Philosophical Counselling - Existential Therapy
Welcome. My name is Matthew Bishop. I am a philosopher and a counsellor and I combine the two. This is called Philosophical Counselling.
Counselling is the art of eliciting insight and motivation in the service of goods such as healing, personal growth, and change. Philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom and virtue. Wisdom: seeing yourself and life in a more true and good way, with all the benefits which flow from that. Virtue: cultivating the qualities and strengths which make you and your life better. Philosophical Counselling is the combination of all of these.
To approach these two disciplines from a different angle, therapy maps the unexamined or unconscious patterns of our lives, and helps us to make decisions about those patterns and to change them. Philosophy makes explicit the implicit forms of meaning and value which run through our lives. We can become blind to these forms and sources of meaning which are before our eyes, and this leads to problems such as confusion or despair. However, when these forms and sources of meaning and value are clarified they not only guide us, they nourish us and our lives.
I help you with the problems and goals you would typically take to mainstream counselling, and I help you to cultivate greater wisdom, resilience, courage, meaning, goodness, purpose, happiness, and flourishing. You can read a more detailed summary of my Philosophical Counselling here. Importantly, this is not psychology, psychiatry, or any associated clinical mental health service. Rather, I take the essence of counselling and psychotherapy, which amounts to a set of ways of helping people understand themselves and do life better, and I integrate that with philosophy, which is about living with depth, inner strength, and flourishing.
I see clients by video or phone across Australia and also internationally. You can read about making a booking here.
Counselling is the art of eliciting insight and motivation in the service of goods such as healing, personal growth, and change. Philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom and virtue. Wisdom: seeing yourself and life in a more true and good way, with all the benefits which flow from that. Virtue: cultivating the qualities and strengths which make you and your life better. Philosophical Counselling is the combination of all of these.
To approach these two disciplines from a different angle, therapy maps the unexamined or unconscious patterns of our lives, and helps us to make decisions about those patterns and to change them. Philosophy makes explicit the implicit forms of meaning and value which run through our lives. We can become blind to these forms and sources of meaning which are before our eyes, and this leads to problems such as confusion or despair. However, when these forms and sources of meaning and value are clarified they not only guide us, they nourish us and our lives.
I help you with the problems and goals you would typically take to mainstream counselling, and I help you to cultivate greater wisdom, resilience, courage, meaning, goodness, purpose, happiness, and flourishing. You can read a more detailed summary of my Philosophical Counselling here. Importantly, this is not psychology, psychiatry, or any associated clinical mental health service. Rather, I take the essence of counselling and psychotherapy, which amounts to a set of ways of helping people understand themselves and do life better, and I integrate that with philosophy, which is about living with depth, inner strength, and flourishing.
I see clients by video or phone across Australia and also internationally. You can read about making a booking here.