understanding of the interviews. Findings: There is consensus about boundaries at the extremes, but variability about fantasy, flirtation and touch. A core process was generated from accounts of successful management of sexual attraction. We identified four problematic ways of reacting to boundary pressure, each with potential to harm clients and therapy. Discussion: A participant-observer stance was conceptualised as essential for managing threats to boundaries, consistent with the empathic stance. Minor boundary crossings were viewed by interviewees as both potential precursors of more serious transgressions, and as opportunities for understanding the client's difficulties. Implications for practice: These span training, accrediting organisations, supervision and therapy practice.

There are passages in Wittgenstein where he compares his method to psychotherapy and one or two where he seems to suggest that the ‘patient’ has the last word on his ‘illness’ and ‘cure’.  This paper tries to take these seriously, especially in connexion with the idea that victims of philosophical confusion talk nonsense.

Philosophical accusations of talking nonsense made in a polemical spirit are bound to fail, since the only way one can effectively criticise another’s utterance is by attaching some meaning to it.  But if the other acknowledges the possibility that his puzzlement arises from his having been taken in by nonsense, then perhaps a co-operative investigation of this suggestion might be fruitful.  Indeed self-diagnosis ought in principle to be possible.  Ought it not to have happened at least once in the history of philosophy if philosophical nonsense has ever been exposed? 

But there are difficulties.  For example:
a) We must ask whether or not philosophical nonsense, when exposed as such, is supposed to lose all appearance of meaningfulness.  Either answer is problematic.
b) The acknowledged similarity of the methodology under investigation to that of psychoanalysis exposes it to many of the familiar objections to the methodology of psychoanalysis, especially those that draw attention to the misleading influence of suggestion by an authority-figure.
c) The proposal that relentless cross-questioning of a suspected nonsense-talker will eventually lead her to ‘dry up’ (if she really is talking nonsense) seems to involve a version of the so-called Socratic Fallacy.

Sass, like R. D. Laing before him, wants to make sense of schizophrenic discourse.  In 'Paradoxes of delusion – Wittgenstein, Schreber and the schizophrenic mind' he uses Wittgenstein’s later work, particularly the Blue Book, to this end.  Read criticises Sass for not taking Wittgenstein’s nonsensicalism seriously enough and suggests that some schizophrenic utterances cannot be understood at all.  I argue that Sass’s position is more consistent than Read’s, though it is probably true that Sass is the less thoroughgoing Wittgensteinian.  Read’s way of arguing his case exhibits all the difficulties that those who employ the notion of philosophical nonsense are apt to get themselves into.  The denigratory vocabulary he uses to characterise schizophrenic discourse – ‘confused’, ‘inchoate’, ‘incoherent’, ‘empty’, ‘without content’ – is itself confused and confusing, but, more importantly, his talk of ‘transitional remarks’ and his admission that he is himself ‘trafficking in nonsense’ suggest that he is falling into the very error of which he accuses Sass.

The meaningful life is not only an issue in current philosophy but also in psychiatry and psy-chotherapy. For a long time, however, it has played a central role in the Existential Analysis and Logotherapy developed by psychiatrist Viktor E. Frankl. Frankl's independent theory of meaning in life is largely ignored in the current philosophical debate, however. The aim of this article is to end this state and to discuss Frankl within today's philosophical debate.

On the one hand, the goal is to understand and evaluate Frankl's theory of meaning in the light of current philosophical debate: What kind of theory does he represent? How should it be classified? What about its inner coherence, the plausibility of its assumptions and the quality of justifications? On the other hand, the aim is to examine to what extent Frankl's approach can advance the philosophical discussion: Are there theoretical elements that are given too little attention in philosophy? Can he give important impulses to philosophical theory of mean-ing?

The investigation follows essential elements of Frankl's theory of meaning from the funda-mental formal and meta-ethical aspects to the specification of meaning and the individual ap-proach to it. First, the central importance of meaning for human life is discussed, followed by questions of the meta-ethical classification, namely the subjectivist or objectivist orientation and the role of supernaturalism. The focus of consideration then turns to essential elements of the nature of meaning, namely self-transcendence and the value relation, as well as the three value categories. The results are summarised in the final chapter.

It turns out that the theoretical exchange can be fruitful in both directions, but Frankl's thinking also has some obstacles in store. His approach, with its objectivist character and the central role of self-transcendence and relation to values, is compatible with today's discussion of meaning, while the lack of justifications is a serious methodological weakness in which orien-tation to modern philosophical standards would be desirable. Repeatedly, the impression aris-es that his theory of meaning is decisively influenced by his practical, therapeutic interest. Some of his theoretical elements have the potential to enrich the philosophical theory of meaning; that is, his focus on the situativity and individuality of meaning as well as the ideas of givenness of meaning and of responsibility for its realisation.


