Therapy’s real flaw is privatizing systemic problems as individual self-work
Evidence
The problem with what I would like to call here the therapeutic imaginary is not that it posits subjects as vulnerable, haunted by events in their past lives, and lacking in confidence. Most subjects in capitalism — including those in the ruling class — fit that description. The problem with the therapeutic imaginary — and this is a problem that goes back to Freud and the origins of psychoanalysis — is its claim that these issues can be solved by the individual subject working on himor herself, with only the therapist to assist them. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1923
Categorization
- XREF: Fisher’s ‘therapeutic imaginary’ critique resonates with the privatized, self-responsibilizing ethos the Frankfurt School analyzed and with Lauren Berlant’s cruel optimism; also echoes the systemic-vs-personal distinction in Loïc Wacquant. — connects to: Capitalism couples harsh self-blame with a therapeutic myth that individuals can fix everything — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1887; Therapy’s supposed interior self is an ideological fiction masking social origins — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1945; Stress has been privatized, reframing systemic dysfunction as individual illness — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 42 (+10 more)
Broader Connections
- Therapeutic self-naming privatises suffering and prevents collective solidarity.
#expands(0.92) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1372 - Therapy’s supposed interior self is an ideological fiction masking social origins
#expands(0.90) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1945 - Only collective practice, not individual therapy, can address socially-caused distress
#expands(0.90) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1947 - Neoliberal policy privatised stress into individual mental illness
#expands(0.88) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1601 - Therapy’s self-help ethos tacitly endorses Thatcher’s individualist politics
#expands(0.88) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1501 - Therapeutic self-awareness has been stripped of its collectivising political potential
#expands(0.88) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1372 - Stress has been privatized, reframing systemic dysfunction as individual illness
#expands(0.85) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 42 - Depression results when meritocratic self-blame meets limited opportunity
#exemplifies(0.85) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1605 - Officials privatized social problems by tracing them all to family and self-esteem
#expands(0.85) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 412 - Isolated clients internalize personal blame for a structural position.
#exemplifies(0.85) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 858 - True therapy must cultivate consciousness of unhappiness, not adaptation
#qualifies(0.78) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 76 - Therapeutic self-transformation fails because no autonomous individual exists
#qualifies(0.75)