Being a graduate from 3 years of studying psych and with an active experience of mental illness, I can say that no amount of studying theory and doing therapy+ taking meds for years helped me realize the root of my problems and my worth as a human. more than Marxist analysis. I live to be a part of the revolution, and as long as psychotherapy reinforces the client to believe in themselves and to accept the realities of it is what it is, it will never achieve its job of liberating the person. There is a need for psychology to gain a Marxist perspective, more so from modern day leftists in the mental health field.
@ThatMagickBastard
The talking cure is amazing when you and your therapist work well together, but the root of so much mental illness is capitalism that psych practitioners can only do so much. They basically just medicate/train you to function in this hell. That’s not really mental health
I find this take problematic. Therapy suffers from capitalism obviously, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely useless or just a tool to subjectivate you. I think what youre saying is true, but incomplete. Therapy absolutely helps me be a better communicator and organizer, and always supported my activism. Granted i was lucky to find a good one. I’ve learned mental/emotional tools now that help me more than i can say.
I resent this aspect of capitalism as deeply as anyone. My fear about your take is it could dissuade people from getting help who really need some in the meantime, even with things as they are. It’s a bit too doomer for my taste, maybe.
Also, DBT is literally dialectics. That’s like…our whole thing. As a modality it even de-emphasizes the expert/patient relationship. I see it as a potential line of flight out of commodity therapy, personally.
@ThatMagickBastard
I said therapy is great if you can find a practitioner you work well with. But DBT. It’s not even a dialectic, or at least not on any but the most simplistic level.
…and i agreed i was lucky to have a good one. Im confused by your statement, tho. DBT is a dialectical approach, not a contradiciton in itself. What? Pessimism v optimism is a mental health dialectic.
My point in the first place was a dialectic thought antithetical to yours. Not an argument, so we can chill. You basically said therapy here isn’t therapy its subjectivication, and i said sometimes therapy is good. Thats a dialectic contradiction. Synthesis? Idk revolution in healthcare.
You’ll have a significantly harder time tearing down this hell to build something new if you can’t function in this hell. To that end, therapy has its uses.