Mapping the terrain: A nomadic cartography of philosophical counselling in South Africa

Abstract

Philosophical counselling in South Africa has developed over several decades alongside, and often closely aligning with, broader movements originating in Europe. As elsewhere, the practice has taken root in a heterogeneous range of forms. While early scholarly engagements offered important theoretical mappings of philosophical counselling, comparatively little systematic attention has been given to how the practice has adapted in South African contexts. In this article, I provide a nomadic cartography, that is, a non-exhaustive, movement-sensitive mapping, focusing on public self-descriptions of practising South African philosophical counsellors. I offer an interpretation of how their practices appear through publicly available self-authorised descriptions of method and aim. Websites are understood here as significant, as for many prospective counselees such profiles constitute the practical horizon of what philosophical counselling is. This cartographic exercise subsequently maps overlapping tendencies along three orientating dimensions: the telos/orientation of practice (ranging from ameliorative aims to wonder); the dominant method (rational-logical to relational- hermeneutic); and the locus from which philosophical counselling is articulated (universalist to situated). Through this mapping, a diverse yet uneven landscape of practices is revealed that might appear as a field in disarray, but is better understood as a necessary plurality within a functioning ecology. While several established orientations are identifiable, a relative absence emerges through the mapping process of approaches that are simultaneously deeply situated and hermeneutic. In response, I conclude by locating this unoccupied position, suggesting that its recognition is a contribution to a fuller and more pluralistic ecology of philosophical counselling in South Africa.