Modern psychotherapies are far removed from the anti-establishment ethos of their psychoanalytic ancestor; this is quite clearly related to market trends, e.g., the promotion of short-term, outcome-focused behavioral therapies and psychopharmacology. But what is less obvious is that the pop-leftist, mental-health speak meant to counter these trends may ironically play right into them. Although this language is meant to be critical of the mental health establishment, it has ended up weakening the potential of psychotherapy as a means of creating social change. On the surface, this language — which emphasizes identity politics, “anti-oppressive” lenses, “anti-racism,” “the oppressed,” “liberation therapy,” and “decolonization,” to name a few terms — is meant to articulate an integration of the political with the psychological. However, this lexicon, repeated to the point of becoming empty buzzwords, has instead frequently served to commodify aspects of this profession.

The revolutionary origins of identity politics have been diluted into careerism and inclusion in the psychotherapy profession. To paraphrase Barbara Smith, a foremother of Black Feminism, “[P]eople have the identity, but left out the politics.” This type of careerism and deficiency of political analysis has become prevalent in “leftist psychotherapy” spaces, where it is all too common for therapists to market identities or radicalness as if it were a therapeutic modality. This has become a form of what is often referred to as lifestyle capitalism (see Thomas Frank, 1997, or Naomi Klein, 1999) a way in which countercultures are commodified, neutralising the possibility of a real anti-establishment praxis.

The commodification of identities and supposed dissent stances within the mental-health field has gone virtually unchallenged and critiqued. There is such an absence of critique that therapists are not asked, let alone challenged, to define what they mean when they describe themselves as having radical / decolonial therapy practices. I have found that when therapists are asked how they apply their “radical” or “anti-oppressive” lens, they often have no idea how to answer, other than affirming their own identity as a therapist who “gets it.” Or my personal favourite has to be when therapists say: “radical means, getting to the root,” as if this explained anything. In addition, when therapists state that they work from an anti-oppressive lens, I usually find that what they are describing, whether they know it or not, is simply a “person in environment” (known as PIE) framework. However, this is not a radical idea, rather a basic component of social work theory, and frankly a basic concept any professional should understand about how individuals are impacted by the socio-political context or environment.

As consuming subjects of capitalism, we have quite unavoidably and unknowingly created a type of propagandist “psychotherapy leftist speak” that markets our profession to a progressive niche market. While “radical” speech may annoy some bigwigs in the establishment, overall this “speak” fits quite well into the status quo of the mental health industry given the focus on classification systems and expanding demand for different types of psychotherapy for specialty markets. By using this nomenclature, we fool ourselves into thinking we are “fighting or decolonizing the system;” instead, we are creating niche markets for a certain ideology, packaging and branding it, then selling it to patients who indeed become consumers of a certain “lifestyle psychotherapeutic experience.”

When we use terms like “racial” or “decolonial” in “progressive psychotherapy” circles or talk about the need to use “non-western or indigenous practices,” or when we name drop Martin-Baró and Fanon, these words, practices, cultures, and revolutionary thinkers slowly lose their meaning and potency. In other words, they become detached from historical and social contexts. By decontextualizing this to fit into our careerism, it depoliticizes and extracts the revolutionary potential of their theories and praxis situated within social movements, somewhat akin to the federal government issuing the Malcolm X stamp in 1999. And listen, we all need money to live and have a right to charge a suitable wage, however when the “decolonize-this-therapy-room” therapist is charging $350 per hour or the “community health clinic” is in actuality a private group practice decorating themselves with social justice language, I think it is time we start to question what the hell is going on here. And more importantly, constructively critique ourselves so we can do better.

Moreover, what makes “pop-leftist psychotherapy speak” devoid of deeper meaning is that it uses “glittering generalities,” (otherwise known as glowing generalities, empty rhetoric, or vague promises), a propagandist term that refers to emotionally alluring phrases or words associated with values that evoke beliefs without specific meaning; it is employed in propaganda and advertising (both in fascist or non-fascist market economies and socialism). A glittering generality begs a group to approve of something without examination, analysis nor investigation of reason (think of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” or Obama’s “HOPE”). This is also done when we remove leftist lexicon from corresponding social movements and historical context to fit them into our professional identities and careers to market our “radical selves” on websites / Instagram and sell books on “decolonizing our right elbow.”

