Johannes Konstantin Fischer, M.A., B.Sc.

PhD Project

Dissertation project: What Should Psychotherapy Aim For? The Normativity of Psychotherapeutic Goals

Primary Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Monika Betzler (LMU Munich) & Prof. Dr. Kristina Musholt (Leipzig University)

Additional Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Dr. Manuel Trachsel (University of Basel) & Prof. Quill R. Kukla (Georgetown University / Leibniz University Hannover)

The joint determination of goals between patients and therapists has become an important ethical principle in contemporary psychotherapy. Yet one central normative question has received comparatively little systematic attention: What should psychotherapy ultimately aim at? More specifically, which kinds of therapeutic change should count as good or desirable, for what reasons, and on what basis can they be evaluated? My project begins by reconstructing different general conceptions of desirable therapeutic change that underlie concrete treatment goals, which I refer to as aims of psychotherapy. Rather than presupposing one universally correct aim of psychotherapy, it then examines whether and how these aims can be systematically evaluated, and which normative frameworks and criteria are most suitable for doing so. In doing so, the project aims to make the normative assumptions underlying psychotherapeutic goals more visible, allow for meaningful comparisons between different conceptions of desirable therapeutic change, and open them to further critical reflection across philosophy, psychology, and psychotherapeutic practice.