[1] Philosophical practice has continued to expand and is attractive as an alternative to counselling and psychotherapy for those who prefer to avoid a medicalization of life problems.
Peter Koestenbaum at San Jose State University in California was an early figure in philosophical counseling.
They proposed an alternative to psychotherapeutic culture by working exclusively within the field of existential investigation with clients or patients, whom they called 'visitors'.
[8] Marinoff was at the center of a 2004 controversy when his philosophical counseling practice at City College of New York was temporarily shuttered by college officials who feared he was offering mental health advice without proper training and licensing; Marinoff responded by suing for what he described as his freedom of speech being stifled.
[9] Philosophical practice has continued to expand and is attractive as an alternative to counselling and psychotherapy for those who prefer to avoid a medicalization of life problems.
[11][12] In 2020, a project in philosophical counseling in India was awarded by the Ministry of Education to the Department of Philosophy, Panjab University, Chandigarh.
[16] Some practitioners, such as Gerd B. Achenbach (Germany), Michel Weber (Belgium) and Shlomit C. Schuster (Israel) are dialogical and dialective engaged, while confessing to a "beyond method" approach.
[19] Some philosophical counselors draw inspiration from the anti-psychiatry movement, arguing that widespread mental health diagnostic criteria as outlined in DSM IV have unfairly or inaccurately pathologized humanity.
[20] According to a New York Times article on philosophical counseling, "only Cohen and Marinoff have branded easily comprehended techniques.