Decolonization is often used as a symbol in the contemporary practice of wokeness. As such, pop-leftist psychotherapy-speak belongs to this genre of wokeness, which functions, in part, as a “political economy of etiquette” (an idea attributed to both Christian Parenti and Greg Godels) or politeness. This resonates well with career oriented middle-class, left-liberal professionals. I would argue that the emergence of this niche psychotherapy fills the void of a weak political left and serves as a psychological “pseudo-activity” (see Theodor Adorno) to help us cope with complex affects, identifications, and guilt tied to our forced complicity in oppressive systems in the absence of political social movements.

We act like we know what it means when we use this type of jargon, but if we are honest with ourselves, I am not sure we know. This language uses recycled truisms that induce moral emotional responses. In this sense, we confuse these responses with having a clear understanding and application of these terms. The rhetoric we recycle and reuse reduces diversity of thought, nuance, dialogue, and even good old-fashioned disagreements among the left. Every time a psychotherapist uses a leftist glittering generality, an anti-establishment angel dies. 

Stereotypical “decolonial” postures in the therapy space also run the risk of reducing a dynamic therapy process and flattening it into a one-dimensional sphere, a space that occurs within a twinship transference without awareness of it. In other words, these postures often translate into an unproductive countertransference that is ultimately defensive and often narcissistic, where I as a “radical therapist,” as the place of the good, am “affirming” your identity and / or imposing my “correct decolonial beliefs” on the other / patient who requires me to “decolonize” them. In other words, I believe myself to be your “liberator” as a therapist. I could not think of a more colonial position nor process than thinking of myself in these types of terms. However, again and again, this type of thinking and practice goes virtually unquestioned in progressive psychotherapeutic circles.

So, what do we do from here? If we are to start to seriously integrate the political into psychotherapy in both theory and praxis, and take back its socio-political potency from the scientist establishment, we must start by seriously reevaluating our lexicon, and not delude ourselves into thinking we are challenging a (mental) health industry with our sexy group / individual practices and lingo. This begins with challenging the reductionist form of identity politics that retains the “identity” and disregards the “politics,” as Barbara Smith points out. This requires a broader critical / historical intersectional analysis and praxis that reevaluates the inherent political potential of certain branches of psychotherapy including psychoanalysis (developed, for example, by the Freudo-Marxist tradition). Not another hot-topic workshop with the next “progressive word du jour” that professionals add to their resume; rinse, and repeat, then repost on IG. 

We also need to deepen our understanding of the language we are using, challenge the anti-intellectualism of woke culture (Christian Parenti) by putting this language into context with literature reviews, consciousness-raising groups to re-read and expand the work of our radical fore-parents: critical theorists, anti-establishment psychoanalytic movements, liberation psychologies, black feminists, non-western approaches, etc. We need to go beyond appropriating language, not merely co-opt radical identities for ourselves. We need real dialogue that includes healthy critique and disagreement, not another professional workshop discussing hollow concepts and token phrases for professional advancement, where we learn the right words to avoid being “canceled.”

And lastly, developing one’s political analysis is a process-based practice that is ongoing and unfolding, very much like psychodynamic psychotherapy. Critical / revolutionary thought and praxis cannot be reduced to reductionist language nor “technique add on-s,” (much like solution-focused therapies), nor can they be fully understood outside the realm of lived experience. Most people speak about “psychotherapy” as generic in the abstract and not as something situated within a socio-political history that began with psychoanalysis. As such many people fail to recognize that a lot of the ideas that are supposedly “decolonial” have been quite obvious to psychoanalysis: patient-centered / patient led process; deep listening; seeing the patient as a whole, and not a cluster of symptoms; not solution or goal-oriented; subjectivity explored as constituted by the other; and complex matrixes of power; the view that there is an intimate tie between the social and subjectivity; analysis of the socio-political power dynamics as explored through enactments in the therapeutic dyad; as well as free association, which in particular is lacking in our ordinary discursive places….. just to name a few! All of these psychoanalytic notions and practices, taking place within the intersubjective political space of the therapeutic dyad, are embryonic of new forms of the social. 

Psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy, as a method, contain within it what we need to develop critical, social, and psychological analysis; however, to articulate this we must detangle ourselves from the glittering generalities of pop leftist speech. This starts with an honest self-analysis of where we have ended up as a profession and the misunderstandings of the political potential of psychoanalysis. We are not merely subjects impacted by an external “oppressive world,” but rather we are subjects who act upon the world, which then acts upon us, ad infinitum. Given the contemporary emergence of psychotherapy into popular discourse, now more than ever, we must take advantage to articulate concrete therapeutic praxes with deconstructive political processes. If the world acts upon us, let us consciously act upon it together.