Psychotherapy and Politics International (E-Journal)
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The politics of consciousness: illness or individuation?
Get PDFMental health professionals are trained to treat clients who are experiencing psychological disturbance and they regard such symptomatology as signs of illness. This article proposes that psychological disturbances could be understood for their potential contribution towards growth and wholeness, as well as having value in bringing about self‐actualization. We discuss findings from quality surveys that reflect the experiences of clients who attended an innovative group‐therapy programme in a community mental‐health setting. The therapeutic approach was informed by methods from the school of process‐oriented psychology. The quality surveys demonstrate significant levels of subjective improvement in clients' quality of life, as well as identifying increased interest in working creatively with their presenting difficulties, which had previously been identified as problematic by both the professionals in the mental health system and the clients themselves
Transforming conflict into community: post‐war reconciliation in Croatia
Get PDFHow can we support reconciliation and community building after violent conflict? This article describes a 5‐year project that brought together Serbs, Croats, and Muslims after the war in Croatia. Using the ideas and methods of Process Work (developed by Arnold Mindell), the authors facilitated large group processes that focused deeply on issues that continued to divide the country. Work with mistrust and symmetrical blaming led to connection. Work with trauma allowed people to go into and beyond the wounds of war. Work with issues of personal and collective accountability helped participants to transform their notions of responsibility, and therefore take fuller leadership in their communities. This project can be seen as a possible model for post‐conflict reconciliation efforts
Mutual empowerment in the treatment of torture and other war trauma survivors: a personal reflection
Get PDFPractitioners from developed countries who travel to developing nations to teach theories and methods of treatment would do well to consider that the most important aspects of their work have to do more with the relationships they form than with the information they dispense. We all have much to learn from each other. Mutual empowerment benefits all. Consequently, as much effort should be made to arrange time for relationship as for formal instruction. The expectations of those teaching and those taught, however, will have to be acknowledged for true mutual empowerment to take place
Living with an internal other: an extended review of psychoanalysis, identity and ideology
Get PDFAn extended review ofPsychoanalysis, Identity, and Ideology: Critical Essays on the Israel/Palestine Case(Bunzl and Beit‐Hallahmi, 2002), focusing in particular on Brunner's chapter, which brings ‘home’ enemy images of the Other, and using psychoanalytic concepts (specifically ‘internal cohabitation’) which call for the recognition of an Other within
Cognitive counsellors' constructions of social power
Get PDFThe theory of cognitive counselling makes little reference to issues of social power but, nonetheless, we are likely to find ideas about social power (whether implicit or explicit) embedded within cognitive counselling discourse. For this research five cognitive counsellors were interviewed about the social context of counselling. The transcripts were analysed using a discourse analytic approach, and four interpretative repertoires around social power were identified. In this paper we discuss how these four repertoires are used by the interviewees to manage the ideological dilemma of individualism and social responsibility described by Billig (1988). We conclude with a discussion of the potential significance for counselling of the multiple and flexible explanations of social power construed in these interviews
The Bridge project: radical psychotherapy for the twenty-first century
Get PDFThe concept of equality has been central to radical thinking in psychotherapy. But it often becomes confused with sameness or some kind of final solution, a thing to be obtained. The model presented here is that of equalizing as an ongoing process at all levels in terms of gender, class, race, age, power and literally hundreds of other hierarchies. Most therapies are also about equalizing or balancing internal opposites in the psyche. This paradigm shift from hierarchical thinking to the rhythm model of equalizing processes is a way forward for therapy and social change in the twenty‐first century. The Bridge Project (West London, UK), providing counselling for disadvantaged women, is an example of an organization using the equalizing paradigm in all areas of the work and at all levels. It offers us a vital sign of hope, in spite of the fact that the original aims of feminist and socialist community change have not been fully realized
God on the couch. Jung's Answer to Job: A Commentary. By Paul Bishop, Hove and New York: Brunner-Routledge, 2002, 240 pp. Answer to Job. By Carl Gustav Jung, (translated by REC Hull), Hove and New York: Brunner-Routledge, 1952 reissue 2002, 176 pp
Get PDFGod on the couch. Jung's Answer to Job: A Commentary
Neither liberty nor safety: the impact of fear on individuals, institutions, and societies, part III
Get PDFThe third in a series of four papers describing how minds and bodies of individuals are affected by severe stress. The purpose is to develop a deeper understanding of what happens to stressed individuals who come together to form stressed organizations and the impact of this stress on organizational leaders. The series also explores the parallel process that occurs when traumatized individuals and stressed organizations come together to form stressed societies. Part I focused on the basic human stress response. Part II explored the more extended impact of severe, chronic, and repetitive exposure to stress on the functioning of the emotional system and the ways in which human beings tend to adapt to adversity and thus come to normalize highly abnormal behavior. The focus in Part III is on the impact of chronic stress on memory, the ability to put words to feelings and the tendency to automatically repeat the past