No more therapy?
Yesterday I attended a meeting that, in part, discussed a range of issues relating to mental health. One presentation critiqued the proliferation of therapies; and that this proliferation was in fact contributing to a lack of progress, a “stagnation” and that we could in fact, be looking to greater unification and the transdiagnostic processes that contribute to bringing about positive client outcomes. The comments below reflect a ‘beginning-stance’ on the discussion.
The presentation was deliberately intended as a provocation for discussion, and I guess I came away thinking that, as much as proliferation of psychological therapies could contribute to stagnation, so too could ‘complete’ unification. This “grand theory” of course is associated with a number of assumptions that perhaps remain hidden. Without contouring into a consideration of these, I was struck by the hyphen between proliferation and unification, and returned to the elusive quote of Deleuze that, “monism = pluralism”.
As I see it, each therapeutic approach comprises a constellation of relations that are associated with a number of assumptions such as the aetiology of “issues”, characteristics of mind and self, and the role of the “practitioner” in bringing about change (pluralism). Monism or unification in this context, is philosophical (that ‘things’ such as psychodynamic therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy are less an essence, but always assemblages of relations brought together in a time and space). From this angle, we need to be better at conceptualizing, inquiring about, and ‘examining’ what are (some of) the changes in the assemblage of relations that would make a difference to this individual at this time, for this presenting issue.
We are already always changing, on the move, in flux, pulsing, material, social, emotional creatures. Using this understanding of relations, rather than create a formulation or map for what is present, we need to help clients develop the skills to create a map of their own for an unknown future.
