Wittgenstein's Therapy Page 1

WITTGENSTEIN’S THERAPY:
MAKING PROBLEMS DISAPPEAR
by
Alan Parry, Ph.D.

“Don’t think, but look!” (66)

Philosophy simply puts everything before us,

and neither explains nor deduces anything.
--Since everything lies open to view
there is nothing to explain,
for what is hidden . . . .
is of no interest to us. (126).

Philosophical Investigations.
.............
The way to solve the problem you see in life
is to live in a way that will make
what is problematic disappear.
The fact that life is problematic shows
that the shape of your life
does not fit into life's mould.
So you must change the way you live and,
once your life does fit into the mould,
what is problematic will disappear.
Culture & Value, p. 27
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) is one of the most fascinating and

influential intellectual figures of the twentieth century. Indeed he has
become a mythic figure, a character in many novels and the subject of
several poems. A movie has been made that portrays his fascinating life and
often Zen-like utterances. In mythic stature, he is comparable among
intellectuals and scholars only to Einstein. While everyone has heard of
Einstein and most have not even heard of Wittgenstein, fascination with him
is probably due to the fact that, as Eagleton (1993, p. 5) says, "Wittgenstein
is the philosopher of poets and composers, playwrights and novelists and
 Wittgenstein's Therapy Page 2
snatches of his mighty Tractatus have even been set to music."
Born the youngest, and considered the dullest, of eight children of a
wealthy, renowned and highly cultured family in fin de siecle Vienna he
arrived, unannounced and uncredentialed, as a young man at Cambridge
where he pestered Bertrand Russell until the latter, as much in exasperation
as interest, began to discuss philosophy and mathematics with him. Russell
soon recognized the genius of this singularly intense young man and saw him
his successor. World War I intervened and Wittgenstein went off to war on
the side of the Central Powers where he became a decorated war hero. While
a prisoner of war he wrote the only book published in his lifetime, the great
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922/1961) for which he was eventually
awarded his Ph.D. in 1929. Concluding that he had solved all the great
problems of philosophy he abandoned the field, gave his siblings the immense
fortune he had inherited from his father and became an elementary school
teacher in rural Austria where he taught for six years. He designed to every
last detail a house for his sister which is a masterpiece of modernist
architecture. He had discussions with members of the Vienna Circle, but they
were with those with a Marxist philosopher, Pietro Sraffa, that he realized
there was more to philosophy and language than he had previously realized.

He returned to Cambridge in 1929 as suddenly as he had left and

established a second distinctive approach to philosophy, best represented in
his posthumous Philosophical Investigations (1953) the only other book he
actually ever wrote. He left philosophy again with the outbreak of World War
II to serve as a hospital orderly. Wittgenstein died in 1951 of prostate
cancer; his dying words: "Tell them I've had a wonderful life."
While he can be said to have founded two distinctive approaches to
philosophy, in many other fields his influence is only beginning to be felt. One
of these fields is the talking cure where language is obviously central,
particularly in the relationship therapies about which I hope to demonstrate
the singular relevance of "Wittgenstein's therapy" in as close as my limited
abilities are able to manage to his unique style of writing in propositions. I
found, in fact, that Wittgenstein's work lends itself to this way of writing.

1. It is remarkable that so little effort has been made thus far to spell out
the therapeutic implications of Wittgenstein's philosophy. Newman (1996)
himself a philosopher, has addressed this subject, as has Shawver (2001) in
many of her writings and communications. Although not writing from a
specifically therapeutic position Shotter (1994, 1997) has clarified
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Wittgenstein's work in a way that makes it most helpful to therapists.
Wittgenstein himself saw connections between philosophy and therapy
stating, for instance, that: "The philosopher's treatment of a question is like
the treatment of an illness" (PI, 253). He also said: "There is not a
philosophical method, although there are indeed methods, like different
therapies" (PI, 133). Their application should result in "complete clarity"
which should then have the effect that "philosophical problems should
completely disappear" (133). Since, from Wittgenstein's perspective,
philosophical problems are problems that have to do with language and the

ways we use and misuse it, they must, of necessity, be problems in living.
Indeed, he makes it clear that he sees no reason for doing philosophy unless
it makes a difference in one's life (C & V, p. 85). "Working in philosophy . . . is
really more a working on oneself" (C & V, p. 16). He also said: "Thoughts that
are at peace. That's what someone who philosophizes yearns for" (C & V, p.
43). In that sense we must surely all, then, be philosophers!

