This study is an exploration of the epoche as a lived experience in existential phenomenological psychotherapy. Beginning with the philosophical underpinnings of the epoche the study explores Husserl's writings regarding the epoche and his reason for introducing the epoche to the practice of phenomenology. A phenomenological · approach to method is used, namely Van Manen's hermeneutic interpretive phenomenology. Using this method, data was generated from ten interviews with existential phenomenological psychotherapists. The focus of the interviews was how the epoche was experienced in practice as a lived experience and how it was effected, this included the procedures used to help effect the epoche and the struggle to maintain the epoche against the pull of the natural attitude. To further explore and understand the epoche I include a piece on my research journey and a personal lived experience in effecting the epoche. Using three stages, thoughtfulness, thematic analysis and seeking meaning, the data is analyzed and from here the themes emerge. The interpretations emerge out of these phenomenological themes and are contrasted and compared with existing concepts in existential phenomenological philosophy, and with current multidisciplinary thought highlighting preliminary possibilities for reconfiguring existing approaches to the epoche. This thesis argues that the coresearchers using other approaches such as mindfulness inadvertently find a way of effecting the epoche and that the mistrust and difficulties co-researchers experience with regard to the epoche is based on misconceptions regarding the epoche, misconceptions which crossed over from phenomenological philosophy to phenomenological psychotherapy. There is also the issue of the lack of instruction in how to perform the epoche. As a consequence the epoche is only partially appreciated and it is to this end that this study might bring into view the relevance and remit of the epoche not only in existential psychotherapy but in using the epoche in any phenomenological investigations.

This research explores a duality in art therapy: is art therapy about using art to help clients make therapeutic relationships or is it about therapeutic relationships facilitating a transformative process in art-making? In my experience art easily becomes subsumed by verbal interaction in art therapy groups in which there is reflection on interpersonal relationships. I contextualise my clinical experience by referring to the art therapy literature in which I identify four historical phases in the art/talk relationship: acknowledgment of a tension between art and talk; splits in types of practice resulting in tension becoming hidden in each; the sliding scale and recognition of creativity in polarity; and finally a celebration of diversity and plurality. Using a heuristic approach, reflexive writing and hermeneutic reflection, I have related texts from Continental Philosophy to my own clinical experience, to interviews and questionnaires previously given to members and the therapist of a colleague's art therapy group, and to the art therapy literature. The interrelated philosophical texts have sought to revise the way that art has been thought about in Western philosophy since Plato. I have analysed them with a view to re-visioning the ontological foundations of art therapy theory. Hierarchical divisions in the way that art is thought about are endemic to the development of the role of art in Western society, and thus reflected in art therapy theory. The philosophical works that I study challenge these divisions through the recognition of paradox. Understanding the hierarchical dilemmas that result from combining art and talk as mutative paradoxes presents a way of working with other hierarchies and for representation of voices that are suppressed. The outcome of this research has been to consider ways of working with tensions in the art/talk relationship in clinical practice and to develop a theoretical framework for art therapy which can be applied across all the client groups that art therapists work with. The aim has been to develop a unified identity for art therapy which resists splits which disadvantage clients, and fragment the profession.