Philosophers in the Therapy Room

In contemporary discourse, the term lived experience is present everywhere; it appears in therapy rooms, political spaces, academic institutions, activist movements, and mental health frameworks. It often arrives carrying an ethical demand: to listen to those who have lived through suffering, marginalisation, trauma, displacement, or exclusion. And perhaps rightly so. But what do we actually mean...

Compassion is one of the most familiar words in our moral vocabulary. We are encouraged to practise it, to cultivate it, to extend it—to others, and to ourselves. And yet, in the therapy room, compassion often arrives… confused. In this episode of Philosophers in the Therapy Room , we turn to compassion not as a moral ideal, but as a lived experience . Drawing on phenomenology and the philosophy o...

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that does not come from overwork alone: It comes from holding a world together. In this episode of Philosophers in the Therapy Room , we turn to burnout not simply as a stress response, not merely as nervous system depletion but as a lived experience of alienation. Drawing on the thought of Karl Marx, we explore the idea that burnout may not always signal p...

Hope is often spoken of as reassurance — a promise that things will improve, that suffering will ease, that the future will be kinder than the present. But in this episode of Philosophers in the Therapy Room , we pause before such promises. We ask instead: what kind of thing is hope, when certainty has already fallen away? Our guest today is Dr Denis O'Hara , whose work invites us to think of...

There are moments in life when laughter feels impossible and those that laughter becomes the only way to breathe. In this last episode of 2025, we linger at that fragile edge between laughter and gravity. Between jokes whispered in the dark, and a seriousness that refuses to look away from suffering. Some laugh when language collapses when words imposed by power no longer hold, and truth leaks out...

Episode 20 engages with the most overused and yet least understood words of our time: authenticity . But instead of treating it as a destination or a perfected state of being, we follow the existential tradition with Beauvoir, Sartre, and Charles Taylor to approach authenticity as a process , a practice of becoming attuned to one’s own freedom. Through Beauvoir’s portraits of the “types of man”—th...

In this World Philosophy Day special, we return to the heartbeat of philosophy not as a set of doctrines, but as a way of being. To think philosophically is to inhabit the world with a certain openness, a readiness to question the obvious, to slow down the rush of everyday assumptions, and to let new meanings take shape. It is a discipline of perspective-taking, a gentle but radical shift in how w...

Motherhood is not a static role, but a Relational Field; a living space where two freedoms meet and take shape together. Drawing on Simone de Beauvoir’s insight that “to will oneself free is also to will others free,” we can think of the mother as the one who delivers not only a body into the world but another freedom . Yet this act of giving life is not unilateral. The mother and child co-constit...

This episode focuses on attachment theory and its place in philosophy and therapy. Although attachment has been central to psychology, it has received little attention in philosophical discussions, largely because philosophy has traditionally focused on adulthood rather than childhood. We look at how attachment theory can help therapists understand clients, but also at its limitations, particularl...

The gaze isn’t just eyes on me; it’s the moment my activity is caught in another’s look and I’m flipped from subject to object . A second ago, I was absorbed with my project, interested, even quietly joyful, in what I was doing. Then the look lands. In Sartre’s terms, I become being-for-others : visible, exposed, available to be judged, evaluated, negated, and abandoned. The look doesn’t merely ob...

There are losses that break us loudly, while others pass unnoticed, unnamed, unwept. In this episode, we turn toward those quieter sorrows that never found language, the ones that never received permission to exist. We begin with Freud’s notion of melancholia: grief that doesn’t know its object, mourning that turns inward, as the self becomes the site of absence. Then we enter a phenomenological s...

There are wounds that do not bleed, only burn. In this episode, we turn toward the slow fire of embitterment; that heavy mood that settles in when justice is denied, when betrayal is met with silence, and when the soul, unwilling to forget, takes its stand in protest. Embitterment is not simply a feeling. It is a way the world shows itself as dimmed, distorted, and coiled with grievance. Heidegger...

