1st Edition
Entwined Selves Relational Encounter in Psychotherapy
Chapter 1. Therapy beyond explanation and problem-solving.
Chapter 2. Embodied Orientation: The phenomenology and hermeneutics of distress.
Chapter 3. Disturbances of Embodied World-Relations.
Chapter 4. Therapeutic alliance as ethical friendship: A hermeneutic perspective.
Chapter 5. Speaking and telling silences: the relational language of therapy.
Chapter 6. The relationship which remains: grief and continuing bonds.
Biography
James Costello is a psychotherapist and Senior Lecturer at the University of the West of England. He is the author of Workplace Wellbeing: A Relational Approach (Routledge, 2020) and Philosophical Foundations of Psychotherapy: Radical Relationality (Routledge, 2025).
Niall Keane is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of the West of England. He is Joint Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology.
‘There are many books that engage philosophically with psychotherapy, but few that are as well grounded, as clearly written, or as convincingly argued as Keane and Costello’s Entwined Selves. In its articulation of a hermeneutics of the self as the foundation for psychotherapeutic thought and practice, the volume opens up new horizons in the understanding of life and mind.’
Jeff Malpas, Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of Tasmania
‘This book offers tremendous insight into the way it relates the phenomenological hermeneutics of understanding to the experiential encounter in psychotherapy. It is essential reading for practitioners and scholars in the humanities interested in the dynamics of human experience.’
James Risser, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Seattle University
‘Entwined Selves offers a model for integrating hermeneutic phenomenological philosophy with psychotherapy. Clearly written and persuasively honest, Keane and Costello sensitively capture our mutual vulnerability within a shared relational field, as shown in silences, uncertainties, missteps, and hesitant yet precious moments of connection. They show therapy as an experiential encounter rather than as a technique, theory, or set of outcomes. The challenge for the therapist is how to stay present and remain with another in the world being lived.’
Linda Finlay, PhD, Integrative Psychotherapist and Academic Consultant, York, UK
