International Journal of Philosophical Practice

This essay disputes the approach to so-called 'mental illness' in which the individual patient is presumed to be the locus of hi or her 'disorder,' and should therefore be treated with brain-altering drugs. My position is predicated on the conviction that no one's mind is identical to their brain. Nor is anyone's mind a totally isolated island in the dynamic sea of human interactions and cognitions, and should not be treated as such.

Systemic existential conditions are indelible aspects of a client's reflective and nonreflective modes of consciousness, and therefore fall within the purview of philosophical counseling. This paper focuses on the experience of the dehumanization that is a function of the monetization of all aspects of post-modern neoliberal society. Monetization demands radical self-abandonment, self-anesthesia, auto-aggressive self-exploitation and addiction for functionality within the system. The bankrupt logic of pandemic terrorism confirms that monetization has become the preeminent measure of value. Monetization distorts both reason and value, concealing a covert nihilism masquerading as the new metaphysics. The symbiotic natural world evidences a level of cooperation and coexistence that escapes monetization. Therefore, a monetized society is a society at odds with the world ecosystemand life itself. Caught in a labyrinth ofmonetized dehumanization, clients often participate in the fictional metanarrative of belief in unlimited individual possibility as a hedge against anxiety, depression, powerlessness, anomie, and the logical loop of cognitive dissonance.

This paper explores the intersections between Elliot D. Cohen’s Logic-Based Therapy and Amy Morin’s "13 Things Mentally Strong Women Don’t Do" (HarperCollins 2019) with a focus on the ways that they shed light on and mutually support each other. With its six-step method (including the identification of Cardinal Fallacies, the refutation of those fallacies, the reinforcement of their corresponding Guiding Virtues, the use of Uplifting Philosophies, and the implementation of plans of action), Logic-Based Therapy and Consultation provides a systematic rational framework for understanding how our interpretation of facts and our opinions/value judgments about those facts interact in order to form habits, i.e., patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behavior, that can lead to a fulfilling or a not-so-fulfilling life. For its part, "13 Things that Mentally Strong Women Don’t Do" 1) helps us understand how these habits specifically affect women, 2) provides uplifting philosophies from a woman’s perspective, and 3) contributes to plans of actions by suggesting practical exercises for implementing these plans, all in order to help us develop those good habits or virtuous patterns of thought, feelings, and behavior that allow us to live our best lives.

This paper sets the framework for a hybrid theory of Logic-Based Therapy and Psychoanalysis through an examination of Sigmund’s Freud’s theory of perfectionism.

In this LBT practicum, psychologist Arthur Li helps his psychoanalyst client to discover the synergy between LBT and psychoanalysis in exploring her relationship withher mother.

In this practicum, Imi Lo helps her client who is confronting a recent breakup to key into her emotional reasoning, and to pinpoint a suppressed higher-order premise that has, for most of her adult life, stifled her potential for authentic happiness.

This paper demonstrates how philosophical works can be utilized in order to combat irrational rules of reasoning, namely Demanding Perfection and Awfulizing, associated with real-life thoughts and experiences of the author as a student.

In this essay I argue that an adequate understanding of addiction and its recovery should be informed by an existential understanding of human nature. I provide a brief overview of an existential perspective/foundation of addiction and recovery, which will contextualize the remainder of the essay. I then present a case study of how the six-step philosophical practice method of Logic-Based Therapy can assist with issues that often arise in addiction treatment framed through an existential perspective.

This article describes some core elements of Logic-Based Therapy and Consultation and examines some of their epistemic properties.

Using a combination of phenomenology, process-relational ontology, Buddhist philosophy, and systems science the following article aims to provide a framework for the practice of LBT wherein it is understood that individual positive causal networks established through the practitioner/client dyad are implicitly influencing the establishment of further positive causal networks in the social networks in which the practitioner and client are enmeshed.

This paper explores the recent social phenomenon of the confrontation by critics of government officials while they are out in public, yet engaged in “private” activities, e.g. eating dinner at a restaurant, shopping in a bookstore, or getting into their cars. This paper argues that such confrontations are a symptom of the lack of trust brought on by the absence of shared social values that results in toxic forms of public discourse, the blurring of the classical liberal distinction between the public and the private realms, and the inability to hold one another responsible for the violation of self-avowed moral norms. Implicit in this argument is the conclusion that such confrontations are ineffective at best. Some have suggested more physical intermingling among people who hold conflicting political views in order to establish such trust (Haidt, Wilk). In the absence of such opportunities for intermingling, sharing our value-laden personal stories with each other, in the spirit and style of Michelle Obama’s memoir Becoming, might help to create tolerance and trust among those with differing political perspectives.

