Brexit, psychotherapy and moral psychology: individualism versus the common good

So, following Brexit in June 2016, should we rename our journal The European and Un-United United Kingdom Journal for Psychotherapy and Counselling? And, what role if any should psychotherapists have in influencing clients’ politics? There are many possible theories we might draw on in exploring conscious and unconscious forces in the UK voting for Brexit. We might, for example, look to our theories in attempting to explain apparent instinctual reactions about immigration and giving away money ‘without getting anything in return’. However, I would like to focus on the extent to which psychological therapists’ default position is the promotion of individualism at the expense of the common good (and, it might be argued, the individual). Also how together with the rise of the populist likes of Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Marine Le Pen and other politicians across Europe who some would see as encouraging racism, moral psychology is also, perhaps helpfully, in the ascendency. This notion of how we consider right from wrong, regardless of whether we see it as ‘universal’ or culturally influenced’, is not usually directly a subject for psychotherapy training. So is there perhaps too much of a tendency to attempt to free our clients from the constraints of others and not enough attention paid to how our clients constrain and detrimentally affect others’ lives?

Is it right, as is happening in the UK, that when the rich get tax breaks, the poor get austerity? Is it right to state as leading Brexit campaigner Michael Gove ‘I think people in this country have had enough of experts’? (Let alone, albeit with a later apology, comparing them with the Nazis who denounced Albert Einstein in the 1930s.) Is it right to raise anti-immigrant feelings as occurred when Nigel Farage produced a poster of non-white immigrants crossing the Croatia/Slovenia border in 2015 (Cowburn, 2016)? Is it right that senior politicians such as Boris Johnson continued to use the slogan ‘we send the EU £350 million a week, let’s fund the NHS instead’, as emblazoned on his battle bus, when previously respected bodies (such as the UK Statistics Authority) reported that the figure is wrong; and, the National Health Service logo is used without permission, and it turns out after the referendum there is no intention to spend it on the NHS? (The Independent, 2016).

This may have been brilliant journalistic marketing and better than what many saw as the at best half-truths of the Remain Campaign, but hopefully there is still some interest in the question, how do we tell right from wrong? And what, if any, is the responsibility of the psychotherapists in helping the client with this? Yet is psychotherapy so caught up with notions of individualism that its focus is more on freeing the client from the moral constraints induced by others? But what then of others, and the psychotherapist’s responsibility for their clients’ responsibilities to others? When someone comes to us asking whether she is a bad person because when she was a teenager, her father continually raped her and she was subsequently continually taken advantage of when she was sent to foster homes, we might be able to help her explore this. It might be a possibility that whilst she wasn't responsible for what happened when she was young, she is now. So to what extent can we, should we, will we, be allowed to consider our client’s responsibility for others? Looking again at the above questions: aren’t they all to do with our responsibility to others? Not only ours but our clients’ responsibilities for those being made poorer? Our clients’ responsibility for devaluing rational reasons provided by experts that might prevent what they want to do? Our clients not considering how they might welcome the stranger rather than build walls that prevent any consideration of how their hostility could be transformed into hospitality? Also, when our clients say they give (e.g. millions to the EU) and get nothing in return, why don’t they think of helping other Europeans who are less well off? Surely most psychotherapists regard their practices as often giving a primacy to relationships and Heidegger’s ‘being in the world with others’ (1978), yet as Levinas (1985) points out, once the focus is on ‘being’, it becomes ‘my being’, and as with Hamlet, this can lead to everyone else being dead to us.

Thus, as previously mentioned regarding giving to others, whilst the UK is relatively more prosperous (though increasingly unevenly distributed) than many European countries (probably particularly due to the London property boom), should we not at least consider as part of a European community our moral responsibility to provide for those who are currently less well off? This idea of being strong enough in order to help others can be seen to different extents in various religious practices and with some philosophers, for example, Levinas’ comparison of autonomy (putting our self first) with heteronomy (putting others first). Interestingly, very similar ideas seem to have developed in psychology, where for example Piaget (1932) observed how children’s rationales for cooperation changed on so-called maturation when playing games from heteronomous (morality centred outside the self) to autonomous (internalised morality). There is indeed a growing field termed ‘moral psychology’, which potentially brings together such philosophers and psychologists.

