Spiritual Disciplines in Philosophical Counseling Clinical Education with the Self-Dialogue Seminar

Abstract

In order to contribute to the discussion of pathological problems that occur in today’s “phase transition phenomenon of relationship,” this article focuses on “self-deception”—an example of a distorted relationship with oneself. It explores ways to overcome such issues through philosophical counseling. The specific measure is the Self-Dialogue seminar, a part of the Philosophical Counseling Clinical Education (PCCE) program. The second Section, therefore, begins with the question “How do we deal with the phenomenon of self-deception (on the part of the counselor or client) that we might actually encounter in philosophical counseling?” and discusses where and how philosophical counseling can intervene in the entire process of self-deception. In preparation for the possibility of encountering different levels of self-deception, the third section examines the contexts of three types of self-deceptions. The fourth section explores the possibility that a client or philosophical counselor can discover and change their own points of deception through the Records of Self-Dialogue seminar. Finally, the article argues that philosophical dialogue, if attained within a community predicated on individual equality and mutuality, can be a valid prescription for self-deception in the modern world.

1. Introduction

Traditionally, self-deception means intentionally getting oneself to believe in p, all the while knowing or truly believing in ~p. According to this definition, self-deceivers apparently must (1) hold contradictory beliefs—the dual-belief requirement—and (2) intentionally get themselves to hold a belief they know or believe truly to be false (Deweese-Boyd 2023).

This concept encompasses both the belief in and the act of misleading oneself to accept a falsehood. As noted by B.-D. Lee (1999, p. 345), self-deception is “not easy to define” due to its inherent illogicality and paradoxical nature. To avoid focusing on the dual-belief requirement, Kashiwabata suggests refraining from labeling the beliefs (~p) in stage E as “irrational beliefs” in isolation. Instead, he proposes referring to them as “self-deceptive beliefs,” emphasizing that these beliefs are the result of self-deception (Kashiwabata 2014b).

Roser T. Ames also noted that there are many and varied disagreements on the phenomenon of self-deception (Ames and Dissanayake 1996, p. 1). The question of whether or not self-deception is even possible remains an ongoing debate. Despite these complexities, this article tries to deal with the problem of deception from the perspective of philosophical counseling. Because it is a vivid experience of one’s own and a problem of existential concern that a philosophical counselor actually encounters in the phenomenon of counseling.1

However, this article does not take the position of analytic philosophy, which views self-deception as a matter of knowledge (including truth) and beliefs (not including truth) and, thus, does not specialize in the widely discussed irrationality of beliefs in terms of how we handle conflicting propositions. The purpose of the discussion on self-deception in this article is not only because it is a matter of actual beliefs and behaviors and is not subject to logical analysis, but also because it is a matter of practical healing based on in-depth diagnosis (dialogue). This is all the more so because our lives are fundamentally absurd and ambiguous, and our inner selves are also disordered.

This article first raises the following questions: When encountering a client filled with self-deceptive beliefs, how can a philosophical counselor help them uncover the hidden conceptual premises and implications within their “pattern of thinking”? Furthermore, is it possible for the client to undergo a transcendent process by critically examining and surpassing their limiting beliefs and values (Park and Ja 2018, pp. 46–48)? These contradictions and self-deceptive dilemmas represent significant challenges within the practice of philosophical counseling, affecting even the counselors themselves.

Ultimately, this article seeks to identify methods for addressing and overcoming self-deception through “philosophical dialogue,” with a specific focus on the Records of Self-Dialogue seminar in the PCCE program. PCCE is a counseling clinical practice program hosted by the Korean Society of Philosophical Practice. It is a counseling clinical practice course designed to cultivate professional counseling skills as a philosophical counselor. In addition to clinical training to care for the client’s soul under the guidance of training directors (a Catholic priest and professors), the counselor also enhances the counselor’s understanding of himself and experiences self-reflection and self-growth.2

2. How Do We Deal with the Phenomenon of Self-Deception (on the Part of the Counselor or Client) That We Might Actually Encounter in Philosophical Counseling?

