Critiquing the lifeworld

communicative action and psychotherapy

S. Nik Rattan

pp. 247-262

in: Stam, Leendert Mos, Warren Thorngate, Bernie Kaplan (eds), Recent trends in theoretical psychology, Berlin, Springer, 1993

Abstract

North American culture has been characterized by a problematic ideal of individualism and selfism. An ideal of the person as radically autonomous and "disengaged" (Taylor, 1985) has often informed theory in the human sciences. In theories of counselling and psychotherapy, socio-political and historical informers of subjective experience are often downplayed. Many post- Philosophical thinkers have critiqued the acceptance of an autonomous rational subject in the human sciences. In The Theory of Communicative Action (1984, 1989) Jürgen Habermas argues that rationality needs to be understood in light of the coordination of social interactions. Habermas's version of philosophy as critical theory explicates the relationship between systems and life world which has important implications for the understanding of psychological difficulties. A critique of counselling and psychotherapy is followed by the suggestion that implicit in psychotherapeutic dialogues is a critique of the lifeworld.

Cited authors

Habermas Jürgen