European Journal of Psychotherapy and CounsellingVol. 13, No. 2, June 2011, 93–96

EDITORIAL

Could the psychological therapies ever enable, rather than prevent, a cultural

revolution sweeping away entrenched managerialist, European Regimes?

At the time of writing, political commentators are comparing the potentialchange in some Arab nations, in which people are seeking freedom fromoppression, as having such parallels as the falling of the Berlin Wall. Yet isanother type of revolution necessary to get much of the western world out ofits current depressed state? And if this diagnosis has some truth to it, couldthe psychological therapies assist as an agent of change rather than patchingup individuals whose wretchedness may unnecessarily be brought about by theenforced, albeit democratic, environment in which we are in our world withothers?

At one level, in countries such as the UK, most, though not all, of theirpeople are starting to experience a reduction in their living standards. Thisincludes increasingly anxiety over their job security as a result of, according tothe governor of the Bank of England, amongst others, ‘having to bail out thebankers’, most of whom seem to be doing more than OK. It would appear thatan increasing number of people are depressed by their prospects over the nextfew years.

But of course, propping up the banking system is just the icing on theculturally depressing cake. Take for example our system of a population based,medio-economic approach to mental health, which has led to the technolisationof the psychological therapies. Now, the ever increasing number of people whorequire therapy can be catered for by technicians, whose own mental healthcould be threatened through their work. One outcome of this is that it wouldappear that the coalition government in the UK may now not extend statecontrol through the Health Profession’s Council of psychological therapy thatalready exists in psychology and arts and play therapies, to counselling/psychoanalysis/psychotherapy. However by now, the various professionalbodies have been considerably weakened and most are desperately attemptingto play the deadening, managerialist, evidence-based game in the hope ofsurvival though with the more likely effect of a continued, decreasing culturalinfluence. Such a managerialist culture has repressed our society in a verydifferent way to that reported to be prevalent in parts of the Arab world.So, whilst there is much to treasure in our notions of democratic freedom,

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� 2011 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/13642537.2011.572445

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perhaps there is a need for another type of revolution, to break out and free usmore from our alienation, so we might be able to come more to our senses andhave even more democracy.

Consequently, if there is any truth to this analysis, what might be a way ofour world being more alive and what contribution if any have the psychologicaltherapies to make to this? In the UK, our Prime Minister David Cameron talksof the Big Society. Some are sceptical and see this as a further managerialistideology in order to ensure that those relatively and increasingly disadvantagedare compliant. Yet in order for such ideas to have any credence, they have tohave some relevance and perhaps the big idea, potentially, of the Big Society,is that psychological therapists need to consider working more on a communitysocietal basis so a more facilitative and preventative environment can evolve.This may require a radical rethink of the various competing theories in thepsychological therapies, which are being increasingly demoralised, not just bythe rise of manuals that are meant to be based on them, but by the growingattack of the theories themselves from a very different source, namely fromcritiques drawing on thinkers such as Wittgenstein which question whethersuch theoretical goings on have any relevance (see Heaton (2010) and laterin this editorial and issue).

If our theories are increasingly discredited and attempts at being scientificare at best inappropriate, what are we to do as psychological therapists toinfluence our society/communities for the good? One way might be to attemptto try and stay with practice. There is an increasing literature on whetherwe can have practices such as ours without foundations (Loewenthal, 2011).The psychological is not narrowly confined to any one aspect of humanexperience; it is quite literally ‘everywhere’ (Brown & Stenner, 2009). But inorder to really influence the dominant culture, we need a revolution so we arenot dominated by such maligned notions of science as evidence based practice,complete with the frequent inappropriate use of randomised control trials.It appears that so much that is claimed to be science is at best technology,not that we should throw out technology as technology – indeed, it wouldappear that those previously in control in North Africa and the Gulf stateshad not yet realised the potential of tools such as Facebook and Twitterfor regalvanising the human spirit. Perhaps, one clue as to what else might beneeded was provided for me in a recent meta-analysis I was involved inresearch into the effectiveness of creative therapies, which, notwithstandingmethodological limitations, seemed to indicate that what worked for mostpeople was when they experienced their therapy as being creative and they wereable to share this in a group (Stamp, Stevenson, & Loewenthal, 2009).