What is self-deception? What makes us target ourselves rather than others? Why do we not only rationalize our deception (self-contradiction) but also self-consciously internalize it as a belief (brainwashing) through repeated and persistent commitments? In general, the state of “becoming accustomed to disguising oneself in the eyes of others, and finally disguising oneself in the eyes of oneself” (Kashiwabata 2014a, p. 161) is called self-deception. The process and characteristics of how a subject reaches a state of what is called “self-deception” are as follows:

• The subject knows P to be true;
• However, they exhibit a kind of negative attitude toward admitting P, which triggers the mechanisms that lead to this state;
• The subject self-rationalizes that P is not true.

The three characteristic steps are broken down into more specifics. In the following, the sequential steps in the formation of self-deception are indicated in alphabetical order in parentheses:

There is enough evidence to believe that P is true (A). We know that P is true (B), but due to interventions such as amour propre, fear of being ignored (C), and wishful thinking (D), we come to believe that P is not true (E).3

In the previous definition of self-deception, a person who has become “accustomed” to disguising themselves and has eventually reached the point of “disguising themselves” is obviously a man who, over a long period of time, engages in a complex series of behaviors to avoid detection. In other words, deceiving oneself is an act. It is hard to deny that an act can be involved in the establishment of self-deception (Kashiwabata 2014b, pp. 13–14). If so, the man will certainly act as if the contents of the disguise are somehow the goal of his life, or as if he has been brainwashed into the belief that it is an ideal. The whole process from A to E above is clearly a case of “acting as if you believe something you know is not true. Or, at the very least, acting as if you believe something that cannot be said to be true” (Kashiwabata 2014a, p. 161) will be.

As such, for anyone, the long-term continuation of beliefs and actions is bound to lead to self-rationalization. This is especially true when they are contradictory and deceptive. Such a person should be called a “subject of self-deceptive beliefs” because the result of multiple behaviors over a relatively long period of time is that self-deceptive beliefs are bound to be formed in the subject (Kashiwabata 2014b, p. 14).

If so, I suggest below the possible philosophical counseling roles or benefits of intervention at each stage of the self-deception process. This is because it can help the client embrace the open-ended question of the other and introduce gaps in their own self, thereby facilitating progress in breaking the consistency of self-deception.

First, in Steps A and B, the client’s belief system, understanding of concepts, and related aspects can be examined through Socratic dialogues and critical thinking exercises in philosophical counseling.

Step C involves identifying the client’s key issues behind camouflage and deception, such as self-favoritism, fear of being ignored or discriminated against, feelings of inferiority and superiority, need for approval, and lack of self-assurance.

In Steps D and E, the client’s wishful thoughts and self-deceptive behaviors can be examined to determine the extent to which they exhibit weak moral will, repetitive patterns, and irrational beliefs and values.

Despite the above active role of philosophical counseling, this article will answer the question, “Is it possible to have philosophical counseling with a self-deceptive client (or counselor)?” by stating that it is somewhat difficult in cases when one is in a state of self-ignorance, or when one is unable to cross the threshold of sincerity. Specific evidence for this will be presented in the next Section 3, which focus on the literature of the Confucian tradition, including Great Learning (大學), The Doctrine of the Mean (中庸), and Analects of Zhuzi (朱子語類), to examine the statements on self-deception of the three types and to discuss how philosophical counseling may intervene differently with self-deception that have different causes.

3. Three Sorts of Self-Deception (自欺)

We have already touched on the structural possibility of self-deception. Because of its structural possibility, self-deception is actually something that everyone can engage in. However, there are differences in the level and degree of deception, so we need to distinguish between the mechanisms at work behind it and the resulting types.

To do so, we will first examine the Zi-qi discourse related to the personas of Junzi and Xiaoren that have constituted the Confucian socius, and then discuss what differentiates their forms of self-deception. As you may know, the most representative remarks on self-deception in Confucian literature appear in the chapter on Making Thoughts Sincere (誠意) in The Great Learning (大學).

