The theoretical and philosophical assumptions underlying our psychological practices greatly affect the ways that clinicians in the mental health field go about their work and to some extent how successful at it they are. This paper attempts to illustrate this by describing how a careful and systematic look at the underlying philosophical presuppositions surrounding the concept of transference yielded clear clinical benefits to my own practice of psychotherapy. More specifically, by contrasting the philosophical paradigm implied in the classical definitions of (...) transference with that of an alternative, phenomenologically-based model my understandings of the clinical phenomena in question were allowed to develop in new ways--ones which feel truer to the actual experiences in question and ultimately more helpful. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

I wish to thank both Dr. Eagle and Dr. Thompson for their thoughtful and thought-provoking commentaries on my paper. I address some of the concerns they brought up in this response. When I began to write this paper, my first thoughts were to the effect of “How does one write a relatively brief article about a topic on which I’ve already devoted a rather lengthy book?” What do I include? And what do I leave out? Although the latter of these (...) questions left me dealing with many feelings of ‘existential guilt’ about leaving out ideas I think are important, the former took guidance from the stated purpose of this special issue to address a broad and interdisciplinary audience on the question of what.. (shrink)

In this article, I will try to illustrate some ways in which an existential ontology, based on a phenomenological elaboration of the basic structures or themes of human existence, may prove useful to us in psychotherapeutic theory and practice. A number of philosophers as well as a number of theorists and practitioners of psychotherapy have weighed in on the topic of whether ontology and psychology can or should influence each other and how. In many cases, these discussions have hinged upon (...) the ontological/ontic distinction, particularly as articulated in Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time. In brief, I characterize that distinction by saying that the ontological discussion falls clearly within the.. (shrink)