2. One of Wittgenstein’s most frequently quoted statements is that,

“Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means
of language (PI, 109).” As far as therapy is concerned, the source of this
bewitchment is threefold. First of all it lies in our habit of assuming that the
words we use are all that is necessary to get our message across. Secondly
it lies in the assumption that words simply correspond to the objects they
refer to such that the words we are using, even with someone who disagrees
with us, describe an objective state of affairs. In other words, in view of the
assumed correspondence between words and the objects they refer to, one's
own perceptions offer one a privileged view of reality. Anyone who disagrees
with that is either a fool or a liar. Thirdly, language bewitches us when we
look for explanations of people's actions in hidden sources of motivation.
Probably most of our theories of behavior are mounted on that foundation.
Instead Wittgenstein argues that nothing is hidden. It is sufficient to limit
our efforts to understand each other to the ways we commonly talk with one
another, for when we talk that way we usually understand each other quite
adequately. Thus we have only to describe and not to explain what is going on
when people express themselves for there is nothing to explain.

3. Language is a social activity. It is not a preparation or rehearsal for

action, but the activity that gives meaning to relationships. The meanings
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such activity gives rise to are products of culture. Indeed, language is the
primary event and possibility of human culture (Z, 567). A given set of words
put together in a series of sentences are meaningless apart from the total
context in which they occur. This includes the tone of voice, gestures, facial
expressions and postures that accompany the words themselves, but also
the customs and forms of life which language uniquely embodies (C & V, p.
31). The words we happen to use at any given time, in other words, are only
part of a gestural and cultural activity. As such they are performative in
nature in that language, “shows its meaning at the same time as it states
that meaning” (McDonald, 2001, p. 9).

4. When we realize this and pay attention not only to what we are saying, but
how we are saying it and what it means to the other person, says
Wittgenstein, the problematic nature of language evaporates or dissolves.
We are then able to engage in those “thoughts that are at peace” for
Wittgenstein, the aim of philosophy. The obstacle to this attainment lies in
acting as though words are sufficient and simply stand in for the objects
they presumably define (PI, 1).

5. In attaching such importance as we do to words we use apart from how we

say them we neglect what actually gives them the meaning they assume for
others and to which others respond. This involves the overall interactional
performance of which the words themselves play only one part and within
which they are couched.

6. Anytime we speak, whether to others or even to ourselves, we are

participating in what Wittgenstein calls a language game. He is
characteristically imprecise about what he means by the term. In probably
his most oft-quoted description of what he means by language game he says:
“Here the term language game is meant to bring into prominence the fact
that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or a form of life” (PI,
23).

7. But what is a form of life? The following description comes as close as

any: “We are not, however, regarding the language games which we describe
as incomplete parts of a language, but as languages complete in themselves,
as complete systems of human communication” (B & B, p. 81). As such,
language games follow implicit rules which emerge out of the recurrence of
the activities in question. They follow rules specific to the activity according
 Wittgenstein's Therapy Page 5
to which they are practiced. That, presumably, is why he called them
language games.

8. Wittgenstein did not go into a great deal of detail as to how such rules
become established. As usual he is suggestive rather then definitive, as in
the following example:
"Doesn't the analogy between language and games throw light
here? We can easily imagine people amusing themselves in a field by
playing with a ball so as to start various existing games, but playing
many without finishing them and in between throwing the ball and
bombarding one another for a joke and so on. And now someone says:
The whole time they are playing a ball-game and following definite
rules at every throw.
And is there not also the case where we play and--make up
the rules as we go along? And there is even one where we alter
them--as we go along" (PI 83).

9. We also know from the field of group processes that when a given
interaction repeats itself without any of the parties involved objecting or
taking issue with the way the activity is performed a rule becomes
established. This does not imply that the participants have set or are even
necessarily aware of the rule they are following . Generally speaking language
games are what people are engaged in when they are performing tasks
together or are simply spending time conversing with each other. If it is a
set activity such as painting a fence the nature of the task will heavily
influence what rules are established by the participants. If it is a
predominantly social activity the rules may be made up as those involved go
along, most often by a subtle process of ongoing negotiation conveyed by
looks, gestures, expressions and tone of voice suggesting acquiescence or
varying degrees of reservation. Yet as long as the participants continue
playing without one or the other explicitly opposing or even refusing the
game will continue; challenges to the ongoing rules as are allowed, even when
they are not appreciated and may have the effect of introducing a new rule.