What is meant by making the thought sincere [誠其意] is the without self-deceit [毋自欺]. as when we hate a bad smell or love a beautiful color. This is called satisfying oneself. Therefore, the gentleman is inevitably cautious of his Du [愼其獨].4

所謂誠其意者：毋自欺也，如惡惡臭，如好好色，此之謂自謙，故君子必愼其獨也！

(The Great Learning)

This request not to be self-deceptive is an exhortation to be true to one’s heart and inner voice, to “be introspective,” as the example suggests. If you do not fulfill sincerity (crystallizing your thoughts about good and evil so that they turn into firm beliefs), it will lead to self-deception or hypocrisy. “This passage emphasizes that hypocrisy is a form of self-deception” (Zheng 2015, p. 347). However, according to the theory of the gentleman [君子論], is it possible for Xiaoren not to self-deceive? In short, it is impossible. Unfortunately, it is impossible for them to stay faithfully within themselves. Below is a passage from the Making Thoughts Sincere section of The Great Learning that describes the deceptive actions of a Xiaoren in contrast to Junzi’s Shendu (慎獨).

When a Xiaoren dwells in solitude, there is no evil he will not commit. However, when he sees a Junzi, he immediately becomes wary, concealing his bad deeds and displaying his good ones. Yet, people see through him as if they can perceive his innermost thoughts, so what benefit is his disguise? This is why it is said that when one is sincere within, it is manifested outwardly. Therefore, a Junzi must always be cautious about the places only his innermost self knows.5

小人閒居爲不善，無所不至，見君子而后厭然，揜其不善，而著其善. 人之視己，如見其肺肝然，則何益矣. 此謂誠於中，形於外，故君子必愼其獨也.

(The Great Learning)

From the attitude of the Xiaoren when he met the Junzi above, we can see that the Xiaoren deliberately rationalizes himself and deceives others. Driven by external interests, he deceives others and disguises himself for their sake. Moreover, because his inner thoughts are clearly visible, no matter how much he disguises himself, he can easily be seen by others.

Is the Junzi’s vigilance against the possibility of “human desire” sprouting from a heart that only he alone knows, as mentioned in the two paragraphs, possible for a Xiaoren? It is not. This is because it is the inner structure of “self” that enables evilness to function through bodily desires (related to the aforementioned stage of C). As such, “a Xiaoren, unlike a Junzi, cannot stop deceiving himself because he is incapable of self-discipline” (Nakajima 2011, p. 16).

Why is it impossible for a Xiaoren to expand the “places only his innermost self knows [獨處]” of the inner side? Zhu Xi’s (朱熹, 1130–1200) commentary on the ShenDu in the Interpretation of the Great Learning and Interpretation of the Doctrine of the Mean is as follows:

Making the intentions perfectly genuine is the first head of self-discipline. …… Du is a place where no one else knows but yourself. …… The difference between sincerity and insincerity lies in a place where no one else knows, and only you know. Therefore, one must be cautious here and examine the subtle signs.6

誠其意者,自修之首也. …….獨者,人所不知而己所獨知之地也. ……然其實與不實,蓋有他人所不及知而己獨知之者,故必謹之於此,以審其幾焉.

(Interpretation of the Great Learning, p. 7)

Du is a place unknown to others yet uniquely known to oneself. In the darkness of speech, the subtle and minor traces of events may not yet be formed, but the mechanisms are already in motion; unknown to others, yet solely known to oneself. Thus, there is nothing in the world so clearly manifest and exceeding this. Therefore, the noble person, always cautious and fearful, pays even more attention to this, aiming to curb desires at their budding stage, and not allowing them to grow secretly in the dark, leading far away from the Dao.7

獨者, 人所不知而己所獨知之地也. 言嵽暗之中, 細微之事，跡雖未形而幾則已動, 人雖不知而己獨知之, 則是天下之事無有著見明顯而過於此者. 是以君子旣常戒懼, 而於此尤加謹焉, 所以人欲於將萌, 而不使其潛滋暗長於隱微之中, 以至離道之遠也.

(Interpretation of the Doctrine of the Mean, p. 18)

In this way, knowledge and action foreshadow the potential for inconsistency when disturbed by Level C desires. For this reason, it is necessary to practice Shendu (慎獨) to be vigilant against the sprouting of such motives. This can be connected to the Great Learning’s utterance of sincerity [誠意] and allowing no self-deception [毋自欺], i.e., to be sincere in one’s intentions and not to deceive oneself in order to allow one’s inner nature to exist.

