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For Levinas the danger of Western thought is that, if we start with ourselves we end with ourselves. He suggests that ethics should be about putting the Other first, but not in some fundamentalist Christian sense of the self-choosing to give one's life for others. Origin of authentic ethical behaviour is not from the self but from the Other.
List of contents
Introduction: Levinas and the Other in psychotherapy and counselling 1. Levinas (1905-1995): His life and some key ideas 2. Emmanuel Levinas (2003)
On Escape 3. Knowledge of the Other 4. Self-betraying emotions and the psychology of heteronomy 5. Towards an ethical-hermeneutics 6. Beyond therapy: Levinas and ethical therapeutics 7. Toward a therapy for the Other 8. Epistemology and the hither side: A Levinasian account of relational knowing 9. The difficulty of being: A partial reading of E. Levinas,
De l'existence à l'existant 10. The idea of a possibility 11. Taking therapy beyond modernity? The promise and limitations of a Levinasian understanding 12. The ethics of the relational
About the author
Del Loewenthal is Emeritus Professor of Psychotherapy and Counselling at the University of Roehampton and is Chair of the Southern Association for Psychotherapy and Counselling (SAFPAC), London, UK. He is an existential-analytic psychotherapist, and chartered psychologist, with a particular interest in phenomenology. His books include
Existential Psychotherapy and Counselling after Postmodernism (Routledge 2017). www.delloewenthal.com; www.safpac.co.uk
Summary
For Levinas the danger of Western thought is that, if we start with ourselves we end with ourselves. He suggests that ethics should be about putting the Other first, but not in some fundamentalist Christian sense of the self-choosing to give one’s life for others. Origin of authentic ethical behaviour is not from the self but from the Other.
