Presencing EPIS - 2013

RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE OTHER Emmanuel Levinas gives to thought on psychotherapeutic counselling as ethical relationship Roger Burggraeve (ethicist & Levinas scholar KU Leuven) From the thought of Emmanuel Levinas (1905-1995) 1 we would like to shed some ethical light on psychotherapeutic counselling but without entering into its specific aspects and methods. The central focus of Levinas’ thought, namely the I-other-relationship, serves as our starting point. In its modality as counselling, psychotherapy likewise unfolds as a relationship between the therapist as ‘I’ and the client as ‘other’ (without being reduced to those roles).

Hence we start with Levinas’ description of ‘my’ relationship to the ‘other’ in order to show how this relationship displays an unmistakable ethical structure that exposes at the same time the fundamental structure of all psychotherapy. This fundamental ethical structure is formed concretely according to a double responsibility, as we shall later see, namely as a responsibility for the other that is at the same time a responsibility for the responsibility of the other, and which in turn also contains two dimensions. And since psychotherapy does not function in a vacuum but often takes place in an institutional context, namely in a psychiatric clinic, therapy centre or residential setting, we shall also reflect on that aspect at the end of our essay – like an open conclusion – paying special attention to the opportunities and risks of organised psychotherapy and to the ‘small goodness’ that accords a specific hue to the responsibility of the therapist for the client.

1 For the references to the works of Levinas, the following abbreviations will be used throughout the essay: AS: Autrement que savoir (Interventions in the discussions and Débat général), Paris, Osiris, 1988; AT: Alterity and Transcendence, New York, NY, Columbia University Press, 1999; BV: Beyond the Verse: Talmudic Readings and Lectures, Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN, Indiana University Press, 1994; CPP: A. LINGIS (ed.), Collected Philosophical Papers, Dordrecht – Boston – Lancaster, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987; DF: Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism, Baltimore, MA, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990; EI: Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo, Pittsburgh, PA, Duquesne University Press, 1985; EN: Entre Nous: Thinking-of-the-Other, London – New York, NY, Continuum, 2006; ES: Une éthique de la souffrance, in J.-M. KAENEL – B. AJCHENBAUM-BOFFETY (eds.), Souffrances: Corps et âme, épreuves partagées, Paris, Éditions Autrement, 1994, 127-137; EPA: Entretien préparatoire avec Emmanuel Levinas sur l’argent, lépargne et le prêt, in R. BURGGRAEVE, Emmanuel Levinas et la socialité de l’argent, Leuven, Peeters, 1997, 31-67; ET: The Ego and the Totality, in CPP 25-45; FC: Freedom and Command, in CPP 15-23; GCM: Of God Who Comes to Mind, Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press, 1998; HO: Humanism of the Other, Urbana & Chicago, IL, University of Illinois Press, 2003; IFP: Interview with François Poirié, in IRB 23-83; IRB: J. ROBBINS (ed.), Is It Righteous to Be? Interviews with Emmanuel Levinas, Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press, 2001; LAV: “L’au-delà du verset.’ Un entretien avec Emmanuel Levinas (à propos de Mère Thérésa), in L. BALBONT, Mère Thérés en notre âme et conscience, Paris, Seuil, 1982, 111-112; NT: New Talmudic Readings, Pittsburgh, PA, Duquesne University Press, 1999; TR: Nine Talmudic Readings, Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN, Indiana University Press, 1994; OB: Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, The Hague – Boston – London, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1981; OS: Outside the Subject, London, The Athlone Press, 1993; PIF: Philosophy and the Idea of Infinity, in CPP 47-59; PM: The Paradox of Morality (interview with T. Wright, P. Hugues, A. Analy), in R. BERNASCONI – D. WOOD (eds.), The Provocation of Levinas: Rethinking the Other, London, Routledge, 1988, 168-180; PN: Proper Names, Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press, 1996; PPS: Pour une philosophie de la sainteté, in M. DE SAINT-CHERON, Entretiens avec Emmanuel Levinas 19921994, Paris, Livre de Poche, 2006, 21-52; RTJD: La révélation dans la tradition juive (suivi de ‘Discussion d’ensemble’), in D. COPPIETERS DE GIBSON (ed.), La révélation, Bruxelles, Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis, 1977, 55-57; 207-236 (‘Discussion d’ensemble’); TH: Transcendence and Height, in A.T. PEPERZAK – S. CRITCHLEY – R. BERNASCONI (eds.), Emmanuel Levinas: Basic Philosophical Writings, Bloomington & Indianapolis, IN, Indiana University Press, 1996, 11-31; TI: Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, The Hague – Boston – London, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1979; TN: In the Time of the Nations, Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN, Indiana University Press, 1994.