Abstract
This chapter shows how approaches to treatment and therapy can take a philosophical direction, by addressing the self’s tendency to become entangled in the deceptive practices from which its vulnerability to addiction arises. Rather than as objectified by the natural sciences, the self re-emerges through its immersion in the human predicament, the crisis that it spawns (including the proclivity to become addicted), and the struggle to cultivate new horizons of meaning, e.g., through the capacity for transcendence. As we develop our understanding of addiction from out of the individual’s concrete life-experiences, the language by which we address this phenomenon (of the tendency to become addicted) also changes.
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Notes
- 1.
For a further discussion of the temporal origin of language , and its power to express the self’s existence through “formally indicative” examples, see Hatab 2016, pp. 275–277.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
Kemp 2009, pp. 1–18.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
Aho and Kevin 2008, p. 126.
- 8.
- 9.
- 10.
See Aho, James and Kevin Aho 2008, p. 150.
- 11.
O’Connor, pp. 109–110.
- 12.
Willing can un-will its own subjective bias, its self-enclosedness, in order to enact a choice that originates from the openness . See Schalow 1993, 96–102.
- 13.
For further discussion of this dissimulating pattern or gestalt, see Lefebvre 1968, pp. 47.
- 14.
Kant 1981, p. 36.
- 15.
Kant 1996, p. 17.
- 16.
Steiner 1971, pp. 50–53.
- 17.
See Schalow 2013 , pp. 129–133. In the early 1930s, Heidegger was on the way to linking freedom with openness , and ultimately to “letting be ” in light of Meister Eckhart’s concept of “releasement ” (Gelassenheit).
- 18.
Hatab 2000, p. 127. As Hatab emphasizes, Heidegger distinguishes between urge (Drang) and authentic care (echte Sorge), which along with inclination (Hang) are facets within the total structure of care—vis-à-vis its manner practical comportment in the world.
- 19.
Heidegger 2000a, p. 64.
- 20.
O’Connor 2016, p. 132.
- 21.
Viktor Frankl makes this point in emphasizing the therapeutic value of the individual assuming responsibility, even from moment to moment. Frankl 1980, pp. 64–65.
- 22.
M. Valverde 1998, pp.136–137.
- 23.
One of Bill Wilson’s reservations with the Oxford Group (see Chapter Five) was that such lofty ideals as the “Four Absolutes” were beyond the reach of the so-called average alcoholic, and hence broke with the simplicity of the Twelve Step Program. Kurtz 1991, p. 51.
- 24.
See Morris, 2001, p. 393.
- 25.
Without addressing the philosophical roots thereof, there are recent attempts within the popular literature to identify the discovering of the “authentic self,” e.g., or “finding out who one really is,” as the cornerstone for the recovery from addiction. The terminology of authenticity has contribution to shape the attempt to conceptualize the problem of addiction. See Lawford 2014, pp. 7–8.
- 26.
- 27.
Boss 1949, p. 37.
- 28.
Zimmerman 1995, pp. 511–512. “Reading Plato’s Eros as Seinserstrebnis, ontological desire or striving-after-being, he [Heidegger] asserted that to be human means to desire being [Sein], to be erotically drawn toward it, to be moved into existing, transcending, opening up the temporal-historical world” (p. 511). Also see Schalow 2001a, pp. 88–89.
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Schalow, F. (2017). In Search of a New Discourse: Resetting Priorities. In: Toward a Phenomenology of Addiction: Embodiment, Technology, Transcendence. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 93. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66942-7_7
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