10. Wittgenstein describes language games, then, in terms of the rules that
govern various, more or less characteristic ways people do things together.
He wants to distinguish between the different ways words are used during
particular types of activity. He is challenging the positivist approach to
 Wittgenstein's Therapy Page 6
language which he himself had been instrumental in developing through his
work with Bertrand Russell, George Moore and other language philosophers at
Cambridge. According to them words which did not refer to a specific thing in
an unambiguous way were meaningless. His first great work, The Tracatus-
Logico-Philosophicus (1922/1961) was written in this vein. His later
philosophy, by contrast, was at pains to legitimize languages that were more
elusive and ambiguous such as the characteristic language and terminology
specific to religious, artistic or everyday conversational discourses could not
be otherwise dismissed as unscientific or nonsensical. In short Wittgenstein
sought to understand language according to how humans typically and
variously speak to each other and, in so doing, seem to understand each
other quite well. Wittgenstein went from there to include not only the
languages of various specific activities, but the accompanying tone and
overall social context in which the actual words were addressed. He notes,
for instance, that: "Imponderable evidence includes subtleties of glance, of
gesture, of tone" (PI, II, p. 194)

11. Once it is understood that words are part of a social activity, which
includes their context, philosophers, for instance, could no longer accuse
theologians or even those of different approaches to philosophy of talking
nonsense. Such accusations are a product of using words independently of
the rules of their particular language game. Words thus misused could be
made into weapons to heap scorn on people we disagree with. Instead, then,
of asking how a word is properly defined it would be far more helpful to ask
how it is being used (PI 1).

12. Thus, while Wittgenstein adopted the concept of language games to

clarify philosophical discussion and to legitimate other disciplinary languages
he seems to have regarded what he was doing as a form of therapy to enable
philosophers to overcome the bewitchment of language. Yet this is a
bewitchment that we all seem heir to. It is unquestioning faith in language
which leads us to focus almost exclusively on the words we use to influence
each other while overlooking the fact that it is the tone and the context in
which they are used that influences the recipient often much more than the
words. The frustrated parent who yells a command to "Stop it this instant!"
adds more to her own frustration than to her effectiveness when the child
responds more to the context than the message.

13. In regard to the implications of Wittgenstein for therapy the issue for
 Wittgenstein's Therapy Page 7
me relates as much to the way words are often used as when the
assumption is made that when a particular word is used within a conversation
or report of one to another, the listener understands the word in the same
way as the speaker. It is helpful, then, for a therapist to seek clarification,
particularly when the words used have an ambiguous or imprecise quality.
She will keep asking such questions as "What do you mean by that word?" or
"Just how are you using that word?" The therapists job, from a
Wittgensteinian perspective, is to help people participaate in the same
language game with each other, that is to say to 'talk the same language'
when they are attempting to come to a common understanding or achieve a
common goal. If they do not, they are apt to find themselves working at
cross purposes, antagonizing rather than supporting one another.

14. Troubles, confusion and distress arise from at least two sources. Thje
first of these occurs when the rules of particular language games are broken
or when those involved misunderstand the rules (PI, 125). The second of
these occurs when one perwson, or even both, seek to impose their
preferred and accustomed language game on the other (C, 609). To the
latter end sometimes hitherto agreed-upon rules are broken covertly so that
one may gain an advantage over the other. This frequently happens when
there is confusion or a struggle over who gets to set the rules. this
frequently happens in a family when one parent frequently undermines the
rules they were supposedly observing. At times such as this words can
disguise a covert agenda of, for instance, gaining an edge in the relationship.
It is when rules are broken covertly or there is confusion concerning the
rules of a particular game involved that problems enter our lives. This
frequently happens when there is a struggle for who gets to set the rules,
always keeping in mind that such rules are implicit, rarely explicit.

15. Wittgenstein conceived of language games to address ways that words

are used by people who are 'talking the same language' or who are working
together on a common task or practicing a particular discipline. Everyone
appears to be understanding each other even though the language they are
using might seem nonsense to those who do not share the rules of the
language game in question. Even though notoriously a moralist, particularly
toward himself, he did lnot concern himself so much with the aggressiveness
and deviousness alltoo often foujnd in human relationships. At such times it
is not so much language games that are being played as it is the 'one-
upmanship' games so wonderfully mocked by Stephen Potter (1952) which
 Wittgenstein's Therapy Page 8
were even turned into a very influential school of psychotherapy by Eric
Berne (1964). Their usage camto inform much of the general public's
concept of what is meant when the term 'games people play' is used in
relataion to human interaction.

16. In Wittgenstein's examination of Freud (L & C, pp. 41-52) he indicates

his appreciation of the inventor of psychoanalysis for his creation of a
brilliant mythology, while criticizing him for insisting that what Freud was
offering was scientific. His criticism was not against the explanatory power
of psychoanalysis, but against Freud's insistence of its scientific merit. As
such Wittgenstein suggested that what Freud had invented was a new
mythology, a "manner of speaking," the effectiveness of which lay in its
success in persuading the patient of its interpretation of her situation. A
mythology for Wittgenstein was an exercise in persuasion. It does not solve
problems, rather it dissolves them by describing them in a new and
unexpected way. That is, in fact, how Wittgenstein viewed all human
problems. They are not and cannot be solved, they can only be dissolved by
describing them in a fresh way. He spoke of Freud and psychoanalysis, but
what he says is as true of any form of psychotherapy.

17. By describing a problem differently and seeing it from a new perspective

one will no longer see it as a problem. It will simply disappear. Therapists are
of course familiar with this way of speaking as positive reframing.
Wittgenstein saw other ways of describing a problem so that it disappeared
Pi, 144). Freud offered a new mythology as a way of making problems
disappear by explaining them as due, not to personal faults or failings, but as
due to forces and experiences from childhood that were beyond the person's
culpability. Instead they have the force of something like fate: the trauma of
birth, of the primal scene, of the Oedipus Complex. The secret of Freud's
great appeal lies in a certain compelling persuasiveness combined with that
sense of fate over which one has no control, hence is blameless. For
Wittgenstein, then, psychoanalysis represents a "way of thinking" which
allows a person who is persuaded of it to "go certain ways; it makes certain
ways of behaving and thinking natural for them" (L & C, pp. 44f.)

18. When Wittgenstein says that nothing is hidden he also means that our
words do not need to be seen as carrying with them hidden meanings nor are
they driven by forces at work from deep inside us. Different ways of
speaking reflect simply particular language games, ways for people to engage
 Wittgenstein's Therapy Page 9
in different kinds of activity with one another. It is not necessary to look
further than the grammar or rules of a given language game to understand
what is going on. It is a descriptive and not an explanatory matter and it is
about a social activity that is there for all who would use their eyes to see.

19. Our insistence, for instance, that we think our thoughts intentionally,

hence deserve credit or blame for them, is itself a language game one,
moreover, that has given rise to the grammatical fiction of an “I” that
conjures up thoughts which it then puts into words. This misapprehension is
yet another source of confusion and misunderstanding, both for ourselves
and our activities with others. Indeed, Wittgenstein writes: "One of the most
dangerous ideas for a philosopher is, oddly enough, that we think with our
heads or in our heads. The idea of thinking as a process in the head, in a
completely enclosed space, gives him something occult" (Z, 1981, 605. 606).
A language game guided by the assumption that it is more or less separate
thinking "I"s who interact with one another is utterly misleading and gives
rise to endless confusion. The social activity between the participants is all
that is necessary to attend to. An assumption that each is acting from
behind a separate, enclosed identity cannot but give rise to a needless
speculation about who and what is behind the activity pulling the strings to
make it happen, so to speak. It introduces a separate reality where none is
needed to understand what is happening. "Don't think, but look!"

20. In most cases what is taking place between ourselves and another
proceeds spontaneously. It does not even occur to us, in such instances, to
ask ourselves what is driving either ourselves or the other person. It is only
when we are puzzled by something between us that is not adding up that we
say to ourselves, "What's going on?" Thus, Wittgenstein wonders if it is
necessary to assume, as Kerr puts it, that "what we have to do sometimes
is . . . what we have to do always" (1986/1997, p. 80), namely struggle to
understand each other. Most of the time we understand each other
remarkably well without trying or wondering what the other person is
thinking. To the extent that this does happen, however, it may be an artifact
of the assumptive belief in the Cartesian self, namely that something is

going on inside the other person's head and, in fact, that what is going on
there is the most important thing of all. But what if, indeed, what is going on
there most of the time is of little or no account? The only time there is, is
 Wittgenstein's Therapy Page 10
when there is a problem, a discrepancy, a departure from the usual. That is
the "sometimes" to which Kerr refers.

21. The very assumption that what is most important are the hidden
thoughts in the other person's head creates a problem all of its own making
which we must take steps to solve. By trying to solve a fictitious problem we
then create several more, mostly by asking ourselves unanswerable
questions and then making up our own questionable answers to them and
acting on the basis of these equally fictitious conclusions. Entire schools of
therapy have been built on these unprofitable speculations.

22. This does not mean that nothing is going on within those involved in any
interaction. There is, after all, the ever abundant chatter we all engage in
with ourselves, perhaps at least partly what Wittgenstein means when he
refers to those situations in which "language takes a holiday" (PI, 37). Even
such chatter is readily available to us. It might be hidden to others, but not
to oneself except that it is often, like so much else in our gestural language,
overlooked. Thus we are still able to agree with Wittgenstein that it is not
necessary to posit some kind of additional spectral mind or an entity called
the unconscious to explain actions that seem disproportionate. To do so is
part of a language game of its own, or a manner of speaking.

23. Hence we have Wittgenstein's famous injunction: "Don't think, but look!"
(PI, 66). In other words, it is all there for our eyes to see if only we use them
for that purpose. As he also points out, "everything lies open to view" (PI,

125). Thus it might be said that for Wittgenstein the unconscious is not
hidden from view in the depths of the psyche, it is instead on the surface if
only we look and pay attention. It is only unconscious, however, in that we
overlook virtually everything about how we act except for the words we use.