Therefore, sincerity is necessary for the emergence of Du (獨). This process of internalization is the program of the self-cultivation theory of Zhu Xi: “When the will is done sincerely, all falsehoods and selfishness of desire disappear.” However, this is not possible for the Xiaoren. Within the possibilities of this structure, it is rather difficult not to recognize one’s own deception, but the petty person does not want to admit it. Therefore, it is self-deception to know that one should not practice unrighteousness but remain attached to amour-propre and not abandon it.

However, here, we need to note the possibility of a different sort of deception.

The Master said: “To deceive oneself is to be half-knowing and half-unknowing. Even if you know the good things you should do, you may not do them all the time. Even if you know that you shouldn’t do something evil, you can’t stop doing it because you like it. This is how we deceive ourselves. When one is unaware and unknowing, it is simply called “deception”. However, when one is unaware and unknowing, it cannot be called “self-deception”.8

先生曰: “自欺是箇半知半不知底人.知道善我所當爲,却又不十分去爲善知道惡不可作,却又是自家所愛,舍他不得,這便是自欺.不知不識,只喚 ‘欺’,不知不識却不喚做 ‘自欺’.”

(Zhu 1986, 16:71)

Zhu Xi’s remark about half-knowing and half-unknowing is related to the inconsistency of behavior caused by the insufficiency and uncertainty of one’s knowledge, the weakness of one’s intellect, and the irrationality of one’s beliefs and attitudes. Because they do not have sufficient intellect, they are incapable of self-deception; a subject who is incapable of reasoning is incapable of self-deception. For this reason, Zhu Xi said, “the deception of the Xiaoren is not called self-deception, but only fraud”. In other words, the deception of the petty man is not self-deception but a mere disguise of the petty man and should be called fraud or deception.

A subject who is unaware of their self-deceptive beliefs cannot be self-deceived because he or she is unknowingly committing them. Hence, “Zhu Xi somehow does not want to admit the possibility of self-deception in the petty man” (Nakajima 2011, p. 24). In this way, it is said that the self-ignorance of the predisposed is not itself self-deception because “someone can be in a state of self-ignorance either because he is dull or because he is inattentive” (B.-D. Lee 1999, p. 348).

In response, Byung-Deok Lee offers the following schematic of self-deception:

• self-ignorance + α = self-deception (B.-D. Lee 1999, p. 347).

So, how does Zhu Xi distinguish between lack of knowledge (知不至) and self-deception (自欺)?

I asked, “How does one distinguish between lack of knowledge and self-deception?” The Master replied, ‘The passage in the Great Learning that says, “A Xiaoren is free to do bad things when he is alone, but when he sees a Junzi, he is ashamed and wishes to cover up his bad behavior and show himself to be good,” is due to lack of knowledge’.

When I said, “If one’s knowledge is imperfect and one is not even aware that one has reached that point, that situation will inevitably lead to a state of self-deception”, he said, “That situation will inevitably lead to that point”. After a pause, he continued, “But it is distinct from this when one is not even aware that one does not know. When that is discussed, it is eventually misunderstood, because not even recognizing that one does not know is when one considers something that is not good to be good but does not recognize it as such. It is indeed a case of “one who has fled fifty paces laughs at one who has fled a hundred,” but it is distinct from being in a situation where one is deceiving oneself through lack of knowledge”.

“To summarize these two, I suppose we can say that the cause is a lack of studying the investigating of things”. “That’s true”.9

問: “知不至與自欺者如何分?” 曰: “’小人閒居爲不善,無所不至.見君子而后厭然,揜其不善,而著其善.’只爲是知不至耳.” 問: “當其知不至時,亦自不知其至於此.然其勢必至於自欺.” 曰: “勢必至此.” 頃之,復曰: “不識不知者卻與此又別.論他箇,又卻只是見錯,故以不善爲善,而不自知耳. 其與知不至而自欺者,固是’五十步笑百步’,然卻又別.” 問: “要之二者,其病源只是欠了格物工夫.” 曰: “然.”

