How Therapy Made Me Politically Aware

But probably not in the way that you think

Before switching to philosophy, I was a psychotherapist. I was trained in body-oriented psychotherapy in London, but grew dissatisfied with it and moved to a psychoanalytic—vaguely classical Freudian—orientation. I eventually grew dissatisfied with that too, and switched to a particular, rather controversial version of psychoanalytic therapy called “communicative psychotherapy,” the brainchild of an American psychoanalyst Robert Langs. I introduced this approach to the United Kingdom, and trained therapists in how to practice it.

Here’s the story. I had read a very damning review of one of Langs’ books—a weighty tome titled The Listening Process. Not too long afterwards, I was browsing in a bookstore, where I spotted a copy of The Listening Process and picked it up, prepared to sneer at its contents. But instead, I discovered a uniquely disciplined and systematic approach to psychoanalysis. I was hooked, and walked out of the shop with this 680 page volume under my arm.

The communicative approach to psychoanalysis is predicated on the idea that we are all unconsciously tuned in to raw, emotional reality—especially when we are vulnerable to exploitation by others. This is the position of the person in the role of “patient” in the psychotherapeutic setting. Again, unconsciously, people in the role of patient rightly regard their therapist as a potential—and very often, actual—abuser. I said “very often actual” because therapists routinely live up to their patients’ worst expectations. Freud called this problem “countertransference,” but he and practically every psychoanalyst after him minimized its significance.

The fact is, there is something about occupying the role of therapist that invites a kind of grandiosity and abusiveness. Most therapists are blind to this, and are inclined to idealize themselves. But the reality of interactions in the consulting room is not lost on those seeking help.

I said that psychotherapy patients typically unconsciously experience their therapist in this way. Anyone who makes a claim about unconscious experience has got to meet an epistemic challenge: How do you know that this is occurring?

This is where, methodologically, the communicative approach comes into its own. Here’s the proposition: when people in emotionally charged situations tell stories that pop into their heads, these stories function as commentaries on the here-and-now situations that trigger them. Traditionally, such narratives are regarded as expressions of the patient’s “stuff,” but communicative psychoanalysts regard them as nuanced readings of the immediate interaction.

Why regard them in that way? It turns out that there is a regular, even law-like, relationship between what therapists say and do and the stories that their patients tell. This relationship is so robust that it is possible to predict the thematic content of these narratives.

Suppose that a therapist departs from an attitude of neutrality (which is, sadly, all too common) and starts giving advice. This sort of response is an expectable outcome: “My father is always trying to tell me how to live my life, even though he’s totally messed up his own life. I wish he would just shut the fuck up.”

Whereas most therapists would likely be pleased with this response, and perhaps ask a series of questions to tap their patient’s troubled relationship with their father, communicative therapists would see this instead as a piece of scathing feedback on their intervention, and might offer a response along the following lines: “A little while ago, I gave you some advice, and right afterwards you spoke of how your father tries to control you. I’m thinking that when I spoke, it felt like I was trying to control you, just like your father, and that I’m not in a position to tell you how to live. I think that you like me to keep quiet and listen to you rather than trying to steer you one way or another.”

In other words, the therapist has got to take it on the chin. She’s got to acknowledge that her patient experienced her as abusive, and refrain from such behavior in the future. A typical response to an intervention like this would begin with, “Oh no, what you said was absolutely right. You really understand me!” That’s the conscious response, which is shallow and idealizing. Communicative therapists don’t put much stock in that sort of discourse. Instead, they wait for the first narrative following the intervention—the first story that pops into the patient’s head that’s manifestly, but only manifestly, unrelated to the intervention. In this example, I would expect something like the following: “My friend Kate is my best friend. When she imposes on me, she always apologizes. That’s why I trust her and feel safe with her.”

Mostly, though, one does not hear stories like that, for the simple reason that the vast majority of therapists do not acknowledge their patients’ under-the-radar messages and are emotionally unprepared to recognize their own disturbing and destructive inputs

Although I have not done this sort of work in decades, I still vividly remember a prominent existential therapist admitting to me that she could not work in this way because it is “too hard.” She didn’t mean by this that it’s too complicated. She meant that it would be too emotionally trying for her to own up to her patients’ perceptions of her behavior, to call herself into question, to put herself on the line.

Working for years as a communicative therapist taught me that, despite my best intentions, I can be an oppressor. It taught me to own up, to acknowledge my oppressive behavior and to do better. It taught me how blind we can be to our complicity with injustice, and how we need help to open our eyes to this. It taught me how easy it is to gaslight others when in a position of power and authority, and how tenaciously we are inclined to cling to that power and authority. It taught me about our extraordinary appetite for hypocrisy and how difficult it can be to challenge corrupt, self-serving biases that preserve and enhance our privilege and others’ expense.

I severed my ties with the psychotherapy world around twenty-five years ago, but these have been hugely valuable lessons that I have carried forward in my post-psychotherapeutic career—including my work on dehumanization and fascism— and and that I have incorporated into my outlook on the world as best I can.