The Freudo‐Marxist Tradition and the Critique of Psychotherapeutic Ideology

  • David Pavón‐Cuéllar Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo
Keywords: ideology, psychotherapy, marxism, psychoanalysis

Abstract

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.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.
Published
2014-06-06
How to Cite
Pavón‐Cuéllar, D. (2014). The Freudo‐Marxist Tradition and the Critique of Psychotherapeutic Ideology. Psychotherapy & Politics International, 12(3). Retrieved from https://ojs.aut.ac.nz/psychotherapy-politics-international/article/view/447
Section
PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES