“Psychology Under the Influence”: Psychologists Versus Injurious Realities

Abstract

As we have seen, a growing tendency to include the political in therapeutic discourse worldwide can be observed from the late 1980s. This has found expression in theoretical and conceptual changes in relation to therapy; in growing recognition of the role of political variables in psychotherapy, and in increasing reference to the possible effects on political reality of psychology (including its therapeutic branches). The most recent decade has seen this evolving into a detailed inquiry into the practical implications of these theoretical insights. Some books and articles were devoted to the possibility of putting together therapeutic praxis with a social-political value (e.g., Aldarondo 2007; Proctor et al. 2006; Layton et al. 2006). In this work, the barrier between the professional and the political is no longer intact, allowing us to think of therapeutic work (of a certain kind) as a political act, and vice versa, of political engagement as action bearing therapeutic relevance. Eder (2015) argues that social or political activism is a form of “empathy in action” and views it as a natural extension of therapeutic work. The author states that “it is beneficial for our patients to know we are concerned citizens, actively engaged in our community, and that our empathy for them and others leads us to take action. This allows us to model for them what engagement looks like and gives them permission to become active participants in their communities in whatever way works best” (p. 385). And so the therapeutic has come to be considered inseparable from the political while political action constitutes a main channel for therapeutic intervention.