ABSTRACT
According to the Greek tradition, there is an intimate relationship between knowledge and the good life. If the therapist does not have the self-knowledge to achieve the independence and ego integration that comes from what the Greeks called “self mastery”—eukrateia—this disqualifies the therapist from being able to help others to realize their potential for finding the true freedom that develops with self-knowledge. Good health, the company of one’s loved ones, the pleasure of helping other people, physical and intellectual accomplishments through self-discipline, quiet meditation, enjoyment of nature, travel, and escape into literature and the arts are some of the things that enable life to be bearable. “No, George, because the application of phenomenology to dynamic psychotherapy raises the valid question of whether the authors, as therapists, can be sure that they are hearing and seeing our patients as they really are, rather than as projections of our theories of them.
