Friendship in Political Thought and Psychotherapy

Being normative, political thought suggests the best form of political system. In the history of thought, friendship has been a vital concept among the others, functioning in the formation of ideal societies. However, changes in political thought in the modern time have lead to the marginalization of friendship. But in recent decades, the notion of friendship has been renewed in the form of such concepts as solidarity. Studying the thoughts of contemporary thinkers, we can find sciences like psychotherapy as a major contribution to this renewal. Due to Jurgen Habermas thoughts and Eric Fromms theory of the Sane Society, the insights of psychotherapy have been highly influential in bringing the concept of friendship back to the center of attention of political thought.