• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
NPCA

NPCA

National Philosophical Counseling Association

  • About Us
    • Membership Application
    • Documents
      • Governance
      • Newsletters
    • People
    • Contact Us
  • Philosophical Practice
  • Practice Areas/Boundaries
  • Philosophical Counselor Directory
  • Training/Workshops
    • LBT Workshops
    • Primary Certificate in LBT
    • Books and Articles on LBT
  • Announcements & Conferences
    • Conferences & Call for Papers
    • Albert Ellis Tribute Series
  • International Journal of Philosophical Practice
    • IJPP Profile
    • IJPP Call for Papers
    • Editorial Board
    • Featured Journals
  • Philosophical Antidotes to Self-Defeating Thoughts

Practice Areas/Boundaries

The NPCA now recognizes two kinds of philosophical practitioners: (1) philosophical counselors and (2) philosophical consultants.

1. Philosophical Counselors

a.) In addition to training/certification in a modality of philosophical practice that is recognized by the NPCA, such as Logic-Based Therapy (LBT), philosophical counselors hold a minimum of a Masters degree in a mental health area from a recognized graduate program, and are licensed in the state in which they practice. This includes (but is not limited to) licensed mental health counselors, licensed professional counselors, licensed clinical social workers, clinical psychologists, and marriage and family counselors.

b.) Philosophical counselors may apply their training in philosophical practice to the range of mental disorders ordinarily addressed by licensed mental health practitioners (See list of mental disorders provided below under “Referral Indications for Philosophical Consultants.”)

c.) Philosophical counselors may wish to practice distance counseling, for example, online. In some cases they may seek to practice across state lines. Because the NPCA requires that certified philosophical counselors be licensed mental health practitioners in the states in which they practice, philosophical counselors who seek to address mental disorders through distance counseling across state lines must be appropriately licensed in the states across which they practice. However, philosophical counselors who are not so licensed in states across which they seek to practice may practice exclusively as philosophical consultants pursuant to the NPCA practice standards that apply to philosophical consultants (see below). In such cases, as part of informed consent, philosophical counselors must explain to clients the difference between philosophical consultation and mental health counseling, and agree that the relationship will be restricted to consultation.

2. Philosophical Consultants

a.) In addition to training/certification in a modality of philosophical practice that is recognized by the NPCA, such as Logic-Based Therapy (LBT), philosophical consultants hold a minimum of a Masters degree in philosophy from a recognized graduate program.

b.) Philosophical consultants help their clients deal with many kinds of problems of living that people confront in the course of everyday life. These include but are not limited to:

Sample Problems Addressed by Philosophical Consultants

  • Moral issues
  • Values disagreements
  • Political issues and disagreements
  • Writers block
  • Time management issues
  • Procrastination
  • Career issues
  • Job loss
  • Problems with coworkers
  • Disability issues
  • Financial issues
  • Retirement
  • Aging
  • End of life issues
  • Midlife issues
  • Adult children of aging parents
  • Problems with family
  • Family planning issues
  • In-law issues
  • Breakups and divorce
  • Parenting issues
  • Becoming a parent
  • Sibling rivalry
  • Finding out one is adopted
  • Falling in and out of love
  • Loss of a family member
  • Loss of a pet
  • Friendship issues
  • Peer pressure
  • Academic or school-related issues
  • Rejection
  • Discrimination
  • Religion and race-related issues
  • Entertainment-related issues
  • Technology-related issues

c.) However, philosophical consultants do not address mental disorders. They refer such matters to licensed mental health professionals, including NPCA-recognized philosophical counselors. Philosophical consultants such as LBT practitioners, facilitate clients’ examination of their reasoning concerning such matters as the abovementioned, and teach critical thinking skills (see also discussion of philosophical practice). Sessions are directed at particular problems of living and end when the particular problem is addressed.

Referral Indications for Philosophical Consultants

d.) The following is a list of indications, based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,[1] for which referral to a licensed mental health professional should be made.  The satisfaction of any single bulleted item in any of the given disorder categories is grounds for referral:

Neurodevelopmental Disorders

  • Enduring pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that is inconsistent with developmental level, which significantly impairs a major area of functioning such as social, academic, or occupational;
  • Developmental deficits in capacity for social-emotional communication/interaction including non-verbal communication/interaction, and in forming and maintaining interpersonal relationships.

Psychotic Disorders

  • Hallucinations;
  • Delusions;
  • Disorganized thinking or speech (loose associations, tangents, incoherence);
  • Catatonic behavior and other abnormal motor behavior.