(Zhu 1986, 16:70)

From the above statement, it is possible to postulate two cases: one where a person is unaware of the state they have reached due to a lack of knowledge, and another where they are aware of it. In other words, a subject who is conscious of self-deceptive beliefs has the potential to cross the threshold of “Cheng-yi.” In this case, philosophical dialogues are sufficiently possible depending on the competence of the philosophy counselor, and self-changes can be promoted.

Now, in accordance with the purpose of this article, we will categorize self-deception into the following three types.10

• Self-deception caused by self-ignorance:
  • This is the case whereby you do not even recognize that you do not know;
  • Because the person remains at the threshold of sincerity, unable to cross it, the possibility of self-enlightenment is very low;
  • This type cannot deceive themselves because they do not have the Du [獨處] that a Junzi might have. Consequently, deceiving others is also likely to prove unsuccessful.
• Self-deception caused by incomplete knowledge:
  • This is the case where one’s knowledge is somewhat limited but has not yet fallen into self-deception and is at least capable of judging right and wrong;
  • They stand at the threshold of integrity, aspiring to cross it;
  • This is the case when one is capable of rational thought and reasoning, able to recognize contradictions, and willing to change their views when inconsistencies are pointed out.
• Self-deception that may occur when one acquires genuine knowledge:
  • This is the case where a person can deliberately deceive themselves despite having genuine knowledge;
  • Since such a person is capable of self-deception, they can also choose to be intentionally truthful without deceiving themselves (Nakajima 2011, pp. 21–23);
  • From this perspective, the transition from self-deception to integrity is not overly difficult for an individual with genuine knowledge.

In preparation for the possibility of encountering different sorts of self-deception, this essay has examined the contexts of three types, along with the flaws in knowledge: the first type (who is unable to cross the threshold of integrity), the second type (who is attempting to cross the threshold of integrity), and the third type (who has achieved integrity). In the next four sections, we will explore the possibility of transitioning clients or philosophical counselors across the threshold of integrity through one of the PCCE programs, the Records of Self-Dialogue seminar.

4. Self-Dialogue Seminar as Spiritual Disciplines in PCCE

How can a philosophical counselor guide a philosophical dialogue with a self-deceptive belief subject who is not merely harboring contradictions but is engaging in insincere behavior that leads to the persistent performance of self-deceptive acts? The philosophical counseling call in Confucian texts, as we have seen, is first and foremost “sincerity”.

Indeed, a client of self-deceptive beliefs who fails to cross the threshold of “integrity”, often described as “systematically refusing to answer questions about a particular belief, or repeating the refusal ad infinitum” (Kashiwabata 2014b, p. 34), may be common. The client’s attitude of “denial” is where the irrationality of the self-deception exists, but the client will remain unwilling to acknowledge the contradiction, even when it is pointed out. This stage is a state of severe deception, and it is difficult to expect introspective “realizations,” such as enlightenment and ShenDu (慎獨), to occur in a client who remains at this threshold of sincerity.

Moreover, in order to camouflage themselves in the face of challenging questions from the counselor or participants, clients who are prone to verbalization “calmly and artfully explain what they have said” (Kashiwabata 2014a, p. 159).

What, then, is urgently required of philosophical counselors to help their clients face their issues with sincerity? I propose that in order for counselors to recognize self-deceptive clients, they should first perform the task of examining their own self-deception. Specifically, among the PCCE programs, we propose the entire process, from the creation of the self-dialogue to the Records of Self-Dialogue seminars.11

This is a reflective process to effectively train the counselor’s abilities in a clinical education program that trains philosophical counselors, and it is called the “Self-Dialogue Seminar”.

First of all, I would like to briefly summarize the roles of the participants in the “Self-Dialogue Record” seminar as follows: observer, recorder, presenter, questioner, respondent, and supervisor.

