Existential Dialogue 2026: "Therapoetics" with Dr. Todd DuBose

Existential Dialogue 2026: "A Chorus of Voices"

Topic: "Therapoetics" between Dr. Todd DuBose and Prof. Ernesto Spinelli

“Therapoetics explores a radical-hermeneutical-phenomenological practice of heeding lived meaning through being-with, letting be, without why. Heeding is more than just hearing or listening; it is discerning and taking in what matters to those seeking our care regarding their lived situations. Sometimes what is meaningful is explicitly said or shown, sometimes it is pre-reflective, sometimes it is inconspicuous. Heeding is neither correcting what is deficient, nor translating symptoms into conclusive interpretations, nor psychoeducation. Instead, the therapoet resides in a clearing, or space, where what shows itself can do so as it is, in its own way, without explanation, justification or expectation. What shows itself does so in the world, in events. We companion with others and follow phenomena of concern wherever they take us. Therapoetics is born from the braided parentage of theopoetics in continental philosophy of religion/postmodern theology, including the “theological” turn in the “new” French phenomenologists, and the latter Heideggerian phenomenology of the inconspicuous, the inceptive, and the poetic. Therapoetics has similarities with existential phenomenology, logotherapy, person-centered practices, and Daseinsanalysis, but is also differentiated from each one of these ways of caring as well. Therapoetics continues the original practice of therapeia and therapeutikos as “attending to the gods” but with a postmodern scrubbing of both theological and psychological misunderstandings of this art of stewarding lived meaning, guarding intangibles, and shepherding Beyng, Life, and Existenz.”

Dr. Todd DuBose is a world-renowned, Distinguished Full Professor at The Chicago School’s College of Professional Psychology. He teaches philosophical foundations and practices of therapeutic care; ethics; loss and mourning; psychology and spirituality; suffering, meaning, and ideological critiques of practices of care; psychopathology as speech of the suffering soul, among other courses, all from a human science perspective, and with a particular focus on therapoetic care. He is a licensed psychologist, supervisor, consultant, and former chaplain, with thirty-eight years of experience. He holds degrees in continental and comparative philosophy of religion and existential-hermeneutical-phenomenological human science clinical psychology and integrates these approaches as a way of caring for such experiences as the impossible (e.g., no way out, irreversible, incurable, inescapable), the extreme (e.g., psychosis, nihilism, suicidality, homicidality, the anomalous, the uncanny, and the paranormal), and the taboo (e.g., unwanted, unacceptable, unsayable, unforgivable, forbidden, and irreverent). He regularly presents workshops, presentations, or supervises in several international venues such as the Círculo de Estudios en Psicoterapia Existential, in Mexico City, Mexico, the Zhi Mian International Institute of Existential-Humanistic Psychology in Dali, China, the Centre for Existential Practice in Sydney, Australia, and Therapy Harley Street in London. He is widely published and has written on caring for others in very difficult situations including traumatic loss, surviving the COVID-19 pandemic, and the meaning of meaninglessness. He has also written a short dialogue with Miles Groth, edited by Loray Daws, called, Dialogues on The Soul of Existential Therapy, published by The Society for Existential Analysis. Most of all, he considers himself simply a fellow human being.

Recommended readings for “Therapoetics”:

DuBose, T. (2025). Being Lichtung: On Weak Force Therapoetics, in Martinez-Robles, Y. Being Therapeutic: Leading Edges in International Existential Thought and Practice. Circulo de Estudios en Terapia Existencial.

DuBose, T. (2024). Súmptōma: From discrimination through destruction to transfiguration. In A. Cantú, E. Maisel, & C. Ruby (Eds.),Theoretical Alternatives to the Psychiatric Model of Mental Disorder Labeling: Contemporary Frameworks, Taxonomies, and Models (pp. 236–251). Ethics International Press.

Groth, M. , DuBose, T. (2020). Dialogues on the soul of existential therapy. Daws, L., Ed. London: Society for Existential Analysis.

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