Is politics relevant to the work that counsellors and psychotherapists do? Is it something, for instance, that we should be encouraged to reflect on and talk about in our training, or should we try and leave it outside of our professional field?
My personal view is that politics is—and should be—absolutely integral to the work that we do: that it is something that we, as counsellors and psychotherapists, should be talking much more about.
Of course, this is not to suggest that we should be badgering our clients to vote in a particular way, or directing them to read Marx’s Das Capital if they dare to utter politically incorrect views. Rather, it’s about counsellors and psychotherapists actively developing an understanding of political processes; and being able—and willing—to talk to each other about politics in the same way that we might talk about psychological, developmental, or practice-based issues.
Politics Impacts on Wellbeing
Why? First, because politics matter to the life of our clients. We know, from the evidence, that certain political, economic, and social factors have a profound impact on the wellbeing of the people we work with. Research shows, for instance, that socio-political factors such as financial hardship, unemployment, discrimination, war, and a lack of democratic freedom—as well as economic inequality—can all have a profound impact on people’s psychological health. That’s not to say that these are the only factors: early life experiences, biological factors, and levels of interpersonal relatedness, for instance, can have a powerful impact too. But just as we wouldn’t say, ‘I don’t really want to think about—or learn about—the impact that adverse childhood experiences can have on my clients’; so, I believe, we shouldn’t be ignoring the impact that social and political factors can have.
An awareness of these factors can help us, and our clients, in three ways? First, as with any theory (like conditions of worth, attachment theory, or the stages of grief), understanding how our clients have come to experience the problems they do can deepen our levels of empathic engagement. Mei, for instance, is a client I’ve written about in my recent book Integrating counselling and psychotherapy (Sage, 2019), who had lasting scars from the racist teasing she experienced at school (details of the client have been disguised to protect anonymity). ‘It wasn’t the worst when the kids had a go at me,’ said Mei, mid-way through our fourth session, ‘It was when the teacher joined in.’ Understanding that racism can have a devastating impact on people’s mental health allowed me to really sit with the painfulness and shame that Mei described, and to validate her in her experiencing. ‘Yes, racism is really awful’; ‘Yes, it can make you feel utterly worthless and humiliated and alone’; ‘Yes, Mei, I can really understand the rage you still feel now’. Of course, without knowing much about racism, I might have still empathised with Mei’s feelings of humiliation, isolation, or rage as she described them. But this theoretical knowledge opened me up to—and deepened my appreciation of—what she had been going through; just as understanding the impact of early neglect, or of drug withdrawal, can help us appreciate clients’ experiences here.
Second, if we know what is causing a client’s psychological distress, we can help them think about how to address it most effectively. Mei, for instance, felt really bad about herself a lot of the time. If we know that that might be linked to the racism she experienced, and continues to experience, we can work with her to ask questions, like ‘Was it really my fault that I felt so shaky at school?’ and, ‘How might I challenge people who are still racist to me?’ By contrast, if we ignore social and political factors, we can end up attributing clients’ psychological distress to the wrong sources. ‘Mei, I wonder if your shakiness at school was about your difficult relationship to your mother?’ Maybe it was but, NO, maybe it wasn’t at all. And maybe working with Mei on issues about her mother will never help her address her low self-esteem because what it’s really about is the raw, brute, ugly racism that Mei experienced as a young child, and continues to experience in her world around her.
Third, if we know our clients’ psychological difficulties are linked to their socio-political contexts, then we can take steps, outside of the counselling room, to try and improve things for them—for all of us. So that means political action: for instance, campaigning against discrimination, poverty, or the looming environmental catastrophe. Surely, if we care about our clients, if we genuinely want to see the best for them, we should be involved here? Otherwise, we are a bit like a GP who stands silently by as a speeding truck comes careering towards their patient. Yes, it’s not the GP’s responsibility to shout anything out, they’re not obliged to do so, and certainly it would be directive. But, aren’t they going to do something? Are they really going to stand by and see someone they care for destroyed?
Counselling and Psychotherapy as a (Progressive) Politic
As counsellors and psychotherapists, I do not believe our role is as detached, indifferent professionals. I do not believe our work is just about ‘doing a job’, like selling cigarettes on a market stall or making profits on stocks and shares.
Let me put this a different way: for me, practising therapy is part of a wider, more encompassing ‘direction’. What is that direction? It is something about trying to help develop a more compassionate world: trying to create a society in which people are happier, more equitable, more able to get on with each other. I’ve described this as an ethos of ‘Welcoming the Other’: where we can be ourselves, but also open and responsive and caring to those around us. And, for me, counselling and psychotherapy are of value to the extent that they contribute to that. That, as a therapist, I’m extending care towards my clients; and I’m also working in a caring relatedness with them; and I’m helping my clients to develop more caring, compassionate relationships towards themselves (and, ideally, with others).
