Guy du Plessis
Addiction Specialist - Philosophical Practitioner - Author 


Welcome to my website. I am a South African addictions specialist, philosophical practitioner, academic, author and publisher. I studied psychology at the University of South Africa and philosophy at the University of Cape Town, and was a visiting scholar at KU Leuven where I conducted research at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, and the Research Center for Phenomenology and Continental Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy. I am a registered psychological counsellor (Health Professions Council of South Africa), trained in psychodynamic psychotherapy (Loyola University Chicago), and a certified logic-based therapist and trainer (National Philosophical Counseling Association). 

I have worked in the mental health field for over 25 years as a counselor, clinical and program director, and have developed and managed several inpatient addiction treatment programs. As an academic I have worked as an adjunct professor and researcher in the United States, and as a part-time and guest lecturer at South African Universities. I currently work as a researcher and instructor at the I-System Institute for Transdisciplinary Studies, Utah State University, and as a faculty member at the Institute for Advanced Psychotherapy, Loyola University Chicago. I am the director of the South African Logic-based Therapy and Consulting Institute, and the owner and editor-in-chief of Phronesis Publishing, an imprint that publishes academic and trade books on applied philosophy.  

I am the developer of the Integrated Metatheoretical Model of Addiction, and am a co-developer of several resiliency-based interventions and programs developed at Utah State University, a co-developer of two programs that were listed as evidence-based by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the lead developer of the Recovery Resilience Program, to be published as a clinical manual by Cambridge University Press.  

I am the author of An Integral Guide to Recovery: Twelve Steps and Beyond (Integral Publishers), An Integral Foundation for Addiction Treatment: Beyond the Biopsychosocial Model (Integral Publishers), co-author of the Mind-Body Workbook for Addiction: Effective Tools for Relapse Prevention and Recovery (New Harbinger), Social Unrest: Resolving the Dichotomies Between You/Me and Us/Them (Utah State University), and Resilient Mind Skills Workbook (Utah State University), and a contributing author to Current Approaches in Addiction Psychology (Cambridge Scholars Publishing) and Opioids in South Africa: Towards a Policy of Harm Reduction (Human Sciences Research Council Press), and have published in various academic journals, including Addiction and International Journal of Applied Philosophy, in the fields of addiction treatment and studies, theoretical psychology and applied philosophy. My latest book, Building Recovery Resilience: Addiction Recovery and Relapse Prevention Workbook, was published by Cambridge University Press, and my next book Recovery Resilience Program Facilitator's Guide (Cambridge University Press) is forthcoming in 2025. I am currently working on a chapter for the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy as a Way of Life (Oxford University Press).

I offer addiction counseling, psychotherapy and philosophical counseling either via Zoom or in-person from my office in Muizenberg, Cape Town.



 

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

 

― Arthur Schopenhauer 

Reviews & Endorsements

 

Guy du Plessis takes one of the most comprehensive metatheories now in existence—that of Integral Metatheory—and shows how it can indeed integrate and synthesize virtually every major approach to addiction now existing. The immediate benefit of such a far-reaching approach is a direct application to actual cases of addiction itself, and wherever this has been tried so far, the results are astonishingly effective. Guy has done a magnificent job of using Integral Theory fully, faithfully and accurately, to produce what has to be one of the most effective and comprehensive treatment models now in existence. He provides a brilliant overview of a truly integral or comprehensive approach to what has now become a crisis level epidemic in America (and indeed, much of the world).   - Ken Wilber (book endorsement)


Your thesis [of ideology addiction] that connects ideology with narcissism is most interesting, and I am sure there is considerable truth in it.   - Sir Roger Scruton (personal communication)


[The Integrated Metatheoretical Model of Addiction] is a well-developed meta-theory that I think does an excellent job of providing a conceptual framework for the wide range of addiction theories that have been proposed. This kind of conceptual work is extremely hard to do but is worth it because it help people working in a field to expand our field of vision and learn from other approaches. It is also of great practical importance because it can provide a basis for developing the kind of broad-ranging strategies needed for combating addiction by treating it as a complex system with multiple interacting levels.   - Robert West (article review, Qeios)


It is rare to find a thoughtful and scholarly blend of theoretical astuteness and clinical wisdom in a single book about addiction.  The author accomplishes this goal by the skillful application of integral theory as a framework for understanding addiction and its treatment. "An Integral Foundation for Addiction Treatment" belongs on the shelf of every psychotherapist who treats addiction or is interested in the topic.  - Philip J. Flores (book endorsement) 


Thank you for this fascinating article [Philosophy as a Way of Life for Addiction Recovery]. I am sure my late teacher Pierre Hadot would have been pleased to see his ideas put into practice with a view to improving the lot of some of the less fortunate of our fellow human beings. Congratulations.   - Michael Chase, translator of Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault by Pierre Hadot and Arnold Davidson,(personal communication)


Guy du Plessis’s article “Philosophy as a Way of Life for Addiction Recovery" is the first of its kind (known to this reviewer) to bring the last decades' research on the idea of 'philosophy as a way of life' stemming primarily from Pierre Hadot into this therapeutic field. This is one of the more exciting interdisciplinary possibilities opened up by Hadot’s key idea, since pursued by a host of others: that philosophy, as a search for wisdom, for a long time took its primary task to be the transformation of individuals’ ways of living, including in the face of adversities and life challenges. But the possible application of 'philosophy as a way of life' techniques and ideas specifically to addiction therapy is something which I believe du Plessis’s article is pioneering.    - Matthew Sharpe, author of Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions,, (article review, Qeios)