ABSTRACT
This chapter takes up issues of therapeutic work, and some of the implications it has for philosophy and vice versa. As in Chapter 1, issues of embodiment loom large, and here I raise challenges to the traditional mind–body problem by way of contemporary discussions about the ways that body is a vehicle of our meaning-making from the very beginnings of our lives. The impacts of traumatic experiences on minds through bodies have serious implications for children’s cognitive and moral development, which must be responded to in therapeutic work. I reflect on my deep worry that there is too thin a line in doing therapeutic work with children between “helping” and coercing, as we have tried to “encourage” our children to re-fashion themselves along what we have hoped are healthier lines. I end with a brief discussion of very current developments in trauma therapies, and the possibility of regret that some of them were not yet current when I needed them.