I guess, I know that my work is part of that wider direction because if you took all that away—if, for instance, I knew that my counselling work was going to make people more miserable, or contribute towards a more selfish and inequitable society—I wouldn’t want to do it. Because it wouldn’t give me what I’m really in it for. And, I suspect, the same would be true for many others in this field.
For me, there’s one political view that is very closely aligned to this wider direction—perhaps is the direction, per se—and that’s a progressive political outlook. Progressive means wanting to see society reorganised so that everyone has the chance to live better, ‘larger’ lives. It means trying to create more equality in what people have access to, challenging discrimination and oppression, celebrating diversity, and freeing people up to actualise their potential to its fullest extent. Carl Rogers’s work, for me, is a brilliant exposition of this progressive viewpoint, and that’s why I love it so much: because it’s exactly what I think can help create a more thriving, satisfying, equitable society. And, again, I think that’s why many other people love Rogers too. Not just because of the clinical method, or the theory of change, but because it accords with their most deeply held values and directions: about supporting human freedom, relatedness, care.
The other side of this coin is to say that, for me, a conservative politic—particularly of the sort advocated by Boris Johnson or those to the right of him—is not compatible with what counselling and psychotherapy is about. Why is that? Because it is so strongly about individualism, about competition, about looking after ourselves and protecting what we have. I guess you might say that that is aligned with some forms of therapy—for instance, a very individualistic ‘me-first’ assertiveness—but that’s not the kind of therapy I’d want to be aligned with in any way. And when you move towards the xenophobia and outright racism of the further Right, I just can’t see that aligned, in any way, to the kind of caring, empathic compassion that underpins our work. Can you be avowedly racist, homophobic, or anti-Semitic and a therapist? No, I don’t think so, because non-judgemental acceptance to all clients is an essential competency for our work.
All this is a way of saying that, for me, counselling is a politic: it’s about how we can, and should, organise ourselves together as societies and as communities. And I see it as a profoundly progressive politic: aligned to a worldview that is deeply respectful of otherness, celebrates diversity, and tries to give everyone a fair chance.
Politics Determines Resources
The third reason, for me, why politics and therapy are so integrally related is one I won’t say too much about, as it’s already so widely discussed. And that’s the fact that the resourcing—and provision—of counselling and psychotherapy is so dependent on political decision-making. More money to the NHS, and more money to schools, means that more people can access more counselling and psychotherapy more of the time. Whatever party manifestos say, the bottom line for me is that progressive parties will always be more supportive of public resourcing for such services, and right wing parties more interested in relegating provision to the private sector alone.
What Therapists Offer
Finally, there’s the other side of the coin: what counsellors and psychotherapists can contribute to the political realm. We are experts in relating, in developing compassionate, empathic ways of being with others. We are trained in how to listen, how to understand people, and also how to help them bring out their best. And there is so much we could contribute to the political realm by helping others develop their practices in these areas.
Last night I watched the brilliant and heart-wrenching Ulysses’ Gaze, by the Greek filmmaker Theodoros Angelopoulos. It’s about the fragmentation of the Balkans, the wars and the killing, the devastation of communities and of people’s lives. And so, so much of it seems to come down to the inability of people to talk to each other, to listen and to understand. To see the suffering of others and to work together, across communities, for the betterment of all.
People need to be able to talk together. And, as counsellors and psychotherapists, we have learnt so much about how to do that. So are we just going to keep that locked away in our consulting rooms, or can we find ways of spreading that learning around? Joining a school’s governing board, for instance, or becoming a local councillor, are ways that we can take this learning we all so passionately love and believe in and contribute it to our wider worlds.
Vote to Keep the Tories Out
In a recent Facebook post, I appealed, ‘to all counsellors and psychotherapists at this election time to vote for progressive parties (Labour, Lib Dems, Greens, Scottish and Welsh nationalists), and to keep the Conservatives out of power.’ Maybe it’s directive to say that, but I just feel so incredibly passionate about the importance of making political choices at the present time. As counsellors and psychotherapists, we can’t just stand by the sidelines and pretend none of this matters to us: trying to be ‘neutral’ just means endorsing the status quo. It’s our clients’ lives, let alone our own, that will be massively impacted upon by what happens at this general election. Five more years of Tories will almost certainly mean cuts to the NHS; a more unequal society; and, worst of all, a failure to address the most critical issue of our time, the climate emergency. I believe we need to act and that, as counsellors and psychotherapists, we need to be involved: to work with other progressive forces to create a society that is fairer, safer, and better for all.
Resources
If you are interested in the links between politics and counselling and psychotherapy, you may be interested in joining the group Psychotherapists & Counsellors for Social Responsibility, which aims ‘to locate counselling and psychotherapy in a social, political, ecological, and economic context.’ For books, Nick Totton’s Psychotherapy and Politics provides a good overview of the involvement of therapists in the political field. My latest book, Integrating counselling and psychotherapy: Directionality, synergy, and social change strives to develop a framework for therapists that can integrate social and political factors as well as psychological ones.