Can psychotherapy help make a better future? A lightly edited version of a keynote address to the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy conference ‘Is therapy the future?’, October 2004

Abstract

This keynote conference address argues that therapy can contribute to a positive future, but only if therapists recognize their own inherently side‐taking position. It suggests that there is a polarization between therapy that views itself as a standardized ‘expert system’, and therapy as qualitative ‘local knowledge’, and that each of these implies its own position on how people and society should be. I then describe four fields where I believe therapy can contribute to a better future: work with conflict, societal trauma, ecopsychology, and power within the therapy relationship.