24. Wittgenstein’s therapy consists, in an overall sense, of inviting us to pay

attention, not only to what we are saying, the tone we are using and the
gestures accompanying our words, but to the context in which we are
speaking, in giving often unintended meaning to our words. He is asking to
realize that when we speak we are engaged in a performance. We are not just
using words dispassionately to designate objects and states of affairs. We
always speak within a sociocultural context in the interests of accomplishing
particular goals. There are times, in fact, when the words we use are
 Wittgenstein's Therapy Page 11
secondary to the rest of a particular performance or language game and to
its goals. Thus: "Only in the stream of thought and life do words have
meaning" (Z, 173).

25. Central to "Wittgenstein's therapy" is the encouragement of persons to

pay attention to the gestural aspects of their language performances. An
important, but all too neglected resource for letting us know the finer details
of our gestural language is the other person, the audience to our
performance. Those present during each other's performance can give
singularly helpful feedback on the tone of voice employed, any gestures and
their effect, facial expressions from the most obvious to the most subtle as
well as the effect of each person's overall posture, whether straight backed
or hunched. If only such feedback would be listened to. Most of us do not
appreciate the realization of how much of ourselves we give away even when
we think we are keeping things hidden by saying nothing.

26. As Wittgenstein has observed: "The human body is the best picture of
the human soul" (PI, Pt. Ii, iv). It is the embodied soul which is there for all to
see that exposes the trickery that we play on ourselves and would play on
others, It is not from within the hidden depths of an unconscious mind that
we are betrayed.

27. The therapist is to challenge with what Wittgenstein calls "charm," which
is how he describes the appeal of psychoanalysis. Its charm has to do with
its metaphorical power in the use of terms that carry with them their own
mystique, terms such as the unconscious the Oedipus Complex and later on
the ego, the super ego and, most fascinating of all, "the seething cauldron of
the id." Freud's eventual great rival, Carl Jung, if anything outdid even Freud
in the creation of an entire mythology with which to appeal to the
imaginations of his followers and patients. Currently the Australian family
therapist, Michael White, has been singularly creative in his ability to invent
imaginative words with which to appeal and persuade.

28. As charming and persuasive as a therapist might be, nonetheless

Wittgenstein is clear on the following: "Anything your reader can do for
himself leave to him" (C & V, p. 77). He might well say that of us all in any
circumstance. Wittgenstein suggests, in the third epigram at the start of
this study, that "The way to solve the problem you see in life is to live in a
way that will make what is problematic disappear" (C & V, p. 27). Since, for
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Wittgenstein, nothing is hidden it is for each of us to open our eyes and look
around in order to notice any way in which our "life does not fit into life's
mould" (ibid.). This represents an utterly fresh way of considering the role of
therapy as part of a search for a happier life. Most forms of therapy have
been built upon the assumption that emotional and behavioral problems have
to do with what goes on inside those involved. Wittgenstein's therapy, by
contrast, assumes that our problems have to do with our unwillingness or
felt inability to join in and participate fully in the forms of life that comprise
"the whole hurly-burly" of human social existence (Z, 567).

29. Participating fully in the forms of life involves simply a willingness to play
by the rules. This is never more so than in the language game of what we
might call "getting along with others." While this is implied in language games
generally, getting along necessarily gives rise to such basic rules as give and
take, taking turns, treating one another fairly, not taking unfair advantage
of one another, not ganging up on one person, in short of acting decently and
fairly with one another. Moreover such rules are, not so much extrinsic as
intrinsic and emergent in the task or situation involved.

30. Stanley Cavell, one of the most sensitive and penetrating of

commentators on Wittgenstein, writes on the subject of getting along:
"The extent to which we understand one another or ourselves is
the same as the extent to which we share or understand forms
of life, share or know, for example, what it is to take turns, or
take chances, or know that some things we have lost we cannot
look for but can nevertheless sometimes find or recover; share
the sense of what is fun and what loss feels like, and take
comfort from the same things and take confidence or offense in
similar ways. That we do more or less share such forms rests
upon nothing deeper; nothing ensures that we will, and there is no
foundation, logical or philosophical, which explains the fact that
we do, which provides the real forms of which our lives, and
language, are distortions" (quoted in Kerr, 1986/1997, p. 75).

31. Where we need to get, whether the therapy be philosophical or

psychological, is, therefore, quite simple. Problems disappear when people
participate fully in the forms of life in which they find themselves. There is
very little that is complicated about such participation. It involves people
figuring out how to get along with each other in the manner in which any
 Wittgenstein's Therapy Page 13
small group gets along: by taking turns, playing fair, not taking advantage of
the other person, exercising courtesy and mutual respect, taking care never
to hurt or humiliate the other person intentionally and to take responsibility
and make up for it if one does. It involves acting as decently toward each
other as possibly as a conscious policy.

