Psychotherapy and Politics International (E-Journal)
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The emotional heritage of postwar Germany: The transgenerational transmission of a guilt conflict
Get PDFThis clinical case study of a 60-year old woman suffering from recurrent depression brings to light the social situation of postwar Germany, during which time the patient grew up. Her life story is embedded within a discourse of emotional heritage involving National Socialist perpetrators. The text seeks to mediate between the inner world of the patient and the external world; that is, between the intrapsychic and the external social world. The adjustment mechanism described is part of her way of processing her Nazi father's wartime guilt. With this being case, it will be illustrated that children of Nazi-perpetrators are confronted with the paradox of finding their parents narcissistically lovable while, at the same time, identifying with their parents' defence mechanisms. To make optimal sense of the case study, relevant subject matter is drawn upon from Rainer Fassbinder's film ‘The Merchant of Four Seasons’, Heinrich Böll's novel ‘And Never Said a Word’ and Susanne Vega's song ‘Luka'. These associations with literature, film and music provide a way to contemplatively address the often difficult to bear countertransference. They also bring certain societal dimensions to the surface and help foster an understanding of the setting in which the patient finds herself. In this text, the hypothesis is advanced that the 1968 movement was a necessary development in German postwar culture. It represented a societal and psychological break with the generation of parents and grandparents who had experienced and participated in the war in order to make the unbearable intra-psychically bearable
The future of the past of a cinematically mediated protest song
Get PDFThe future of the past of a cinematically mediated protest son
Here lies … Hermetics, psychoanalysis and ethnocentrism: Using Abraham and Torok to help explain the rise of reactionary social groups
Get PDFThe thinking of Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok reinvigorates traditional Freudian psychoanalysis by shifting its metaphorical register to a rubric with a more occult sensibility. This creepier and darker metaphorics brings to life beings like the crypt, ghosts, goblins and phantoms. In this essay, the latter is used, along with the help of its shadowy companions, to demonstrate how the transgenerational transmission of trauma passes through time and manifests itself in social and political groups. The analysis reveals that the recent wave of political ethnocentrism, that of neo-fascism and nationalism, announces a secret in sociality that is guarded by a global spectre
Psychotherapy progress and outcome monitoring in the real world of private practice
Get PDFThe Canadian Psychological Association (CPA) Task Force on Outcome and Progress Monitoring (OPM) in Psychotherapy recently issued a lengthy report recommending widespread implementation of OPM in publicly and privately funded psychotherapy practices and urging the CPA to change its Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists to require psychologists to give progress monitoring testing procedures weekly. This recommendation also extends to all practising psychotherapists. Although the Task Force offers many valid arguments for why OPM is important in certain clinical contexts, it fails to take into account psychologists and psychotherapists who are in private practice, including those whose training, experience, and expertise directly challenges such sweeping generalisations. In addition, it is largely out of touch with clients' needs and preferences, as well as the diversity of therapies they seek and require. It ignores practical, financial, and ethical parameters for such mandates and fails to note how the therapeutic relationship, frame, and quality of treatment could be drastically transformed by technocratic impositions. Finally, it appears to be motivated by political considerations rather than optimal treatment standards in private practice environments. I address many problems linked to the Task Force's directives and broad oversimplifications, arguing that current practices show more fidelity to the real world of private practice and privilege the right to maintain independence in clinical judgement rather than follow a superimposed, prescriptive model governing psychotherapeutic praxis
‘And we are a human being’: Coproduced reflections on person-centred psychotherapy in plural and dissociative identity
Get PDFIn this reflexive case-study, ‘Billie’, an integrative psychotherapist, and her therapist, Nicola, offer a coproduced account of Billie's lived experience of dissociative identity. Challenging the medicalised ‘fragmentation towards integration’ discourse, Billie, her parts, and Nicola coproduce a person-centred ‘exclusion towards inclusion’ approach. The authors propose the term ‘plural identity’, situating the experience less as a disorder, and more as a way of being human. They present verbatim extracts of their therapeutic work, with parallel commentary and postsession discussion, to illustrate their developing, person-centred and coproduced approach towards intrapsychic inclusion. They conclude that inclusion consists in unconditionally valuing three prevailing constituents in plural identity: the individual parts of self; the ecological system; and the differentiation between parts. This can result in growth for all parts, including parts that initially appear counter to growth, and allows the lived experience of the client to be honoured, not pathologised
Psychotherapy and indigenous people in the Kingdom of Denmark
