Criticism and Controversy
Lou Marinoff has been criticized by other philosophically oriented members of the helping professions for being too pop-philosophy and for not respecting the established disciplines of psychology and psychiatry. Many find them more focused on denigrating clinical psychology and psychiatry than on offering real philosophical alternatives. Elliot D. Cohen of the American Society for Philosophy Counseling and Psychotherapy has stated "The biggest obstacle to philosophical counseling's growth in the U.S. is its acceptance by the established mental health fields...With Marinoff certifying people who have no clinical training, they're saying, 'Philosophers don't know anything about mental health, and they're going to serve as an endangerment to clients."
Shlomit Schuster, an Israeli practitioner, has called "Dr. Marinoff's overpopularizing presentation a worldwide embarrassment for the profession." See for Cohen's, Schuster's and O'Donaghue's critiques more in the "The Socratic Shrink" by Daniel Duane. David O'Donaghue, a licensed psychologist with a doctoral background in philosophy (although this is what O'Donaghue claims), says that Marinoff is "not a scholar, he's not a guy who should be leading a country" in philosophical counseling. O'Donaghue says that he considers Marinoff's three-day certification efforts "ludicrous".
A critical overview of Marinoff's books is found in "Marinoff's Therapy" in The International Journal of Philosophical Practice at http://www.aspcp.org/ijpp/SchusterMarinoff.pdf.
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