32. The task of therapy is to address the obstacles that interfere with or
prevent such participation. It is considered a given that the goal of such a
therapy would concern the simple matter of being able to act decently and
fairly with those with whom we enter into relationship. The obstacles toward
this kind of participation might involve the usual suspects: childhood fears or
trauma, including the effects of physical, sexual or emotional abuse and
relationship histories of abuse, betrayals and disappointments. Other
obstacles involve confusion over how much can legitimately be expected of
oneself or of others in the case of children and adolescents or those
suffering from specific disabilities.

33. Addressing obstacles is especially complicated when it comes to getting

along in families. A firstborn child is born into an ongoing relationship
between two people who already are engaged in working out their rules for
getting along with each other. At birth the child is almost totally exempt
from expectations regarding adherence to these rules. As she grows older
she is gradually included into more and more of the rules, particularly those
relating to manners and simple courtesies being worked out and sometimes
made up as the family goes along. By the time she is an adolescent her
exemptions from helping out with the daily maintenance of the family
through the medium of meaningful chores is gradually being lifted.
Once she becomes an adult she has few exemptions left for that is what
adulthood means: full participation in the rules of getting along in the family.
If this process has not been made clear expectations become the source of
misunderstanding and conflict as the child continues to act as though many
of her exemptions were still in place while the parents are deciding that they
should be withdrawn. Many a parent-adolescent conflict is about just this: the
parents now expect the children to "do their chores" while the adolescent
insists equally that that is not part of her understanding of the "job
description" of being a teenager in this family. At the same time the same
adolescent may conclude that, since she is no longer a child, she is entitled
to make what the parents consider extraordinary and unearned claims for
freedom from one of the central understandings or rules of family life: "We'll
 Wittgenstein's Therapy Page 14
protect you from the dangers of the world outside the family in return for
the exemptions we grant you from the family rule of doing your full share."
The adolescent, meanwhile, may be insisting that, being now "an adult" she
has the right to make up her own rules!

34. By the time individuals, couples or families come to a therapist looking

for help in working out problems that have arisen from seeking an
exemptions they may insist that their problems are uniquely complex and, as
such, will require even complex, but not too difficult solutions. While
untangling and identifying the obstacles to full participation may well be
difficult and complex, the solutions are simple enough. They ask of each
person only what is asked of anyone in relation to another: to work out with
each other the rules implicit in the language game of getting along: acting
decently and fairly, and refraining from insisting that oneself be regarded as
a special case.

35. Wittgenstein was notoriously hard on himself and he was also demanding
of others. There is the famous story of his confessional encounters with
people he believed he had hurt in the course of his life. When he made his
confession to his friend Fania Pascal she responded with exasperation:
"'What is it? You want to be perfect?' 'Of course I want to be perfect.' he
thundered" (Monk, 1991, p. 369). This story by itself demonstrates a crucial
element in Wittgenstein's work, namely that, if one finds oneself unhappy or
beset with problems, it is up to oneself to take whatever steps are
necessary necessary to get back in step, recalling the words from the final
epigram beginning this work: "So you must change the way you live . . ." (C &
V , p. 27) Wittgenstein's therapy, then, is a demanding one. It is one that
expects people to do their part, to play the games of life by the rules that
make full participation possible. It would, moreover, trace doing anything less
to the ways language is misused, that is in this case to justify oneself in
holding back and seeking to be excused, to be made an exception when the
games of life permit no exemptions other than those graduated for children
and granted for those simply and clearly disabled from the very possibility of
full participation.

36. In "Wittgenstein's therapy," success is measured by the extent to which

those involved are willing and then rendered able to participate in the hurly-
burly of life with others, the choices this makes possible, but also the
demands. To the extent that this therapy is successful the participant is
 Wittgenstein's Therapy Page 15
able to play by the rules of the social world, its give and take, and does not
make oneself an exception. The rules, in this case, are understood as
mutually negotiated and adaptable to changing circumstances. They are not
imposed, explicit rules, rather they emerge out of the demands of changing
situations and apply equally to all.

37. Often a person experiences obstacles in participating fully in the

language game of getting along because their actions and attitudes are
regarded in a critical manner by other family members. It is in such
situations that the introduction of a more affirming manner of speaking
allows the person to feel more included and family members to soften in
their critical way of speaking of him. I once saw a family in which the 10
year old boy who had been diagnosed with ADHD was constantly compared
adversely with his more compliant and academically superior 12 year old
brother. The single area in which his skills exceeded his brother was in
athletics. I suggested that, like most superior athletes, such as Wayne
Gretzky and Michael Jordan, he probably possessed "peripheral awareness,"
of which ADHD was an accompanying effect. The boy's entire mien changed.
He sat up, began to participate in the conversation. In both of the only two
session in which it proved necessary to see the family the boy arrived
carrying his basketball as a kind of badge of his athletic prowess.