This paper explores the role that Elliot D. Cohen’s Logic-Based Therapy might play in restoring civility to public discourse in this era of social and political divisiveness. The contributions that Logic-Based Therapy, as a modality of philosophical counseling, might make to improving public discourse are explored through the lenses of Jonathan Haidt’s social intuitionist model of the formation of moral judgments and his Moral Foundations Theory of the development of general political perspectives, both articulated in Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. In spite of substantial differences in Cohen’s and Haidt’s methodological approaches and theoretical content, the similarities are significant enough to allow opportunities for Logic-Based Therapy to intervene in important and effective ways to restore civil discourse in fractious times.

The central goal of this article is to make the case that the revamped version of Michael Bishop’s Network Theory of Well-being, described in his 2015 book The Good Life: Unifying the Philosophy and Psychology of Well-Being, provides a worthwhile framework for philosophical counseling endeavors, including Logic-Based Therapy. In 2017, The Network Theory of Well-Being, Revamped emerged as a response to Bishop’s theory of well-being; the revamped version was also my dissertation, which I successfully defended and published that year. By appealing to a set of counter-examples, I argue that Bishop’s theory is missing an essential component; his positive causal network model of well-being allows for sever­al problematic cases which, upon investigation, demonstrate positive causal networks but cannot reasonably be considered examples of well-being. In revamping Network Theory, I argue that three additional criteria are required for well-being: authenticity, a bit of moral­ity, and some objective information. Altogether, these three criteria comprise what I call holistic authenticity. As such, the emergent theory of well-being declares that well-being is a matter of instantiating a holistically authentic positive causal network. This theory of well-being is the most reasonable notion of well-being for philosophical counseling because it is based on Network Theory’s inclusive method, which requires that the philosophy of well-being join forces with the science of well-being.

Applying the Roman Stoic criteria for a defensible suicide, this paper argues that suicide in certain circumstances may not merely be permissible, but even morally preferable to the available alternatives, including survival until natural death or some other involuntary end.

Systemic existential conditions are indelible aspects of a client’s reflective and non-reflective modes of consciousness. These conditions impinge upon a client’s ability and willingness to think through his/her situation in the world, as this may serve to highlight the terror of living. Depression, anxiety, and a sense of powerlessness, in conjunction with a contradictory belief in unlimited individual possibility are often translations of and reaction formations against the ontological experience of terror. The problematic nature of terror, as such, is discussed, as are its effects upon those who seek counseling. Sources of terror include but are not limited to the increasing monetization of all facets of contemporary post-Modern society, the collapse of the possibility of a democratic society, the renewed global arms race, the increasing debt load shouldered by individuals, the destruction of liberal arts education, and the wholesale disregard of basic human rights as enumerated in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In sum, an artificially created state of nature could account for currently existing conditions of terror and the attendant consequences of that terror: depression, anxiety, a sense of powerlessness, and an irrational belief in unlimited individual possibility.

In this paper, I discuss how the six-steps procedure of LBT can be applied to the case of Mr. H., who believes that it is reasonable for him to feel hopeless for his future. During the practicum session, we explore his emotional reasoning, identify and refute cardinal fallacies in the premises, and identify guiding virtues according to the fallacies. Further, according to Mr. H’s preference, we explore and apply the uplifting philosophy associated with the ideas of Buddhism. I conclude the paper with reflections on how both Mr. H and myself learnt from this valuable experience.

This paper will explain and implement Logic-Based Therapy’s six-step philosophical practice to address and overcome the fallacy of Global Damnation. The premises and conclusions in the faulty thinking will be constructed, identified, and refuted, the guiding virtue will be identified, and philosophical antidotes will be constructed and applied.

This study is to show how the Logic-Based Therapy (LBT) method can be applied to groups in an attempt to point out possible risks and benefits of its application related to a group context. From observation and analysis a single practical case has been outlined, taking into consideration influence of group dynamics on the counselees’ cognitive processes during the LBT session. Judging from the analysis of the outlined results, it seems that intersubjectivity can play an important role if considered as a productive resource in the co-construction of a changing process among LBT group members during the application of its six steps. In particular, new research fields on the need to analyze LBT in groups have been opened, exploiting the possibility to consider the group as an autonomous entity, especially in long term counseling therapies.

In this paper, I discuss how, as part of the Logic-Based Therapy (LBT) Primary Certificate Program offered in Taiwan, I applied LBT to the case of Zhou, a fourth-year graduate school student in the Department of Guidance & Counseling.