Category: philosophical counseling

• June 22, 2011

  On the illusions of psychiatry

  In this 2nd piece of a 2-part series on the history and practice of psychiatry, Marcia Angell critically examines the players and forces behind psychiatry’s cozy relationship with big pharma. She argues: After 1950 and especially during the 1980s, psychiatrists made a conscious effort to adopt a biological model. In so doing, psychiatry was able…
• June 21, 2011

  ‘And what makes you qualified?’

  Forget all this nonsense about flashing resumes and writing letters and sending these, as a package, off to the four corners of the universe. Stop fishing: stop seeing what’s out there, casting a wide net, buckling your soul, waiting for daybreak. Instead, turn the question around. Never done this before? Good. Barely heard of it…
• June 18, 2011

  Toward an alternative business model for philosophical counseling

  I’m giving a talk this afternoon at the APPA Annual Meeting just up the road at Columbia. The talk’s entitled “Toward an Alternative Business Model for Philosophical Counseling.” (Very catchy!) I’ll be arguing We’re living through a historical transition the result of which is that our old ways of life are inherently unworkable. At the…
• June 14, 2011

  Venkat on the life and death of the corporation

  In “A Brief History of the Corporation: 1600-2100,” Venkat examines the 3 phases of the corporate form: maximum power (years 1600-1800), maximum reach (1800-1980), and slow death (1980 and afterward). Strikingly  he writes, The Age of Corporations is coming to an end. The traditional corporation won’t vanish, but it will cease to be the center…
• June 10, 2011

  On lectio divina – day 2

  Suppose you were to approach a book the way you do wine. To begin with, you’d be careful in your selection. After all, the thing’s going in your mouth and down your gullet. Once you’ve selected something palatable, you’d let it breathe, take it in, sit with it for a while, give it time. And…