ABSTRACT
This chapter takes up a possible objection to the idea that the psychotherapies promote distinct visions of a good life. Therapy has often been conceptualized as a means to restore psychological health. If this is all that therapy does then it no more promotes a particular way of life than medicine does. Contrary to this objection, psychological disorders (unlike those of medicine) are shown to often implicate ideas about a good life that go beyond a narrow conception of health. Further, the therapeutic treatment of such disorders can change patients’ assessments of what is needed to live a full and flourishing life. This is true even of therapies developed as technical means to treat circumscribed disorders, such as exposure therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy.
