The Useless Therapist: An Appreciation of Non-doing

‘How much concentration, industry, and tact it takes to destroy our raison d’être!’
Emil Cioran

Introduction
Being useless is a way of not being a fixer or the bearer of useful techniques, emptying out the proverbial toolbox, and just being. This article will explore some various ideas of uselessness. The aim of therapy will be explored from a psychoanalytic and existential perspective. A clarification of uselessness will follow. The historical context from which our views sprout will be briefed and an alternative view from Taoism will be considered. For the purposes of this article the terms idleness, useless, purposeless, play etc., are used interchangeably, all broadly meaning activity without a particular aim.


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