The Healing Virtues

Explores the intersection of psychotherapy and virtue ethics with an emphasis on the patient's work in a healing project. This common ground between the therapeutic process and the cultivation of virtues can inform the efforts of both therapist and patient. The ethics of psychotherapy revolve partly around what a therapist should or should not do as well as the sort of person that a therapist should be: e.g., empathic, prudent, compassionate, respectful, and trustworthy. The ethics of a therapeutic dialogue can also revolve around the sort of person a patient should be. This work pforwardward an argument for patient virtues that are crucially relevant to psychotherapy, e.g., honesty, perseverance, and hopefulness. The author's central idea is that treatment may need to build virtues while it ameliorates problems. As a virtue epistemic and virtue ethical endeavor, a psychotherapeutic healing project can both challenge a patient's character and result in its further development.