Lou Marinoff (born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada) is a philosopher and spokesperson for the profession of philosophic counseling.[2][3]
Marinoff, a Commonwealth Scholar originally from Canada, earned his Doctorate in Philosophy of Science at University College London. He held research fellowships at University College and at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and was Moderator of the Canadian Business and Professional Ethics Network at UBC’s Center for Applied Ethics. He was a Lecturer in Philosophy at UBC and Capilano College. He is currently Associate Professor and Deputy Chair of Philosophy at the City College of New York.
Lou has been a philosophical counselor and consultant since 1991. His clients include individuals, educational institutions, professional associations, corporations, and governments. He is past president of the American Society for Philosophy, Counseling and Psychotherapy (ASPCP) before breaking with that organization to found the American Philosophical Practitioners Association (APPA). He is a Fellow of the Institute for Local Government at the University of Arizona, a Fellow of The Aspen Institute, Faculty of the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, and Faculty of the World Economic Forum.
Lou publishes regularly in decision theory, ethics, philosophical practice, and other scholarly fields. He is the author of two international bestsellers, including Plato Not Prozac (HarperCollins, NY, 1999), aimed at a popular audience and published in twenty-five languages. His textbook, Philosophical Practice (Academic Press, NY, 2001), provides a more technical "insider’s view" of the profession. His latest popular book, Therapy for the Sane (formerly The Big Questions), is published in English by Bloomsbury (New York and London, 2003), and in many other languages.
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Lou Marinoff has been criticized by other philosophically-oriented members of the helping professions for being too pop-philosophy and for not respecting the established disciplines of psychology and psychiatry. Many find them more focused on denigrating clinical psychology and psychiatry than on offering real philosophical alternatives. Elliot D. Cohen of the American Society for Philosophy Counseling and Psychotherapy has stated "The biggest obstacle to philosophical counseling's growth in the U.S. is its acceptance by the established mental health fields...With Marinoff certifying people who have no clinical training, they're saying, 'Philosophers don't know anything about mental health, and they're going to serve as an endangerment to clients."
Shlomit Schuster, an Israeli practitioner, has called "Dr. Marinoff's overpopularizing presentation a worldwide embarrassment for the profession." See for Cohen's, Schuster's and O'Donaghue's critiques more in the "The Socratic Shrink" [4] by Daniel Duane. David O'Donaghue, a licensed psychologist with a doctoral background in philosophy (although this is what O'Donaghue claims), says that Marinoff is "not a scholar, he's not a guy who should be leading a country" in philosophical counseling. O'Donaghue says that he considers Marinoff's three-day certification efforts "ludicrous." A critical overview of Marinoff's books is found in "Marinoff’s Therapy" in The International Journal of Philosophical Practice at [1]