Cognitive-behavioural therapy echoes Thatcher’s denial of society
Evidence
The radical therapist David Smail argues that Margaret Thatcher’s view that there’s no such thing as society, only individuals and their families, finds “an unacknowledged echo in almost all approaches to therapy”. Therapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy combine a focus on early life with the self-help doctrine that individuals can become masters of their own destiny. The idea is “with the expert help of your therapist or counsellor, you can change the world you are in the last analysis responsible for, so that it no longer cause you distress” — Smail calls this view “magical voluntarism”. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1604
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: The ‘magical voluntarism’ coinage uniting CBT, self-help, and Thatcherism is a genuinely dense paradigm linkage.
- DEFINE: ‘Magical voluntarism’ is the chapter’s key term and a reusable analytic concept.
- XREF: connects to: Psychotherapy’s self-mastery doctrine echoes Thatcher’s denial of society — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1501; Neoliberal policy privatised stress into individual mental illness — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1601; Biologizing mental illness conveniently depoliticizes its social causes — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 82 (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- Biologizing mental illness conveniently depoliticizes its social causes
#corroborates(0.75) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 82 - Adorno feared de-economised sociology collapsing into psychology in disguise
#corroborates(0.72) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1110 - Neoliberal policy privatised stress into individual mental illness
#corroborates(0.70) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1601 - Therapeutic knowledge has become the humiliation of others by privilege
#qualifies(0.70)