Therapy and Politics

Abstract

In this chapter, I return to matters of psychotherapy, to come full circle and institute the dual directedness between activism and psychotherapy. The previous episode of recruitment for the mutual acknowledgement project and the destructive character of exclusion and secretiveness throw a somewhat uneasy light on the very setting of analytic psychotherapy — a setting to which compartmentalization and confidentiality are key. I have no hard and fast opinions on this issue, and in my work as a therapist I try to cope with them in various ways — some of them quite radical from the point of view of regular analytic practices. In this chapter, I translate the questions that I faced when I encountered the offended responses of some of my fellow Psychoactive members into the psychoanalytic context. My point is that the foundation of all analytic psychotherapy, including its inter-subjective versions, is constituted by the asymmetry that sharply distinguishes and separates between therapist and patient. While the latter is intended to be as exposed as possible, to be sincere and transparent, the former must remain relatively anonymous, almost concealed, or concealed in principle. This is certainly the case for the initial stages of the therapy, but also to some extent during the resolution of the transference (Hadar, 2001).