Psychotherapy, Ethics, and Society

Psychotherapists endeavour to be non-judgemental, but ethical issues are the stuff of psychotherapy and practitioners are daily faced with patients who, for all their recrimination against others, are constantly reproaching themselves. Psychotherapists are no more qualified to pass judgement on people than anyone else, but they have to respond to this as best they can. Does the experience teach us anything about ethics? Can psychodynamic psychology, the psychology that derives from psychotherapeutic practice, help us, in particular, to understand an ethical puzzle that troubles us at the moment: that of movements who do evil in the name of moral or religious cleansing and regeneration? Can we learn anything from the psychology as to how we might prevent, or at least, contain their barbarism? Can the practice of psychotherapy offer us any insights into a different, more inclusive kind of ethics; and, if so, can we glean any guidance from it as to measures we might take to further it? These are the questions the book explores, drawing on psychoanalytic thinking on these issues for over a century and illustrated by the author’s work with individuals over the past three decades.