Phenomenology 2005

Volume 1, Issue Part 2, 2007

Selected Essays from Asia Part 2

Contacting and Enacting “Self for being Ethical”
A Model for Psychotherapy Practiced in Taiwan

The local healing modes in Taiwan for psychological suffering can be called as “ethical care,” i.e., they emphasize people’s suffering in their ethical predicaments and, therefore, find ways to re-order the interpersonal constellations. In accordance with ethical care, psychotherapy practiced in Taiwan should focus on the “self for being ethical,” the acting agent concerned mostly with the interpersonal ordering in its life. To advance the significance of ethical care, the assumption of the individuality of the most dominant theories of psychotherapy, which mostly target on ego functioning, is discussed, and an illustration of psychotherapy as ethical care is also provided.