Výsledky projektu Filozofické myslenie Levinasa v praxi psychoterapeuta a učiteľa: Povolanie k zodpovednosti

This theoretical paper aims to bring Levinas’ ethics and its key points into the reflection of basic assumptions of psychotherapy and a therapist-patient relation. The Levinasian ethical understanding of human relation emphasizes its original asymmetry.
It is me who is responsible more than the
others. Therefore, we question whether it is
possible to understand a psychotherapeutic
relation in this way and see the patient as
the other. Since this profession is a calling
to respond to some stranger, who exposes
itself as vulnerable and speaks to the therapist.

The main thesis is that psychotherapist’
acceptance of its incalculable responsibility
in practice is what helps him or her being
human and focusing not only on measurable results but on the person entrusted to him or her. Psychotherapist feels its own responsibility as burdensome because of the trust that was put in him or her, however, finds its uniqueness and freedom at the same time.

Emmanuel Levinas emphasized that the other teaches me ethics by its face. He considers face expression as my primary learning before any other learning. The paper uses Levinas’s ethics to draw the
teacher–student relationship as asymmetrical and focuses on language understood as their teaching and learning time. Nevertheless, is it possible to bring Levinas’s philosophy and its critical points into the practice of teacher and simultaneously to avoid getting back into mere rhetoric and pedagogy? Although it is inevitable to thematize while teaching and to expect the answers while asking (the said in teacher role), presence of students as others remind the teacher to answer for himself (the saying as human vocation). The study wants to initiate a debate on the matter of how levinasian ethics could contribute to the understanding of a teacher’s profession and teaching itself.