On Sun, 9 Feb 1997, John Sproule wrote:
[a bit snipped]
> These issues are particularly pertinent to me, as a psychotherapist. HS I
> contains a critique of psychotherapy. Yet, I would argue that there are
> parallels between what a psychotherapist does in working with an individual
> and what Foucault does on a larger scale. If one concludes that the outcome
> of Foucault's work is something that is useful for the reader, then I think
> that there is a basis for making a similiar argument about psychchotherapy,
> despite the criticism that Foucault brings to bear on this sort of project.
>
> John Sproule
How is what psychotherapists do like Foucault's work? Perhaps
I am simplifying, but isn't most therapy more or less hermeneutics--
looking for the "deep" meaning beneath the surface? This search for
the underlying meaning of things like language and discourse is exactly
the philosophical viewpoint that Foucault rails against in most of his
books (see esp. arch. of knowledge). For Foucault, psychotherapy is
a social practice and related discourse that we need to analyze (to
understand, for instance, how various psychological types of individuals
are produced in our society). I don't see how psychotherapy could be
something that mirrors, say, Foucault's history of sexuality without
undermining the guiding assumptions of therapeutic practice/discourse.
Miles Jackson
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