Psychotherapist's Guide to Socratic Dialogue

265 Pages·2022·5.526 MB·English

by  Mohammad Sadegh Montazeri

Mohammad Sadegh Montazeri
Psychotherapist’s
Guide to Socratic
Dialogue
Psychotherapist's Guide to Socratic Dialogue
Mohammad Sadegh Montazeri
Psychotherapist's Guide
to Socratic Dialogue
Mohammad Sadegh Montazeri
Golestan University
Gorgan, Iran
ISBN 978-3-031-07971-9 ISBN 978-3-031-07972-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07972-6
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar
or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
I dedicate this book to my wife, Bahar. The
spring of my life.
Preface
Socratic questioning attracted me at the beginning of my study of cognitive behav-
ioral therapy (CBT). I said to myself: I must read more references to master this
technique. But surprisingly, I did not find the relevant content about Socratic ques-
tioning. However, I thought that I was a novice therapist yet. Therefore, I was hop-
ing to find a comprehensive manual.
The CBT approach has stated numerous benefits of Socratic dialogue, and many
theorists recommend that therapists administer Socratic dialogue. However, after
reading books and articles, I found out that no protocol has explained the Socratic
method step by step (Clark & Egan, 2015).
Moreover, there is scarce research about Socratic dialogue. Overholser states that
one reason for little research is that Socrates investigated abstract concepts such as
courage and justice (2018). It is difficult to conduct empirical studies on these
abstract subjects. However, with effort and creativity, we can empirically study the
Socratic method. I recommend many research topics in Chap. 11.
In this step, I decided to move on to the main field of Socrates’ upbringing (i.e.,
philosophy and logic). I found out there are methods for examining the validity of
thoughts in the realm of classical logic. Aaron T. Beck described methods for evalu-
ating the functionality of thinking. However, there are no precise methods to exam-
ine the functionality and rationality of thoughts in CBT.
I have tried to study logic since then and conducted better Socratic questioning.
Because I decided to teach these methods to other therapists, I began writing this
book. I am hopeful this book will help therapists better evaluate their clients’
thoughts.
I wrote this book based on CBT because that is my approach. However, thera-
pists can use Socratic dialogue in other therapeutic approaches. Almost all thera-
pists need to ask questions, and the current book could be a good source for it.
I bring a variety of Socratic questions extracted from my clinical experience. For
the sake of confidentiality, I changed characteristics such as the age, name, job, and
gender of clients, and any resemblance to someone is coincidental. Although
Socratic dialogue takes a lot of time in therapy sessions, I express these dialogues
briefly in the current book.
vii
viii Preface
Finally, I have to admit that I am a novice student of logic, and maybe you will
find some errors in this book. If you have a specialty in rationality or psychotherapy,
your feedback will help me improve the current book.
Gorgan, Iran Mohammad Sadegh Montazeri

References
Clark, G. I., & Egan, S. J. (2015). The Socratic method in cognitive behavioural therapy: A nar-
rative review. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 39(6), 863–879. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s10608- 015- 9707- 3
Overholser, J. C. (2018). The Socratic method of psychotherapy. Columbia University Press.
Contents
1 Introduction to the Socratic Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The Definition of the Socratic Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Benefits of the Socratic Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Time to Use the Socratic Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
How to Use Socratic Dialogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
The Aim of Socratic Questioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
The Amount of the Implementation of the Socratic Dialogue . . . . . . . . 12
Steps for Presenting Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Time to Use the Didactic Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
The Features of Socratic Dialogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
The Stages of Socratic Questioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Difficulties During the Questioning Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Interrogation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
The Therapist’s Error in Recognizing a Thought as Dysfunctional . . 16
Hastiness to Conclude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
The Demand of Clients for Guidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
The Extreme Emotions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
The Client’s “I Do Not Know” Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
The Socratic Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2 Socratic Method in Psychotherapies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Cognitive Therapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Beck’s Cognitive-Behavior Therapy (CBT) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Critiques to Cognitive-Behavior Therapy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Philosophical Counseling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
ix
x Contents
3 Logic and Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Definition of Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Application of Logic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Deductive Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
The Kinds of Inductive Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Reasoning Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Evaluating the Validity of Deductive Reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Propositions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Immediate Inferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Categorical Syllogism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4 Definition of Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Term Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Predicable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Definition Kinds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Defining Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Clinical Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
5 Propositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Judgment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Subject and Predicate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Categorical Propositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Distribution of Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Change Propositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Immediate Inference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Conversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Another Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Obversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Contraposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Contradiction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
The Square of Opposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
An Example of a Violation of the Subject’s Unity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Translating Ordinary Language Statements into Categorical Form . . . . 79
Tricky Propositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
6 Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Meanings of Because . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Contents xi
How to Detect an Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Types of Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Combining Deductive and Inductive Reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Psychotherapeutic Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Deductive Reasoning in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Syllogism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Examining the Validity of the Syllogism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Aristotle Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Enthymeme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Chain Syllogism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Compound Syllogism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Conditional Syllogism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Disjunctive Syllogism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Conjunctive Syllogism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Transforming Syllogism into Different Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Dilemma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Arguments in Daily Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
How to Locate an Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
The Distinction Between Arguments and Non-argument Forms . . . . . . 111
Argument and Disagreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Argument and Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Argument Versus Explanation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Identifying Implicit Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Implicit Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Ideological Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Necessary and Sufficient Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Variable Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Facts and Opinions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
7 Inductive Reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Inductive Reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Theories of Assessing the Probability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
The Relative Frequency Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
The Subjective Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Clinical Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Generalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Inductive Reasoning with Elimination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Inductive Reasoning Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Assuming a Causal Link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
False Correlation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Analogical Reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Extending an Analogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Criteria for Evaluating an Analogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137