WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE DO
Our Expertise
At Rochester Philosophical Counseling, we are dedicated to helping you understand how sound reasoning can ensure that your decisions support your goals rather than hinder them. Our guiding principle is simple: to live well, one must reason well.
Dr. Scott Clifton
Dr. Scott Clifton (Ph.D. Philosophy, UW-Seattle) is a Certified Logic-Based Consultant living in Rochester, NY. For over twenty years he worked as a professional philosopher at a number of higher-education institutions, including the University of Washington, the College of Charleston, Miami University, SUNY-Geneseo, Nazareth University, and Rochester Institute of Technology. After a career demonstrating to students the intellectual value of philosophical reasoning, Dr. Clifton recognized the therapeutic benefits of philosophy and earned his Logic-Based Therapy certification in 2024 at the Logic-Based Therapy & Consultation Institute under the direction of Dr. Elliot Cohen, one of the principle founders of philosophical counseling in America and developer of Logic-Based Therapy. Dr. Clifton believes that everyone has the potential to live a good life, but it’s not always easy. Overcoming the numerous challenges in our daily lives requires strong skills in reasoning. Like any other skill, reasoning must be learned and practiced consistently. Dr. Clifton will help you to identify ways to improve your reasoning, which may be undermining your goals or leading you to make poor decisions. Philosophers have maintained for centuries that the key to flourishing is the cultivation of one’s faculty of reason so that both big-picture and daily, practical decisions align with one’s goals rather than hinder them. Learn how Dr. Clifton can help unlock the power of your own reasoning to allow you to live a good life today!
Philosophical Counseling
Philosophy involves the careful and patient application of logic and critical thinking to complex questions about ethics, existence, meaning, knowledge, religion, society, and more. The goal is to examine the arguments and reasons for and against various positions on philosophical issues to determine which view is best supported. Philosophical counseling applies this process of identifying and evaluating reasons and arguments to personal problems such as difficult feelings, behavioral challenges, struggles in relationships, and personal moral dilemmas. This type of counseling is known as Logic-Based Therapy (LBT).
LBT, derived from Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), developed by psychologist Albert Ellis in the 1950s, was founded by Dr. Elliot D. Cohen in the late twentieth century. LBT is a leading modality of philosophical counseling or philosophical practice. Like psychological counseling, philosophical practice aims to help clients address their behavioral and emotional problems. Philosophical practitioners emphasize philosophical methods and theories, such as identifying and evaluating the reasoning behind our beliefs and feelings, rather than typical psychological approaches like reflecting on repressed emotions, dwelling on experiences from childhood, or prescribing pharmaceuticals. Philosophical counselors are also able to introduce clients to the insights and wisdom from over 2500 years of western philosophy, framing these insights in such a way that they can be easily applied to ordinary lives.
If you’d like to learn more about philosophical counseling, you can visit the website of the National Philosophical Counseling Association (NPCA) or email us at info@rochesterphilosophicalcounseling.com.