Participants need three people to read the client’s words, the counselor’s words, and the stage directions. The trainer reads the client’s and counselor’s words so that the participants, except the presenter, can focus on the training, and the presenter reads the stage directions to distinguish the roles. After the transcript is read aloud, participants are asked to identify the speaker’s main issues and points of self-deception—such as mistaking one’s main emotion for something else or covering it up—based on the dialogue they have listened to, and to complete a paper12 created by the trainee director within a set time limit.

4.1. Presenter: Self That Is Elaborated and Created

Self-deception is an effective way for participants to hide their fears, the fact P, from themselves. This is also why self-deceptive participants do not want to acknowledge their state of deceptive acts. Therefore, philosophical dialogues are very important as a way to break the chain of self-deception. This is because participants continue to ask open-ended questions that make the presenter with a deceptive attitude aware of their concealment so that they can introduce a gap into themself.

The first type (who is unable to cross the threshold of integrity) has systematically concealed their deception, but they may not have concrete knowledge of what they are concealing. Therefore, first, the presenter is asked to engage in self-counseling (prepare Self-Dialogue) → the presenter participates in a training session for philosophical dialogues (Records of Self-Dialogue seminar), in which the presenter is immersed in themselves through answers to the questioners → the presenter undergoes a process to elaborate themselves through more challenging and critical open-ended questions with the supervisor’s intervention.

Through the training session, the presenter begins to recover their past self as a result obtained through the physical and semantic integration of their present self so that they are qualified to refer to their past self as “the past of their present self” for the first time. Then, their supervisor and colleagues send messages of encouragement and support to the presenter.

As such, in their answers to the participants, the presenter reduces their previously unclear thoughts and gradually increases their logicality. In this process, the outlines of the presenter (self) and participants (others) become clear, and the uniqueness of the presenter is clearly revealed. Of course, the uniqueness as such also includes the issue of the presenter’s self-discovery, through which healing can be achieved, and this is summarized once again as follows.

1. Preparation of Records of Self-Dialogue: This is an in-depth course that can be undertaken if you have a level 1 or higher qualification in philosophical counseling. It enables the presenter to experience themselves as others by distancing themselves from themselves and relativizing their perspective. By doing so, it provides an opportunity to rethink and re-experience oneself.

2. Q&A at the site: The unpredictable nature of the site introduces a variable. It is also the time to cultivate observational skills. The presenter can observe the facial expressions and attitudes of a partner, among other things. This allows the presenter to encounter a self that is unfamiliar but changeable, constantly being elaborated and newly created.

3. Mutual Final Evaluation: The presenter can discover themselves existing in others.

However, in Section 2 above, as an answer to the question “Is it possible to have philosophical counseling with a self-deceptive client (or counselor)?”, this article states, “it is somewhat difficult in cases when one is in a state of self-ignorance, or when one is unable to cross the threshold of sincerity”. This is because the second type has the potential for self-improvement, but the first type can be seen as a case who finds it difficult to even be incorporated into a self-enlightenment program.

What the first type desperately needs is to stop “self (deceiving themselves)”. To that end, the first priority is to block the opportunity for self-deception to sprout. Therefore, if necessary, blocking and prohibiting the opportunity with the skill of dialogues in advance can be a means of relating to self-reflection and ways to induce action. Concrete counseling methods that can directly or indirectly emphasize (to the client) that harm occurs due to self-deception and that the integrity to eliminate it can only be realized in oneself will be studied in more depth later.

For example, if the second type is aware of their own absurdity and recognizes concrete issues at stage C, it is already the result of “being cautious by themselves” and “being sincere by themselves.” This is because they cautiously and sincerely performed the work of looking into their own issues by immersing themselves in their inner side, a place that only they know, that is, in order to maintain their inner nature.

4.2. Questioner: The Self Newly Met in Others

The subject of a self-deceptive belief “will refuse to state true information or facts.” Moreover, when a contradiction is revealed, they can definitely say, “I didn’t know”. This is because the intentions, beliefs, and desires caused by self-deception have been systematically concealed (Kashiwabata 2014b, p. 18).

