I’ve just given a presentation at a local college about ‘Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Change’, an organization I’m a member of. The subsequent discussion highlighted that what I’ve always taken for granted – that therapy is political – is by no means self evident.
Those who were around in the late 1960s may remember the rallying call that “the personal is political”. That phrase isn’t much used today but retains its power for me. Years ago I rather cynically wondered if therapy was just a way to patch people up so that they could get back to serving a dysfunctional system. I don’t think that’s true in general, but we need to be aware of the possibility.
Mindfulness is a disturbing example of how a powerful therapy can be used to serve a dysfunctional system. I’m a big fan of mindfulness, but it’s sometimes used to ‘manage’ the stress felt by people pressured by the unreasonable demands of a big corporation.
In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World the masses are kept in check with daily doses of a drug called soma. Soma dissolves away any concerns someone might have about human rights or freedom. One character is puzzled about why a friend worries about such things:
“why you don’t take soma when you have these dreadful ideas of yours. You’d forget all about them. And instead of feeling miserable, you’d be jolly. So jolly.”
I could go on, as there are myriad ways in which therapy is political. Looking back over this blog, it’s a theme that comes up repeatedly without me ever being explicit about it. It feels like a core belief; something that’s so ‘obvious’ to me that I never bothered to question it. And now? While I’m grateful for the opportunity to look at my belief that therapy is political, I hold it as deeply now as I ever have.
Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Change
