Rescuing Psychotherapy from the Vacuum: An Anthropology of Psychotherapy as a Situated Psychological Healing Practice

Abstract

Through this thesis, I attempt to rescue psychotherapy from the vacuum. In other words, I attempt to shows that psychotherapy is not a practice that can be performed or received by anyone, as if operating completely independently of context. Instead, as is the case in other psychological healing practices, its effectiveness necessitates both a patient whose theory of mind allows them to believe in the treatment, and a therapist who is able to make sense of the patient’s experience while being attentive to the politics that shape the patient’s life and the therapeutic encounter. While presently a psychotherapist is considered prepared to counsel everyone if they have been trained to inquire further about how a patient’s background has shaped their experiences, I suggest that both cultural and political factors shape the therapeutic encounter more deeply than present techniques address.