The significant battle being waged in contemporary psychotherapy is not between theoretical orientations but between different worldviews. One perspective assumes that therapy can measure, apprehend and even control human experience; the other recognizes that therapy is insufficient in explaining it and that it is ethically unsound to attempt to control it. The first is often complicit with the current master narrative of neoliberalism. By affirming the essential unknowability of being-in-the-world, the second is open to the possibility of the new and the creation of a life-affirming counter-narrative. Recent developments in person-centered therapy have seemingly aligned it with the first rather than the second worldview. Examples of this are: a) PCT's often uncritical acceptance of dominant views in science; b) PCT's associations with modalities such as positive psychology and acceptance of the DSM; c) an uncommitted stance on politics. Has Person-Centred Therapy (PCT) undergone a conservative turn? If so, what is the way out of the current impasse? How can we reinstate PCT as a radical practice and philosophy at the forefront of contemporary psychotherapy and cultural discourse?
Book:
Therapy and the Counter-tradition: The Edge of Philosophy (co-edited with Julie Webb) – Manu Bazzano & Julie Webb - (April, 2016)
For more information about the book, go to www.routledge.com or www.amazon.co.uk.
Course Content
Presenter
Manu Bazzano is a psychotherapist, supervisor and internationally recognized lecturer and facilitator. Among his books: After Mindfulness, Zen and Therapy, Re-visioning Person-centred Therapy, Buddha is Dead, Re-visioning Existential Therapy, Nietzsche and Therapy.
