Philosophy for Counselling and Psychotherapy: Pythagoras to Postmodernism

Introduction.- Pythagoras.- Heraclitus.- Sophocles.- Socrates and Plato.- Aristotle.- Epicureanism.- Stoicism.- St Augustine.- Aquinas.- Machiavelli.- Luther.- Hobbes.- Descartes.- Spinoza.- Locke.- Leibniz.- Berkeley.- Hume.- Rousseau.- Kant.- Bentham.- Hegel.- Schopenhauer.- Mill.- Kierkegaard.- Marx.- Nietzsche.- Freud.- Jung.- Wittgenstein.- Heidegger.- Sartre.- What Next?.- Conclusion.

Alex Howard

'The clearest, wisest account of the major philosophers since Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy.' - Dorothy Rowe '[D]eserves to be widely read by counsellors and psychotherapists and particularly by trainees...a lucid and succinct overview of those aspects of western philosophy that are directly relevant to our understanding of human existence.' - Emmy van Deurzen, Schiller International University and University of Sheffield 'All therapists can benefit from taking Howard's intellectual and moral journey from Pythagoras to Derrida. This is not only a stimulating history of ideas but also contains interpretations of therapeutic assumptions, suggested applications, further reading and even relevant websites. It is one of the few significant texts offering fresh inputs from outside the narrow field of psychology and its author succeeds admirably in rendering philosophy into an accessible and meaningful applied discipline.' - Colin Feltham, Sheffield Hallam University 'Howard's book succeeds on two levels: for the practising philosopher and student of philosophical counselling, Howard has canvassed some of the major philosophers in the history of Western philosophy and encapsulated some of their ideas which can be easily employed in the private practice of philosophy. On behalf of the non-philosopher Howard's book is encyclopaedic; it provides the philosophical novice with a conceptual map that would enable one to begin to discover what kind of life is well worth living.' - Kenneth F.T. Cust, Past President and Interim Executive Director, American Society for Philosophy, Counselling and Psychotherapy 'This is a book crafted with singular care and intelligence...Through his deep insight into philosophy, Howard prises open perspectives on our condition which have for most of us been clamped shut...by the vice of 'the market', vividly displaying all-but-forgotten alternatives to the banalities of business and the fatuities of psychobabble. The book