38. Adherence to 'the rules of the game' does not mean simply complying
with the conventions of the society, nor strict obedience to the family rules,
in which one lives. It does not mean mere fitting in. Wittgenstein understands
that there are different kinds of rules for different phenomena. There are
grammatical rules, mathematical rules, game rules, fixed rules and
circumstantial rules. Those governing the life forms of everyday human
interaction refer to an active and ongoing process of making up the rules as
we go along, that is to say acting with each other in an ongoing, collaborative
way in order to adapt to evolving circumstances.

39. Within this adaptational framework, however, it is the fact that certain
overarching, more or less stable rules which include give and take, taking
turns, being honest, giving the other person the benefit of the doubt are
practiced that makes it possible for those involved to hear and trust each
other sufficiently that it becomes possible to make up workable rules as we
go along. It is also through observing such basic rules of decency that it
becomes possible for creativity and innovation to arise and find a foothold in
 Wittgenstein's Therapy Page 16
human affairs, thus to provide the possibility of something that Wittgenstein
valued supremely: the achievement of a fully human civilization.

40. Wittgenstein was extremely critical of the state of Western civilization

and of the decline of reverence, basic civility and personal responsibility that
he saw as characteristic of life in the twentieth century. We can only
assume that he would have been even less impressed at the cultural state of
affairs as it stands early in the twenty-first century. He had a great regard
for the historic achievements of Western civilization about which he wrote
these words: "The earlier culture will become a heap of rubble and finally a
heap of ashes, but spirits will hover over the ashes" (C & V, p. 3). We may
still allow ourselves to be influenced by such spirits if we choose.

41. For Wittgenstein modernity's belief in progress through scientific

advancement and technological invention, thereby making life easier and
more comfortable, were factors that have had the effect of severely
undermining traditional values. Chief among these have included the
importance of assuming responsibility for one's actions, hence taking it for
granted that, if one found oneself out of step with the surrounding life
forms, it was up to oneself to take action to remedy the situation.
Wittgenstein still saw this as the most effective and most ethical approach
to take in the face of a life problem. He had little regard for the direction
that Western culture was moving and, one can only suppose, would have been
appalled by the contemporary drift toward looking for someone, if not
society itself, to blame for problems in one's own life.

42. A major factor in the increasing prevalence of the latter may be the
increasing individualism of modern society which has emerged both out of
two sources: the decline of the moral consensus that was still holding up,
albeit in rather tattered condition, perhaps until the early 1960s at least in
North America; the rise of the consumer society which made it possible for
everyone to fancy being able to gratify their own material desires. In an
individualistic world the very idea of governing one's own actions according to
various rules of the game became virtually incomprehensible. Instead the
ideal has perhaps come closer to an assumption that it was not only
desirable but possible to make up one's own rules as one goes along come
what may.

43. Indeed the very modernism of which Wittgenstein was a major if

 Wittgenstein's Therapy Page 17
reluctant exemplar was transgressive at its core. Its achievements, whether
in literature with Joyce, Pound Eliot, Woolf and others, in art beginning with
the Impressionists through Picasso, Matisse, Braque and the cubists,
architecture with Wright, Courvoisier, Mies de Rohe and more, or philosophy
itself with Russell, at least the early Wittgenstein, and the Vienna Circle and
others, modernism enthusiastically broke the rules. In this sense,
postmodernism carries on the transgressive program of modernism save
only that it has trimmed its sails and aimed for far less. The world in which it
finds itself is one in which the postmodernists insist cannot be remade. But
it is still a world in which there are only, at most, local rules for local
situations and those only tentative.

44. Although postmodernists often claim Wittgenstein as one of their own,

avant la lettre as it were, I am not sure he would have welcomed their
embrace. I can see their sense of an affinity, one which Lyotard (1985) for
one claims, for Wittgenstein's language about games and their rules offers
perhaps a pathway out of the relativistic cul de sac which leads many to
dismiss some of the important ingredients of the postmodern critique.
Otherwise the contemporary world would be the obverse of almost
everything Wittgenstein stood for in his own person and in the positions he
took, both on philosophical and cultural matters the way he described
language games and the pragmatic nature of their rules offers a way beyond
the nihilism and relativism for which postmodernist positions are frequently
criticized. He would also perhaps have found some common ground with the
poststructuralist deconstruction of the self (Derrida, 1982; Lacan, 1977;
Foucault, 1977). For him the self supposedly possessed by the individual who
seeks to play by his own rules has no substance. it is a grammatical fiction, a
manner of speaking which implies something like ownership of our bodies, as
in "my back hurts," or to a subjective distinction such as "I am in pain" with
reference to emotional states. It is also used to state or claim personal
identity. Thus, the statement, "I am LW" is not so much an assertion that
this person is the one who is making a particular claim, but is an expression
of who this person is who is experiencing various subjective states (Peters &
Marshall, 1999, p. 193).

