Psychotherapy and Politics International (E-Journal)
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Psychoanalysis and Social Change
Get PDFThis paper focuses on the psychoanalytic claim that jouissance, or excessive enjoyment, is different from the pleasure guaranteed by the pleasure principle – which serves homeostasis in the subject – and is achievable only at the cost of transgressing some prohibition enshrined, if not in the moral Law, then in some conventional symbolic order. It further argues that capitalism is characterised by a certain kind of negation – of commodities by commodities, and of subjects' capacity for jouissance – and it examines the question, whether jouissance is possible on capitalism's terms, given that capitalism promises jouissance through commodity consumption. Upon investigation, the promise turns out to be illusory because, although it is the case that the neoliberal capitalist order is the present conventional symbolic order, it is not characterised, like the moral Law, by prohibition as much as by the exhortation to “enjoy.” Hence it is nonsensical to speak of transgression of a capitalist prohibition which would yield jouissance for transgressive subjects. Psychoanalysis is therefore in the position to prepare subjects for social transformation or revolution by creating the space where questioning subjects may “assume their desire” by refusing the pseudo‐jouissance that capitalism offers through commodity consumption
Greying the Pink and Red Sexuality and Gender for Mental Health Professionals. By Christina Richards and Meg Barker. (2013). London, UK: Sage. ISBN: 9780857028426 246 pp.
Get PDFGreying the Pink and Red Sexuality and Gender for Mental Health Professionals. By Christina Richards and Meg Barker
On Knowledge, Uncertainty and the Politics of Morality
Get PDFCopenhagen. (1998). Written by Michael Frayn. Performed by the Northern Lights Theatre Production Company, at the Auckland Performing Arts Centre, June 2012
Integrative Approaches to Trauma Work with Victims of Postelection Violence in an African Nation
Get PDFThis article is written in the broad context of armed civil conflicts, genocidal wars, transportation accidents, tribal clashes and ritual killings, and the resultant mass trauma of political violence and the brutal and devastating ethnic hostilities that erupt with contested results of most political elections in Africa. The specific context was the terrible situation in which Kenya found itself in the aftermath of the conflicted Presidential Elections of December 2007. The article reports on a trauma counselling workshop that was organised for volunteers and aimed at preparing them to gain a uniform orientation and well‐delineated perspective for working with victims of trauma and violence within the returnee university population. The paper presents integrated techniques of trauma work drawn from both African and Western healing traditions which formed the content of the revised invited address delivered by the author during the workshop
The History and Future of Psychotherapy and Alternative Health-Related Practices: Lessons from the Past and from the Present
Get PDFThis article discusses the political potential of contemporary psychotherapy and complementary and alternative medicine which have stood, for the most part, outside centralised political power structures. While the focus of the article is primarily historical, it seeks to extract lessons from the past for the context of today; and, in particular, examines the way in which psychotherapy and alternative health movements have sought to construct an alternative to political centralisation and the divide between expert and popular culture in the early twentieth century. To date, very little explicitly comparative or historical work has been done regarding the relationship between contemporary psychotherapy and earlier politicised healthcare movements; and, in this context, the article examines the relevance of some earlier forebears of contemporary psychotherapy to the politics of psychotherapy today. It looks at three different historical scenarios in order to deepen our understanding about the interaction between psychotherapy and political power
Social Trauma and Distortions of Phantasy Formations
Get PDFThis article proposes a model for analyzing transformations of phantasy formations triggered by radical social change. Phantasy has been rarely addressed by scholars studying radical social change, yet it is a key social element that functions as the “glue” that keeps a community together. Trauma associated with radical social change, such as revolution, market collapse, radical economic reform, genocide, or acts of terrorism, has the potential to radically transform phantasy formations. This is the case because trauma is a sudden opening between registers that were once discrete, the opening of which facilitates unforeseen connections. After discussing radical social change as a traumatic event, and three key elements of phantasy, that is, discourse, topography of commonplaces, and structure of phantasy, this article proposes four ways in which trauma can be dealt with in phantasy formations