On the publication of his new book, Politics on the Couch: Citizenship and the Internal Life, Andrew Samuels is interviewed by psychotherapist Ruth Williams.
My theme is the depth psychology of political processes, focusing on the psychology of non-violent political change. But what is meant by "politics"? I mean the arrangements and struggles within a single society, or between the countries of the world, for the organization and distribution of resources and power, especially economic power.
While politics will always be about getting things done, or stopping things from happening, most citizens know that there is usually a private, even a secret dimension to the ways in which their political beliefs, commitments, and actions have evolved in them.
Rosalind Coward's article (Made by women with men meanly in mind, May 22) helps to create a climate in which issues surrounding men, masculinity and male psychology can be discussed intelligently. I am prompted to ask three questions.
I'll begin by saying what I'm not writing about. I am not going to write about responsible ways of working with political or social or cultural or ecological material in the clinical session. I am not going to write about how a person gets his or her politics–the sources of their political attitudes and engagements.
