Samuels, A (2014) Everything you always wanted to know about therapy (but were afraid to ask): Social, political, economic and clinical fragments of a critical psychotherapy. European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling, 16 (4). pp. 315-330. DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/13642537.2014.957227
Samuels, A (2014) Everything you always wanted to know about therapy (but were afraid to ask): Social, political, economic and clinical fragments of a critical psychotherapy. European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling, 16 (4). pp. 315-330. DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/13642537.2014.957227
Samuels, A (2014) Everything you always wanted to know about therapy (but were afraid to ask): Social, political, economic and clinical fragments of a critical psychotherapy. European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling, 16 (4). pp. 315-330. DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/13642537.2014.957227
Abstract
Three seemingly consensual propositions concerning psychotherapy and counselling are examined critically. All turn out to be unreliable, tendentious and even damaging: (i) Psychotherapy and counselling can be free and independent professions provided therapists, acting together, fight for them to be that way. (ii) Psychotherapy and counselling are private and personal activities, operating in the realms of feelings and emotions ? the psyche, the unconscious, affects rooted in the body. Above all other factors, the single most important thing is the therapy relationship between two people. (iii) Psychotherapy and counselling, and psychotherapy are vocations, not jobs. Therapists are not only motivated by money. In developing his critiques of these propositions, the author utilizes social, political and economic perspectives. The author reviews new clinical thinking on the active role of the client in therapeutic process and suggests that a turn to the legendary figure of the Trickster might be of benefit to the field. The author locates his arguments in his experience of the politics and practices of psychotherapy and counselling, and engages in self-criticism.
Item Type: | Article |
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Uncontrolled Keywords: | client; critical psychotherapy; economics; government; Hermes; politics; privacy; statutory regulation; therapy relationship; Trickster |
Subjects: | R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0500 Psychoanalysis |
SWORD Depositor: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Depositing User: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Date Deposited: | 23 Apr 2015 11:52 |
Last Modified: | 29 Oct 2024 08:07 |
URI: | http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/13614 |