Psychotherapy and Politics International (E-Journal)
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Beyond boycotts? Changing behavior by addressing trauma
Get PDFThe following are reflections on a Somatic Experiencing course hosted in Israel. The trainer, Gina Ross, is on a mission to bring healing to this population that has experienced high levels of trauma. This work is crucial to prepare the ground for more peaceful relations between the diverse cultures within Israel and between Israel and its neighbors
Resorting to (un)secure(d) ageing
Get PDFThe commodification of later life by the retirement village industry opens a gated existence to a small portion of the globe's elderly. Retirement villages are presented in media images as places for people to enjoy glamorous and fun-filled lifestyles, a consumer choice not unlike the purchase of accommodation at a holiday resort—only more permanent and with a secured channel to the dependency care that may lie in the future. We offer a critical view of such consumer choice, not to diminish the security sought by those who can afford such a purchase, but to examine this depiction for what it illuminates and obscures in the lives of those who have equity to sap and those who do not—exposing the deeply institutionalised logic of capitalist markets. Drawing on the traditions of critical theory we focus on the attraction to resort-style communities as a herding of the equity-rich, the struggle of many diligent citizens to provide financially for their later years, and the vulnerability of the frail who must rely on state or charitable provision for their care in later life. Such scrutiny exposes contradictions in the view of “the market as freedom” and invites consideration of who we are “as a just people”
FEBRUARY — The photograph, the sign (ification), and the myth: The psychopolitics of liberation
Get PDFThe recent death of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has thrust the question of her significance in the history of South Africa to the fore—specifically, her role in the liberation struggle and subsequent developments in the history of this newly democratic nation. Rather than enter into dialogue with the diverse responses to her death and the question of her legacy, this article addresses the issue from a perspective opened up by Roland Barthes' semiotic analysis of a photograph showing a uniformed black soldier saluting (presumably the French flag). Barthes demonstrates the image's potency in myth-making. Similarly, I would like to demonstrate that the different responses to Winnie's death may be understood as deriving to a large extent from the sheer power of the myth that surrounded her in her relation to Nelson Mandela. This power is nowhere more apparent than in an iconic photograph, dating back to Nelson Mandela's release from prison on 11 February 1990. The couple are shown, side by side, arms outstretched in the black power salute. This photograph resurrects the other, which appeared on the cover of the magazine Paris-Match in the mid-1950s and was skilfully decoded by Roland Barthes in the context of the French “empire” at the time. Barthes' analysis suggests that a similar approach might yield interesting insights into the myth-making capacity of the photograph of Winnie and Nelson Mandela from 1990, which may, in turn, shed light on the different reactions to Winnie's recent death (April 2018)
AUGUST — Partitions: Divided country, divided people, and divided minds
Get PDFThis article considers the political and personal impact of the partition of British India by reviewing the lives led by the authors' fathers. These men lived through colonialism, partitionand its aftermath, before migrating to Europe as young men. Taking concepts such as extractive introjection (Bollas, 1987) and alienation (Steiner et al., 1975), the article moves between the ways in which social and political traumas have been a part of the psychology of these men as well as their daughters' legacies
Ethics and ageing: Facing maturity and fallibility, individually and collectively
Get PDFThis paper considers the ethics of ageing among practitioners in the psychotherapy profession and the rights, responsibilities, and risks that come with an increasing number of people working at an older age. It suggests that the process of ageing is relevant to us all and how we engage with this is crucial to developing a professional community which lives—or seeks to live—according to the ethics of humanistic psychology
The Dynamics of Power in Counselling and Psychotherapy: Ethics, Politics and Practice. Gillian Proctor. Second edition. Monmouth, UK: PCCS Books. 2017. 240 pp. ISBN-10: 1910919187, ISBN-13: 978-1910919187
Get PDFThe Dynamics of Power in Counselling and Psychotherapy: Ethics, Politics and Practice. Gillian Proctor. Second edition. Monmouth, UK: PCCS Books. 2017. 240 pp. ISBN-10: 1910919187, ISBN-13: 978-191091918
Pathoanalysis of the subject of capitalism
Get PDFFreud remarked that, by analogy with petrology, just as one can discern the structure of a crystal from fragments that are broken off from larger pieces, so, too, one can discern the ‘structure’ of society from individuals who suffer certain pathologies. Philippe van Haute proposed that on this basis, a project of ‘pathoanalysis’ is possible as a contribution to a philosophical anthropology of the present. It is as if the overall structure of society is condensed in its pathological fragments. Hence, it makes sense to scrutinise some of the most promising ‘pathological fragments’ - that is, those which, judging by extant literature, seem to resonate with Freud's claims - in an effort to come to grips with the overall ‘structure’ of contemporary society, which is that of neoliberal capitalism. The pathological ‘fragments’ examined in this article are obsessional neurosis, perversion, and schizophrenia, the first of which was selected in the light of Ian Parker's claim, that the exemplary capitalist subject is the obsessional neurotic. The second was chosen because Freud's characterisation of sadism as a form of perversion resonates with the insights of a number of contemporary thinkers on capitalist practices, and the third - schizophrenia - was selected in the light of the work of Deleuze and Guattari, in which the contemporary subject was described as typically ‘schizoid’, given the schizophrenising effects of capitalist flows. Against this background one can draw certain conclusions about the direction psychotherapy could take in contemporary capitalist society