Psychology has often favoured developing autonomy instead of heteronomy. Indeed, this reflects trends in our culture, where for example there is a far greater emphasis in education on ‘the autonomous learner’ with relatively little emphasis on what could be called ‘a heteronomous learner’. The notion of ‘self’ appears central in humanism and implied in behaviourism in terms of feelings and behaviour privileging autonomy. Even in psychoanalysis where there is more potential for decentring the self, the emphasis is far greater on developing ego strength such that, for example, ‘where id was there ego shall be’ (Freud, 1933). Yet what of the superego, not just in freeing up previously unrecognised transferences, etc., but what about community and the common good? Harcourt (2013) argues that the central concerns which characterise the Platonic-Aristotelian traditions in moral psychology of the relationship between human nature, human excellence, and human good are also in Freudian and relational psychoanalysis. So if so, what is the place of the psychological therapist with regard to moral psychology and to what extent might we consider economic relations? For example, I worked with a client who was having problems with her neighbours as she had previously been economical with the truth resulting in successfully obtaining planning permission to erect a building. She said to me, appearing to refer to her and her partner, ‘All I wanted to do is what was best for us’. Was it appropriate that I replied, ‘It depends who us is’.

What then is moral psychology? Nadelhoffer, Nahmias, and Nichols (2010, p. 1) define moral psychology as ‘the study of the way humans think about morality, make moral judgements, and behave in moral situations’. The authors explore such aspects as ‘reason and passion’, ‘altruism and egoism’, ‘virtue and character’, ‘agency and responsibility’ and ‘moral intuitions’. Might aspects of this be of importance to the psychological therapist? Indeed, if the psychotherapist’s client is not just the person in front of him or her, but the ‘common good’, would it not be extraordinarily irresponsible to just focus on the client’s immediate self-interest?

Moral psychology appears to be trending as Doris (2010, p. 1) states, ‘… research at the intersection of human mentation and human morality is flourishing as never before’. There are those who now link it with neuroscience (Sinnot-Armstrong, 2014) and more general introductory texts are appearing – for example Alfano (2015) considering topics such as ‘responsibility, emotion, character and disagreement’; and, Tiberius (2014) who focuses on moral philosophy and moral responsibility.

Moral psychology therefore might potentially be helpful for the psychological therapist if we consider our work includes moral development or, as the term is also used, to include more generally, ‘the intersection of ethics, psychology and philosophy of mind’ (Wikipedia, 2016). There will be those who still will be more interested in considering a more philosophical approach following Aristotle, Plato, Socrates and subsequently Nietzsche, Kant, Levinas, etc. Conversely, there will be some psychologists who will prefer Kohlberg (1984) who, following Piaget (1932), identified six stages for moral judgement development: moving from recognising higher authorities and rules and punishments to recognising good principles make a good society. As in a recent case in Italy, where a court decided that someone who stole food had not committed a criminal offence as he had done it because he was hungry (BBC News, 2016) – perhaps not unfamiliar in the work of many psychological therapists.

Whether the direction is towards philosophy or psychology, with the decline of religion and moral development not being a key focus of education, which has been lamented at least since John Dewey (Kohlberg and Hersh, 1977), is it the responsibility of the psychological therapist to consider this? It is as if the therapeutic space is still there for the client to explore what can’t be said elsewhere. The difference is that rather than only being freed up to talk of sexual and other taboos, the client is encouraged to think of others where the main forces of moralising in a neoliberal world promote the individualism of the consumer with weaker alternative voices coming from religion, education or the state.

There are obvious dangers regarding where the psychological therapist is coming from in terms of moral psychology. For example, Harcourt (2013) points out Winnicott (1990) despised the notion ‘moral education’; Winnicott saw it enforcing a set of do’s and don’ts and didn’t consider it as a matter of ethics. There again, is this editorial just a dangerous rant from an editor who cannot face what his country has become? Or should the psychotherapist have more an explicit rather than implicit moral agenda? I, with others, am horrified to hear of apparent counsellors in institutions such as prisons, who appear to be selling a religious sect. Is there any difference in therapists also having an agenda for their clients to consider others and the common good? One might take much of the training of psychological therapists to be about helping them bracket, as much as is possible, their own moralising judgements. However, Miller (2004) has argued that there is a need for a learning process (through case studies) to understand what he calls ‘the intrinsically moral nature of therapeutic encounters’. But, how far can we go? For is it too extreme to consider revisiting Willoughby (2016) describing that ‘Counselling and psychotherapy lack moral responsibility by failing to acknowledge and act on the evidence that social determinants exist as the source of most patient (user) anguish and disadvantage’. Perhaps it is time for psychological therapists to consider, at least a little more, that their client may not only just be the person in front of them, but others and the common good. Indeed, could it be that if we were all more interested in moral psychology, those in the UK might become more European, and those in Europe might become more part of the world?

