Paying Attention to the Person: Compassion, Equality, and Therapeutic Jurisprudence

Abstract

If you are drawn to this book and this chapter, then it is likely that there is something about therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) that resonates with you. Perhaps you have recognized something of yourself reflected in TJ scholarship or TJ practice and its concern for the wellbeing of those upon whom the law acts or the “legal” actors themselves. This is what drew us to TJ, with its explicit focus on the therapeutic and anti-therapeutic consequences of law and legal process. This points to an important question: If TJ is something we are drawn to, then what is it that precedes this? Why are we called in this way? The answer, we contend, is the existence of a compassionate motivation. The argument we make here is that TJ is founded upon the psychology of compassion, understood as a sensitivity to and concern for the suffering of others and a commitment to alleviating and preventing it. The “other” in the context of TJ is any person upon whom the law acts or any actor within the legal process Show more