The Face Of The Other: Levinasian Perspectives On ‘Nudity And Danger’

Abstract

The article aims to articulate a phenomenological psychotherapeutic response to the growing sense of existential therapists who experience nudity and danger in therapy. The article begins with a depiction of the sense nudity and danger. The use of the term ‘meaning in life’ – in the context of existential practice – would demonstrate existential psychotherapy’s entanglement in responding to this challenge. The article’s argument is that Emmanuel Levinas’ approach to the face of the other as nudity provides an opening for a phenomenology that could respond to the challenge of nudity and danger in contemporary practice. Such opening is further elaborative when considering Levinas’ critique of phenomenology and his view of alterity, as linked to the transcendental.