Abstract
The confluence of psychotherapy and sociology has long been a site of contestation, with some sociologists finding the intersection of the two stimulating while others prefer distance be maintained. Can a discipline that contends that social actors do not act in ways entirely shaped by their own choosing come together with a practice that focuses on people’s capacity for emancipation beyond the limitations of social forces? Or are the two approaches entirely antithetical? While clinical sociology and sociotherapy have been a part of the sociological landscape in other countries, there is little written about the two from a New Zealand perspective. This lacuna made my own professional journey difficult. I write from the position of being both a sociologist and a psychotherapist in Aotearoa. I view my workplace practice as inherently sociological and a form of microsociology or sociotherapy. What follows here is offered in the interests of encouraging other sociologists to question limitations around what is and is not sociological, what is and is not psychological, and to entertain the possibility of incorporating the two in order to support the emergence of something new.
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Notes
- 1.
Metge acknowledges the provision of this whakatauiki for her publication came from Rima Eruera of Ngapuhi and Te Rarawa.
- 2.
The Commission on the Accreditation of Programs in Applied and Clinical Sociology (CAPACS) is an American body with an interest in sociological practice and provides a means for such programs—national and international—to be evaluated and monitored. CAPACS was formerly known as The Commission on Applied and Clinical Sociology but was renamed in 2010 to better reflect the activities of the organisation.
- 3.
Transpersonal psychology as part of the humanistic school of psychology differs from some other psychologies with its inclusion of consciousness as an important aspect of human experience.
- 4.
I wish to acknowledge the help of Helen Palmer with this information.
- 5.
In this way, psychosynthesis as developed and taught in Aotearoa by Palmer and Hubbard seeks distance from Assagioli’s vague but arguably problematic association with the perennial philosophy. The perennial philosophy is the idea that all religious and spiritual systems have a core or essential similarity in spite of the different ways this is expressed. For more on the connections between psychosynthesis and the perennial philosophy see Kenneth Sorensen.
- 6.
Whyte is a poet living in the Pacific Northwest, of Irish and Welsh descent, with a particular interest in the transformative possibilities of work.
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Davidson, K.L. (2023). Impulse, Movement, and Collision: Productive Space at the Confluence of Sociology and Psychotherapy. In: Rocha, Z.L., Davidson, K.L. (eds) Applied and Clinical Sociology in Aotearoa New Zealand. Clinical Sociology: Research and Practice. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36581-2_9
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