They will not be able to answer spontaneous questions quickly or accurately. In these cases, traces of their deception will probably be clearly revealed in Records of Self-Dialogue. However, due to the nature of the seminar, the process of clarifying ambiguous thoughts in situations where there is no place to hide from the open-ended, challenging, and critical questions of participants and supervisors makes the presenter train themselves while expressing their thoughts in their own language.

In addition, focusing on the stage of self-reflection, the PCCE’s Records of Self-Dialogue seminar itself becomes a way to make the existential self appear. The seminar can play a powerful role in making not only the presenter but also the questioners aware of their own deception.

However, even philosophical counselors do not know what unexpected problems will arise when the judgments that they are confident are accurate are applied to a client’s concrete issues in reality. Therefore, supervisors are also required to “discover the self newly met in others”. In other words, they must exercise philosophical wisdom and fulfill the responsibility to overcome the gap between their theory and actual concrete reality through clinical experience with many others.

5. Conclusions

Until now, this article has argued that philosophical dialogue about self-deception is possible through the self-dialogue seminar of philosophical counseling clinical education. In the process, some types of deception have been examined based on Chinese classical literature. This approach is inspired by Roger T. Ames’ critical question:

One reason why the whole phenomenon of self-deception and the attempts to deconstruct it becomes so intriguing is because in Western philosophical discourse, the paradigms for the explication of belief and action are largely based on rational behavior. Consequently, when a seemingly irrational form of behavior such as self-deception becomes the focus of discussion, the immediate tendency is to seek to accommodate it within existing paradigms of explication; that is, to explain it rationally. Even to describe it as “irrational” organizes it in some degree. How have the less rationalistic Asian traditions grappled with this same issue, and in what ways can these efforts illuminate Western thinking?

(Ames and Dissanayake 1996, p. 4)

This article, therefore, employs the concept of Zi-qi (自欺, self-deception)—which, in Zhu Xi literature, is typically defined as the inconsistency between moral knowledge and moral practice—in traditional Chinese philosophy to build its argument. The objective is to emphasize Cheng-yi (誠意, making thoughts sincere) as an alternative to Zi-qi. This is because Cheng (誠, integrity) implies consistency of thought and action. Moreover, in Confucian philosophy, the achievement of this integrity is only possible by acknowledging the existence of the other (X. Wang 2007, pp. 46–48).13 This is why this article introduces Dialogue methods applicable to modern people as an alternative in Section 4.

Consequently, when a philosophical counselor encounters a client suffering from self-deception, it suggests the client is not entirely in a state of self-ignorance. Thus, there is a possibility that they can sincerely do what only they know.

Conversely, a client who fails to recognize their self-deception may lack introspective insight and possess a weak moral will to self-regulate in social relationships. Therefore, this article proposes the “Records of Self-Dialogue” seminar within the PCCE program as a spiritual training method for clients and prospective philosophical counselors prone to self-deception.

This article also fully agrees with the claim that “philosophical practice is a “philosophy of healing” in that it does not establish concepts or create new theoretical systems but is a “philosophy of dialogue” in that each human being faces the problems of his or her life and solves their own problems directly, and the process aims at free philosophical dialogue” (Park and Ja 2018, p. 15). This is because “philosophical dialogue” as a fundamental healing process for self-deception—a distorted way of relating to the self—is the premise of many PCCE programs.

Ultimately, this article aims to present the Records of Self-Dialogue seminar, a PCCE program designed to practice the “philosophy of dialogue. As you will note, in any case, “dialogue is a living exchange of words, not a mechanical exchange of signs and meanings, and there is a tension between the parties’ conversations” (Notomi 2020, p. 38). In this tension, participants are given the opportunity to explore themselves through dynamic interactions with others. Moreover, I believe that if philosophical dialogue within a community is possible through the PCCE program’s Records of Self-Dialogue seminar—premised on personal equality and reciprocity—it can at least help participants escape self-ignorance and avoid deceiving themselves [毋自欺] by sincerely upholding the will to practice [誠其意].

In other words, if any human being can transcend the process of self-exploration and self-understanding and face the process of self-transformation (Park and Ja 2018), they will be able to make their thoughts sincere (誠意), faithfully do what only they know (誠獨), and transform their own nature (化性) (J. Lee 2022, p. 428).