Psychotherapy and Politics International (E-Journal)
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Understanding and treating African immigrant families: new questions and strategies
Get PDFIn her very important article published in Family Process, Falicov (2007) recognized the need for expanding the dominant Western notions of the family, community and culture and to adopt new theory and treatment considerations for working with transnational immigrants. Unfortunately, her discussion, despite its originality and significance, was largely limited to addressing the problems and challenges faced by well‐established immigrants, who present with symptoms precipitated by relational stresses and difficult choices. This article draws attention to another category of immigrants – the Green‐Carded African Immigrants in Europe and North America, whose special concerns and problems were left unaccounted for in Falicov's contribution. It aims to broaden and extend the current Western frameworks for understanding and treating the psychological needs and challenges of transnational immigrants. In this regard, it is argued that in addition to such currently existing Western models for working with established immigrants in Europe and North America (Falicov, 2003, 2007), successful work with Green‐Carded African immigrants must begin by taking into account their journey motif; their narratives of hope and significance and failed constructions, and the cosmopolitan perspective of these immigrants. The article clarifies these issues, introducing new concepts and strategies for working with African immigrant families in Europe and North America
Against and for CBT: Towards a constructive dialogue? By Richard House and Del Loewenthal. Ross‐on‐Wye: PCCS Books, 2008; 320 pp
Get PDFAgainst and for CBT: Towards a constructive dialogue? By Richard House and Del Loewenthal. Ross‐on‐Wye: PCCS Books, 2008; 320 p
Saving the world one patient at a time: Psychoanalysis and social critique
Get PDFIn contrast to its revolutionary beginnings, the psychoanalytic discourse has abandoned its potential as a critical, dissident force in contemporary life. It is imperative, in our efforts to engage in socially responsible clinical practice, that we restore the sociocritical function to our professional mandate, and that we apply such critique to our symbiosis with the dominant organizing social and economic order. In our close encounter with the tragedies and profundities of the human subject, we are uniquely poised to inhabit a critical, dissident and ardent sensibility in relation to the larger political world. Our immersion in human subjectivity makes possible a vivid and poignant perspective on human experience in contemporary life, and yet our valorization of the subjective and the individual, and our difficulty looking beyond the dyad as the site of human suffering and human transformation occludes a broader social and historical inquiry. So, too, does our preoccupation with holding onto our professional legitimacy, staying viable in the marketplace, which tempts us in morally dubious directions and dampens our freedom to elaborate a more oppositional, or dissident, sensibility. Arguably the profession has a responsibility to make a contribution, practical and discursive, clinical and theoretical, to human rights and social justice. A contribution along these lines requires tremendous courage as we push back against the gains afforded by our conformity to the status quo
Using Althusser's notion of interpellation to study the politics of therapeutic practice
Get PDFAlthusser's distinction between the Absolute, Other Subject and the ordinary human subject has been relatively ignored in the therapeutic literature. This is unfortunate because it offers an unusually clear conceptual tool for analysing the ideological participation – or rather, the participation in societal power dynamics – of therapeutic participants. I argue here that reconceptualizing Althusser's ideas, from a Marxist to a discourse‐oriented approach, facilitates an analysis of therapeutic activities as simultaneously micro‐psychological and macro‐political events. A textbook sample of a cognitive‐behaviour therapy session is used to illustrate some of the potentials of Althusser's insights for analysing the politics of therapeutic interaction
Under the cobblestones, the beach: the politics and possibilities of the art therapy large group
Get PDFThis paper discusses the politics and possibilities of linking the personal and political with therapeutic and social transformation through a teaching method provided in the art therapy training at Goldsmiths – the art therapy large group (ATLG). Three key ideas of May '68 are related to the ATLG and their relevance to other psychotherapies and psychotherapy trainings is considered. These ideas are: the importance of the ‘capitalist’ university as an essential terrain in the struggle for social change; the Atelier Populaire's use of art in an anti‐capitalist critique of the commodification of art and artist in society, and the anti‐imperialist character of the May events. These ideas are related to the theoretical base of the ATLG in the large verbal group literature, Performance Art and to the wide international membership of the ATLG, creating a forum for engaging with global issues. To illustrate these points, we give an example of the interface of the political and the impact of a real event – the university lecturers' strike in 2006 – and the learning that took place in relation to this through the ATLG. We conclude that through a critical engagement with the university within the global terrain of contemporary neoliberalism, the ATLG provides a territory that can integrate the political and therapeutic in arts / psychotherapy trainings; provide a critique and alternative to the commodification of art and artist and engage with issues of difference in the globalized market place. The ATLG prepares the artist / student / therapist / worker to critically engage in the personal and social transformation of the politics of art and psychotherapy provision in the public, private and voluntary sectors
Psychotherapy, political resistance and intimacy: Dilemmas, possibilities and limitations, Part II
Get PDFThe following paper discusses the challenges faced by psychotherapists working in Venezuela during years of political and social unrest as a way of examining psychotherapy's dilemmas when dealing with political issues. It is the second part of a two‐part piece. In the first part limitations of the traditional psychotherapeutic technical recommendations in a highly polarized political setting were considered. In this second part examples of the difficulties presented in Venezuela will be shown. Reflexive psychotherapeutic alternatives to traditional technical considerations such as neutrality will be considered. The possibilities opened up by the perspectives that lead us to engage simultaneously with the personal and social aspects of life, the inclusion of the power differential in the therapeutic relationship and the potential that psychotherapy has to act as a form of resistance to unjust circumstances when thought of as a space where the intimate and the political are intertwined will be considered
Closing the distance on belonging to a cause
Get PDFCauses are trendy stuff these days. There are badges, ribbons, groups on networking sites, magazines, dedicated shops and even a travel industry all working towards selling the idea of a worthy cause. But what is it that we are actually buying into? Is it the cause itself and the idea of bettering our society? Or is it a trendy brand badge that we can wave around to claim that we belong to something honourable? Is it both? I wish to present a paper that will attempt an exploration of what it means for somebody to take up a cause, juxtaposing those who do so for the sake of an ideology as against those who do so as a form of social acceptance. I would also like to ask the question ‘what does it mean when that somebody is a psychotherapist?
Statement of Joel Kovel regarding his Termination by Bard College
Get PDFStatement of Joel Kovel regarding his Termination by Bard Colleg