Eastern Nazarene CollegeThe work of Emmanuel Levinas presents a unique challenge to psychotherapy, particularly by revisiting the phenomenon of language in such a way that all human speech is already loaded with obligation to one's neighbor. This article reflects on the nature of language in Levinas's later works, with particular regard to the kinds of speech important to psychotherapy. First by exploring the hermeneutic tradition and its approach to language and understanding, the author points to Levinas's claim that hermeneutics will not suffice to articulate responsibility to the neighbor. Speech is already, for Levinas, weighted with a primordial debt to the other. As such, the author suggests that language be considered in another register, at a level already familiar with infinite debt and obligation: prayer and liturgy. Such a suggestion is not primarily theological in nature, but relational. Ultimately pointing to a way of thinking about language in therapy that surpasses hermeneutics in the interest of a faithful response to the suffering of the other.

This essay takes up the critical importance of Levinas’s work for mental health care and explores the timeliness and relevance of Levinas’s concerns in relationship to the contemporary shape of the clinical disciplines. The authors provide a critical assessment of the existing literature on Levinas and psychology by chronicling and examining the realms of clinical scholarship and theory to which Levinas’s work has been applied. After arguing for the substantial value of this intersectional literature and addressing the current impediments involved in applying Levinas to psychotherapeutic contexts, the authors define several areas in the research that are ripe for future exploration, expansion, and consolidation.

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