As a Philosophical Counseling Method Nermi Uygur’s Dealing with His Crisis

Abstract

At the beginning of the eighties, philosophical counseling as a new way of philosophizing, was introduced in Europe. Not very long, the philosophical counseling began to be considered as an alternative practice to psychological counseling. The philosophical counseling addresses the predicaments the average person faces in everyday life by interpreting his/her worldview (the subject matter of philosophical self-investigation) assumed to implicitly express his/her personal philosophy. But how does it differ from psychological interpretations? This is the most critical question which philosophical counselors should answer while trying to establish the theoretical and conceptual framework of this new profession. If the philosophical counseling claims to be an alternative counseling practice, philosophical counselors should clearly determine their counseling area and methods or techniques, which is also essential for the legitimacy for their profession. At this point, this study claims that Nermi Uygur’s method to deal with his crisis provide the philosophical counseling with a method around a concept (crisis) free from any psychological loads. Nermi Uygur tells how he dealt with his crisis in his book named From Crisis to Culture of Living. This work, when read carefully considering the theory, concepts, approaches, methods and techniques of philosophical counseling, it is easily noticed that the stages experienced by Uygur in his journey from crisis to culture of living have many resemblances with a philosophical counselor’s way of counseling a person having the same problems, predicament or crisis. In other words, in this work, Uygur, while having a crisis, practices self-philosophical counseling or as a philosophical counselor himself, is counseling a person experiencing a crisis.