Philosophy is often treated as distinct from psychology.

Philosophical concepts like dialectics can be useful in clinical practice.

Dialectics offers a helpful model for psychotherapeutic aims and goals.

In the most recent translation of one of philosophy’s greatest texts, Hegel’s The Phenomenology of Spirit, the translators make an interesting claim relating the book more to psychology than to philosophy: “The Phenomenology actually reads more like a series of cultural psychoanalytic sessions in which Hegel does his patients’ 'free association' with them.… there’s probably little that Hegel could have learned later from Freud” (xvii).

The authors here point to an unusual style in Hegel that makes it feel less like a strict thesis or argument being laid out (which it is) than a model of thinking and working through complex notions, in the spirit of experimentation or free association. This associative tone is, in a way, a good model for what we do in psychotherapy, which is to identify, process, work through, and reframe restrictive concepts or notions we may have, i.e., notions of love, attachment, success, "the good life," justice, betrayal, etc.

In many clinical cases, psychological symptoms are often rooted in rigidly held notions that need redefinition and expansion. Take the simple case of love and relationships. We grow up with inherited notions of love from family, peers, or popular culture. The action or practice of love and attachment can simulate some of these preconceptions, but typically exceeds our previous grasp (how could it not?). For instance, long-term monogamy might take detours into betrayal and ruptures of trust, tainting and souring the idealistic notion of love. An individual may have to redefine love as........

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