• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.130
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• pp.305-335
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• 2014

Counseling is conducted through dialogue in relation to counselor and client. Therefore the philosophical counseling first must consider the circumstances, prescribe the main concepts and proceed to the specific methodology in order to be the practical study. The philosophical counseling includes the six necessary concepts-subjects, time, place, object, method, and purpose-because of its behavioral concepts. The subjects are counsellor and client, the place is where public institutions authorize officially for counseling, the time is when the two parties are meeting face to face, the object is the client's facing problems right now, the method is the philosophical assistance, and the purpose is to dissolve the client's problems. The client's facing problems here are the developmental tasks according to the developmental stages and the maladaptive behaviors related to the cognitive distortions appearing in the process. And the philosophical assistance methods are the types to make the facilitating environment and dispute the wrong thoughts and the irrational beliefs. However, the client's problems in counseling often appear in the causes combined between the cognitive elements and the emotive elements which are treated mainly in the psychological counseling. In that case, the way to solve the problems in the philosophical counseling should be applied to with the psychological methods in parallel or in regular succession. Therefore the six necessary concepts of the philosophical counseling are not the absolute meanings but the meanings in general. If so, the concept of the philosophical counseling can be defined as the process in which counselor and client meet face to face and dissolve the client's facing problems through mainly the philosophical methods with the counselor's assistance. If the main concepts of the philosophical counseling can be prescribed as mentioned above, post study needs to proceed to the specific methodology.