Self-Knowledge: An Internal Good of Psychotherapy as Psychic Education of Freedom

Abstract

Through a series of interviews with a group of psychologists practicing psychotherapy in Durango, Mexico, the goals of psychotherapy were investigated to support this psychological practice. The study was conducted under the methodological approach of Giorgi's (2009) psychological phenomenology. The phenomenological data analysis extracted the category "Self-knowledge", which was done prior to the literature review, so that the empirical findings would guide the documentary search and not the other way around. The results indicate that an essential goal of the clinical psychologist through psychotherapy is self-knowledge as an anthropological notion of self. In this way, psychotherapy educates the individual's path towards authenticity: self-knowledge as a motor for different decisions.

Published
2022-11-25
Section
Artículos Científicos