Philosophical Counselling and the Generation of Meaning About Death and Dying

In this episode of WADING, I explore how philosophical counselling can help us generate meaning around death, dying and loss.

Philosophy has confronted these questions since its very beginning. From the pre-Socratics to Socrates, it has always asked what it means to appear, disappear, live and die.

Philosophical counselling brings these questions into a helping relationship based on dialogue, listening and reflection. Its aim is not to provide definitive answers, but to help a person recognize the beliefs, assumptions and meanings through which they interpret their own existence.

Loss, illness and death can interrupt the direction we thought our lives were taking. But they can also open deeper questions: How am I living? What gives meaning to my existence? What still matters to me?

In this sense, philosophical counselling becomes a practice of awareness and orientation. A contemporary form of maieutics capable of helping us bring new meaning into the light.