The first paper in this issue is ‘A Third Language in Therapy: Deconstructing Sameness and Difference’ by Gala Connell, Jane Macaskie and Greg Nolan. The authors explore the process of negotiating sameness and difference in the therapy room in the context of working in a language that is not a therapist’s mother tongue. The paper explores the ways the concept of a ‘Third Language’, a dynamic communication system that is a result of developing a professional identity through a second language, can be used as a tool to negotiate the perceived sameness or difference in a therapeutic encounter and to build a common language with a client, both literally and metaphorically. The paper should be of interest to therapists who use their second language to communicate with clients as well as to a broader readership interested in intersubjective dynamics of the therapy process.

‘Another Way to Think about Psychological Change: Experiential v. Incremental’ is by Rolf Sandell and Alexander Wilczek. In this paper from Sweden, the authors describe an interesting alternative to the ‘incremental conception of change’ which they call an ‘experiential conception of change’. The authors raise concerns regarding pre–post change measurement both philosophically and statistically. They also provide illustrative examples of what patients say after treatment that indicate a qualitative (experiential) change that may or may not be related to incremental change. The idea of further exploring conceptions of ‘experiential’ change as opposed to quantitative or incremental change is interesting and needed.

‘Negotiating Motherhood as a Refugee: Experiences of loss, love, survival and pain in the context of forced migration’ is by Aisling Kelly, Pieter Nel and Lizette Nolte. Here, the authors aim to explore and describe the experiences of mothering and family life of women who have experienced forced migration to the UK. It is argued that this knowledge can enhance and diversify clinical work with refugees. The authors present a thoughtfully written and interesting paper on this valuable area. Its exploration and conclusions highlight a central problem regarding how the experiences of forced migration are researched. Via the three themes from the data analysis, the tensions, complexities and inconsistencies of the research participants’ sense of themselves are usefully conveyed. The findings have much to offer to the development of practice in order to improve the experiences of refugee mothers.

‘I have to hear them before I hear myself’: Developing Therapeutic Conversations in British Counselling Students’ is by Billy Lee and Seamus Prior. This paper, with its clear explication of the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis process (IPA), together with first-hand accounts of people’s experiences, looks in detail at how counselling students understand the process of listening and hearing their clients. The authors show a commitment to phenomenology and to a close and detailed understanding of their participants.

Our last paper is ‘Home Remembered, Relived and Revised: A qualitative study exploring the experiences of home for homeless persons in supported accommodation’ by Ella McCabe and John O’Connor. This paper extends the available research and offers a coherent theoretical framework for understanding the psychological impacts of homelessness. The use of IPA as a research approach here allows for in-depth exploration of individual experiences, providing insight into some of the more complicated of human interactions. This research makes a good case for emphasising how our understanding of how individuals make sense of their lives can allow access to greater complexity and nuance than alternative approaches whether qualitative or quantitative that focus more on establishing more generalisable findings. The authors have engaged participants in reflecting on and exploring the meaning of home in the context of their intensely troubling and traumatising lives. The themes that are drawn out of this research and the subsequent discussion cast a light on why well-meaning attempts to provide a simple practical solution to the issue of homelessness may be sabotaged by homeless individuals themselves. The authors explore both the implications of these insights for mental health practitioners working with homeless individuals, and also propose a potential consultative role for clinicians in working with housing service workers.

The above papers are presented as a general issue of the EJPC. They can though be seen as hopefully reflecting our current concerns with, for example, refugees, hearing difference, and thinking about change. Indeed, the last paper on homelessness, if seen in terms of individualism versus the common good, perhaps leads to what becomes seen as not so well-meaning attempts in the context of remaining in the European Union being ‘… sabotaged by homeless individuals themselves’. Here, the developing underclass, which psychotherapy and counselling reinforces through its emphasis on individualism, has perhaps rebelled against paying through austerity and neglect for the increased affluence of others; and in so doing, may well be those who will be hardest hit by its consequences. Hopefully the growing interest in moral psychology has not come too late?

Del Loewenthal
Editor in chief
European Journal of Psychotherapy and Counselling
Director of the Research Centre for Therapeutic Education
Department of Psychology, University of Roehampton, London, UK
[email protected]