Bipolar and Depressive Disorders

  • Manic episodes;
  • Suicidal ideation (contemplating committing suicide) along with one or more of the following:
    • Specific plan;
    • Expression of intention
    • Past history of suicide attempts or threats
    • Family history of suicide
    • History of psychiatric diagnosis or commitment to inpatient facility;
    • Other serious health problems—perceived or actual
    • hopelessness,
    • self-damning
    • alcohol / substance abuse
    • history of trauma / abuse
    • cultural / religious/ personal acceptance of suicide
    • recent loss – relationship, financial
    • Access to lethal means
    • Impulsivity/aggressiveness
    • knowing others who have committed or attempted suicide
    • lack of support system, single or living alone
    • elderly or young adult male
  • Sadness, emptiness, or irritable mood most of the day, on most days, which significantly impairs day-to-day activities ongoing for at least one year;
  • Sadness, emptiness, hopelessness, or irritable mood, most of the day, on most days; and/or loss of interest or pleasure in all or most activities, most of the day, on most days; causing significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other major areas of functioning; including at least five of the following changes:
    • Sadness, emptiness, hopelessness, or irritable mood, most of the day, on most days;
    • Loss of interest or pleasure in all or most activities, most of the day, on most days;
    • Significant otherwise unexplained weight loss/gain or decrease/increase in appetite;
    • Insomnia, excessive daytime sleepiness
    • Psychomotor agitation (e.g., fidgeting, purposeless leg movements, or pacing) or psychomotor retardation (e.g., slowed speech or walking)
    • Chronic fatigue or energy loss
    • Persistent feelings of worthlessness or inappropriate guilt
    • Diminished ability to think clearly, concentrate, or make decisions
    • Recurring suicidal ideation without a specific plan; with a suicide attempt; or with a specific plan.
  • Chronic, severe, persistent irritability, including frequent temper outbursts and a tendency to be angry;
  • Mood swings tending to occur during menstrual cycle.

Anxiety Disorders

  • Phobias – persistent, ongoing, exaggerated, intense fear or anxiety about a specific sort of object (e.g. snakes) or situation (e.g. heights);
  • Panic attacks –sudden intense fear peaking in minutes characterized by changes such as pounding heart and feeling unable to breath;
  • Ongoing, day-to-day, excessive anxiety or worry about a number of different activities or events, which causes significant distress in social, occupational or other major areas of functioning.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders

  • Obsessions – repetitive, persistent, intrusive, unwanted thoughts, which interferes with or causes significant distress in social, occupational or other major areas of functioning;
  • Compulsions – repetitive behavior or mental activities one feels driven to engage in, having no real connection to what it is intended to guard against, which interferes with or causes significant distress in social, occupational or other major areas of functioning;
  • Preoccupation with perceived bodily defects, which interferes with daily functioning;
  • Hoarding – ongoing difficulty getting rid of things regardless of their actual worth such that clutter prevents room use, and causes distress in day to day living.

Trauma and Stress Disorders

  • Flashbacks; nightmares; or intrusive, unwanted, distressing memories or thoughts about an event involving death, destruction, injury, or sexual violence.

Dissociative Disorders

  • Dissociative identity – taking on two or more identities;
  • Dissociative Amnesia—inability to recall specific events during a specified period of time, including periods of travel or wandering (so-called “dissociative fugue”); or general inability to recall personal identity or life history;
  • Depersonalization – sense of being an outside observer of oneself
  • Derealization – sense of unreality of one’s surrounding environment.

Somatic Symptom Disorders

  • Distress about perceived or possible somatic (bodily) pains or health problems.

Feeding and Eating Disorders

  • Purging, overeating, bingeing, self-starvation, poor appetite, or persistent eating of non-food substances.

Elimination Disorders

  • Elimination problems –bedwetting or clothes wetting; defecating in clothes or on floor.

Sleep-Wake Disorders

  • Insomnia; excessive sleepiness or sleeping; breathing problems; sleepwalking; nightmares; sleep-talking; leg discomfort; or other sleep-related problems.
  • Fatigue or loss of energy.

Sexual Dysfunctions

  • Sexual problems – ejaculation, erections, arousal, penetration, low sex drive, or related problems;
  • Distress about one’s gender.

Disruptive, Impulse-Control, and Conduct Disorders

  • Persistent pattern of:
    • verbal aggression or outbursts;
    • physically violent behavior, including threats or destruction of property;
    • fire setting;
    • torturing animals;
    • lack of conscience or remorse, i.e., seeing people as objects/pawns.

Substance –Related and Addictive Disorders

  • Alcohol, caffeine, cannabis, hallucinogens, opioids, sedatives, hypnotics, anti-anxiolytics, stimulants, tobacco, gambling.

Neurocognitive Disorders

  • Neurocognitive decline – Delirium, Alzheimers, Dementia, and other brain diseases.

Personality Disorders

  • Enduring, deeply engrained pattern of maladaptive and inflexible behavior and thinking across a broad spectrum of areas of living, which interferes with or causes significant distress in social, occupational or other major areas of functioning, including:
    • paranoid ideation;
    • social detachment;
    • instability of interpersonal relationships, self image, and affect;
    • grandiosity;
    • inability to empathize;
    • social inhibition;
    • submissiveness;
    • fear of separation;
    • preoccupation with orderliness.

