This book explores critical and thought-provoking questions about the role and impact of psychotherapy in addressing societal, environmental, and economic challenges. It examines whether the therapeutic practices we offer benefit our clients at the expense of others or even their own broader well-being. Through an analysis of concepts such as ‘acceptance,’ ‘the unconscious,’ and ‘the relational,’ the book interrogates whether psychotherapy contributes to societal problems or perpetuates self-centered colonialism, making catastrophe inevitable. It challenges psychotherapists to consider their responsibility for their clients’ accountability to others and explores how insights from non-Western cultures, which emphasise collective social identity, can enrich therapeutic practices. Additionally, the book delves into how interdisciplinary approaches from sociology, anthropology, economics, history, politics, and psycho-social studies can help psychotherapists transcend traditional boundaries and foster a more impactful education for trainees.
This book is an essential read for students and scholars in social sciences, cultural studies, and psycho-social disciplines who are interested in the intersection of psychotherapy, societal issues, and global perspectives. It will also appeal to psychotherapists, counsellors, mental health professionals, and trainees seeking to critically reflect on their practice and its broader implications.
The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of European Journal of Psychotherapy and Counselling.
This book explores critical and thought-provoking questions about the role and impact of psychotherapy in addressing societal, environmental, and economic challenges. It examines whether the therapeutic practices we offer benefit our clients at the expense of others or even their own broader well-being.
Introduction: Psychotherapy, the individual and society: Psycho,
psycho-socio, or socio-psycho?
1. Inveterate individualism: Taking the
individual as that around which all else revolves and resolves
2. The way we
live now: Fear, alienation, passion, connection
3. Mums the word:
Contemporary mothering in a time of social, environmental and mental collapse
4. Working with LGBTQ+ people in our current society: Developing an
anti-oppressive practice
5. Black academics lived experiences of race and
racism within psychotherapy education settings
6. Why (not) therapy? A
Lacanian psychosocial critique of the Therapeutic Turn
7. The social
unconscious and migration
8. On transindividuation. Or: How can we overcome
the enduring split between individuals and society?
9. Navigating the space
between: Reflecting on epistemological struggle and the psychosocial
perspective
10. The individual and society in psychotherapy: Reflections from
anthropology
Del Loewenthal is an existential-analytic psychotherapist, photographer and chartered psychologist, with a particular interest in phenomenology. He is a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, the British Psychological Society, and United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy, Chair of the Southern Association of Psychotherapy and Counselling; and Emeritus Professor of Psychotherapy and Counselling at the University of Roehampton, London, UK. His books include Existential Psychotherapy and Counselling after Postmodernism (Routledge 2017). www.delloewenthal.com; www.safpac.co.uk.
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