The Freudo-Marxist Tradition and the Critique of Psychotherapeutic Ideology

  • The ideology of psychotherapy is questioned through critical concepts taken from the Freudo-Marxist tradition. The paper first analyses in detail six determinant ideological processes detected in psychotherapy that three pioneers of Freudo-Marxism criticised in the 1920s: dualistic scission and metaphysical immobilisation (Luria); idealist generalisation and mechanistic determination (Bernfeld); and repressive adaptation and historical decontextualisation (Reich). Following this, it briefly reviews seven paired analogous processes that were denounced by continuators of the Freudo-Marxist tradition: valorative moralisation and the psychologisation of the social (Fenichel); instinctual–rational deprivation and the mechanisation of the subject (Adorno); alienating performance and surplus repression (Marcuse); manipulation and dehumanising alienation (Fromm); abstraction and mythologising (Bleger); authoritarianism and suggestion (Caruso); and depoliticisation and rationalisation (Langer). The argument will show how Freudo-Marxist questionings of these operations – many now forgotten – are still current and can be inspiring and enriching for a modern critique of psychotherapy.

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Metadaten
Author:David Pavón-Cuéllar
Parent Title (English):Psychotherapy and Politics International, Vol. 12, No.3 (2014), pp. 208-219. [Online ISSN 1556-9195] [doi.org/10.1002/ppi.1336]
Document Type:Articles
Language:English
Year of first Publication:2014
Release Date:2024/04/04
Format:to purchase via publisher
IdNo:Pavon-Cuellar_2014
Writings about Erich Fromm (Secondary Literature):Articles / Artikel
Erich Fromm's Library and Erich Fromm Archive:Articles / Artikel
Licence (German):to purchase / zu erwerben
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