The basic characteristics of our life form are as follows:
First, a form of life is a practice, which is composed of a series of practical activities;
Secondly, any practice and any form of life are prevalent in a specific historical context, and are based on specific customs, habits, systems, and traditions;
Finally, any conceptual activities of people can find their roots in the form of life, and are based on specific life forms.
In other words, the form of life is given, something we have to accept. It can be seen from this that all conceptual activities of people are based on the form of life, so the consistency of people in conceptual activities must be based on the consistency of life forms, and different forms of life will cause different conceptual activities. Wittgenstein also used psychological concepts such as "hope", "expectation", and "intention" as examples to illustrate how the form of life forms form the basis of all our conceptual activities. He pointed out that intention is contained in situations, in human habits and institutions. Without the skills of chess games, we would not have the intention of playing a game of chess. Wittgenstein further pointed out that our daily language is composed of various language games, and language games are rooted in the form of life. The word "language game" is meant to emphasize that speaking a language is part of an activity or a form of life.
Wittgenstein's concept of life form emphasizes the importance of relational activities, that is, speaking a language is part of the activity, or part of the life form. Newman was inspired by the concept of life form in the practice of social therapy and developed the practice of social therapy based on relational activities.
Relational activities in social therapy mean that only in interconnected activities can language make sense. Changing a form of life is changing the meaning of words and dialogue. In social therapy, visitors often talk about "depression", "anxiety", "having been a terrible few days", "I'm very angry with him", etc. How to help visitors change this state? Of course, it is meaningless to analyze the nature of these symptoms. Social therapy claims that removes fog or ambiguity in language through action rather than explanation. This action is to put aside existing forms of life that are related to bad emotions and construct a new form of life by performing people's lives collectively and creatively. Only when people create new forms of life can they say they understand the way behavior exists. In short, inspired by the concept of life form, Newman discovered that the basic process of social therapy is actually a change in life form. The five points above
are the philosophical background of social therapy. After talking about it, let’s talk about the psychological background of social therapy.
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