Stories of "Self". Ideology in action.

Abstract

Theory about “self” is political. It immediately situates a person’s problems within an individual and/or within wider social systems. This paper encourages therapists to be curious about their stories of “self” and about the ideologies that produce them. By taking responsibility for one’s preferred stories (theories) of “self”, we can understand and take responsibility for therapeutic theory and practice as cultural products which create social consequences. Many therapeutic theories see problems people have as indications of personal inadequacy within a relationship of power inequality within the therapeutic relationship. The storying of people and their struggles by professionals can become a one-sided imposition of theory and values by one party on another. In this sense, therapeutic relationships are a form of colonisation. This is particularly worrying given many people will be looking to therapy to support their journey overcoming experiences of being colonised in other contexts. A table shows a sample of psychotherapeutic modalities. It contrasts the different ideologies and the stories of self they produce. Different levels of context (Afuape, 2012; Oliver, 1996; Pearce, 2002; Pearce and Cronen, 1980) show how different ideologies play out in therapeutic practice, and how therapy maintains or disrupts social change. I offer questions for each level of context for therapists to explore how our own subscriptions to specific ideologies have implications for our therapeutic practice, supervision and training at each level of context in the table. The paper ends with a reflection on how theorethical reflexivity can move the levels of context into a fluidly reflexive process which changes an ideology so that theories of self are context-responsive and intentionally decolonising (Afuape, 2012; Reynolds, 2010).

Keywords

• psychotherapy theory
• CMM
• self
• decolonising therapy
• reflexivity
• ideology