Critical Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis and Counselling Implications for Practice

There is increasing concern about the growing state influences on the talking therapies. Critical Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis and Counselling: Implications for Practice is a response to that concern. It is the first book to assess the use of the word 'critical' as a prefix for psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and counselling. It also contributes to an understanding of such issues as capital governance, power and social inequalities, and their influence on the provision of the talking therapies in our neoliberal society.

In this groundbreaking book, authors from Europe and North America are brought together to offer a background to critical movements in the mental health fields and to consider what psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and counselling can learn from them. The chapters look at what 'critical' means in terms of both theory and practice, from perspectives such as queer theory, feminism, Marxism and users of talking therapies, and explore implications for training and education in the talking therapies. This book will be of interest to practitioners and students in psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, counselling and counselling psychology as it is not only a welcome exploration of the way in which the state influences the talking therapies, but it also encourages critical thinking about both theory and practice.

Del Loewenthal is Professor of Psychotherapy and Counselling and Director of the Research Centre for Therapeutic Education at the University of Roehampton, UK, where he also convenes Doctoral programmes. As well as an analytic psychotherapist and chartered psychologist, he is chair of the Universities Psychotherapy and Counselling Association and former founding chair of the UK Council for Psychotherapy Research committee. He has small private practices in Wimbledon and Brighton, and is founding editor of the European Journal of Psychotherapy and Counselling.

Authors' Biographies, Abstracts and Critiques
PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Talking Therapies, Culture, the State and Neo-liberalism: Is There a Need for Critical Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis and Counselling?; Del Loewenthal
PART II: WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM CRITICAL PSYCHIATRY AND CRITICAL PSYCHOLOGY?
2. The Medical Model: What Is It, Where Did It Come from and How Long Has It Got?; Hugh Middleton
3. Toward Critical Psychotherapy and Counselling: What Can We Learn from Critical Psychology (and Political Economy)?; Ian Parker
4. The Neurobiological Turn in Therapeutic Treatment: Salvation or Devastation?; Kenneth J. Gergen
PART III: USERS' PERSPECTIVES
5. Personal Versus Medical Meanings in Breakdown, Treatment and Recovery from 'Schizophrenia'; Tom Cotton and Del Loewenthal
PART IV: CRITIQUES COMING MORE FROM OUTSIDE
6. Critical Theory and Psychotherapy; Anastasios Gaitanidis
7. When Love Is Not All We Want: Queers, Singles and the Therapeutic Cult of Relationality; Mari Ruti and Adrian Cocking
8. Relating to People as revolutionaries; Lois Holzman
9. Work in Contemporary Capitalism; Michael Rustin
PART V: CRITIQUES COMING MORE FROM INSIDE
10. Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Therapy (but Were Afraid to Ask): Fragments of a Critical Psychotherapy; Andrew Samuels
11. Critical Priorities for the Psychotherapy and Counselling Community; Colin Feltham
12. The Deleuzian Project; Chris Oakley
13. Psychoanalysis and the Event of Resistance; Steven Groarke
14. Psychology, Psychotherapy – Coming to Our Senses?; Paul Moloney
PART VI: CRITIQUES OF TRAINING AND LEARNING
15. Contesting the Curriculum: Counsellor Education in a Postmodern and Medicalising Era; Tom Strong, Karen H. Ross, Konstantinos Chondros and Monica Sesma-Vazquez
16. Systemic Means to Subversive Ends: Maintaining the Therapeutic Space as a Unique Encounter; Jay Watts
PART VII: IS THERE AN UNFORTUNATE NEED FOR CRITICAL PSYCHOTHERAPY, PSCYHOANALYSIS AND COUNSELLING?
17. Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis and Counselling for Oppressors and Oppressed: Sex, Violence and Ideology in Practice?; Del Loewenthal