Kernberg and the American Soul

 

Theses on Mental Health Reform in Australia

 

The Federal Government of Australia commissioned a detailed review of the country’s mental health system. (It subsequently tried to suppress the review for 12 months, and has since abandoned some of its recommendations). Now, as Australia recovers from a Federal election cempaign, discourse of mental health policy has been dominated by a small, recurring number of self-proclaimed advocates, as well as their respective research institutes. The proposal that the present Government is implementing is to expand the bureaucratic structure of GP’s Primary Health Networks (PHNs) to allow for a division between ‘complex’ and ‘low-intensity’ treatments. The former will have treatments administered and rationed by the PHNs; the latter will be diverted to self-management apps. The Headspace model, which, other than isolated, localised successes, has been a miserable and costly failure, will be retained, albeit with some minor trimming down of administrative functions. The advocates – and the most prominent are Patrick McGorry, Ian Hickie, and John Mendoza – want the app approach to be expanded at the direct expense of the existing Medicare system, which they say needs ‘reform’ (i.e. severe cuts or abolition). Meanwhile, the advocates are silent on the perilous and worsening state of public mental health systems, and the $11 billion per year that the Government spends on subsidised ‘private’ health insurance. The aim of the theses here is to provide an alternative to the dominant discourses and speakers which purport to speak for the mental health system and those who use it.

Once more on ‘neuroenhancement’ and love

Back in 2014, I wrote a critique of the work of Brian Earp and others, who were advocating for the use of oxytocin and other chemicals to be incorporated into a program for the ‘neuroenhancement’ of love. Earp et alia have written a reply to their critics, of whom there are several.

The Ethics of Psychoanalysis

 

The following is taken from one session in a series of introductory seminars as part of the Lacan Circle of Melbourne’s activities.

 

There is an interesting remark by Miller, in a paper from 2012 on the aims of psychoanalysis. ‘The psychoanalyst’s routine is therapeutic. His business is with the symptom that has to be cured.’ Psychoanalysts can put on airs, and ascribe lofty goals to their practice, but people come to consult with an analyst because something is causing them suffering. As Miller says, ‘If somebody goes to see a psychoanalyst for the sake of knowledge and not to get rid of a symptom it is not very certain that his demand can be received’.  So, whatever one may learn of oneself in the course of analysis, analytic praxis is not reducible to a quest for knowledge.

Notes on ethics and psychoanalysis

The degree to which psychology trumpets its scientificity is precisely the correlate of the extent to which it evades the question of its ethics. It is entirely unnecessary for a body of knowledge to be ‘scientific’ in order to be valuable. The scientist-practitioner of psychology needs the ‘science’ to serve as a fig leaf for the praxis.

CBT and Scatology

“Freud was full of horseshit”. These are the words of Albert Ellis, co-founder of CBT and originator of what he calls Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT).

Notes on mental health and neoliberalism

I recently read a couple of Foucault’s later lectures, namely Security, Territory, Population (1977-1978) and The Birth of Biopolitics (1978-1979). In this latter set of lectures, Foucault made a rare foray into contemporary economics, analysing various currents of neoliberalism (especially German and US varieties) and their relation to new forms of governmentality. I thought it beneficial, if only for me, to jot down a few notes on Foucault’s reconstruction of neoliberal thought, because I think it particularly pertinent in understanding contemporary knowledge and practice in mental health. I have a paper forthcoming in an academic journal on this topic, and perhaps after this post, I can move onto other things in 2016.