Psychotherapy and Politics International (E-Journal)
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Individual Moralities and Institutional Ethics: Implications for the Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists
Get PDFSince the creation of the Canadian Psychological Association's Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists in 1986, there has been serious debate about the rank ordering of the ethical principles contained therein, despite a general consensus that the code itself represents a great leap forward in conceptualizing issues in professional ethics, and making its content available to its constituents in the most useful form possible. However, new research regarding the psychology of morality has painted a much more diverse landscape of human moral functioning than is reflected in the current rank ordering of principles within the code. This paper will examine “the new synthesis in moral psychology” and apply its findings to the Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists. Three primary arguments are advanced. First, Canadian psychologists as a profession are more liberally oriented than the Canadian society they seek to serve, and their code of ethics reflects this bias. Second, as the Code of Ethics reflects a social contract with Canadian society generally, Canadian psychologists have a duty to acknowledge moral biases and to understand the ways in which systems of morality differ in peoples of different cultures and political orientations. Finally, in order to address these concerns, it is argued that the rank ordering of ethical principles in future revisions of the Code be dropped in favour of a format that includes raising awareness about the ways in which moralities differ across groups, cultures, and individual political orientations
Globalization and The Other: Lifeworld(s) on the Brink
Get PDFThis article specifies how globalization is not only an economic reality, but is also a socio-political–psychological and ecological one. It demonstrates how globalization, as an institution created by humans, not only fosters fear and greed among humans, but also decimates non-human animal lifeworlds, and, in doing so, threatens planet Earth itself. The article explores the relationship of globalization to Otherness in the form of the “enemy”, whether religious, national, ethnic, political, or ecological, the latter specifically in the form of coral reefs. The exploration highlights the fact that if there are endangered species, it is because a dangerous species exists. Globalization foments an “us against them” mentality; heightens human competition between groups; and, not surprisingly, draws on what Darwin described as “the law of battle”, namely, male–male competition. What in a phylogenetic sense originated in the service of mating now functions in the service of power and war. Recognition of this socio-political–psychological–ecological reality leads to an inquiry into the enemy that is not only outside but also within. Notable descriptions of the “Other within” are found in Socrates' and Plato's commentaries on the nature of humans, in Jung's concept of the Shadow, and, strikingly, in the observations of David Shulman and Mahmoud Darwish on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and impasse. This investigation of the relationship between globalization and the Other leads ultimately to the realization that, if socio-political–psychological – and ecological – ills are to be treated and cured, then we need to examine the Other within
Bridging the Black Hole of Trauma: The Evolutionary Significance of the Arts Part 2: The Arts and Evolution ‐ What is Art For?
Get PDFThe second part of this two-part paper, originally written in the mid 1990s, continues to make the case that art has developed as a response to and a transformation of trauma. It discusses the mimetic and ritual sources of art, and the concept of catharsis, and relates artistic expression to neuroscientific work on the cerebral hemispheres. It concludes by discussing struggles and contradictions around the role of art in modern culture
The Hermeneutic Underpinning of Ethnic Brutality: The Jewish Israeli Case
Get PDFMemory of historical events is necessarily collective, but it acquires personal characteristics that are of the same nature as individual memory in general. This idea is illustrated through memories of an Israeli child, struggling to get to grips with the ungraspable Holocaust. The mnemonic construction of the Holocaust is then connected to the ethos of military strength in Israeli society, which ethos undertakes to transform the historical marking of the Jews as victims, sacrificed by the nations on the altar of ethnic power. Following the mythical suggestions of the story of the binding of Isaac, the narrative of Jewish national renewal builds upon the unconscious theme of victim conversion, from Isaac to the lamb. This is where the Palestinians enter the unconscious Israeli narrative, occupying, as it were, the place of the lamb and allowing the movement of the Jew away from the position of the sacrificed. The theme of sacrifice conversion marks itself in historical events such as the Naqba and the recent attack on Gaza. The paper examines the manner in which these themes feed into personal memory systems and reconstructs the workings of memory through the entire historical cycle. Finally, the paper contextualizes the unconscious themes in a particular political reality, as well as in an ethical construction of the Jewish Israeli subject
Islamism and Fanaticism: A Jungian Psychopolitical Analysis
Get PDFWhat turns a sixteen‐year‐old British Muslim into an Islamist, then turns him into a fanatic, and finally turns him into a spiritual Muslim? In this article I offer some answers to these questions first, from the perspective of Jungian psychology: complexes, inflation, compensation, dissociation, repression and projection, and secondly, from the perspective of political sociology (Paulo Freire, Albert Memmi): development of the political consciousness of the oppressed. I apply these perspectives to an analysis of the recent autobiography by Ed Husain, The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw Inside and Why I Left. The article begins with a description of three stages of political consciousness: naive, fanaticized, and liberated. I posit two conditions for the transition between stages: ego strength, resulting from the successful resolution of a maturation crisis, and rootedness in the ancestral soul. Essential to the case study of The Islamist is my formulation of the psychodynamics of fanaticism, inspired by Jung's observation that “Fanaticism is always a sign of repressed doubt.” The article ends on an optimistic note as to why Islamic fanaticism may reach an impasse and become moderated
