Explaining and investigating the methodological challenge of philosophical counseling: the negation of methodology or emphasis on methodology

Counseling and improvement of life problems in ancient times was a unique role of philosophy, but this central role has been forgotten in modern times, and in contemporary times, philosophy has sought to revive its position through practical philosophical activities such as philosophical counseling. Philosophical counseling is an approach in which the counselor helps clients to solve problems related to their worldview and their views on life and values on their own. The diversity of worldviews and the multiple nature of human problems caused philosophical counseling to develop based on various approaches and methods. During the methodological development of philosophical counseling, this approach was faced with a challenge regarding the negation of methodology or emphasis on a method by experts in this field. Therefore, this research was done with an analytical method and a type of rational interpretation, to explain and investigate this methodological challenge.The findings of the research showed that some experts in this field, including Achenbach, took a negative position regarding whether there is a specific methodology in philosophical counseling or not. They argue that there is no fixed methodology and that following certain fixed paths is a positivist science and not a philosophy because the difference between philosophical counseling and psychological counseling is that in philosophical counseling there is no distinction between normal and abnormal clients, but the goal Philosophical counseling is helping clients in self-scrutiny and independence in choosing the right path in life. In the opposite camp, most counseling philosophers had a positive stance towards the adoption of methodology and they argued that the adoption of methodology is important in the realistic development of philosophical counseling skills and the training and education of new counselors. And also, this is considered vital to prevent the collapse of identity and lack of competence in philosophical counseling. The writer's position in this regard is a middle position in which negative and positive theories can be compatible with each other and according to this compatibility, the scope of philosophical counseling can be expanded through learning different methods and competing with other individual methods and the group and lack of bias in emphasizing a particular method promoted the quantitative and qualitative development of philosophical counseling.

Keywords:

Philosophical counseling , Methodology , Challenge , Worldview of clients