In Peter Morrall’s article ‘The trouble with therapy’ in the February issue, I found the sentence ‘Therapy, as with other epistemologies/disciplines such as biology and medicine, is reductionist’ rather ironic, since reductionism is surely the trap that the writer fell into in his article.

To suggest that because therapy focuses on the individual rather than society, it can rightly be described as having an ‘institutionalised, reckless unconcern for what is happening in global society and how this shapes individual behaviour, thinking and emotions’ is as absurd as saying that because refuse collectors focus on collecting refuse, the profession is by definition ignorant and unconcerned about the consumerism and lack of ecological urgency that caused the refuse to be so plentiful. Just because a person decides that clearing up the mess should be their vocation, it doesn’t negate the possibility that they may be a person who is concerned and active in its causes in that person’s private life. Someone has to clear up afterwards – that is surely all we are doing as therapists.

Later in the article he writes, ‘For example, the private trouble of being diagnosed with heart disease is also a public issue.’ Before going on to list the social and political changes which would directly affect the prevalence of heart disease. Going by his logic, we should declare that the cardiac nurse who treats the patient with heart disease rather than rallying for the political decisions which affect health policies and resources, is showing a ‘reckless unconcern’ for what is happening in global society, because the nurse is treating the symptom of that society problem, rather than the cause. Nor should this be said of the therapist who is treating the client for the effects of these outside influences. Concern for the individual does not automatically negate societal concern.

Having said this, I would want to find some middle ground in the issue that Morrall has raised. It is not right to ignore the obscene global inequalities and multi-faceted mess that we are in as humans. Focusing on the individual as a profession may well lead us to bury our heads in the sand, so a wake up call to the broader need all around us is perhaps a welcome one in a profession like ours. I am happy to be challenged to be a therapist with a social conscience; I just prefer not to be told that my job title makes me individualist by definition.