Ethics, the Art of Living and Psychotherapy

Abstract

The topic of a good life or the art of living has recently experienced a certain renaissance in ethics, but on the whole, it remains rather underexposed and not very helpfully treated for our concrete coping with life. In my contribution, I make insights from contemporary psychotherapy fruitful for the philosophical-ethical guidance to a practical art of living and thereby also promote the interdisciplinary dialogue between ethics and psychotherapy. In doing so, I refer essentially to two directions within the so-called “third wave” of Behavior Therapy, namely, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on the one hand and Metacognitive Therapy (MCT) on the other. At the end, a theological outlook on the topic is also offered.