Back to Reality: Critical Analysis of Postmodern Theory in Psychotherapy | Exploring Therapeutic Applications & Clinical Practice

Barbara Held says in the Preface that 'This is not a book about how to do psychotherapy. It is a book about how to think about psychotherapy -- more precisely, how to think as clearly as possible about the theory and practice of psychotherapy.' Written while a visting scholar at Tufts in the early 90s, this book examines and critiques one of the fundamental philosophical assumptions of the PoMo movement -- the denial of external reality and the consequent disappearance of the individual (who, after all, is ostensibly the subject in therapy). I found her work significant because she clearly shows how philosophical theory inescapably informs psycho-praxis. As the title suggests, Held makes a good case for what she calls a "modestly realist" epistemology, and incisively deploys Edward Pols (himself a first-rank thinker in Philosophy of Mind) to highlight the serious theoretical problems in a constructivist-only position. If you're even vaguely interested in the philosophical issues behind psychotherapy, or like the rest of us concerned about the divergent and disjunct anthropologies behind various 'schools' of psychology, then this book is for you. Particularly exciting is her ably-argued case for a moderate-realist epistemology. I view this work is a significant step towards the recovery of philosophy, which for too long has collapsed ontology into epistemology and then lapsed, as the PoMos do, into solipsism.