An Essay Concerning the Substance of Counseling

Abstract

Our modern world appears to lack a way to find truth. Philosophically, this problem is formulated in a manner of knowing which never gets beyond the subject of the universe; even objectivity in the universe is arguable. The effort called empirical science then gives us conclusions that regularly perpetuate an unstable world. Due to this real subjective empirical constraint, the usual approach to therapeutic Counseling offers methods focused on the individual obtaining skills and conceptions that function to mitigate the apparent and ubiquitous problem of modernity. Empirical science, whether it be physical, biological or phenomenal, has left us with only problem; it leaves us in a lurch, right in the middle of a contradiction of a subject able to know truth. This is the main problem of mental health. I propose that modern problems of mental health cannot be solved truly with reference to what I call the conventional method of experiment and argumentative reason. We require a true and knowable substance of the universe if we are to gain headway. To this end, I propose a unitive discipline of Counseling founded in what is true of the universe. Less about the negotiation between subjects and more about what is true of that negotiation. This essay uses the philosophy of Graham Harman, called Object Oriented Ontology, or “Triple-O”, as a means to begin to establish the truthful substance of Counseling as a discipline in its own right, which is to say as well, as a universal object.