Call for papers: UKCP and EJPC special issue

Ecological breakdown, war and political instability, widening inequalities and economic insecurity, rapid developments in artificial intelligence and digital technologies, and changing forms of social and communal life increasingly shape the conditions within which people live, relate and experience distress.

This special issue asks what psychotherapy can, and cannot, meaningfully contribute amid such circumstances. It is concerned not simply with whether wider social problems can be addressed through work with individuals, but with what happens to psychotherapy when both psychotherapist and client are implicated in conditions that may be threatening, destabilising and beyond their individual capacity to change.

This raises questions about politics and neutrality. Can psychotherapy remain politically neutral, and should it attempt to do so? What might it mean for psychotherapists to become politically engaged, and what dangers might follow? Conversely, might a refusal to engage with ecological, political, economic or social questions itself constitute a political position?

It also raises questions about hope. Is there good reason to believe that the contemporary polycrisis can be overcome, or might some forms of hope be illusory? How should psychotherapy respond where there is serious scientific, political or social concern that some processes may be irreversible, or that opportunities for avoiding severe consequences are narrowing? Might there be occasions when psychotherapy needs to resist reassurance and remain with uncertainty, grief, despair or hopelessness?

This also raises the problem of false hope. At what point might psychotherapy promise, explicitly or implicitly, forms of personal transformation, resilience or adaptation in circumstances whose determinants are substantially ecological, political, economic or social? Might psychotherapy sometimes help sustain belief in futures that may no longer be credible? Or might its task be less to preserve hope than to support ways of living, relating and acting that remain meaningful even in the absence of optimism?

These questions cannot simply be located in the client. Psychotherapists themselves may experience fear, anger, grief, hope, political commitment, uncertainty or despair in relation to the same world. What happens when therapist and client are exposed to the same conditions and uncertainties?

Might psychotherapy then have less to do with restoring confidence in a better future and more to do with how we live now? Could psychotherapy help people live authentically, according to their values, even while the polycrisis unfolds around them? What might it mean to live responsibly, relationally and meaningfully without certainty that the wider situation will improve? 

Possible areas for contribution 

Contributions to consider:

• Is hope that the contemporary polycrisis can be overcome realistic, necessary, illusory – or all three?
• How should psychotherapy engage with scientific and social claims that some ecological changes may be irreversible or approaching critical thresholds?
• What place do hope, hopelessness, desire and false hope have in psychotherapy?
• Might relinquishing hope sometimes be more truthful than sustaining it?
• How might hope be distinguished from desire, vitality, responsibility or openness to what may emerge?
• Can psychotherapy ever be politically neutral, and should it aspire to be?
• Is choosing not to engage with political, ecological or social questions itself political?
• How do authoritarianism, polarisation, economic precarity and declining trust in institutions enter psychotherapeutic practice?
• Might the absence of discussion about ecological, political or social crisis itself have psychotherapeutic meaning?
• When would bringing such questions into the therapeutic encounter be appropriate, and when might doing so impose the therapist’s concerns?
• What happens when psychotherapist and client are both affected by the same crises and uncertainties?
• Can ideas of resilience, adaptation and personal change inadvertently accommodate people to damaging or intolerable conditions?
• How should psychotherapy understand distress that may be a proportionate response to ecological, political, economic or social realities?
• How are artificial intelligence and other technological developments changing subjectivity, relationships, intimacy and psychotherapeutic practice?
• Might psychotherapy help people live authentically and according to their values even where the future remains uncertain or threatening?
• What are the limits of psychotherapy’s capacity, competence and responsibility in responding to the crises of our time? 

We welcome theoretical, clinical, empirical, philosophical and interdisciplinary contributions, including papers that question whether psychotherapy should seek to respond to these crises at all. 

Submission guidelines 

Manuscripts should follow the EJPC author guidelines available on the Taylor & Francis website.

• Abstracts: 150-200 words
• Author bio: 50-150 words
• Manuscripts: 4,000-5,000 words excluding abstract, author bio and references
• Please submit via the EJPC online submission portal, selecting the option for ‘Special issue’.