Call for papers: UKCP and EJPC special issue

Theme: Psychotherapy Without Therapy? Rethinking the Purposes of Therapeutic Practice

Editor: Professor Del Loewenthal

Submission deadline: 9 February 2026

Rationale

In the early decades of the 21st century, psychotherapy finds itself at a critical juncture. While the language of wellbeing, resilience and evidence-based outcomes dominates public discourse, many practitioners experience a tension between therapy as management and therapy as encounter. Are psychotherapists increasingly socialised to ‘normalise’ individuals – to adjust clients to the demands of a neoliberal, digitised society – rather than to question or transform the conditions that give rise to distress?

The digital revolution and the rise of artificial intelligence are reshaping the psychic and relational worlds of clients. At the same time, are psychotherapists – often trained in more liberal and humanistic eras – now practicing within systems marked by surveillance, performance metrics and risk management? Does the confidential, exploratory space of psychotherapy increasingly risk being replaced by a culture of accountability and compliance?

As one commentator remarks, ‘In today’s market, we find a whole series of products deprived of [what is seen as] their damaging properties: coffee without caffeine, cream without fat, beer without alcohol’, so do we now have Psychotherapy Without Therapy? Further, as we move away from a liberal society, is it the experience of the majority that their ‘individuality is gradually being dismantled’, such ‘they lose their integrity’ and become ‘like jelly’? Does this lead to a further self-defeating need to maintain composure and function at all costs, not only from, as another commentator argues, ‘pills or other addictions but also relationships with therapists’? Consequently, as psychotherapists, are we in danger of being, in the business of tranquillisation and socialisation and if so, ‘to which dominant society’?

This special issue of the European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling (EJPC) journal invites contributors to consider whether psychotherapy has become Psychotherapy Without Therapy – a set of techniques detached from its ethical, political and philosophical roots. Should psychotherapy recover a more radical, reflective and socially engaged voice? Are there examples where it has? What does that/ could that/ would that look like in today’s ‘liquid modernity’, where both therapists and clients navigate shifting cultural, economic and technological conditions?

Possible areas for contribution

Psychotherapy Without Therapy submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following questions through case examples, theoretical explorations and empirical research:

Can psychotherapy still be radical – or has it been domesticated by neoliberal structures emphasising individual responsibility, where distress is framed as personal impairment and not a response to inequalities, and where clients are encouraged to ‘work on themselves’ risking therapy becoming about adaptation to, rather than challenging, societal oppression?

Are psychotherapists managing their clients’ states rather than engaging in psychotherapeutic work?

What are the limits of confidentiality and freedom of speech in contemporary practice?

How do changes in patterns of work, identity and belonging shape the psychic suffering clients bring?

Can practitioners, trained in liberal traditions, provide psychotherapy in a neoliberal world?

What ethical and political responsibilities arise from any of the above tensions

Are psychotherapists primarily normalising clients, so they self-regulate, internalise and conform to the behaviours, values and attitudes that a society defines as ‘appropriate’?

How do digital technologies and AI adversely affect the psychic lives of clients and the work of therapists?

What culture or ideology do psychotherapists implicitly socialise their clients into?

We welcome clinical, theoretical, philosophical and research-based papers from diverse psychotherapeutic orientations, that critically argue for and/or against the idea that we are in an era of Psychotherapy Without Therapy. Interdisciplinary perspectives from sociology, philosophy, political theory and cultural studies are also encouraged.