Psychotherapy and Politics International (E-Journal)
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On developing our empathic capacities to work inter‐culturally and inter‐ethnically: attempting a map for personal and professional development
Get PDFIn the early 1990s, American multicultural counselling theorists generated a matrix of ‘31 multicultural counselling competences’ that were enthusiastically adopted by the various psychotherapeutic professional bodies there. This paper constitutes an attempt to blend these original hypotheses of desirable therapist capacities and characteristics within the current circumstances reflecting the British cultural context. The original US matrix is included here and two new ‘maps’ of competences are introduced
Israeli arab‐jewish sandtray group work: creating a world together
Get PDFJewish and Arab Israeli group facilitator trainees participated in an experiential sandtray workshop. Recapitulating the basic Israeli conflict over contested lands, Arab‐Jewish dyads were given a contained piece of land (a sand tray) in which to create their ‘shared’ world using miniatures. The container was just large enough to hold a standard ream of paper, and was half‐filled with sand. As the method involves tactile play and giving the unconscious a voice, we could observe the interactional process and products. Would the unconscious provide new solutions where dialogue had become stuck in anger and alienation? The observed outcome of the group work was three distinct styles of coping with the difficult and sometimes painful task of sharing: conflict, domination and co‐existence. This paper examines how participants negotiated sharing a limited piece of ‘land’ with the hope that this concrete task can provide new ways of understanding the unspoken and unconscious aspects of the conflict as well as suggesting new possibilities and a way toward constructive and respectful solutions
The enemy: a twenty‐first century archetypal study
Get PDFThis paper delineates the biologically based archetype of the enemy, showing how it derives ideationally and affectively from the archetype of the stranger, the latter an evolutionary given within the lives of animate creatures. In doing so, it both extends Jung's classic exposition of archetypes and sustains their relationship to instincts. It shows how globalization magnifies the archetype of the enemy; how, in a living sense, stranger and archetype are taxonomically distinct; and how, just as the enemy is the cultural elaboration of the biologically based archetype of the stranger, so war is the cultural elaboration of male‐male competition. In elucidating these aspects of the enemy, it makes explicit reference to Darwin's lengthy descriptive writings about male‐male competition across invertebrate and vertebrate species. Key implications and ramifications are discussed on the basis of both Jung's and Darwin's insights into what is commonly known as ‘the mind/body problem.
The universal declaration of ethical principles for psychologists: challenges in finding a language together
Get PDFThe adoption of the Universal Declaration of Ethical Principles for Psychologists is a welcome step toward identifying and professionally acting on internationally shared concerns and aims. However, challenges come with coordinating what it means in different cultures, particularly given that different conceptions of professional helping, psychology, and research are practised across cultures. This paper examines those challenges and proposes some process ethics for extending the dialogues of international psychologists as they keep the Universal Declaration of Ethical Principles ‘alive’ as an aspirational language
Blanche wittman's breasts: the aetiology of the split between body, trance, and psychoanalysis
Get PDFSince its inception, psychoanalysis deeply engaged itself with questions of autonomy and influence, seeking to minimize the analyst's impact in order to allow for self‐direction and uninterrupted growth. The relational turn in psychoanalytic thinking challenged the hermetic fantasy of the therapist's2 positioning as a blank slate and, having recognized the inevitability of influence, has sought to involve and incorporate the therapist more fully within the therapeutic dyad. However, some prejudiced practices are still at place.
Since Freud's abandonment of hypnosis and touch, the therapeutic use of both trance and touch have been largely alienated from the psychoanalytical milieu. As a consequence, research and clinical applications of both disciplines developed disconnectedly, and became fragmented. This paper suggests that Freud's initial reasons for abandoning the practice of hypnosis and the use of touch were politically and socially embedded. The paper traces the original split between psychoanalysis, hypnosis and touch to a strategic juxtaposition of establishing psychoanalysis as science in‐par with physics. It suggests that both trance and touch represented highly relational, unmediated challenges to the therapeutic dyad, which Freud was unable to incorporate into his practice at the time. This dissociated split is presented through examining Charcot's performance‐hypnosis with Blanche Mary Wittman.
The paper then sets to briefly discuss the nature of relational body‐psychotherapy and relational hypnosis, demonstrating their relevance to modern relational psychoanalytic thinking. The alienation between these three disciplines results in loss of valuable fertilized dialogue which could enrich and inform practitioners from all three disciplines, and facilitate the amalgamation of a cohesive relational framework. Today, the sociocultural conditions allow for reintegration of these valuable aspects of human connection: trance and touch
The politics of transformation in the global crisis: are spiritual emergencies reflecting an enantiodromia in modern consciousness?
Get PDFThe current global crisis is confronting humanity with an unprecedented challenge to find sustainable ways of living. There is a need for cooperative action to find alternatives to the reductionist and materialist mind‐sets that have contributed to the current global crisis. This state of affairs calls for a political transformation, which is founded upon a renewed vision that recognizes and values the interdependence of all forms of life. This proposition is underscored by the importance of a shift in consciousness that leads to a greater depth of engagement in life; however, there is no precedent set for how such a change at a collective level could occur. In this article we discuss how the transformational phenomena known as spiritual emergencies may be revealing spontaneous changes in consciousness that could be leading people to experience greater depths in the way that they live. This shift in consciousness can be viewed as an enantiodromia, which is a naturally occurring process that precipitates a reaction or flow to an opposite position when a situation becomes unbalanced or too one‐sided. We are suggesting that the enantiodromias of spiritual emergencies are heralding a wake‐up call for the collective, which could be initiating a renewed vision for a deeper relationship to consciousness and life as a whole. We conclude by outlining six propositions for initiating a political transformation
Sustaining an erection: brotherhood, manhood, and psychotherapy
Get PDFMen have yet to see through a social revolution paralleling the feminist revolution. Lacking rite of passages, and still oscillating between primal kinship and effeminized emotionality, men today often find themselves struggling to discover masculinity that is connected both to emotions and to manhood. The author describes his own yearning for such brotherhood in his personal and professional life. But what happens when such a man appears as a client? This case study discusses Milton's fascinating journey into manhood, which includes mourning the position he assumed in his family, recognizing the deep narcissistic wound and committing to a different relationship with himself and others around him. The paper challenges the classical emphasis on the mother‐baby attachment and proposes to include within it the necessity of the triadic‐self, and the familial challenge of severing the parental‐dyad to make space for the child without breaking it.All the while this paper describes the impossible connection between two men – client and therapist – who learn to love one another, transferentially and even more so – as two men; who struggle with the implications of such love and allow it to transform them both. Shame, self‐love, and questions of reality and transference all emerge when client and therapist struggle with the forces of needs, desire, and brotherhood that bring them together through waves ruptures and repairs
Breaking out of the binary
Get PDFDo transgender people transcend gender or merely cross from one side of a physical binary divide to the other? Can such transcendence offer opportunities for arguments in support of unconscious life which the majority of psychotherapists would fight for, but often without success. Can the transgendered person offer us a way of thinking about what is termed and fixed as a category as mental illness
