Publisher Description

A lot of what is done in the name of psychotherapy and psychology is driven by motives which are base, shallow and commercial. Theorising of the human condition too often follows the ideological fashions of the day, which can be described as biological/corporate fundamentalism. This toxic mixture not only mystifies the general public but also makes epistemological slaves of professional psychologists. As neo-liberal capitalism continues its forward march, this book considers its influence on the divide between academic psychology and the psychotherapeutic art of healing. This has made the relationship between the practical and academic sides of psychology deeply problematic as well as dishonest. Theodor Itten and Ron Roberts explore these issues from their respective positions on each side of the psychotherapy, academic psychology divide. Calling for a return to a new, authentic and vibrant Politics of Experience, their examination, elaborating the interplay of practice and theory with everyday experience, is both personal and critical and provides an unusual insider perspective on what it means to practice in the present day.

Author Biography

Theodor Itten is a Psychotherapist UKCP and Clinical Psychologist MBPS in private practice. He is a past President of the Swiss Psychotherapeutic Association and presently Executive Editor of the International Journal of Psychotherapy. He is author of RAGE-Managing an Explosive Emotion. (2011 Libri Publishing); Jahzorn (2007); Jack Lee Rosenberg (2002). Ron Roberts is a Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. He has held posts at the Institute of Psychiatry, University of Westminster, King's College Medical School, University College London, St Bartholomew's Medical School, Kingston University and the Tavistock Institute. For several years he was a member of the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science (BSSRS) and edited and regularly contributed to their magazine 'Science for People'. He is recently (and happily) retired and freer to think outside the constraints of contemporary neoliberal academic life. His research interests include; the lure of the sex industry for students, social and collective memory and the politics of psychology. He is currently researching the concept of the off-modern and the possibilities this offers for a genuinely humane and multidisciplinary psychology. He has edited and written six books including for PCCS - Just War: Psychology and terrorism (2007), Real to Reel: Psychiatry at the cinema (2011) and with Theodor Itten, The New Politics of Experience and The Bitter Herbs (2014). His most recent book Psychology and Capitalism (Zero Books) - though not published by PCCS is definitely worth a mention J Besides these interests Ron has practised martial arts (kung fu) for many years.

Review

To have two such differing approaches to a subject that is much discussed these days struck me as clever, original, and totally intriguing. Itten and Roberts present their experience based on different perspectives, and their contrasting views are new and dynamic, insuring that something exciting is in store for readers in the fields of psychotherapy and psychology. Deirdre Bair, author of Simone de Beauvoir's and C. G. Jung's biographies, and winner of The National Book Award for "Beckett - A Biography". Itten and Roberts combine intriguing personal stories and incisive analysis to help us understand how Psychology and Psychotherapy have become largely disconnected from real life. The New Politics of Experience' is distressing and illuminating in equal measure, but also, at times, extremely entertaining. Professor John Read, Liverpool University and author / editor of 'Models of Madness' My compliments to Theodor Itten and Ron Roberts for their timely continuation of R. D. Laing's lifelong endeavour, which was to establish psychotherapy as a study of situations and not just of victims and with the therapist as being both a part of and apart from them. They enlarge upon Laing's work, by including themselves in the picture, along with the many Big Brothers who control our behaviour, and of course the art of psychotherapy. Laing would be proud of them. Francis Huxley, Social Anthropologist and author of Affable Savages: An Anthropologist among the Urubu Indians of Brazil; The Invisibles: Voodoo Gods in Haiti.

Competing Titles

Psychology, Mental Health and Distress DR. John Cromby 9780230549562 64.00 Palgrave 2013

Description for Sales People

To have two such differing approaches to a subject that is much discussed these days struck me as clever, original, and totally intriguing. Itten and Roberts present their experience based on different perspectives, and their contrasting views are new and dynamic, insuring that something exciting is in store for readers in the fields of psychotherapy and psychology. --Deirdre Bair, author of Simone de Beauvoir's and C. G. Jung's biographies, and winner of The National Book Award for "Beckett - A Biography". Itten and Roberts combine intriguing personal stories and incisive analysis to help us understand how Psychology and Psychotherapy have become largely disconnected from real life. The New Politics of Experience' is distressing and illuminating in equal measure, but also, at times, extremely entertaining. --Professor John Read, Liverpool University and author / editor of 'Models of Madness'

Details