Psychotherapy and Politics International (E-Journal)
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How practitioners perceive ethics in psychology: The pilot study
Full text linkMental health helping practices are often regulated via ethical rules. In some countries those rules are imposed via legal regulations, in others they are imposed by professional communities and are not state enforced. Surprisingly, empirical studies of ethics are somewhat limited. Also, ethics are often defined as ‘statements from the ethical codes’. However, obviously, written rules are perceived and followed by real people. So, the question is how these real people actually perceive what was designed and written as ‘norms’. The research question of this study is: how is ethics subjectively perceived by helping professionals (psychologists)? The pilot study was conducted on a sample of 89 practicing psychologists (data were collected Feb–Jun 2021) who were asked to evaluate ethical ‘norms’ from three ethical codes using 10 criteria. This showed that, after factorization, psychologists ‘divide’ norms into two groups: those protecting the wellbeing of the professional community or protecting the wellbeing of the client
On ‘Southern Psychotherapies’: Are they psychotherapies at all?
Full text linkThis commentary is based on Keith’s article, ‘Southern Psychotherapies’, published originally in 2012, which can be found here: https://ojs.aut.ac.nz/psychotherapy-politics-international/article/view/379
A conversation with Eugene Ellis and David Weaver
Full text linkEugene Ellis, founder and director of The Black African and Asian Therapy Network, talks with David Weaver, activist and community developer, about his time as President of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and his role in visioning the significantly funded bursary scheme and mentoring project to support racialised communities
Ethnic identity and wellbeing in the lives of third-generation British Bangladeshi adults: Finding a ‘sense of belonging’
Full text linkThis study investigated third generation Bangladeshi adults’ experiences of ethnic identity (EI) and sense of wellbeing. British citizens from racially minoritised backgrounds, such as British Bangladeshis, face numerous challenges related to cultural adjustment, discrimination, and exclusion that can impact wellbeing. Strong EI has been shown to increase psychological wellbeing in minority ethnic populations. Fifteen participants who identified as third-generation British Bangladeshi adults were engaged in semi-structured interviews to explore their experiences of EI and wellbeing. Thematic analysis of the data conceptualised three main themes, namely, ‘Oh my God, I’m different’: Being made to feel like an outsider in Britain; ‘You’re a coconut’: Being made to feel like an outsider within the British Bangladeshi community; and ‘A proper sense of belonging’ through ethnic identity. The findings point towards the role that EI can play in later generation immigrants’ sense of self and wellbeing. Implications are discussed
(Un)Safe spaces: A thematic analysis of global majority trainees’ experience of a safe space group in clinical psychology training
Full text linkClinical psychology is traditionally a profession that is dominated by White, socioeconomically middle-class women. It took worldwide protests, campaigns, and initiatives following the murder of George Floyd to convince the field of psychology to finally acknowledge and admit its historic and present role in the reproduction of institutional racism. As part of this, Health Education England developed an anti-racism action plan for all doctoral clinical psychology training organisations to prioritise addressing and redressing inequality, inequity, and oppression within the field. As one initiative, a Safe Space for global majority trainee clinical psychologists was developed on a clinical psychology training programme to provide these trainees a ‘safe’ community of support in an unsafe profession. Using thematic analysis, this study explores how global majority trainees experience the Safe Space as a feature of their clinical psychology training. Findings demonstrate the difficult, racialised experiences of these trainees, but also the importance of having groups like the Safe Space to create a sense of belonging and to provide material support and practices that enable them to navigate and challenge an oppressive training environment. It raises some questions for clinical psychology training programmes in how they are currently supporting marginalised groups, and the steps being taken to dismantle Whiteness
Leadership style and foreign policy: The role of Vladimir Putin’s dual-framing style in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine
Full text linkThis article aims to demonstrate the potential of measuring decision-making in foreign policy from a distance by examining the leadership traits of political figures. The methodology employed is the leadership trait analysis proposed by Margaret Hermann and implemented through ProfilerPlus software to analyse Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade in Ukraine in 2022. In this study, Putin’s leadership is systematically analysed using one of the most comprehensive methods of assessing leadership styles, namely, leadership trait analysis. The study compares the results of Putin’s conceptual complexity score, derived from his responses to direct questions during various interviews with both domestic and international media, with a reference group of 214 world leaders identified by Hermann. The findings suggest that Putin’s leadership exhibits lower cognitive complexity. This reduced conceptual complexity appears to have influenced his foreign policy behaviour during the Ukrainian crisis. The study demonstrates that Putin’s foreign policy choices in 2022 were significantly influenced by this individual trait, which is associated with his constricted black-and-white worldview. Consequently, the study emphasises the significance of Putin’s personal characteristics in shaping foreign policy and provides a systematic assessment of how measuring from a distance can elucidate the behaviour of high-level political leaders
A foreclosed clinic, ‘Tiresian’ clinic, and violence against trans people: Some reflections from psychoanalysis on clinical work with trans people in México
Full text linkThis article ponders on reflections from clinical work undertaken with trans individuals in contexts of acute violence and social exclusion, conditions that permeate the vast expanse of Mexican territory. It addresses the importance of a model of clinical work required to support transgender people suffering from social violence, by examining two contrasting clinical positions based on some Lacanian frameworks: a ‘foreclosed’ clinic, and its counterpart, a ‘Tiresian’ clinic. This article explores the implications of the therapeutic setting as a safe space amid the violence suffered by trans individuals, as well as the importance of recognising the consequences of the encounter between identity and life or death decisions in environments of extreme violence
The racism you know is not the racism we experience: A perspective on Islamophobia and racism concerning the therapeutic frame: What Muslims bring and what they leave behind
Full text linkThis article articulates some of the complexities of the interrelationship of Islamophobia and racism that are present in life and therapeutic work with Muslim clients. It addresses the political context of the intersectionality these factors bring to Muslim mental health and therapeutic work with Muslims, contextualising their mental health inequalities in Western hegemony in the UK. In this, it explores the choices diverse Muslim clients make as to what they bring to the therapeutic relationship in the context of the above. It further suggests that counsellors and therapists of colour may use their awareness of intersectionality to work to develop rapport with diverse Muslim clients in this context
Palestine: A genocide: Or when psychoanalysis forgot that every symptom is political
Full text linkBased on its material conditions—objective and subjective—the current mode of social production promotes a particular kind of existence that perceives itself as a helpless thing, thrown towards a dark destiny from which there is no way out. As Jameson (2009) stated, it is easier to imagine the end of everything than the end of capitalism. In this sense, the Palestinian genocide can’t help but be thought of as an acute symptom of global capitalism and the fight to the death for leadership of the new geopolitical map and the world civilisational process. Therefore, all our ‘psy’ practices must be thought of in the light of a series of theoretical and ethical-political frameworks that make compossible (Badiou, 2002) a matrix of critical insight that, at the same time that interrupts the automatisms of the social, allows us to think about psychopolitical discontents as complex forms of psychic and subjective suffering that precede and exceed the bourgeois ideological sphere of the familial and the private individual
The reverie of resistance
Full text linkIn this short piece, we discuss the importance of reverie, a psychoanalytic concept, but also, a central logic in sumud. Using direct testimony from Palestinians in Gaza and freed political prisoners, we conceptualize how reverie affirms Palestinian life, willfulness, and resistance against the backdrop of settler colonial violence and, currently, active genocide