Abstract

This paper takes up a theme in Nietzsche’s philosophy and argues that the capacity to take an unconstrained view can be seen to be of great importance in philosophy, and more specifically, in counselling and psychotherapy, and that therefore much thought needs to be given to the cultivation of this capacity in the education of philosophical practitioners. This paper is specifically concerned with the education of psychotherapists and counsellors and how this process can constrain and restrict the practitioner, because it fails to give enough attention to matters that are often termed ‘philosophical’. It claims that counsellors and therapists often respond to the constraints—the answers, dogmatism, fixity and being stuck—of their clients with the constraints they have acquired from their training in counselling and psychotherapy, and so are unable to take an unconstrained view with a client, or of psychotherapeutic models and theories. As well as examining some of the seductions of counselling and psychotherapy which makes it difficult for practitioners and students to strive to take an unconstrained view, it outlines a view of education in general and of counselling and psychotherapy in particular that has the cultivation of this capacity as its goal