Philosophical counselling as a tool for strengthening personal resilience: an exploratory study

The article discusses philosophical counselling as a tool for developing personal resilience and examines its impact on coping with life challenges. In recent decades, people have faced numerous global changes, including pandemics, natural disasters, and economic shifts, making the issue of personal resilience more critical than ever. Personal resilience is defined as the ability to cope, recover, and grow from crises, consisting of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components. The paper presents philosophical counselling as a unique approach to enhancing personal resilience, differing from other therapeutic approaches such as psychotherapy. Philosophical counselling focuses on the analysis of ethical and moral issues, aiming to empower self-awareness and foster critical thinking and mental flexibility. The article explores key philosophical approaches, such as Stoicism, Socratic philosophy, and Existentialism, which reinforce a sense of self-control, finding meaning in life, and mental adaptability. This study examines the impact of a philosophical counselling workshop on three dimensions of personal resilience: comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness. The findings show significant improvement in these areas, particularly in the manageability dimension. The results support the notion that philosophical counselling can contribute to strengthening personal resilience, primarily by enhancing the ability to understand life situations and give them meaning.