In this episode of Philosophers in the Therapy Room , we turn toward the unsettling terrain of anxiety, not as a clinical symptom to be corrected, but as a fundamental mode of human existence. Drawing from existential and phenomenological thinkers, we ask: what does anxiety reveal about our being in the world? We begin with Heidegger’s notion of Angst , that strange and unsettling mood which expos...

Tension is not the obstacle—it is the terrain. In this episode, we explore the charged space where individuation takes shape within relationship, not outside of it. Drawing on Simone de Beauvoir’s notion of generosity, we reflect on how boundaries, far from walls, can be expressions of care—for self and other alike. With echoes of Jung’s Red Book and the dynamic oppositions it reveals, we consider...

How do we remember what we never lived? How does trauma reverberate across generations, shaping identities and ways of being in the world? In this episode, we explore intergenerational trauma as a lived phenomenon, one that transcends individual experience and persists in the silence, gaps, and embodied traces of history. Building on generative phenomenology , we consider trauma not merely as an i...

What happens when time itself breaks? When trauma strikes, it is not merely an event but a rupture in self-temporalization —a fracture in the very way we experience time. In this episode, we turn to phenomenology and Bergsonian philosophy to explore how trauma shatters the flow of lived time , leaving the past piled into an everlasting present . Drawing on Husserl’s internal time-consciousness , w...

What drives our action: the intellect or the passions? For Spinoza, this question lies at the heart of understanding human flourishing. In this episode, we explore Spinoza's profound insight that intellect, while essential for understanding, lacks the intrinsic power to provoke action. Instead, it is the passions that move us. But not all passions are equal. Passive affects, which are those we end...

In this episode, Dr. Sameema Zahra and I bring the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza into the session to explore his fascinating ideas on affect and the distinction between passive and active states of being. By ' affect' , Spinoza refers to the body's capacity to act, be acted upon, and experience changes in its power to exist and persevere. Affects are not just fleeting emotions; they enco...

In this episode of Philosophers in the Therapy Room , Dr Sameema Zahra and I engage with the Heideggerian concept of Sörge (care) and explore its profound implications for understanding our relationship with the world. We suggest that care is not only a fundamental condition of being but also an existential imperative that binds us to the political realities around us. This connection underscores...

In this episode, Sameema Zahra and I explore the deeply transformative experience of loss through the lens of phenomenology, drawing particularly on Jean-Paul Sartre’s notion of “present absence.” Sartre describes how, even when someone or something is no longer physically present, their absence is still profoundly felt, shaping our lived experience as if they continue to exist in a different way....

In this episode of Philosophers in the Therapy Room , we explore Maurice Merleau-Ponty's notion of the phenomenological body emphasizes that our bodily experience is not merely a physical or objective event but is deeply intertwined with our perception and interaction with the world. In the context of pain, this idea highlights that pain is not just a sensation located within the body but a li...

In this compelling episode of "Philosophers in the Therapy Room," we continue our exploration of societal expectations and individual fulfillment by delving into Albert Camus' "Myth of Sisyphus" and the concept of lucidity. We examine how moments of crisis, particularly those involving a loss of meaning, prompt different responses from individuals. Drawing from Camus' philosophy, we discuss how pe...

In this thought-provoking episode of "Philosophers in the Therapy Room," we delve into the concept of the "life script" and its profound impact on human behaviour and mental well-being. We explore how these societal expectations create a framework within which individuals are expected to operate, leading many to measure their self-worth and success against these arbitrary benchmarks. Throughout th...

In this episode, we explore the manner in which we understand our experiences, which are intricately crafted by our senses. Imagine the symphony of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touches that paint our perception of reality. But how do we make sense of this sensory information? And if the mind and body are two distinct entities, as Descartes suggests, how do they work together to shape our un...

In this episode, we discuss René Descartes' mind-body dualism, a foundational idea that has profoundly influenced early psychological theories and practices. We explore how Cartesian dualism has shaped our understanding of mind and body as two separate entities: Mind as a 'thinking substance' and Body as an 'extended substance', operating like a machine. Join us as we unravel these complex ideas a...