So our revolution may be a return to privileging and enriching ourselvesthrough the arts and literature, which could include the creative and sometimesplayful potential of therapeutic conversations. An example of an interestingresponse to our current dilemmas is provided in a forthcoming book,which reminds us of psychoanalysis’s roots in Romanticism and howRomanticism was a reaction to the Enlightenment (Snell, forthcoming),which in its worst forms gives us some of the current approaches topsychotherapeutic research. So perhaps the Romantics can give us an example

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of some of the ways forward? Unfortunately at the time of writing, there is

nothing to stop another banking crisis, or the response to it of printing money

which leads to inflation and which has previously heralded changes in Europe,

which led to even far greater violence. There is also massive changes in North

Africa and the Gulf states which however they turn out will lead to further

instability (e.g. through the price of oil). All this uncertainty could lead to the

development of a far more dehumanised culture where anxieties lead to a fear

of freedom (Fromm, 2001). But hopefully, there is just a chance that just as fear

changed to collective anger in parts of North Africa, so alienated destabilisa-

tion may just give way to us seriously considering far more how we might heal

our communities. If the psychological therapies had to pay their part in this, we

will need to think very differently.With regards to this issue of the EJPC, we start with an important article

by Jeremy Holmes ‘Attachment in the Consulting Room: Towards a Theory of

Therapeutic Change’. This article, written from the perspective of attachment

based psychotherapy, includes many valuable summaries of ideas that inform

both attachment in therapy, and other forms of therapy even when not

influenced by attachment theory. This article was originally given at a

Universities Psychotherapy and Counselling Association conference,

‘Are Therapists too attracted to theory? – A multi-modality perspective’

(Nov, 2010).A second interesting and informative article was provided through this

conferenceby Morris Nitsun, ‘Uses and abuses of theory: A group analytic

perspective’ illustrates the necessity of theoretical concepts in order to grasp

what might be occurring within groups. In turn, the articles present some of the

problems about theory and its link to practice, focusing particularly on the

ambivalence about groups that may be seen as a continuing concern.The third article ‘From economic theory to economic policy, and from there to

reality: a psychoanalytic excursion’ by Anca Carrington, describes the author’s

intellectual journey, from the experience first as an academic economist, then to

becoming a policy maker in Her Majesty’s Treasury in the UK where economic

models were being applied, and later to leaving this field and becoming a

psychotherapist. The article has an original and potentially important theme –

the psychoanalytic critique of economics as a defensive project, as driven by

a need for omniscience.The fourth article by Lorentzen et al., ‘Sources of Influence on the

professional Development of Psychologists and Psychiatrists in Norway and

Germany’ in exploring something professional psychotherapists and psy-

chotherapy profession in Norway and Germany, conclude that although

therapist training and development experiences may have a significantly

different impact between the professions of psychiatry and psychology,

therapist qualities are seen as paramount in their influence on therapeutic

processes and outcomes.The fifth article by Michael Rustin, ‘In Defense of Infant Observational

Research’ returns us to the subject of this editorial, in terms of questioning

where we are coming from in determining what is good research. In the context

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of child psychotherapy, this important debate was sparked off by a previousarticle in the EJPC and is now influencing a much wider debate.

I do hope that these challenging articles, together with the books reviewsin this issue will help our practices and our culture move away from thedangers of an audit culture (of consumer relations to one where there is anincreasing space for human relations).

Del Loewenthald.loewenthal@roehampton.ac.uk

References

Brown, S., & Stenner, P. (2009). Psychology without foundations: History, philosophy andpsychological theory. London: Sage.

Fromm, E. (2001). The fear of freedom. London: Routledge.

Heaton, J. (2010). The Talking cure. London: Palgrave Macmillan.King, L., & Moutsou, C. (eds). (in press) Rethinking audit cultures: A critical look

at evidence-based practice in psychotherapy and beyond. Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books.

Loewenthal, D. (2011). Post-existentialism and the psychological therapies: Beyond atherapy without foundations. London: Karnac.

Stamp, R., Stephenson, S., & Loewenthal, D. (2009). The evidence base in support ofhumanistic and integrative psychotherapies. London: UKCP.

Snell, R. (forthcoming) The analytic attitude. London: Routledge.

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