Psychotherapy for the People

<p><strong>How did psychoanalysis come to define itself as being different from psychotherapy? How have racism homophobia misogyny and anti-Semitism converged in the creation of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis? Is psychoanalysis psychotherapy? Is psychoanalysis a Jewish science?</strong></p><p>Inspired by the progressive and humanistic origins of psychoanalysis <strong>Lewis Aron</strong> and <strong>Karen Starr</strong> pursue Freud's call for psychoanalysis to be a psychotherapy for the people. They present a cultural history focusing on how psychoanalysis has always defined itself in relation to an other. At first that other was hypnosis and suggestion; later it was psychotherapy. The authors trace a series of binary oppositions each defined hierarchically which have plagued the history of psychoanalysis. Tracing reverberations of racism anti-Semitism misogyny and homophobia they show that psychoanalysis associated with phallic masculinity penetration heterosexuality autonomy and culture was defined in opposition to suggestion and psychotherapy which were seen as promoting dependence feminine passivity and relationality. <b>Aron and Starr</b> deconstruct these dichotomies leading the way for a return to Freud's progressive vision in which psychoanalysis defined broadly and flexibly is revitalized for a new era.</p><p>A Psychotherapy for the People will be of interest to psychotherapists psychoanalysts clinical psychologists psychiatrists--and their patients--and to those studying feminism cultural studies and Judaism.</p>