Dangerous Margins: Recovering the Stem Cells of the Psyche
Get PDFThe dual problem addressed here is the increasing egocentric individualism in the Western world and the blind avoidance of facing the ecological crisis. This article uses ecosystemic thinking to explore the margins of our collective predicament. It posits a critical phase transition in the co‐evolution of humans and the other‐than‐human world that constellates a rite of passage. While telling a story, it utilises story as both the conveyor of past constraints and the creative medium of transformation. This transformation entails loosening our attachment to conscious control and judgement and instead re‐visioning problems as adaptations to an emergent paradigm including the need for self‐regulation. The story entails an evolutionary trajectory that revisits our marginalised dangerous potency and challenges us to a reciprocal relationship with the other‐than‐human. It draws implications for both psychotherapeutic practice and for our responsibility to the ecosystems of our planet
Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapies and the Psychosocial
Get PDFThis paper explores the complex relationships between psychoanalysis, psychotherapies and ways we can think relationships between the psyche and the social in a globalised world. It explores both the promise and the limitations of post‐structuralist traditions and the need to think beyond its terms if we are to open up a meaningful dialogue between diverse traditions and illuminate different levels of embodied experience. Drawing upon formative process of class, ‘race’, gender and sexualities it questions traditions of identity politics that might ‘fix’ identities into pre‐given categories, so opening up spaces to explore complex embodied identities and diverse historical and cultural legacies. Drawing upon a range of empirical examples it seeks to open up new spaces for psychosocial research and new languages within which we can explore the psychosocial not as a space between discrete disciplines but as potentially transforming disciplinary legacies that have sought to separate ‘psychology’ and ‘sociology’ in ways that make it harder to illuminate transformations in contemporary globalised and transnational lives
Breaking Taboos: Acknowledging Therapist Arousal and Disgust
Get PDFIn this discussion paper I do not necessarily have answers but I hope to ask some thought‐provoking questions about arousal and disgust when they occur in the therapist. These two internal phenomena seem particularly relevant to my area of specialism of sexual health; however, these experiences might occur for any therapist working with individual adults or couples and, of more concern, when working with adolescents or children. Yet these experiences are rarely discussed in the literature, supervision, training or staff meetings. My hope is that this paper will inspire further conversations within the reader’s work settings to break the silence taboo and improve the quality and safety of our work
Power, Diversity and Values‐Congruent Accountability in the Psychological Therapies: Report on an Emerging Dialogue
Get PDFThis part‐academic and part‐dialogic paper is based on a seminar discussion of the same title, in which about 20 delegates participated at the annual PCSR Conference, “We're all in this together”? – Power, Inequality, and Diversity' held in London in May 2011. Three of the participants agreed to collaborate via a collective ‘e‐forum’ in writing up the following report and extending the initial discussion, in which we attempt to convey the richness and diversity of the workshop's enlivening conversation. With the recent demise of the long‐mooted state regulation of the psychological therapies field via the Health Professions Council, the responsibility for engaging fully and non‐defensively with the issue of accountability has thankfully now passed to the ‘psy’ field itself. Our discussion touched on many of the challenging and complex issues which any engagement with accountability must address, including the historical and cultural location of the ‘accountability’ notion itself; to whom therapists should (if at all) be accountable; how issues of power are inevitably played out, often unconsciously, in any accountability process; and what a values‐congruent approach to accountability might look like as a practical possibility for the field. The writing of this paper was a non‐hierarchical, collaborative process, aiming to represent our differences openly and creatively, and yet also seeking some common‐values ground from which we can seek to create a way of thinking about accountability which stays true to our core values, rather than betraying or subverting them. There is no pretence here that we are offering any neat conclusions or programmatic ‘quick fixes’ to the highly complex ‘accountability’ question. The inevitable result of our collaborative journey is therefore a somewhat uneven text, but one which we hope helps to stimulate a multiplicity of dialogues, discourses and creative thinking on these complex issues of accountability in our field
Professional Pluralism and Partnership: Strategies for Resistance and Action
Get PDFIn Aotearoa New Zealand, the term ‘psychotherapist’ is regulated by statute under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 (‘the Act’). Since 15 October 2007, when the Order in Council, made earlier on 21 May that year, came into effect, whereby psychotherapy was included as a ‘health profession’ under the Act, the term ‘psychotherapist’ has become a protected one. Practitioners who wish to refer to and advertise themselves as psychotherapists must register with the ‘responsible [regulatory] authority’ for psychotherapy i.e. the Psychotherapists Board of Aotearoa New Zealand (‘PBANZ’ or ‘the Board’) (see http://www.pbanz.org.nz/index.php), or risk prosecution and/or fine – and, it transpires, harassment