Some Philosophical and Psychological contributions to the Use of Self in Therapy

Abstract

The question of why the concept of the use of self in therapy should emerge at this time is discussed, together with its philosophical and psychological antecedents. The article's thesis is that while the idea of the self has fascinated man throughout history, it was Kierkegaard and the existential philosophers who persuasively shifted attention from the essence of man to the nature of his existence and the world of subjective experience. This permitted the emergence of a self which was not merely a product of instinctual drives or of external forces, but was an interacting being, which could be both subject and object at the same time. Major figures in this development include philosophers such as Heidegger, writers such as Sartre, clinicians such as Carl Rogers, sociologists such as George Herben Mead, and theologians such as Tillich. Buber's insightful elaboration of the I-Thou relationship is felt to be a landmark contribution, underlying many recent developments in humanistic psychology and psychot...