Pre-order a copy of a recent book I co-edited on practicing gestalt from a queer-positive position

A psychotherapy for political and ecological responsibility

Politics might seem at some distance from what immediately brings you to therapy. The reason I give it a prominent place on my website is to counter the individualistic tendency within our culture whereby mental ill-health is seen as a property of the individual, and its causes are seen to reside uniquely in personal circumstance, family history etc. At worst, these narratives paint the individual as being responsible for their mental health - including aspects over which we have no control - our race, sexuality, gender, class, etc. I believe this can dangerously obscure power differences within our societies.

I find it helpful to hold in mind that all experience is social in nature before it becomes personalised. To give an example, where I hold shame and believe that something is wrong with me, this belief always originates in situations where some aspect of my identity was shunned, or at least not supported. The currents that shape the ‘personal fields’ that we grow up in are in turn shaped by social forces that specify whom and what is most esteemed by our cultures. For example, in my historical family an imperative towards upwards mobility meant that experience of failing was not supported.

A lot of what we do in therapy is to work with difference and to explore what it means to live in a world where none of us have it easy and where it can feel as if there is constant competition to be heard. Whilst the primary focus of our work together will always be on you and on your experience, the exercise of situating experience within its wider context is a first step towards acknowledging those parts of ourselves that may have been disowned or damaged by these forces.

In some tribal societies when a person is troubled, the whole community gathers round, recognising that this person’s suffering holds something that is important for the whole tribe. In the modern world, this is the kind of ethos that we can be aspiring to. We could pay much more attention to individual suffering because of what it holds for the collective.

I operate a sliding fee scale that allows me to offer support to populations that are otherwise unable to access psychotherapy. If you can afford nearer the full fee … what if you were to see this as a way of ‘paying it forwards’? For me, a good indication of when therapy is finished, is when the energy we invest in our own struggles has diminished, leaving us with more capacity to see the struggles of others. This is not a requirement; it’s a possibility!