Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 14:58:00 -0500 (EST) From: John Sproule <jsproule-AT-usit.net> Subject: Re: Power and Neutrality I wanted to see if I could clarify my thinking on the possible relation between the practice of psychotherapy and the kind of analysis that Foucault practiced in such books as "Discipline and Punish" and "The History of Sexuality", for example. The comments of Miles Jackson and Gabriel Ash have challenged me to sharpen up these vaque thoughts of mine. What prompted me to mention these ideas were the thoughts by Pablo Otellado about the relations between power, Foucault's concrete analysis of power in specific contexts, and freedom. >Personally, I think that Foucault had some kind of metaphysical >obsession: on one hand his books represent an extensive work in showing >the historicity and power contamination of what was then considered >essential, universal and neutral; on the other hand his criticism >pointed to some kind of freedom that seems related to a surpassing of >those contingent and power related situations -- surpassing that was >possible by the very knowledge of its contingency and power >contamination. I am very sympathetic to Foucault's demonstrations of how power can best be understood in terms of its subtle and productive aspects and his conclusion tht the growth of the human sciences is intertwined with the workings of this bio-power. Whereas DP focuses on how the human sciences turn people into individual objects by the application of its normalizing gaze, HS v1 takes on the even more subtle workings of confessional technology, the process whereby people "internalize" a method of self-scrutiny under the tutelage of a person deemed to have authority on these matters. The question in my mind that provided the jumping off point for these thoughts is concerned with whether one can do anything to resist or counter these normalizing and subjectifying processes of bio-power. Does the process of bringing these process of bio-Power to light in any fashion give an individual more autonomy or freedom of choice, for example? I would like to think that Foucault found it worthwhile to investigate and write about these topics, because he believed that this did more than merely reinforce the the kind of bio-power that he was describing. Looking at his project in this fashion, I see parallels to questions about insight-oriented psychotherapy, e.g., is insight helpful for people trying to change their behavior? An important aspect of psychotherapy is that it takes place in and is based upon a personal relationship. This is where psychotherapy has the potential for constantly questionning its assumptions and challenging the conventional, including it own conventions. There is an on-going tension between the totalizing theories that accompany clinical practice and the attitude that the clinician adopts with his or her patients in order to learn from them what they need and who they are. From this perspective, focused on the therapy relationship, the expertise of the psychotherapist is problematic insofar as it can take the therapist out of an open relationship to the patient. There is no fundamental reason why a critique, such as Foucault's, concerned with how the expertise of the psychotherapist, for example, may perpetuate certain social forces, cannot be taken up into this process of constantly trying to understand the dynamics of the therapy relationship. This points to an area that is rather neglected in Foucault's writing, that is, the larger universe of relationships, beyond those based on the workings of power. What about the I-Thou sorts of relationships to be found in a close friendship, for example? Foucault's analysis of relationships does take on a reductionistic quality, insofar as the larger background of how people may potentially relate to one and other is not directly addressed. John Sproule
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