Psychotherapy, Anthropology and the Work of Culture

"A much-needed book that challenges psychotherapists and counsellors to engage with more sophisticated and up-to-date understandings of culture. Given the current emphasis on cultural competencies this book could not be more timely." --Rose Cameron, Department of Counselling and Psychotherapy, University of Edinburgh

"With its rich, thoughtful and accessible reflections on the intersections between the anthropological ethnographic method and psychoanalysis and psychotherapeutic practice, this volume unsettles the individual and society/culture binary to expand our appreciation of the nature of social relations. Keir Martin brings together contributors who not only have a ‘feel’ for both disciplines but also the capacity to ask the challenging questions that push boundaries. This book is fascinating and timely." --Louise Gyler, Psychoanalyst and Author, The Gendered Unconscious: Can Gender Discourses Subvert Psychoanalysis?

"The agon between psychoanalysis and anthropology goes back a century, and has hardly been resolved. In Psychotherapy, Anthropology and the Work of Culture, this historic controversy is brought resoundingly alive in its contemporary context. In a series of rigorously argued and incisive chapters, the authors elaborate, in various ways, on Keir Martin’s central refusal to accept the charge of ‘individualism’ that has long been levelled at psychotherapy, and also the idea that ‘culture’ is something that is done to people in the Durkheimian sense. A critical engagement with the terms ‘individual’, ‘person’, ‘self’, ‘society’ and ‘culture’ is key to the book’s notable success; but we are also presented with the subtler proposition that praxis may very well be the nodal point where these two disciplines meet. The chapters come back repeatedly, from different vantage points, to the central idea that anthropologists and psychotherapists are routinely engaged in comparable activities – observation, listening, interpretation, reconstruction, and the creation of meaning, while attempting to remain near to human experience. It is in terms of practice, rather than conceptual content, that the book promises to realise its more far-reaching ambition of enabling the two disciplines to learn from each other." --Steven Groarke, British Psycho-Analytical Society