‘Power’ at Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life, Page 3

Provocative Therapy turns all accepted wisdom about therapy on its head. Here is a therapy in which the therapist makes fun of the client’s problems, blows them up out of all proportion and suggests crazy and surreal solutions seemingly off the top of their heads. So why does it seem to be effective?

A new initiative in the UK involves women who have been raped supporting others recovering from the same experiences of violation, anger, grief, shame and being effectively shut up by society as a whole. Why do these relationships work so well, and what can therapists learn from them?

The classic response to a client’s question is to turn it back on the client, treating the question as revealing of a particular need. “I see it is really important to you to know…” This technique makes me flinch.

Blatant, overt racism is easy to spot — but what about subtle racism? And are there measurable cognitive effects that come as a result of witnessing not-so-obvious racism?

Will we turn around one day and discover that the way of life we have created, with all its individual freedoms, is totally unsustainable? Will we come to agree with most of the societies who have ever lived on Earth that interdependence is the only way to go on a planet as small, and yet incredibly diverse, as ours?