Psychotherapy and Politics International (E-Journal)
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Counselling without boundaries: A thematic analysis of counsellors’ experience of unconventional boundaries in the Hestia Overnight Hotel Counselling Service for survivors of the Grenfell Fire
Full text linkHestia’s Overnight Hotel Counselling Service for survivors of the Grenfell fire was set up in response to a disaster and therefore most of the ‘normal rules’ of counselling boundaries could not apply. There is a gap in the literature regarding counselling in times of disasters and the ethical dilemmas that come with it. The deficit on this issue is especially great in the UK.
Using a thematic analysis, this study explores how nine counsellors experienced working within unconventional counselling boundaries in this service.
Findings indicate that the challenges encountered, and outcomes experienced, fostered a questioning of many of the rules assumed about counselling and psychotherapy especially regarding boundaries. Furthermore, they seem to validate the common factors’ view on the importance of the therapeutic relationship for successful outcomes, even within an unconventional framework.
The study raises some questions for counselling and psychotherapy practice, training, and research such as preparedness for disaster counselling, diversity in service provision, and developing further the concept of community counselling by a community of counsellors with a community of clients in community settings
A process oriented psychology (POP) approach to processing collective trauma in an Irish context
Full text linkThe island of Ireland and Irish people have experienced a vast array of social, political, and military and paramilitary events and occurrences throughout history. Many have given rise to different forms of collective trauma. This has influenced the development of a national psychology and the many sub-psychologies of different groups of Irish people. Unprocessed, this trauma is transferred to subsequent generations at an individual, group, and collective level. This article considers an integrative approach to working with collective issues within groups of people who have a relationship with Irishness. This is heavily based on process oriented psychology (POP) or its larger scale application, worldwork. Mapping and following the different roles that may emerge within the process is key. We combine this approach with the spirit or essence of ancient Irish storytelling in hosting community-based dialogue interventions. These groups explore ‘the experience of being Irish in 2022 or different relationships with, or to, Irishness in today’s world’. The different themes and topics that emerged across the initial groups are discussed with further reflections from participants and more in-depth commentary from the perspectives of the group facilitators. The next stages of this group-based psychotherapeutic work are considered within an Irish framework; as well as the potential benefit of this kind of work at an international level, given the many collective psychosocial challenges we face across a very interconnected globe
Emancipation and its discontents
Full text linkBased on two ‘anecdotes’, I seek to highlight the limits of emancipation in contemporary Jewishness from two different angles, and how psychoanalysis takes this into account: on the one hand, in relation to the identification required of diaspora Jews with the State of Israel, and on the other, in relation to the assimilation that has been imposed on many diaspora Jews
Empowering a feminist clinic: Challenging gender system oppressions in modern female subjectivities
Full text linkIn the context of psychoanalytic practice, the relevance of challenging gender oppressions in modern subjectivities relies on engaging in meaningful dialogues with feminism. Drawing from our academic background in teaching psychoanalysis, gender studies, and feminism, as well as our experience as private practice analysts, this article presents ideas and reflections on an ongoing project—a feminist clinic in Michoacán, Mexico. The clinic’s goal is to uncover and challenge gender system oppressions that affect modern female subjectivities, with a particular focus on how gender-based violence shapes these experiences. The article is divided into three sections. The first section provides a historical account of the feminist clinic project, highlighting its social and political context. The second section explores the tensions and fluctuations between psychoanalytic theory and feminist activism, considering the contemporary struggles faced by women impacted by gender-based violence. It investigates how psychoanalysis and feminism can complement each other to create effective intervention strategies against women’s oppression. The third section analyses the potential of the feminist clinic project as a tool for both academic pedagogy and psychoanalytic clinical training, offering a new path to feminist activism called ‘subjective activism’
Commentary on Keith Tudor’s (2018) ‘In(ter)dependence Day’
Full text linkThis commentary is based on Keith’s article, ‘In(ter)dependence Day: Lives mattering, freedom with responsibility, and social well-being’, published originally in 2018, which can be found here: https://ojs.aut.ac.nz/psychotherapy-politics-international/article/view/547
In praise of my friend and co-writer Keith Tudor
Full text linkThis commentary is based on Helena and Keith’s article, ‘The Irish Uprising of Easter 1916: A Psychopolitical Dialogue’, published originally in 2016, which can be found here: https://ojs.aut.ac.nz/psychotherapy-politics-international/article/view/497
Revolutionary psychoanalysts with Palestine
Full text linkThis piece was prepared for a Red Clinic online meeting ‘Palestine Solidarity: Speak Out/Talk Back’ which took place in October 2023. The Red Clinic is a collective of communist mental health workers. This piece addresses psychoanalytic questions of the internationalist space we inhabit, the place of contradiction in our conception of the world, and the importance of time in our understanding of historical events
Beyond Agamben’s ‘Homo sacer’: The ‘pandemic’ as final reduction of humanity to ‘bare life’ (Part 2)
Full text linkIn the first part of this paper, the current ‘pandemic’ was approached through the lens of (mainly) the concept of Homo sacer, elaborated on by Giorgio Agamben (1998). Taking the work of Michel Foucault on the ‘disciplinary society’ and ‘bio-politics’ further, and drawing on the role played by the principle of Homo sacer in antiquity, Agamben uncovers the disconcerting extent to which this principle has become generalised in contemporary societies. In antiquity, the principle of ‘sacred man/human’ was invoked in cases where someone was exempted from ritual sacrifice, but simultaneously seen as ‘bare life’, and therefore as being fit for execution. Agamben argues that the sphere of ‘sacred life’ has grown immensely since ancient times in so far as the modern state arrogates to itself the right to wield biopolitical power over ‘bare life’ in a manner analogous to ancient practices, and finds in the concentration camp the contemporary paradigm of this phenomenon. Arguing that today we witness a further downward step in the treatment of humans as ‘bare life’, these concepts are employed as heuristic for bringing into focus current practices under the aegis of the COVID-19 ‘pandemic’. In particular, the spotlight falls on those areas where burgeoning ‘bare life’ practices can be detected, namely ‘origin of the virus’ and ‘lethal vaccines’ in Part 1, while ‘engineered economic collapse’, ‘chemtrails’, and ‘what (to expect) next’ are scrutinised in Part 2. In the light of emerging evidence, it is argued that these practices take the notion of Homo sacer, ‘bare life’, and its concomitant biopolitical and pharma-political practices to unprecedented, virtually incomprehensible levels of depravity. Before turning to these, however, at the outset of Part 2 attention is given to a ‘Platonic’ psychotherapy, complemented by its Kristevan counterpart, to demonstrate that one is not defenceless against the depredations of the cabal
Powers of two
Full text linkThis commentary is based on Gottfried and Keith’s article, ‘On Style’, published originally in 2017 (https://ojs.aut.ac.nz/psychotherapy-politics-international/article/view/506). The title of this commentary is in reference to John Schenk’s Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs (2015, John Murray)