Paraphilias

  • Voyeurism, exhibitionism, frotteurism, sexual sadism or masochism, pedophilia, fetishism, transvestism.

e.) Philosophical consultants accordingly establish and maintain a referral network of licensed mental health professionals.

f.) Philosophical consultants whose case falls into a gray area or who have questions about whether the given case falls under any of the above disorder categories should consult a licensed mental health professional.

[1] American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-5 (Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2013).

Primary Sidebar

NPCA MEMBERSHIP & RENEWAL

To pay or renew your NPCA membership dues, please click the button below. Dues are $35 (plus a $1.76 PayPal transaction fee).

Asian Philosophies in Practice Online Conference 6th and 7th July 2024

This conference offers an experience based on Philosophical Practice, Logic Based Therapy and Socratic Dialogue by experts from the East and West.
Be a part of the online lectures and workshop on 6th and 7th July 2024!

https://app2024.tilda.ws/

Announcements

New LBTC Centre in South Africa Established

The NPCP is pleased to announce the founding of the South African Logic-Based Therapy & Consultation Institute as the latest extension of the Logic-Based Therapy & Consultation Institute in the United States. The new Center will be under the direction of certified LBT therapist, mentor, and scholar Guy Du Plessis.  The new Center will promote LBT&C through research, development and training in South Africa as part of a global network of click here to read more.

 

Elliot D. Cohen, Executive Director of NPCA, speaks to Tia Harmer, host of the Life Management Science Labs podcast, about the effects of demanding perfection on personal productivity and happiness. View the entire talk here.

The Founding Of The European Logic-Based Therapy & Consultation Institute

The Logic-Based Therapy & Consultation (LBTC) Institute in the United States is pleased to announce the founding of the European Logic-Based Therapy & Consultation (ELBTC) Institute as a division of ReCentre, a West University of Timisoara partner. The European Institute shall serve as…. Read more here!

Logic Based Therapy In Healthcare: Using Philosophy To Do And Feel Better

Presented by: Elliot D Cohen, Ph.D., Brown University, principal founder of philosophical counseling in the United States, Executive Director and co-founder of the National Philosophical Counseling Association (NPCA), and President of the Logic-Based Therapy and Consultation Institute.

In the past few years, healthcare professionals have confronted exceptionally stressful working conditions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many have resigned their positions, and many others who remain now suffer from burnout or related syndromes that impede their ability to work in this ordinarily high-stress environment. In this presentation, Elliot D. Cohen, the creator of Logic-Based Therapy (LBT), a prominent form of philosophical counseling, showed how…Read more here!

INTERNATIONAL DECLARATION OF PEACE, CO-OPERATION, AND PHILOSOPHY

This INTERNATIONAL DECLARATION of PEACE, COOPERATION, AND PHILOSOPHY penned by distinguished philosophical practitioners throughout the world casts a bright light on the challenges that lie ahead in the quest for world peace and the multiple roles that applied philosophy can play in meeting these challenges. The pandemic, global unrest, climate change, poverty, oppressive, anti-democratic government regimes, and now a war in Ukraine that has created a humanitarian crisis cannot go unexamined by the world philosophical community. Nor can the latter stand idle while countless human lives, and indeed the very survival of planet, hang in the balance. This Declaration posted HERE (English translation follows Spanish translation) is a manifesto intended to serve as a catalyst to…Read more here!

JOINT STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL PHILOSOPHICAL COUNSELING ASSOCIATION AND MEMBERS OF MASTER OF PHILOSOPHICAL COUNSELING AND CONSULTANCY, WEST UNIVERSITY OF TIMISOARA, ROMANIA
REGARDING THE RUSSIAN INVASION INTO UKRAINE

 

Connect With Us on Facebook

Practioner Directory

To contact a philosophical practitioner in your area visit our philosophical practitioner directory.

Donate to the NPCA

To donate to the NPCA, please click the button below. Please note that a PayPal processing fee of 2.89% + $0.49 will be charged to NPCA for all donations received.

International Journal of Philosophical Practice

Our journal is now open-source and published by the Philosophy Documentation Center!! View the IJPP here!

Logic-Based Therapy & Consultation Institute

For more information about certification, visit the Logic-Based Therapy & Consultation Institute.

India Centre for Logic-Based Therapy & Consultation

Visit the India Center for Logic-Based Therapy & Consultation in connection with Ramnarain Ruia College.

Taiwan LBT Institute

The National Philosophical Counseling Association and the Logic-Based Therapy & Consultation Institute are proud to announce the founding of the Taiwan Institute.

European Logic-Based Therapy and Consultation Institute

Also visit the European Logic-Based Therapy and Consultation Institute.

© COPYRIGHT 2022 NPCA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. · MANAGED BY THE CHICAGO TECHNOLOGY GROUP. · Log in