German abstract:
Das sinnvolle Leben ist nicht nur in der gegenwärtigen Philosophie wieder verstärkt ein Thema, sondern auch in Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie. Bereits seit langer Zeit jedoch spielt es eine zentrale Rolle in der Existenzanalyse und Logotherapie, die der Psychiater Viktor E. Frankl entwickelt hat. Frankls eigenständige Sinntheorie wird in der gegenwärtigen philosophischen Sinndebatte allerdings weitestgehend ignoriert. Das Ziel dieses Artikels ist es, diesen Zustand zu beenden und die heutige philosophische Sinndebatte mit Frankl ins Gespräch zu bringen. Einerseits geht es darum, Frankls Sinntheorie im Lichte der philosophischen Sinndebatte zu verstehen und zu bewerten: Was für eine Art von Sinntheorie vertritt er? Wie ist sie einzuordnen? Wie steht es um ihre innere Kohärenz, die Plausibilität seiner sinntheoretischen Überzeugungen und die Qualität ihrer Begründung? Andererseits soll geprüft werden, inwiefern Frankls Ansatz die gegenwärtige philosophische Sinndiskussion voranbringen kann: Gibt es bei ihm theoretische Elemente, die in der Philosophie zu wenig Beachtung finden? Kann er der philosophischen Sinntheorie wichtige Impulse geben?
Die Analyse folgt in ihrer Struktur wesentlichen Elemente der Frankl’schen Sinntheorie, von den grundlegenden formalen und metaethischen Aspekten hin zu inhaltlichen Bestimmungen des Sinns und dem individuellen Umgang mit ihm: Zunächst wird die zentrale Bedeutung des Sinns für das menschliche Leben thematisiert, dann Fragen nach der metaethischen Einordnung, nämlich nach der subjektivistischen oder objektivistischen Ausrichtung sowie der Rolle des Supernaturalismus. Dann stehen mit der Selbsttranszendenz und dem Wertebezug sowie den drei Wertkategorien wesentliche Elemente der Sinnkonstituierung im Fokus der Betrachtung. Die Ergebnisse werden im Schlusskapitel zusammengefasst.
Es zeigt sich, dass der theoretische Austausch in beide Richtungen fruchtbar sein kann, Frankls Denken allerdings auch einige Hindernisse bereithält. Sein Ansatz entpuppt sich mit ihrem objektivistischen Charakter und der zentralen Rolle von Selbsttranszendenz und Wertbezug als an die heutige Sinndiskussion gut anschlussfähig, seine oftmals fehlenden Begründungen hingegen als gravierender methodischer Makel, bei dem eine Orientierung an modernen philosophischen Standards wünschenswert wäre. Wiederholt entsteht der Eindruck, dass seine Sinntheorie maßgeblich durch sein praktisches, therapeutisches Interesse geprägt ist. Einigen seiner Theoreme wird das Potential zugesprochen, die philosophische Sinntheorie bereichern zu können: Das sind die Situativität und Individualität des Sinns sowie die Gegebenheit der Sinnmöglichkeiten und die Verantwortung für ihre Verwirklichung.

This paper explores the content of the somniloquies of Dion McGregor, the most extensive sleep talker ever recorded, and compares these with dream content from normative male dreams on the Hall and van de Castle Content Scales (1966) and Hobson (et al., 1987) Bizarreness Scales. On the Hall and van de Castle Scales, the somniloquies contained significantly more female characters relative to males than for the norms, more familiar characters and friends, but fewer family members. The dreamer-as-character was much likelier to be either a befriender or an aggressor than in the normative dreams but much less likely to engage in physical aggression specifically.  There was less aggression, friendliness, or sex per character in McGregor’s narratives, as well as less of all three of these types of interaction total than for the norms, but much more self negativity.  There was a lower percentage of negative emotions, good fortune, and success, but the somniloquies were similar to the norms in their levels of misfortune and failure.    On the Hobson Bizarreness Scales, the McGregor somniloquies were not differentiated from dreams on 3 of 6 scales—having similar levels of discontinuity of plot, characters, object, or actions but had slightly fewer incongruities of plot, and many fewer instances of incongruity or  uncertainly of thought. These findings are discussed in terms of presumed brain activation differences—more frontal activation--and also in terms of McGregor’s (1964) personal idiosyncrasies.

Sass, like R. D. Laing before him, wants to make sense of schizophrenic discourse.  In 'Paradoxes of delusion – Wittgenstein, Schreber and the schizophrenic mind' he uses Wittgenstein’s later work, particularly the Blue Book, to this end.  Read criticises Sass for not taking Wittgenstein’s nonsensicalism seriously enough and suggests that some schizophrenic utterances cannot be understood at all.  I argue that Sass’s position is more consistent than Read’s, though it is probably true that Sass is the less thoroughgoing Wittgensteinian.  Read’s way of arguing his case exhibits all the difficulties that those who employ the notion of philosophical nonsense are apt to get themselves into.  The denigratory vocabulary he uses to characterise schizophrenic discourse – ‘confused’, ‘inchoate’, ‘incoherent’, ‘empty’, ‘without content’ – is itself confused and confusing, but, more importantly, his talk of ‘transitional remarks’ and his admission that he is himself ‘trafficking in nonsense’ suggest that he is falling into the very error of which he accuses Sass.

from Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, vol 53, pg 262, 2005
reprinted in AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CLINICAL HYPNOSIS 48 (2-3), 89, 2006
by Joseph P. Green, Ph.D.,
Arreed F. Barabasz, Ph.D.,
Deirdre Barrett, Ph.D., &
Guy Montgomery, Ph.D.
DEFINITION ONLY—THIS IS NOT THE WHOLE ARTICLE in download