Taking seriously the challenge to interrogate what our therapeutic practices are producing and reproducing, Contratherapy seeks to critically examine many of the basic modes of psychotherapy theory and practice, exploring how many of these modes both emerge from and actively reproduce oppressive social orders and the ways of thinking/feeling/being enmeshed with them. Taking a constructive abolitionist stance, it then seeks to propose other possible ways of thinking about and doing the work of 'therapy'.
Drawing on (among others) liberation psychology, anti-colonial theory, poststructuralist philosophies, anti-psychiatry, mad liberation, and 'radical' Black/Caribbean thought, Contratherapy seeks to unveil and unsettle many of the oppressive forces running through psychotherapy which (re)produce us as docile, fixed, and subjugated subjects - towards the aim of bringing about otherwise 'psychotherapies', otherwise persons, and otherwise worlds.
The event will consist of presentation of some of the broad strokes and major ideas of Contratherapy, followed by a mutualized open discussion in which we might begin to think - and further build - it together.
Learning Objective Participants Can Expect From This Event
- Critical examination of what much of the therapeutic industry and discourse reproduce in ourselves, our societies, and the world.
- A shift in thinking about "therapy" introduced through several conceptual frameworks, drawn from the many approaches outlined above.
- Otherwise modes of thinking and practice which might better foster revolutionary subjectivities.
Who is This Workshop Appropriate For?
- Anyone; 'mental health' workers, service users, activists, etc. The tone will be slightly academic but welcoming of all perspectives.
How May This Workshop Impact Your Practice?
- It aims to bring about a significant shift in the way we view what it means to do "therapeutic" practice - towards something hopefully more mutually liberatory.
Course Content
Organisation
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Presenter
Jon is (currently) a doctoral candidate in psychotherapy at the University of Edinburgh. He is the creator and lead organizer of Liberate Mental Health, an international community and event space dedicated to fostering critical and liberatory discourse in the mental health sector. Contratherapy (as it is currently named) is the work of his thesis, which is very much a work in progress.
The Therapy and Social Change (TaSC) Network is a broad affiliation of people interested in exploring the interface between therapeutic ideas and practices and social justice perspectives and actions. We are interested both in the ways that counselling and psychotherapy can be practiced with social justice concerns in mind (for instance, tackling unconscious biases in the consulting room), and also in the ways that therapeutic principles and practices can be extended out to the wider social realm (for instance, developing social and emotional literacy in schools).
