Psychotherapy’s self-mastery doctrine echoes Thatcher’s denial of society

Evidence

Psychiatry’s pharmacological regime has been central to the privatisation of stress, but it is important that we don’t overlook the perhaps even more insidious role that the ostensibly more holistic practices of psychotherapy have also played in depoliticising distress. 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 (a kind of psychoanalysis-lite) with the self-help doctrine that individuals can become masters of their own destiny. Smail gives the immensely suggestive name magical voluntarism to the view that “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”. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1501

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces and names ‘magical voluntarism’ — the therapy doctrine that the individual is responsible for changing the world that distresses them.
• SEED: The claim that CBT and ‘wellness’ culture are the psychological wing of Thatcherism could anchor an essay on the depoliticisation of distress.
• XREF: connects to: Cognitive-behavioural therapy echoes Thatcher’s denial of society — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1604; Emancipation from society weakens rather than empowers the individual — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 169; Mainstream therapy shares Thatcherism’s denial that social conditions shape distress — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1604 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Cognitive-behavioural therapy echoes Thatcher’s denial of society #corroborates (0.98) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1604
• Emancipation from society weakens rather than empowers the individual #expands (0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 169