Psychotherapy and Politics International (E-Journal)
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The Practice of Truth
Get PDFIn this review article on Nick Totton's edited book the Politics of Psychotherapy (2006), I draw out some issues which particularly concern me, relating to truth, violence, and how the latter can silence people's capacity to bear witness to the former
Discussion of Nancy Hollander's ‘Psyche, Ideology, and the Creation of the Political Subject’
Get PDFThe paper consists of the online discussion of Nancy Hollander's ‘Psyche, Ideology, and the Creation of the Political Subject’, summarized
Politics versus psychotherapy
Get PDFTotton's (2006) edited book The Politics of Psychotherapy: New Perspectives provides a selection of arguments for the link between the domain of politics and psychotherapy that ground the journal Psychotherapy and Politics International. This paper provides a response that articulates the relationship between those two domains. The world of psychotherapeutic politics meshes all too well with my own personal predisposition to split and squabble, only to be able to define a position by way of what it is against. There are at least two ways to play this game, which this paper explores
Bringing deep democracy to life: an awareness paradigm for deepening political dialogue, personal relationships, and community interactions
Get PDFDemocracy in its traditional form is exercised in part through voting, majority rule, laws protecting minority viewpoints and the freedom to listen to all voices. However, democracy is rarely something that we consciously manifest in daily life – whether during political debates, community meetings, personal relationships, or in our internal lives. In this article I describe a few communication methods that make it possible to bring an even deeper form of democracy to life in our moment‐to‐moment interactions. Leaders, group and community facilitators, and anyone who wants to become a ‘participant‐facilitator’ can use this new form of democracy, based on basic awareness principles and methods. The framework I describe is derived from process‐oriented psychology, its group process application, called worldwork and its philosophy of deep democracy. I show that without awareness of our moment‐to‐moment overt and subtle, dreamlike signals democracy is a dream that has not quite happened. With greater awareness, political debate as well as community and personal dialogue can transform into more co‐creative and deeply democratic interactions. I also speak about a new kind of leader who can be ordinary and one sided as well as bring awareness and openness to the various people and levels of any interaction. To make my point, I use examples from large group work, the recent presidential race in the United States, as well as personal interactions
Therapy culture: cultivating vulnerability in an uncertain age. By Frank Furedi. London: Routledge; 256pp. The new individualism: the emotional costs of globalisation. By Anthony Elliott and Charles Lemert. London: Routledge; 232pp
No full textTherapy culture: cultivating vulnerability in an uncertain age
The social unconscious: selected papers. By Earl Hopper. International Library of Group Analysis 22. London: Jessica Kingsley, 2003; 223pp
Get PDFThe social unconscious: selected papers
‘Psyche, ideology and the creation of the political subject’: a summary
Get PDFThis paper shows how in an interdisciplinary context psychoanalysis can illuminate the interface between ideology and mental states that produces citizens' identification with repressive political trends. It argues for a socially conscious clinical psychoanalysis that includes an awareness of and respectful exploration of the social as well as the psychic origins of patients' deep anxieties and conflicts
Preamble
Get PDFThis paper is a preamble to three commentaries on The Politics of Psychotherapy: New Perspectives, picking up on some of the themes from a subjective viewpoint. It indicates the enduring actuality and relevance of the material presented in the book by touching on contemporary concerns in current events regarding world politics, intercultural understanding and psychotherapy
Narcissism: fragile bodies in a fragile world. Part 1
Get PDFIn this two-part paper, we explore how, in Western society, intensified consumer culture, playing on feelings of shame and inadequacy, can be seen as reactivating the ‘narcissistic wound’ while the recent growth of information technology increasingly provides access to a global spectacle and a virtual world that offer an escape from reality, fuelling the illusion of immortality and invulnerability to physical/emotional needs. We ask who benefits from this culture of unrelatedness and disembodiment and what are the repercussions in terms of participation in social life and organized response to global issues. Using material from our practices and from social life, we seek to identify the collective cost of maintaining a disassociation that can permeate not only the therapeutic process but also work, personal relationships and events on the political stage. We consider a view of Bush as a narcissistic president in a narcissistic culture with the Iraq war as a narcissistic misadventure, and we present vignettes from the consulting room, Dance Movement Therapy work in Holloway Prison, and the academic world of prehistoric archaeology to show how narcissistic behaviours are embedded in many diverse situations in Western society. We ask how the concept of narcissism in our media age can help us understand phenomena such as the rise of fundamentalism; celebrity cult; insatiable aspirations to ‘self‐improvement’; obsession with ‘success’ and consumer goodies; the denial of ageing; the upsurge in cosmetic surgery, body modification and self‐harm; as well as growing addiction to alcohol and hard drugs. Finally we ask, how do the narcissistic fantasy of self-sufficiency, the disavowal of loss and the denial of the ultimate non‐discursive reality of death affect our ability to respond appropriately to human injustice and the fragility of our planet
On the hazards of being a stranger to oneself
Get PDFThis paper traces out the socio‐political consequences of self‐ignorance and self‐deception. These consequences were clearly recognized more than 2,000 years ago by early Greek philosophers, in part along the lines of ‘a conceit of wisdom’. The consequences were more recently spelled out in striking ways by Carl Jung in his psychoanalytic analyses of ‘mass‐minded man’ who, through self‐ignorance and self‐deception, wreaks havoc and cruelty on others. The paper also points up the challenge of attaining self‐knowledge and possible paths to its attainment that bolster or augment classic psychotherapeutic approaches