45. Wittgenstein clearly had a strong and notoriously demanding relationship

with himself. Indeed Cavell (1969, pp. 70-72) proposes that the key to
appreciating Wittgenstein's unique style is that he wrote as he spoke in the
genre of confessional dialogue. His own struggles to understand were never
 Wittgenstein's Therapy Page 18
expressed as assertions, but as questions, wonderings, conversations with
himself. jokes, parables, idiosyncratic examples and propositions. They all
bespeak a sharing of his struggle with himself. He did not, then, have to
elaborate directly on the subject of whether what we call the self simply has
to do with the ongoing conversations we have with ourselves. His entire body
of work is a testimony to this.

46. What he perhaps did not speak to in so doing were the ways such
conversations serve to build and maintain a self-image for purposes of
presenting ourselves in a predictable and enhanced way to others and in the
families and communities in which we live. Perhaps this had to do with the
extremely critical stance he took toward himself. Even this, however,
suggests that he had a great deal of concern both for how he appeared to
others and how he appeared to himself. Toward others he appears to have
been dubious about being seen as, for instance, the founder of a
Wittgensteinian school of philosophy. Toward himself he was painfully aware
of his personal and, above all, his moral failings. Thus his self-image, like so
much about him, comes from an earlier age when a confessional mode of
self-criticism formed the crux of one's self presentation, a far cry indeed
from the contemporary preoccupation with enhancing and polishing one's
image in the eyes of others perhaps first then of oneself.

47. It is possible and eminently desirable, Wittgenstein tells us, to make

problems disappear. If we would do therapy that is informed by Wittgenstein
we would be advised, first of all, to encourage clients, and to make sure we
follow suit ourselves, to pay attention, not only to what is said, but more
importantly, how it is said. The words may be the centre piece of what it is
one wants to say, but they will not be heard as such unless care is taken to
watch the overall tone with which they are spoken. It needs to be realized
that words are actions and take place within a total context that includes
the tone of voice, gestures and the state of the relationship that exists at
any particular time with those with whom one is interacting. One's words are
likely to be heard as they are intended, to the extent to which they are
congruent with the expressive language with which they are presented.

48. The second principle to be employed to make problems disappear involves

Wittgenstein's fascination with therapeutic language as simply a manner of
speaking rather than as a something it cannot be, namely a science. The
genius of Freud was that he invented a mythology that enabled him to speak
 Wittgenstein's Therapy Page 19
persuasively to his patients and, indeed, to the world so they could
understand themselves in a new way, one that left them less at war with
themselves and others. Freud's failure was that he insisted he was practicing
science, that he had found a universal prescription for the ills of humanity.
We can learn from Freud to accept that the job of a therapist is to persuade
people by using language that makes their problems seem less like problems
than as opportunities.

49. The third principle in the practice of "Wittgenstein's therapy" lies in

encouraging people to consider that, if their lives are not going well, it is
something they can do something about. The therapeutic task, then, might
be to persuade people to believe that they may be living their lives within
their families and other important relationships according to rules that are
outmoded and about which there is no longer agreement; or rules that are
regarded by others or oneself as unfair or concerning which oneself, another
or both are excusing themselves from observing even as they are demanding
them of the others. To the extent that all those involved could be persuaded
to set rules that are agreed upon and mutually observed they will then find
that their problems have disappeared.

50. A culture such as ours that is suffering from a worsening case of

cultural amnesia is very likely both the cause and the consequence of a
disproportionate focus on the importance of self-enhancement at the
expense of a willingness to accept responsibility for the consequences of our
actions and to engage in constructive self-criticism. A culture that
increasingly lacks vibrant institutions and values, the adherence to which
yields a sense of personal pride, leaves its members with questionable, even
trivial standards with which to value themselves. In such circumstances we
are bound to be left in states of personal fragility and doubt, afraid of being
unmasked and altogether terrified to be held to account. Small wonder
seeking exemptions from the expectations of others and reasons for making
oneself an exception to the rules of the game has become a way of life. Can
the problems that arise out of these circumstances be made to disappear? I
commend the strong medicine of Wittgenstein's therapy.
 Wittgenstein's Therapy Page 20
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