ABSTRACT
My purpose here will not be to offer a definite theory of either psychoanalysis or philosophical counselling, but rather to question both topics as a means to ‘help’ young adolescents suffering from temporary thought inhibition. I shall be considering in what ways a psychoanalyst
might benefit an adolescent patient, and in what ways be of less benefit to him, by departing from the classical use of interpretation and the requirement of free association, through use of philosophical metaphors and epistemology in a phenomenologically biased ‘philosophical counselling’.
