Travels with the Self (Psychoanalysis in a New Key Book Series)

by Philip Cushman

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Author: Philip Cushman

Publisher: Routledge

Paperback:
ISBN 10: 1138605549
ISBN 13: 978-1138605541

Travels with the Self uses a hermeneutic perspective to critique psychology and demonstrate why the concept of the self and the modality of cultural history are so vitally important to the profession of psychology. Each chapter focuses on a theory, concept, sociopolitical or professional issue, philosophical problem, or professional activity that has rarely been critiqued from a historical, sociopolitical vantage point.

Philip Cushman explores psychology’s involvement in consumerism, racism, shallow understandings of being human, military torture, political resistance, and digital living. In each case, theories and practices are treated as historical artifacts, rather than expressions of a putatively progressive, modern-era science that is uncovering the one, universal truth about human being. In this way, psychological theories and practices, especially pertaining to the concept of the self, are shown to be reflections of the larger moral understandings and political arrangements of their time and place, with implications for how we understand the self in theory and clinical practice.

Drawing on the philosophies of critical theory and hermeneutics, Cushman insists on understanding the self, one of the most studied and cherished of psychological concepts, and its ills, practitioners, and healing technologies, as historical/cultural artifacts ― surprising, almost sacrilegious, concepts. To this end, each chapter begins with a historical introduction that locates it in the historical time and moral/political space of the nation’s, the profession’s, and the author’s personal context.

Travels with the Self brings together highly unusual and controversial writings on contemporary psychology that will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, psychologists of all stripes, as well as scholars of philosophy, history, and cultural studies.

Review

"Reading Philip Cushman reminds us of what matters in psychotherapy and in human life, and of what seduces us away. Culture, both as situation and as "overwhelming, indispensable" human need, is his subject matter and vocabulary. His clear prophetic voice calls us out on our hypocrisies and temptations to equivocate, while challenging and beguiling us into hermeneutic engagement that might begin to save us in dangerous times."-Donna M. Orange, NYU Postdoc Program and Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity, New York City; author of The Suffering Stranger and Climate Crisis, Psychoanalysis, and Radical Ethics

"Phil Cushman writes about the self, and brings his own self to this book: his style is both intensely cerebral and deeply personal-- fitting for a champion of hermeneutics. These essays show the development of a restless, questing mind evolving over the course of a fruitful career that has bridged theory, practice, and activism. Throughout, Cushman has held himself--and the profession-- to the highest intellectual and ethical standards. His writings demonstrate both how difficult and how necessary it is to constantly question therapeutic institutions and practices as late capitalism unfolds around us."-Trysh Travis, Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women's Studies Research, University of Florida, USA

"Travels with the Self is an invitation to voyage, once again, with Philip Cushman―a more gracious and inspiring guide can hardly be imagined. Dr. Cushman is psychology’s foremost theorist of contemporary individualism. His earlier book, Constructing the Self, Constructing America, is a crucial, now classic study of the intertwined topics of selfhood, hermeneutics, and modern culture. How lucky we are to have this superb new book, which probes further while also breaking new ground at the intersection of psychology with politics. Each chapter is filled with Cushman’s signature combination of deep empathy, ethical compass, and critical edge."-Louis Sass, PhD, Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University; author of Madness and Modernism, Revised Edition (2017) and of The Paradoxes of Delusion (1994)

"In this unique and wonderful book, Philip Cushman offers wise and humane reflections on psychotherapy and its cultural history. His critical disclosure of the place of psychotherapy in our world makes the book required reading for every therapist. It is a deeply cohesive, historically and conceptually cumulative anthology from a treasured teacher and scholar. His warm and questioning nature leaps from every page."-Blaine J. Fowers, Ph.D., Professor, Counseling Psychology, University of Miami, author of Frailty, Suffering, and Vice: Flourishing in the Face of Human Limitations

About the Author

Philip Cushman, Ph.D. is a psychotherapist in private practice on Vashon Island, Washington, and retired Clinical Core Faculty member from doctoral programs in psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology (Alameda) and most recently Antioch University Seattle. He has been a member of APA divisions 24, 26, 29, and 39 and the Washington State Religious Campaign Against Torture.