{"id":12,"date":"2026-05-07T08:09:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T07:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/helenwp\/?page_id=12"},"modified":"2026-05-26T07:58:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T06:58:39","slug":"counselling","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/counselling\/","title":{"rendered":"Counselling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The aims of philosophical practice reach back to the ancient Greek philosophers\u00a0who saw philosophy as a way of life,\u00a0as a practice of care\u00a0for the soul and of living well in the world with others. Its modern revival began in Europe in the 1980s and has now spread across the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Philosophical counselling is characterised not by techniques or theories but&nbsp;by a commitment to consider each person\u2019s life and troubles&nbsp;on their own terms. I think of it as a kind of hostel for travellers in need of shelter, companionship and local knowledge. No doctor, no patient. Just engaged, ongoing conversation about this particular life: what is happening, what is to be done, and what it all means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is at once a therapeutic, ethical, educational and political practice. It combines skills of the mind (questioning, discernment, reasoning) with the art of dialogue (speaking and listening with care and attention).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To borrow R.D. Laing\u2019s definition of psychotherapy, it <em>remains<\/em>\u00a0<em>an obstinate attempt of two people to recover the wholeness of being human through the relationship between them<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The aims of philosophical practice reach back to the ancient Greek philosophers\u00a0who saw philosophy as a way of life,\u00a0as a practice of care\u00a0for the soul and of living well in the world with others. Its modern revival began in Europe&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-12","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2415,"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12\/revisions\/2415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.further.co.za\/helen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}