Psychotherapy and Politics International (E-Journal)
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The political self: Understanding the social context for mental illness, edited by Rod Tweedy. London, UK: Karnac, 2017. 233 pp.
Get PDFThe political self: Understanding the social context for mental illness, edited by Rod Tweedy. London, UK: Karnac, 2017. 233 pp
“It can't happen here”: Trump, authoritarianism and American politics
Get PDFDonald Trump's election on November 8, 2016, alarmed many people in the United States and around the world. Explanations for his popularity vary widely, but prominent among them is the idea of authoritarianism, or the authoritarian personality. Current discussions of authoritarianism in sociology and political science generally adopt (or adapt) the version as outlined by Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford, which first appeared in 1950 in the United States but generally ignore the earlier articulations of “the authoritarian character”, which were psychoanalytic, and stressed the sado-masochistic character traits that presumably prompted people to support fascistic leaders, and which appeared in the 1930s in Germany. This paper reviews the history of the concept of authoritarianism, and the ways in which recent discussions of sado-masochism in the clinical arena have, with rare exceptions, become detached from discussions of authoritarianism in the sociological and political science literature. It ponders the applicability of this concept to the Trump Presidency, and the parallels between the situation in Weimar in the 1930s and the United States today
Collage by Gottfried M. Heuer, 1 April 2017
Get PDF“America after the Fall” or: “American Gothic” (the first is the title of a current art exhibition @ the Royal Academy, London; the second the title of Grant Wood's 1930 painting, which I used)
Ethics and research: A situated and relational approach
Get PDFThis article examines the dynamics between ethics and research. Ethics can be liberated through research and research empowered through ethics. The core precepts of consent, choice, and rights can be made more relevant and humane when they are not just external edicts but are cultivated as a living ethic within the relational system they operate in. The value of generating a vision that evokes participation is outlined. The call to be individuated and involve oneself in the immediate circumstances is embodied in the article. It is hoped that it will encourage ongoing examination of the core factors that impact on ethics and research and, more ambitiously, that people will be encouraged to participate and involve others
Improving knowledge about the effectiveness of psychotherapy
Get PDFQuantitative methods and methodologies have dominated research on the efficacy and effectiveness of psychotherapy. The value of the quantitative paradigm is reflected in the criteria used to establish empirically supported treatments. However, quantitative research, including randomised control trials (RCTs), may not be ideally suited to establishing the effectiveness of the complex process of psychotherapy. The process and outcomes of psychotherapy have been regarded as causally entangled; the client's and therapist's efforts to responsively regulate the therapeutic process should be seen as being integral to outcomes rather than a source of confounding variance. Qualitative research may provide additional insights into the process of how psychotherapy is effective, due to its ability to explore phenomena from multiple perspectives. This is particularly important as research has suggested that qualitative differences in treatments can be masked beneath quantitatively equivalent outcomes. As a result, a continued overreliance on quantitative research may limit the discipline's overall ability to account for and differentiate the effectiveness of psychotherapies. This article proposes that, in order to address this limitation, (i) the criteria for how psychotherapies are considered effective should be expanded to include factors such as the efficiency of treatments, rates of change, and reliability of change; (ii) and that qualitative research be used adjunctively to assess and explore the dimensions of the expanded criteria. The development of a methodologically integrative multidimensional assessment of treatment effectiveness will provide a more informative tool to guide clinical decision making and policy
Freud's “outstanding” colleague/Jung's “twin brother”: The suppressed psychoanalytic and political significance of Otto Gross. Gottfried M. Heuer. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2017. 252 pp.
Get PDFFreud's “outstanding” colleague/Jung's “twin brother”: The suppressed psychoanalytic and political significance of Otto Gross. Gottfried M. Heuer. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2017. 252 pp
Neoliberalism and Austerity: False Narratives and Consequences
Get PDFThis article offers some reflections on this special issue of Politics and Psychotherapy International. The author identifies in the various articles, a number of repeated themes: the violence inherent in neoliberalism stemming from its very first application in Chile; the ongoing and far-reaching effects of colonialism, particularly in its manifestations through globalisation; the negation of the rights of the poor, including the right to accurate information; and increasing pressures on workers to do more for less, and very often more of what is least important
The Opportunities and Pitfalls of Reflective Practice in an age of Austerity
Get PDFOn the basis that psychotherapists are experts at reflective practice, this article explores the notion of reflection as both an individual and a systemic issue, and argues that in our present age of austerity there is an increasing tension between the two. The article begins by describing pertinent aspects of today's UK National Health Service and some of the reflective practice projects in which the author has been involved with groups of health professionals in this context. The article focuses on the anxiety that drives the organisations within which we practice health and social care, and suggests that we might help contain this anxiety, not just by working with groups of anxious staff, but by helping society better understand and articulate the problem