Politics versus psychotherapy

Abstract

Totton'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. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Unacceptable Complicities and Necessary Articulations between Psychotherapy, Politics and Internationalism

“…The prevalent anti‐revolutionary use of psychotherapeutic work is not only facilitated by its “supposed scientific asepsis”, which obviously means accepting the all‐encompassing political “dominating perspective” (Martín‐Baró, , p. 299), but is also made possible by two fundamental assumptions underlying current psychotherapy. On the one hand, the liberal assumption of individualist “equalitarianism” supposes individuals with individual problems (Canguilhem, ) in “a classless society with equal opportunity for all”, which logically impedes “radical political work with therapists” (Parker, , p. 4). On the other hand, following the “pious wish” of “explaining psychology as a natural science” (Marx, , para.…”