This article was rejected from the 2015 Autumn/Winter issue of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Psychotherapy Faculty Newsletter
Systemic and group therapists in particular, and all psychotherapists in general, have an understanding of human relations and dynamics which can complement that of Historians, Anthropologists, Sociologists, etc in the study of our culture.
In therapeutic communities we both try to understand the collective and make experiments to lead the development of the group towards a positive culture, some times more successfully than others.
The Western world as a whole has attempted a series of experiments trying to overcome the shortcomings of the old regime. The French and Industrial revolutions can be marked as the starting point of this process of change, which we must understand and influence in the search of a positive culture that makes life better for the maximum number of people.
Since the XVIII century we have seen a huge proportion of the population being politically enfranchised and the spread of democracy, also the abolition of slavery, the liberation of women, the consolidation of group identities in the nation-states and the liberalization of the economy.
However, most of these changes have occurred through confrontation and even hate. The political enfranchisement of the bourgeoisie and the workers was made against the aristocracy and the church, the abolition of slavery in the U.S.A was a weapon against the confederate states and it was made possible by resorting to fossil fuels that pollute our environment, the liberation of women came through a fight against the patriarchy and the resulting problem of child rearing has still not been solved, nationalisms tend to define other nations as enemies and are hampering the attempts to use supranational approaches to address global problems (pollution, deforestation, climate change, overpopulation, famine, migration, terrorism, etc) and the liberalization of the economy is still being fought over.
In historical terms, all these changes, however attractive some of them might seem, can´t be seen as consolidated achievements but as experiments. Unless we find solutions to the problems these changes pose, they might go down in History as memories of a high tide, a bright spark to be compared to IV century Athens and a few other fleeting brilliant moments.
What we need to do (or rather, what we needed to have done before the assault on the Bastille in 1789) is to find a sustainable alternative to the old regime. The XIX and XX centuries are full of bloody failed attempts with a body count unparalleled in History. I consider that the common themes to all these attempts are fight (hate) and revolution.
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy has taught us that, in the middle of the worst crises, when we can´t see the solution to the problems, we can focus in the process, promote the activity of thinking and develop as wide an awareness as possible of ourselves and our environment with the hope that if we don´t make things worse they will eventually find their place.
Since I don´t have an alternative political system to propose in order to solve the problems mentioned above, the only contribution I have for this crisis, besides pointing at the problem, is to change the principles of fight (hate) and revolution for work/build (love) and evolution. Rather than doing away with what was before and starting all over rediscovering the wheel as revolutions do (upsetting even the process of growing food and killing millions in famines), we can focus on the process and try to make things better bit by bit, developing on what is already working. Also, instead of fighting against terrorism, gender violence, climate change, etc we need a strategy to flow along, remain awake and work to build something better using love.
It is difficult to think and love when you are under attack. Therapists know that as well as mothers whose babies wake them up in the middle of the night. Also, there is the risk of using a façade of love as a strategy not to think (the flower power/ostrich approach). However, I believe that if we remain awake and allow ourselves to think, feel and interact, we can make things better.
In this thinking process, I believe that psychotherapists have an important responsibility and that, as a collective, we are failing to address it being too busy with individual patients. It is as if the Titanic was sinking and we were using buckets to remove the water without addressing the gaps in the hull, without addressing the world that makes our patients (and ourselves) ill.
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