실존해명과 의미해명을 통한 철학상담으로서의 기독교상담의 가능성 모색

Abstract

It is at least 2,500 years of history that ancient Greek philosophers had been regarded the treatment of a client’s soul as doing philosophy. Founded by Gerd B. Achenbach in 1981, today’s philosophical counseling inherits the traditional philosophical counseling. In the philosophical counseling, the philosophy itself is considered a therapeutic discourse for the disease of the soul. The object of philosophical counseling as doing philosophy is to cure for the soul. In particular, K. Jaspers and V. Frankl are pioneers in the field of philosophical counseling that treats the philosophical disease as disease of the mind in a modern point of view in accordance with traditions of ancient philosophers. Jaspers’ elucidation of existence and Frankl’s elucidation of meaning are attempt to overcome limitations of the psychoanalysis in Freud and the traditional psychotherapy. The elucidation of existence and the elucidation of meaning effectively focus on the existential anthropology in high-level psychology in order to go beyond Freud’s deep psychology. The elucidation of existence is not only to let a client who is facing a borderline situation or an existential stranding of his or her life approach his or her existence, but also to encourage a client to reveal the original existence by elucidating his or her existence in a free choice. On the other hand, the elucidation of meaning is to help a client who is suffering from the existential vacuum due to frustration or meaninglessness or loss of meaning by elucidating the meaning of his or her own life. In this regard, the philosophical counseling is a philosophical practice led by a philosophical counselor to overcome the problem of mental suffering by elucidating a client’s his or her existence or meaning of life. In particular, Frankl’s elucidation of meaning is based on the elucidation of existence invented by Jaspers, so if these two elucidations work in complementary ways, they will serve as an exemplary example for modern people’s mental suffering, namely, the existential stranding(Jaspers) or the existential vacuum(Frankl) in the horizon of philosophical counseling. This is the purpose of research.