Unmeasuring ourselves': Deleuze’s contributions for a psychology to come

This paper aims to introduce key Deleuzian concepts as they engage with the discipline of psychology. This will be done through an exploration of his work, in particular the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia co-written with Felix Guattari. As with Deleuze’s project itself, the paper has a critical element and a constructive one. Critically, it identifies the concerns that Deleuze alerts us in relation to the three main traditions within psychology (behaviourism, psychoanalysis and phenomenology) and provocatively introduces the notion of stupidity to signal the ways in which psychology has lost its intellectual horizon, by putting itself at the service of State and religious norms through a number of assumptions that are taken for granted, assumptions that constitute the silent and insidious common and good sense that holds the so called ‘rational project’ glued together in modern science.The second, more constructive, part aims to introduce key elements in Deleuze’s project as a way to engage with the possibilities that Deleuze brings to the discipline. The elements considered include a shift from an emphasis on epistemology to metaphysics, the centrality of difference (and variation) instead of identity (and stability), a shift to a relational type of knowledge rather than one that is representational and the articulation of the tensions between history and processes of emergence (becomings). Ultimately, the Deleuzian provocation to the discipline is to engage with a psychology to come through the articulation of a renewed and radical empiricism

We have always been postmodern: A new past for a future postmodern psychotherapy

This chapter offers a new historical and theoretical perspective on postmodernity and postmodernism which broadens the frame of the debate. We give the name ‘pomo2’ to the more familiar version of postmodernism, inspired by Lyotard and others. In this received version, postmodernity begins in the second half of the 20th century and is associated with the post-industrialization of the dominant western nations during the rise of the computer age. We give the name ‘pomo1’ to the postmodernism informed by ‘process thinking’ that arose around 1875 and reached a zenith between the two world wars. Pomo1 arose as the modern system of supposedly sovereign nation states entered into widespread collapse. Reframing the more familiar description of postmodernity as pomo2 by incorporating pomo1 into the picture makes better sense both of the philosophical bases of postmodernism and of the broader historical context, such as the collapse of the empires that had fed the illusion of national sovereignty undergirding a few centuries of Western global dominance. After outlining this new perspective we offer seven observations, each supported by a relevant pomo1 quotation, about how it might serve to re-orient practice-relevant theory development in the world of postmodern therapy. Our reframing aims to re-energise the vital sense of purpose that once animated the pomo debate, but that has been degenerating under conditions in which the alleged linguistic relativism of postmodernists is being blamed for opening the floodgates to a crisis-ridden world of ‘post-truth’

Social construction and difference: A Deleuzian critique

Social construction continues to exert significant influence in the social sciences – particularly psychology. As a movement, it has captured the imagination of many in the field perhaps because of its critique of empiricism and its claims of addressing issues of equity and diversity. In this paper, we question the status of social construction using Deleuzian conceptualizations. From a Deleuzian perspective, far from being transformative, social construction is successful only if a number of its core assumptions are left unquestioned

Recasting the theory of systemic family therapy : reading Bateson through Foucault and Deleuze

This thesis re-thinks the theory of systemic family therapy by investigating the role played by Gregory Bateson's ideas and by reading his ideas alongside the writings of poststructuralist philosophers Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze. While Bateson's contribution to the early development of systemic family therapy is widely recognised, the subsequent emergence of narrative and social constructionist versions of systemic family therapy has been held to have supersededBateson. In this thesis it is argued that when Bateson is read alongside the writings of Foucault and Deleuze, his contribution is reinvigorated. The concepts that emerge out of these encounters are used to articulate a new conceptualization for systemic family therapy.The thesis is divided into two parts. The first part explores the historical development of systemic family therapy and defines the problem in terms of a double irony. The first irony relates to Bateson's frustration with prevalent theoretical models within the social sciences. This frustration was at the base of his investigations into cybernetics which, in turn, were central to the emergence of systemic family therapy. Bateson's theoretical work provided the clinic with a relational alternative to prevalent inrapsychic approaches. The second irony relates to a critical reflection on the contemporaryconfiguration of theory in systemic family therapy with particular reference to Bateson's insights. This critical reflection constitutes a continuous reminder of the difficulties inherent in a rigorous engagement with the complexity of a relational approach to the clinic.The second part provides a positive alternative to the presenting problem by engaging in a constructive reading of the philosophical projects of Foucault and Deleuze. These projects are interrogated in their relationship to the work of Bateson. Out of these encounters, a number of central concepts of Bateson's work are reconsidered, including Bateson's insights into cybernetics and the sacred. The cybernetic notions of reflexive and immanent knowledge that is self-forming becomes the means by which to understand one's position as an observer and a participant in society. Bateson's late explorations of grace and the sacred are used to provide evaluative guidelines for an approach that engages fully with a philosophy of difference

Mental Ill Health, Recovery and the Family Assemblage

The recovery approach is now among the most influential paradigms shaping mental health policy and practice across the English-speaking world. While recovery is normally presented as a deeply personal process, critics have challenged the individualism underpinning this view. A growing literature on “family recovery” explores the ways in which people, especially parents with mental ill health, can find it impossible to separate their own recovery experiences from the processes of family life. While sympathetic to this literature, we argue that it remains limited by its anthropocentricity, and therefore struggles to account for the varied human and nonhuman entities and forces involved in the creation and maintenance of family life. The current analysis is based on an ethnographic study conducted in Australia, which focused on families in which the father experiences mental ill health. We employ the emerging concept of the “family assemblage” to explore how the material, social, discursive and affective components of family life enabled and impeded these fathers’ recovery trajectories. Viewing families as heterogeneous assemblages allows for novel insights into some of the most basic aspects of recovery, challenging existing conceptions of the roles and significance of emotion, identity and agency in the family recovery process