References Ahmed, S. (2017) Living a Feminist Life. London: Duke University Press. Ensler, E. (2013) In the Body of the World. New York: Picador. Lebow, J.L. (2019) Editorial: Social justice in family therapy. Family Process, 58: 3-8. Morgan, H., Randall-James, J., Lyons, A., Oliver, S., Saff er, J., Scott J. & Nolte, L. (2019) Pebbles in palms: Counter-practices against despair, Psychotherapy and Politics, 17(1): e1481. O’Tuama, P. (2016) Imagining Peace, https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=lJfBYz6tab8 [Accessed 10/06/2019]. O’Tuama, P. (2017) Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community. London: Canterbury Press. O’Tuama, P. (2019) Borders, belongings and the book of Ruth, workshop presented at Coventry Cathedral, 17.03.19. Psychologists for Social Change (n.d.) http://
www.psychchange.org [Accessed 10/06/2019]. Waldegrave, C., Tamasese, K., Tuhaka, F. & Campbell, W. (2003) Just Therapy: A Journey. Adelaide, Australia: Dulwich Centre Publications.
Lizette Nolte is a clinical psychologist and systemic psychotherapist who works as principle lecturer on the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology programme at University of Hertfordshire. She is sustained by books, her boys and her friendships, and what the Norwegians call ‘skovstilhed’, that is ‘peace of the woods’ (Robert McFarlane, @ RobGMacfarlane). Email:
l.nolte@
herts.ac.uk Twitter: @lizettenolte
The politics of practice and the
state we are in Jim Wilson
In response to a question about the
place of politics in family therapy at the AFT conference in 2017, Peter Rober stated that we need to look again at the political philosophy of Karl Marx (1996) to educate our approaches to practice. In the West, Marx’s revolutionary philosophy increasingly stagnated as the winds of neoliberalism blew away not only the economic analysis of capitalism that Marx proposed but also his philosophy about the social and material nature of human relationships. I was on the discussion panel with
Peter, and I swear I heard a communal gasp – a sharp intake of breath from the body of conference delegates; it was as if to talk about the political philosophy of such a radical as Karl Marx in the context of a family therapy conference was out of order. Now, maybe I imagined this – maybe
it was my own breath I was catching, but it seemed as if Peter had used a prohibited four-letter word in a church of psychotherapy. The question, to my mind, was whether our thinking and practice had become limited in its scope for critique, to a degree domesticated; and this domestication placed limits on the repertoire of possibilities within our thinking and action as systemic practitioners and therapists. Paulo Freire, the Brazilian
educationalist and radical humanist, proposed that domestication is the process through which a person accepts a circle of certainty about their life (1996, p. 21) – that is, accepting the status quo; not challenging events for fear of taking a risk; in short, “knowing one’s place” in the order of society. By extension, domesticated practices in social, educational and mental health settings are expressed in passivity and compliance and an absence of critical curiosity, whereby practitioners are subsumed
Context 164, August 2019
in processes that hamper freedom of expression in their work. To off er an alternative to the dangers
of domestication, Freire argues that its opposite is a form of freedom to experiment, to value joint exploration in the knowledge that, as human beings, we have the creative power to become more than we are right now. This capacity for exploration includes an acknowledgement that “...without being political, is a total impossibility” (1998, p. 57- 58). To paraphrase Freire, critical refl ection without action leads to passivity, and action without pertinent refl ection leads to restricted practice.
Does a relationally focused practice aim towards a
relationally focused society? Our values are revealed in our thoughts
and actions. It is a matter of becoming aware that political forces aff ect our lives, and these forces are part of the therapist’s fi eld of vision and action. The question above is an invitation to consider where each of us stands, since not to take a stand is impossible. However, we cannot impose values on another without contradicting the belief in a person’s right to disagree. Gianfranco Cecchin (1992) once said that if we become moralisers, stating how we should all live, we take on the burdensome responsibility of having to live up to the moralising stance we preach! Instead, the aim here is to promote conversation, debate and action on the politics of practice and to examine political and moral matters that have a profound eff ect on the practice of family therapy and on our lives in general.
A scene from recent practice The psychiatric nurse arrives for the
weekly family therapy team session at a community mental health service. She has rushed to be here on time. She enters
3
The politics of practice and the state we are in
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76
