Psychotherapy and Politics International (E-Journal)
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Evidence‐Based Practice, Talking Therapies and the New Taylorism
Get PDFThis paper explores the development of evidence‐based practice (EBP) in the field of talking therapies, and particular its realisation in the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme in the National Health Service in England. A critique of EBP is offered, starting with an examination of its epistemological and methodological foundations. The critique is then developed to examine the way EBP is being used to support the implementation of a new form of management ideology, Digital Taylorism, which is based on the codification and routinisation of what was previously considered to be subjective knowledge and practice. The service offered by IAPT, and supported by guidance from the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence, is presented as a prime example of this ideology in the field of talking therapies. The paper concludes by considering how EBP can best be confronted
All Psychoanalysis is Local
Get PDFThis article discusses the idea that psychoanalysis, like politics, is based in the “local”. Although there are universal aspects of human nature reflected in psychoanalysis, such as the method and the basic technique, there is great diversity in those who practice, train and work in particular environments and historical epochs. This article examines the development of psychoanalytic institutes and institutions as freestanding rather than university based. It discusses psychoanalytic training and the implications of the top‐down foundation of the International Psychoanalytical Association as an organization that ultimately decreed who was and who was not a psychoanalyst across national borders. It explores how this top‐down approach to authorization and regulation rigidifies and stymies creativity in the field through psychoanalytic training and education and suggests an institutional structure in psychoanalytic education and training that keeps responsibility and accountability at a local or at a federated national level without official surveillance and control at an international level
Waka Oranga: The Development of an Indigenous Professional Organisation within a Psychotherapeutic Discourse in Aotearoa New Zealand
Get PDFThis article discusses the development in Aotearoa New Zealand of a fledgling Māori professional organisation, Waka Oranga, which is engaged in providing indigenous healing and psychotherapeutic support to Māori families who experience trauma and discontent in their lives and supervision and consultancy to Māori and non‐Māori professionals. The article sets this development in context, discusses the symbolism of the organisation's name and logo, summarises its organisational structure, values and processes, and concludes with its principles and vision
The Turning Tide: Pluralism and Partnership in Psychotherapy in Aotearoa New Zealand. By Keith Tudor (Ed.) (2011). Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand: LC Publications. ISBN: 1877572764, 278 pp.
Get PDF[S]tatutory regulation of psychotherapy and the state registration of psychotherapists represent a battle for the minds and the hearts of psychotherapists, and for the soul of “soul healing”. (Tudor, 2011, p. 153, this book
Globalized Psychotherapy. By Alfred Pritz (Ed.), (2002). Vienna, Austria: Facultas Verlags und Buchhandels AG. ISBN: 3-85076-605-5; 856 pp.
Get PDFThis book is a veritable curate's egg: good in parts but, overall, “bad” in the sense that the book in somewhat indigestible, and that the good and the few excellent contributions do not redeem either the book or the project of a globalised psychotherapy
Higher Education, Markets, and Emotional Values
Get PDFReflecting on the generational changes in student movements and the echoes we find in student resistance in the UK in 2011 to the privatization of higher education, this paper argues for a wider understanding of the sources of stress, anxiety and uncertainty of young people. Engaging with the individualization of experience that is encouraged through a neoliberal culture, the effects of changes over time in universities, the increasing use of internships, and the differential effects across class, “race” and ethnicities, the paper goes on to argue that those engaged in the helping professions need to engage psychotherapy and politics in new terms. Thinking beyond the familial frameworks of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, the paper shows that the marketization of values encourages young people into an instrumental relationship with self and a fear of being “a loser” in ways that call for different terms of engagement with emotional lives. There are tensions between an instrumental relationship to therapy of younger generations and humanistic values that potentially challenge the market values and commodification of life fostered within a taken-for-granted neoliberal culture. The paper seeks to learn from the fundamental questioning of the nature of education, values and meaning of life that has been triggered in the UK with lessons that are globally relevant
Aranke, or In the Long Line: Reflections on the 2011 Sigmund Freud Award for Psychotherapy and the Lineage of Traditional Indigenous Therapy in Australia
Get PDFThis article is in three parts. The first is an introduction to the cultural context of indigenous therapies in Australia and some traditional healers, known as Ngangkari, involved in its continuing presence. The second part comprises a discussion of the term “psycho‐therapy” in its broadest sense, followed by an outline of the methodology of the “psychotherapy” of the Ngangkari, in which links are made between the concepts used by Ngangkari and traditional Western terms of psyche and therapeia. The third and final part leads into an extract from the speech given by the author at the 2011 Sigmund Freud Award ceremony at the World Congress for Psychotherapy held in Sydney in August 2011. The thrust of the article is to acknowledge and respect the long lineage of healing practices which have been maintained among indigenous people in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, and at the same time acknowledging the Western lineage of scientific practice. The article highlights the sustained incremental effort at collaboration between the two paradigms
Benign Masculinity and Critical Reason
Get PDFThis article critically examines the feminist claim that masculinity is closely associated with an oppressive, objectifying rational order. It argues that certain psychoanalytic and postmodern feminist theories have shaped our current conceptualisations of masculine identity and reason; deconstructs their negative portrayal of masculinity and one‐dimensional representation of reason; and, finally, provides an affirmative depiction of masculinity and reason as an antidote to the excesses of these particular feminist assertions