Psychotherapy and its discontents * Views from: * Sociology * Marxism * Feminism * Jeffrey Masson, and other internal critics Masson * Opened up critical debate - fluent but hardly a reasoned critic * Main (only?) point: Therapy is tyranny. * The power imbalance between therapist and client inevitably leads to the abuse of power by the therapist * How might this happen? * Power + vulnerability + intimacy =? * Does therapy meet the needs of the therapist? Response to Masson * Holmes (‘92) identifies some issues: * Early analysts interpreted real trauma as phantasy – but not for last 50 years. Bowlby, Winnicott and others emphasised the importance of real loss and trauma. * Informed consent – can distressed, emotionally aroused people choose the right therapy and therapist? Improved regulation has helped * Selection & training – much has been achieved Response to Masson 2 * Abuse (sexual harassment, inappropriate relationship between therapists and clients) * Infrequently but widely reported across many professions, not confined to therapists * Therapists not immune to feeling envy, dislike, sexual arousal as well as compassion. * But important not to act on, reveal or ignore. * Use transference and counter-transference to help understand and in supervision. Marxist view * Law, religion, culture, education etc. reflect and serve the economic interests of the dominant class. * Structural features reflect economic base * Therapy individualises problems which may be better thought of in class terms as consequences of capitalist exploitation. * May reconcile the exploited to their exploitation and obscures the true path to change – revolutionary action. * Therefore promotes false consciousness and is a form of oppression Marxist view – rebuttal * Marxism has a non-compassionate utilitarian tradition of ignoring the individual (& women) * Arguably a moral & practical failure. * Therapy sees personal responsibility not as blame but as a form of empowerment * Therapy should be about empowerment, challenging the given, the accepted, the taught, not a way of enforcing conformity * Potential for radical therapy, early attempts to reconcile Marxism and Psychoanalysis – Reich and the orgone box. Feminist view * Therapy as potentially oppressive * in reconciling women to patriarchy * in focussing on the individual not systemically * in obscuring true consciousness * But therapy sees personal responsibility not as blame but as a form of empowerment, a way of challenging the given, not a way of enforcing conformity * Many feminist practitioners as well as critics, eg. Juliet Mitchell within psychoanalysis Cultural perspective * Unproven, overblown & unconvincing? Or a right to essential health care? * A western individualist cultural fad? Or genuinely enabling & empowering? * Symptomatic of the decline of community, cultural stability, religious observance, extended family etc? * A response to the saturated self (Gergen) / empty self (Cushman)?