Moving beyond words: therapeutic discourse and ethical problematization

Abstract

The operation of power within psychotherapeutic practice is explored in this article through an analysis of radio therapeutic discourse. A Foucauldian methodological approach is adopted where the operation of power is conceptualized in terms of practices concerning the constitution and regulation of the self and which employs the analytics of problematization and ethical self-formation. Ten complete calls were examined for the effect of therapeutic intervention on callers' accounts of their problems; two calls are reported in detail. It was found that through therapeutic problematization callers' worries were restructured so that the locus of concern was shifted towards the caller's relationship with themselves (that is towards an ethics orientation), in particular providing the means through which callers might regulate their own behaviour and normalize their future possible conduct. In this way callers were invited to account for themselves as both the target of and the responsible agent in their own cure. Thus power is linked with psychotherapeutic practice — in this setting — through the production of certain kinds of person with certain kinds of responsibilities. Finally, it is argued that here the psychotherapeutic process is more moral than `psychological' and that the ethical operation of therapeutic discourse is linked to our contemporary `therapeutic' moral order.

Keywords

audience participation discourse analysis Foucault moral order power radio phone-in talk-back radio therapeutic discourse

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Antaki, C. (ed.) (1988) Analysing Everyday Explanation: A Casebook of Methods. London: Sage.

Atkinson, J.M. and Heritage, J. (eds) (1984) Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bergman, M.S. (1990) `Notes on the History of Psychoanalytic Technique' , in M.S. Bergman and F.R. Hartman (eds) The Evolution of Psychoanalytic Technique, pp. 17—40. New York: Columbia University Press.

Castel, R. (1994) `“Problematisation” as a Mode of Reading History', in J. Goldstein (ed.) Foucault and the Writing of History, pp. 237—52. Oxford : Basil Blackwell.

Couzens Hoy, D. (1991) `Introduction', in D. Couzens Hoy (ed.) Foucault: A Critical Reader, pp. 1—25. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Cuff, E.C. (1994) Problems of Versions in Everyday Situations. Lanham, MD: University Press of America .

Davies, B. and Harré, R. (1990) `Positioning: The Discursive Production of Selves' , Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 20(1): 43—63.

Edwards, D. and Potter, J. (1992) Discursive Psychology. London : Sage.

Foucault, M. (1985) The History of Sexuality: Vol. 2: The Uses of Pleasure . New York: Pantheon.

10.

Foucault, M. (1988a) `On Problematisation', History of the Present 4, Spring: 16—17.

11.

Foucault, M. (1988b) `Technologies of the Self', in L. Martin , H. Gutman and P. Hutton (eds) Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, pp. 16—49. London: Tavistock.

12.

Foucault, M. (1991) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison . London: Penguin.

13.

Foucault, M. (1992) The Use of Pleasure: The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2. London: Penguin.

14.

Gergen, K. (1973) `Social Psychology as History', Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 26: 309—20.

15.

Hacking, I. (1995) Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences of Memory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

16.

Harré, R. , Clarke, D. and De Carlo, N. (1985) Motives and Mechanisms: An Introduction to the Psychology of Action. London: Methuen .

17.

Harré, R. and Van Langenhove, L. (1991) `Varieties of Positioning ', Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 21(4): 393—407.

18.

Hodges, I. (1995) `Changing Your Mind: Therapeutic Discourse and Foucault's Ethics', in I. Lubek , R. van-Hezewijk , G. Pheterson and C. Tolman (eds) Trends and Issues in Theoretical Psychology, pp. 301—5. New York: Springer.

19.

Hodges, I. (1998) `A Problem Aired: Exploring Radio Therapeutic Discourse and Ethical Self-formation', unpublished PhD thesis, University of London.

20.

Hodges, I. (2001) `A Problem Aired: Radio Therapeutic Discourse and Modes of Subjection', in J. Morss , N. Stephenson and H. van Rappard (eds) Theoretical Issues in Psychology. Boston, MA: Kluwer.

21.

Hodges I. (in press) `Broadcasting the Audience: Radio Therapeutic Discourse and its Implied Listeners', International Journal of Critical Psychology.

22.

Masson, J. (1989) Against Therapy. London: Fontana.

23.

Miller, P. and Rose, N. (1994) `On Therapeutic Authority: Psychoanalytical Expertise under Advanced Liberalism', History of the Human Sciences 7(3): 29—64.

24.

Nelson-Jones, R. (1992) The Theory and Practice of Counselling Psychology . London: Cassell.

25.

Patterson, C.H. (1995) Theories of Counselling and Psychotherapy. New York: Harper Collins.

26.

Pomerantz, A. (1986) `Extreme Case Formulations: A Way of Legitimising Claims', Human Studies 9: 219—30.

27.

Rose, N. (1989) Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self. London: Routledge.

28.

Rose, N. (1994) `Expertise and the Government of Conduct', Studies in Law, Politics and Society 14: 359—97.

29.

Rose, N. (1996) Inventing Our Selves: Psychology, Power and Personhood . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

30.

Rose, N. (1999) Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

31.

Rose, N. and Miller, P. (1992) `Political Power beyond the State: Problematics of Government', British Journal of Sociology 43(2): 173—205.

32.

Szasz, T. (1988) The Myth of Psychotherapy. New York: Syracuse University Press.