Society and culture
Society and culture

Culture and/or clinic? (part 1)

In their introduction to what turned out to be the one and only issue of Culture/Clinic, Marie-Hélèn Brousse and Maire Jaanus  begin by acknowledging that that, traditionally, the idea of culture and that of the psychoanalytic clinic have been regarded as constituting two different fields: The slash in Culture/Clinic (C/C) …

Applied psychoanalysis?

In my experience, there is a commonly held view in clinical circles that the only people entitled to call themselves ‘psychoanalysts’ are those individuals who have a case load; that is, they see patients/clients/analysands for some form of psychoanalytic treatment.  Of course, it’s actually more complicated than this because one …

Covid-19 and the security state

I was struck by something  David Runciman wrote recently in the Guardian in which he argues that the (UK) government’s response to Covid-19 reveals the true nature of politics, i.e. when it comes to it the state can exercise an incredible amount of power; it’s simply that most of the …

Brexit as Trauma

For many people who voted ‘Remain’ in the referendum of June 2016, the decision of the UK to leave the European Union after forty five years has been something of a trauma. By this I mean the Brexit decision is something that many people just cannot comprehend or come to …

Politics is the new psychotherapy

In a memorable scene in Menno Meyjes’ 2002 film Max, the would-be artist Adolf Hitler (Noah Taylor) remarks to his would-be Jewish mentor, the (fictional) Munich art dealer Max Rothman (John Cusack), that ‘politics is the new art’. Too late Rothman realises the true meaning of Hitler’s words: this failed …

Victimhood and sacrifice

There is a very interesting article by Barbara Hewson that takes a critical look at the whole concept of ‘victimology’ and, interestingly enough, the idea that justice can be a form of therapy.1 Although the article is now two years old, it is in fact eerily prescient with regards to …

Small town England and Brexit

The BBC news channel recently broadcast a fascinating documentary on American film noir and its relationship to small town America.  In it, the historian Adam Smith argues that Donald Trump’s election victory has highlighted the division between the cultures of the (corrupt) big city and the (innocent) small town.   Although …

Psychosalvation?

Many years ago, when I was in final year of my undergraduate studies, I wrote a dissertation on humanistic psychotherapy, within which I strongly criticised its concept of the ‘self’ or ‘ego’ and, linked to this, the notion of ‘psychosalvation’.  By this I mean the idea that therapy can, in …