CFP: Psychotherapy and Liberation

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE:
FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS

PSYCHOTHERAPY AND LIBERATION:
MAY ‘68 ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE

LONDON
2nd -4th MAY 2008


Milan Kundera said that man’s struggle against power was the struggle of memory against forgetting. The fortieth anniversary of May 68, ‘les événements’, recalls a time and a movement that aspired to collective and individual liberation, and taught us that it was not only ‘man’s’ struggle. The outburst of frustration, protest and rebellion in Paris was an iconic moment in a mounting wave of democratic culture rooted in grass roots activism. Its context included the Civil Rights and Black Power movements in the US, the international opposition movements against the Vietnam War and apartheid in South Africa, and third world independence and liberation struggles in many ways symbolised in the growing legend of Che Guevara. 1968 was also the year of the ‘Prague Spring’ and of a series of campus protests that spread across the US. It was a time when slogans like ‘make love not war’ expressed the belief that the personal could be, and indeed is, political. Flower power and hippy culture emphasised the value of individual freedom of lifestyle and personal rebellion as modes of political action. Student Power drew attention to the power structures and repressive discourses inherent in the transmission of certain forms of knowledge through ‘teaching’, and demanded direct grass roots democracy in universities, colleges and schools. ‘Anti-psychiatry’ brought the same values and critiques to bear on mental health institutions and professions but not, significantly, on many psychotherapy institutes.

It was from this complex matrix and the aftershocks of the events that many of us found our way into psychotherapy trainings; seeking perhaps some link between internal and external repression, between the internal struggles rooted in our early life, our intimate family relationships both past and present and the external political world in which those early experiences and family relationships were formed and conducted; seeking our own liberation from the power of our internal and external conflicts through the triumph of memory over repression. These events also saw the rebirth of the Women’s Liberation Movement, and a questioning of leftist forms of organisation that failed to respond to the ‘personal’ aspects of political change.

So what did we find and where have we got to. Has psychotherapy turned out to be the pathway to liberation for ourselves and others that we originally hoped for? Or have we been caught in the system? Has the repressive tolerance of our society and our professional discourse incorporated and institutionalised our desires into a discourse of conformity and social control? How far has our society and our profession transformed alienation, distress, deviance and personal struggles for meaning and fulfilment into an assortment of psychopathologies and diagnostic categories to be treated and cured by psychotherapy? Is psychotherapy still a subversive discourse or is it now a way of incorporating everyone into an ever more inclusive and ever more stifling model of normality? From the beginning, psychoanalysis struggled with the conflicting impulses to be, on the one hand, a radical and subversive discourse, and on the other, a respectable form of medical or quasi medical treatment. Has the conservative impulse now taken over, or is the spirit of ‘68 still alive?

How fragmented has protest and challenge to the status quo become. Feminism was a crucial force in the turn to psychotherapy as a form of liberation, and the consequences of that have yet to be fully worked through. The Gay and Lesbian movements have made considerable progress since the early days of ‘Gay Liberation’ and since then Lesbian and Gay therapists have pushed psychotherapy towards recognition and acceptance of what is becoming known as sexual diversity, while heterosexuality still seems relatively circumscribed. Black and ethnic minority groups have established a bridgehead in contemporary society and have pushed psychotherapy towards addressing ‘difference’ at least at a cultural level, though it seems a long way from ‘Black Power’, and post colonial theory seems to have made little impact on mainstream psychotherapy. Anti-capitalist and anti-globalisation movements, along with eco- campaigners have also made headway in the past decade. In Latin America, Chavez seems to offer a level of hope not seen at least since the Sandinista revolution perhaps even since the death of Che Guevara. Meanwhile most of Africa seems to be at war, and peace in the Middle East seems as remote as ever, while the so called ‘War on Terror’ erodes liberties around the world and attempt to re-establish torture as a legitimate activity in defence of something called ‘civilised values’.

Can we speak in any meaningful way about a counter culture or a protest movement or are the progressive movements now fragmented into their own interest groups? Has identity politics failed to provide, or even undermined any sense of solidarity? Is feminism the bridge between the person and the political, and how does that transform traditional politics and psychotherapy?

CALL FOR PAPERS

The conference will have guest speakers linking political struggle and personal change. There will be plenary sessions, large group discussions parallel paper sessions. The conference registration will be £120 for the three days (or £50 per day). We will be negotiating lower registration costs for low and unwaged participants.

We now invite submissions from those working in any tradition in psychotherapy or political action that connects with the spirit of 1968 for papers on the intersection between psychotherapy and liberation. How can we build on the dynamic set in play by 1968? What are the lessons of struggles in the last forty years for what we do now? What practical steps should psychotherapists take now to link the personal and the political? Please send proposals of between 100-150 words by January 31st to the organisers: Dick Blackwell (rich.phil.4@virgin.net), Erica Burman (E.Burman@mmu.ac.uk) or Ian Parker (I.A.Parker@mmu.ac.uk). Time allocated for papers will be twenty minutes plus discussion time. Email the organisers for updated information on the form and content of the conference.

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