Get PDFGreenlanders are the indigenous people of the Kingdom of Denmark. Through the study of literature, the authors conducted a preliminary investigation into the psychological and social problems of Greenlanders as well as the status of psychotherapy. The main type of therapy offered takes a Western cultural perspective, but the prevalence of culturally sensitive psychotherapy practices is increasing. The authors examined the traditional indigenous healing practice of the angakok (shaman), concluding that it is not a living tradition but can be traced from the indigenous Inuit culture alive in Greenlanders today. Three key areas for culturally sensitive psychotherapy practices are identified: (1) global, holistic, visual and bodily ways of learning, (2) community-based and collective practices, and (3) social values and the collective healing of broken social values (taboos). The authors concluded that more research is needed, along with the development of guidelines for culturally sensitive therapy for Greenlanders and the integration of indigenous practices and perspectives into psychotherapy
Is not being in love, is to love! Going through the psychology of the masses
Get PDFThe paradox that Freud borrows from Schopenhauer's hedgehog dilemma describes how to deal with human relationships and bonds, and how to approach others without injuring ourselves. However, if we move away from that other, we suffer. This paradox describes in a similar manner, the relationship of the hypnotising leader to the masses. We cannot live without them, but being with them causes us suffering. When others approach us, it makes us uncomfortable; we cannot cope with the hedgehog's spikes, and we do not know what to do with them. It seems that the only thing we can do is hurt ourselves. This paper proposes that the way out of the hedgehog's dilemma is not the optimal distance, but instead a brave proximity, through the path of love
A critique of digital mental health via assessing the psychodigitalisation of the COVID-19 crisis
Get PDFReading the report ‘The Digital Future of Mental Healthcare and its Workforce’ by the National Health Service (NHS) from the United Kingdom makes for a strange experience. Most centrally, it is utterly perplexing that no single argument is mounted in the report to wave aside accusations that it depicts a totalitarian world governed by a digipsy-complex. As it seems to presage the COVID crisis in its assertion that digital mental health care will and should be the future, this paper takes the pandemic as its point of departure. However, it does not set out not from the apparent digitalisation of psy-care under COVID-conditions, but rather, from the psychologisation of the COVID crisis itself; that is, individualising and pathologising the discontents and socio-subjective sufferings under COVID. The aim is to tackle from here the intertwining of the psychological and the digital, of psychologisation and digitalisation. This article engages in a close ‘symptomatic reading’ of the report and makes two points. The first concerns how digitalisation as such is closely connected to the neurobiologisation of subjectivity. The second point is about how digitalisation is also closely connected to the commodification of all things subjective and social. After discussing and interrelating these two issues, the article explores what a critical response could be, and what it should not be
Therapists' experiences of working with the intergenerational impact of troubles-related trauma
Get PDFThe social impact of intergenerational trauma within Northern Ireland, particularly regarding the period known as The Troubles, is an area of significant importance to this day. This paper describes a study that aimed to understand the impact of The Troubles through a multi-generational lens and explore the experiences of practitioners, who deliver therapy for intergenerational trauma in Northern Ireland. Five psychotherapists working in Northern Irish conflict-related trauma services were interviewed individually and within a focus group regarding their therapeutic practice and how they facilitate healing in a part of the United Kingdom with significant social and cultural divisions. Grounded theory methods were used to code and analyse therapists' experiences. Findings highlighted the difficulties therapists face in delivering therapies for intergenerational trauma in locations where conflict is still present and ongoing. Participants discussed the impact of cultural differences within the therapeutic relationship. The findings further indicate that counselling and cultural cohesion have significant positive influences on healing from traumas connected to historic and societal oppression
Beyond the ‘sticking plaster’? Meaningful teaching and learning about race and racism in counselling and psychotherapy training
Get PDFThis article is co-written by a counselling and psychotherapy tutor and two students at a university in the North of England. It is both an idea for and a reflection on how the counselling and psychotherapy professions might progress and deepen the way in which race and racism are taught and explored in training. This paper also serves as a follow-up to the article ‘Confronting racism in counselling and therapy training—three experiences of a seminar on racism and whiteness’ in which the authors explore their experiences of delivering and participating in the session and the growth, and learning that came from it. The intention behind trying to do this session differently was to move beyond surface level, cognitive ‘sticking plaster’ approaches to discussing race and racism in society and in the therapy room, and to employ a much more experiential and challenging approach. It was hoped that this would encourage students to reflect on their own identities and their own responses to Black people openly discussing experiences of racism, particularly given it was a majority white cohort. The authors offer their own reflections in the article that was written post-session