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Thinking for clinicians. Philosophical resources for contemporary psychoanalysis and the humanistic psychotherapies, by Donna Orange

This is an ambitious book offering philosophical ‘tools and contexts’ for psychoanalytic and humanistic therapists. Orange begins by recognising that psychoanalytic and psychological theories have unexamined philosophical origins and these have important implications for clinical practice. Orange intends to ‘induce curiosity and a sense of feeling more at home’ in ‘the world of ideas’ (p. 2). ‘Daily we psychotherapists are called to be the someone who makes the empathic stretch to include in our horizons of understanding that someone whom we find challenging, that is, difficult to understand’ (p. 9). Orange’s underlying thesis is that because therapists deal with the human condition, balancing that thin line between hope and dread, all therapists are therefore practising philosophers. The temptation for therapists is to so engage with their patients’ inner world and conflicts present in the ‘relational matrix’ of the consulting room, that they neglect the external world, ideas and philosophies. Orange invites the reader to engage with contemporary philosophers in their historical and cultural contexts, so that their philosophy is not merely abstract thought but lived out in their writings as a reflection of personal experience. In this way, Orange offers philosophical insights that are accessible to the experiences of therapists for whom abstract ideas dislocated from their patients are not of first importance. This is done through a survey of key twentieth-century philosophers that encompasses Buber, Wittgenstein, Meleau-Ponty, Levinas and Gadamer. This selection was always going to be controversial, with no place for Heidegger, Foucault, Lyotard, Derrida or Kriesteva. Orange explains in an introductory chapter that her choice revolves around a certain understanding of humanism that recognises personal experience as dialogic and ‘attentive to the ongoing quality of human ties’ (p. 6). Orange adds she has chosen the philosophers that have had them the most impact on her. She recognises the absence of Heidegger, but sees his influence through the other philosophers present, while believing his actions and silence were ‘a tremendous betrayal of all the philosophers hold dear’ (p. 13). This clarifies an unspoken issue for Orange, which relates to the ethical dimensions of therapy and philosophy. It is Orange’s ‘great sorrow’ that ‘it will take generations before women have the opportunities and support to appear among the world’s great philosophers’ (p. 13). In chapter two, Orange begins with Buber and rehabilitates him for psychoanalytic practitioners through focussing on the links between I-You,