by Gary Borjesson
I’ve rarely regretted holding my tongue during a session. I’ve rarely regretted drawing out what’s on a patient’s mind instead of offering some (apparently) juicy insight or interpretation of my own. Holding myself back is sometimes a matter of willpower, but mostly a matter of art. The root of this art is the Socratic method.
In broad terms, the Socratic method can be used to teach law and other technical subjects, but these aren’t psycho-therapeutic in the way that Socrates was, that Plato’s dialogues are, or that a psychotherapist is. Law professors are not examining a student’s unconscious feelings, thoughts, or beliefs. Rather, the student has taken in a teaching, and their grasp is tested by Socratic-style questioning. But Socrates and Plato themselves are concerned with making what’s latent in the mind conscious, as are psychoanalysts and other depth therapists.
Socrates distinguishes the deeper, more therapeutic potential of his method by calling himself a midwife. This ‘maieutic’ metaphor has become synonymous with his method, as the accompanying definition shows. I want to unpack the meaning of Socratic midwifery and how this is reflected in psychotherapeutic art. The parallels are naturally of interest to me, having spent the first half of my career as a philosophy professor before leaving academia to become a psychotherapist. But more than that, the wisdom folded into the metaphor of midwifery sheds light on how to pursue an aim shared by philosophy and psychotherapy: getting to know oneself. Read more »
Mother’s friend departed after their weekly get-together for tea, cakes and gossip, but she forgot to take her book. It was a slim hardback with the blue and yellow banded cover of a subscription book club. It lay on the arm of the sofa for ten minutes and then, before anybody noticed, it vanished – relocated to my bedroom. I was fifteen, and this would be the first adult novel I had ever read. Its title was Under the Net by Iris Murdoch. Iris was my “first” – first adult novelist and first woman writer, and she has remained fixed in my affections over the decades. Under the Net was also Murdoch’s first novel, published in 1954. I was so naively charmed that I made a precocious promise to myself to reread it fifteen years later to see if its appeal lasted. I already knew that in the coming years I would not be rereading my previous favourites, my childhood book collections of Just William, Biggles, Billy Bunter and John Carter’s adventures on Mars. Unlike them, Under the Net had mysteries and ideas I did not yet fathom, but would need to discover.
