Elle
September, 1999
The Philosopher Is In
Laura Asmundsson
The meaning of life? Pull
up a couch.
We've got trainers toning our thighs and
feng shui experts rearranging our furniture. But in the
glutted marketplace of self-improvement gurus, who handles
existential issues like: "Is there no way out of
this mindless job?" Try a philosopher. Today, neoshrinks
with advanced degrees in philosophy offer Socratic dialogue,
logic, and reasoning as an alternative to psychotherapy.
"Morality, values, the meaning of life - they all
come up daily and cause distress," says Louis Marinoff,
Ph.D., author of Plato, Not Prozac! (HarperCollins). "Unlike
traditional therapy, where issues are categorized as illnesses,
we talk about decision theory and weighing consequences.
It's about free will, not digging up the roots of childhood."
While the practice dates at least
as far back as ancient Greece, the first modern philosopher-cum-analyst
set up shop in Europe about twenty years ago. The trend
has grown here since Marinoff founded the American Philosophical
Practitioners Association last year clients can opt for
phone sessions, one-on-one visits, or group discussions.
Although most practitioners don't prescribe one thinker
over another, some seem tailor-made to specific dilemmas:
"Hegel's good for problems with difficult bosses,"
offers Marinoff. "He gets into master-slave relationships
and psychological bondage." Incoming White House
interns, take note.
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