Psychotherapy is Political or it is not Psychotherapy: The Person-Centred Approach as an Essentially Political Venture

The critique of the practice of psychotherapy offered by Schmid (2012/2014) calls upon the notion of politics as "the consequence of an image of the human being" (p. 4) as being pivotal in arguing for the inherently political nature of (person-centred) psychotherapy. Following Carl Rogers, Schmid also locates human suffering in the alienation that people experience in their everyday social lives. In responding to Schmid's argument I suggest that his analysis is over-determining of the role of the political in our lives, and in the work of psychotherapy. I also argue that it is useful to conceptualise the realms of the political and the psychotherapeutic as "relatively autonomous" from each other. This view is advanced with reference to the work of Jacques Rancière and Judith Butler. Through the work of Rancière a more complex understanding of the political is put forward, and with reference to Butler a social theory of vulnerability is advanced. These two theorists allow for an opening up of the concept of the political beyond what Schmid proposes, as well as offering a social and moral account of human vulnerability.

Section: The “Science” Of Psychotherapymentioning

confidence: 73%

Section: The “Science” Of Psychotherapymentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Over-Determination of the Political: A Response to Schmid

Hayes¹

2014

“…Schmid's paper (Schmid, 2012/) does open up and deepen the meaning of the word “politics”. In everyday language it usually conjures up something to do with governments, voting and political parties.…”

Section: Politics Generalised To Any Communitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Which Psychotherapies? Which Politics? An Equalising Perspective

Chaplin¹

2014

This article discusses Schmid's lead article, and takes issue with it on a number of points: (1) that the psychotherapy Schmid refers to is too specific; (2) that the politics he refers to is not specific enough, or explicitly progressive or equalising; (3) that the person-centred approach is not more "political" than other approaches or modalities; and (4) that, if there is to be a dialogue between approaches or modalities, then there needs to be more emphasis on the common ground between them.

“…In his article, the Austrian person‐centred psychotherapist, Peter F. Schmid, makes “a plea for discourse and dispute among the different schools of therapy with respect to their political self‐understanding and impact” (Schmid, , p. 5). Even though I do not really belong to any school of therapy and thus am not directly concerned with this plea, I support it enthusiastically, and take up the challenge of responding to it here.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Agreements and Disagreements between Psychoanalysis and Person-Centred Psychotherapy: A Lacanian Marxist Response to Schmid's Paper

Pavón‐Cuéllar

2014

This paper draws on Marxist and Lacanian ideas to offer a response to Schmid's call for discussion concerning politics in psychotherapy and, more specifically, the political understanding inherent in the person‐centred approach (PCA). After scrutinising Lacan's attitude towards politics, and discarding Lacanist politics, an alternative Lacanian Marxist political standpoint is proposed, in which seven points of political agreement between psychoanalysis and Schmid's conception of the PCA are discerned, namely: the rejection of a reductionist understanding of politics; the definition of the personal as something political; the conception of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy as political activities; the assumption of a critical stance; the recognition of the necessity of dispute; opposition to scientistic–empiricist fetishism; and the renunciation of control and indoctrination. Despite these agreements, however, the article also shows that the Lacanian Marxist political standpoint permits detection of fundamental political disagreements between its idea of psychoanalysis and the use in person‐centred psychology of the ideological discourses of humanism, selfism, empathism and therapeutism. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.