Politics in the West is experiencing a paradigm shift in which old definitions, assumptions and values are being transformed. While politics will always be about struggles for power and the control of resources, a new understanding of all that is political has evolved since feminism introduced the phrase 'the personal is political'.
One of the most potent criticisms of psychotherapy and analysis is that the client is encouraged or even required to turn away from external concerns such as political issues, and focus exclusively on the "inner world." This, it is argued, makes nonsense of the statement that therapy develops the whole person.
Opening Remarks for the Jung-Seminar October 5 - October 7, 2000
In this paper feminist questions about an aspect of women's experience, namely aggressive fantasies, are framed in terms of psychoanalytic ideas. Elements of post-Jungian thought are then drawn into the discussion, re-casting psychoanalytic insights to produce a post-Jungian hermeneutic for reading women's aggressive fantasies.
In this paper, I am voicing the feelings of both the training analysts and trainees. We find ourselves under the pressure of the state and the insurance companies. They are beginning to control our work and almost dictate our therapy.
