Premium
‘CLASS IS IN YOU’: AN EXPLORATION OF SOME SOCIAL CLASS ISSUES IN PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC WORK
Author(s) -
Ryan Joanna
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
british journal of psychotherapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.442
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1752-0118
pISSN - 0265-9883
DOI - 10.1111/j.1752-0118.2006.00008.x
Subject(s) - psychology , class (philosophy) , countertransference , exploratory research , psychoanalytic theory , qualitative research , transference , perception , social class , psychotherapist , social psychology , psychoanalysis , epistemology , sociology , social science , philosophy , neuroscience , political science , law
The absence of frameworks for discussion of social class issues within psychotherapy is one concern of this exploratory paper. Another is to raise questions about how we might think psychoanalytically about the far‐reaching impact of class. A small exploratory qualitative research study is described in which experienced psychoanalytic psychotherapists were interviewed about class issues. The interviews mainly concerned their perceptions and understandings of class issues within psychotherapeutic relationships, but were framed by biographical and professional experiences relating to class. The reports from pairings of differently classed therapists and patients raised many questions about the ways in which class and class differences can be experienced and understood within the transference/countertransference matrix, as well as the surrounding anxieties and projections.