Forum

(06/22/2016) ✕

Share:

The instrumentally rational strong and the weak tragic subject in comparison

The tragic self-understanding thus contains a different idea of the subject than the instrumentally rational self-understanding, in which the (cognitive) behavioral therapy is based on. From the perspective of the tragic self-understanding the subject of the purposive-rational self-understanding is on the one hand overestimated in its self-availability, self-transparency and self-mightiness and on the other hand underestimated in its more subtle forms of expression, overlooked and ignored:

-) The orientation on a strong purposive-rational subject in the behavioral therapy associated with the assumption that the subject flourishes in the pursuit of its conscious goals makes it plausible that behavior and experience pattern would be perceived as disturbance and are attributed to disorders when the subject´s conscious goals are no longer reachable. From the perspective of tragic self-understanding, however, such a separation of the subject from its disturbance seems questionable. By assuming that the person is not the master in its own home and does not flourish in the pursuit of his rational objectives, it expects and admits to the patients to follow with the external disturbance also intentions that may not be identified in the superficially applied significance connection.

-) The instrumentally rational self-understanding creates a reality for the behavioral therapy that is in principle transparent for the subject and thus controllable, it must return the external loss of controllability of the reality on deficits in adequate perception of reality. The tragic subject understanding does not claim such ability to domesticate the world qua Ratio. On the contrary, it leaves it to the subject to respond according to his individual disorder of repressed anthropological sensibilities and needs. Behind what is called in the behavioral therapy as inadequate perception of reality, therefore, is to (2002) to quote an expression of Holzhey-Kunz, the "ontological clairaudience" of the patient....