Polipo, N. F., Jesser, A., & Springinsfeld, C. (2026). Insights from a via negativa approach to the study of psychotherapeutic competence.
Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. Advance online publication.
Abstract
Attempts to define psychotherapeutic competence have prevalently relied on a positive epistemology. This epistemology seeks to define competence by affirming the manifold properties of competent therapists. However, this approach has led to tautological definitions of competence and to endless lists of competences, none of which can be said to be specific to psychotherapists.
This article proposes an alternative approach inspired by the via negativa in philosophy. After an excursus on the via negativa as a method to define concepts by abstraction, privation, and negation, we show how such a negative epistemology might be applied to psychotherapy.
Instead of cataloging what competent therapists do, this approach focuses on where nontherapists fall short. Revisiting the empirical findings of the Vanderbilt I study (Strupp & Hadley, 1979), we suggest that the essence of psychotherapeutic competence may not lie in the possession of any particular set of skills, but in the sustained capacity and willingness to renew one’s engagement with the therapeutic process in the face of intrinsic difficulties that the therapist chooses to make their own. We name this foundational competence the “competence zero” of professional psychotherapy.