Power and the origins of unhappiness: Working with individuals

Evidence that the ‘ultimate repressed’ in our understanding of emotional distress is power can be gleaned even from Freud's writing. This is a form of repression which community psychology is well placed to lift. Impossible though it is to stand outside the ‘apparatus of power’ (and, therefore...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of community & applied social psychology Vol. 5; no. 5; pp. 347 - 356
Main Author Smail, David
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Chichester John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.12.1995
Wiley
Subjects
Biological and medical sciences
Community psychology
Emotional distress
Happiness
Individual psychotherapy
Medical sciences
Mental health
Power
Psychoanalysis
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Psychotherapies. Psychological and clinical counseling
Psychotherapy
Repression
Role
Social psychology
Treatments
will power
Social environment
Human
Applied psychology
Social power
Psychoanalysis
Theory
Treatment efficiency
Psychotherapy
Mental disorder
Clinical psychology
Community psychology
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Summary:Evidence that the ‘ultimate repressed’ in our understanding of emotional distress is power can be gleaned even from Freud's writing. This is a form of repression which community psychology is well placed to lift. Impossible though it is to stand outside the ‘apparatus of power’ (and, therefore to give a complete analysis of it), we cannot achieve an accurate account of the causes of human unhappiness without taking its operations into account as fully as possible. The psychological therapies do have an implicit notion of will power, but this serves only to distract our attention from the external, material nature of power. We have to be careful, moreover, not to ‘psychologize’ power by trying to turn it into an internal attribute to be ‘switched on’ by an essentially mysterious process of ‘empowerment’. We need to specify empirically the types of power that contribute to ‘clinical’ distress and give an account of ‘therapy’ in terms of the powers to which it has access (recognizing also that these are limited).
Bibliography:ark:/67375/WNG-0DV6BB2V-B
istex:8AEA2C3448E522B7A9893A28CF8A21C82EBEC3D8
Based on a paper presented at a conference entitled 'Power and the Origins of Unhappiness', forming part of the Merseyside Psychotherapy Institute's 1995 series of workshops on the theme 'Psychotherapy and Social Context'.
ArticleID:CASP2450050506
Based on a paper presented at a conference entitled ‘Power and the Origins of Unhappiness’, forming part of the Merseyside Psychotherapy Institute's 1995 series of workshops on the theme ‘Psychotherapy and Social Context’.
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ISSN:1052-9284
1099-1298
DOI:10.1002/casp.2450050506