Socratic dialogue: c/o Louw 'Defining Philosophical Counselling'

There is a further philosophical counselling [PC] reading group tomorrow in Liverpool and online. Ordinarily I would like to be there in-person, but there are three nights in London to follow. Two papers this time, one includes:

' ... But perhaps the most popular version of PC in group format goes under the name of 'Socratic Dialogue`. This entails more than and even contradicts the well-known Socratic Approach' in which the counsellor-cum-midwife allows the client to give birth to his/her own ideas - a decidedly unstructured and unpredictable process. The 'Socratic Approach' is especially popular amongst those who advocate that PC does not and should not have any specific method (cf. Achenbach 1995). 'Socratic Dialogue', though, is exactly that: at method with strict rules of procedure. As facilitator, the philosophical counsellor puts a question to the group. Participants then need to submit concrete examples of situations in which they encountered the problem in the question. The facilitator subsequently decides on one example to serve as the focus of the discussion. The aim is for all the participants to agree on an appropriate answer to the question (excluding the facilitator: s/he remains, in this sense, disengaged) (Kessels 1997).' pp.65-66.

A different use-case of course, but I use guided discovery with students to introduce Hodges' model, taking in the course progression thus far. The students (re-)create the model through a question and answer session.

Louw D. (2013) Defining Philosophical Counselling: An Overview, South African Journal of Philosophy, 32:1, 60-70, DOI: 10.1080/02580136.2013.810417
https://doi.org/10.1080/02580136.2013.810417

Plus: Schuster, S.C., (1991) Philosophical Counselling. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 8:2. 219.

Previously: 'Socrates'