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JHPXXX10.1177/0022167818817181Journal of Humanistic PsychologyIngle

Article
Journal of Humanistic Psychology
2021, Vol. 61(6) 925­–938
Western Individualism © The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0022167818817181
https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167818817181
Exploring the Edges journals.sagepub.com/home/jhp

of Ecological Being

Micah Ingle1

Abstract
This article will begin by outlining a taken-for-granted individualistic subject
at the heart of Western psychotherapeutic theory and practice. It will
offer a brief survey of critiques aimed at this foundational understanding
of the psychological subject, from philosophical and theoretical domains.
Next, the article will explore three different modes of psychotherapeutic
praxis that work toward recognizing and engendering a more contextual,
relational, and ecological figure of subjectivity in therapeutic settings.
Narrative therapy, feminist therapies, and ecotherapies will be explored
for their value in working against an individualistic conception of human
being, toward an embedded and contextualized notion of the subject
which considers social, political, economic, and natural world vectors
of influence. It will be argued that each of these forms of practice has
something to offer to an alternative, anti-individualistic psychotherapeutic
praxis, which may intersect with greater personal, collective, and
ecological well-being.

Keywords
alienation, individualism, ecology, culture, gender, self, social justice, critical
theory, critical psychology, community

1University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA, USA

Corresponding Author:
Micah Ingle, Department of Psychology, University of West Georgia, 1404 Maple Street, Unit
A, Carrollton, GA 30117, USA.
Email: mingle1@my.westga.edu
926 Journal of Humanistic Psychology 61(6)

Maybe the target nowadays is not to discover what we are, but to refuse what we
are. We have to imagine and to build up what we could be to get rid of [a] political
“double bind,” which is the simultaneous individualization and totalization of
modern power structures. The conclusion would be that the political, ethical,
social, philosophical problem of our days is not to try to liberate the individual
from the state, and from the state’s institutions, but to liberate us both from the
state and from the type of individualization which is linked to the state. We have
to promote new forms of subjectivity through refusal of this kind of individuality
which has been imposed on us for several centuries.

—Michel Foucault (1984, p. 22).

Theoretical Background
Western psychology has conventionally understood the psychological subject
or person in individualistic terms, namely as decontextualized and self-pos-
sessive, alone responsible for itself and its thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.
Psychology’s subject is decontextualized in the sense of the individual’s
interrelations with the world around them, from the formative impact of mass
media and education to the realities of socioeconomic status, among many
other local and extended vectors of constitutive influence (Parker, 2007). It is
self-possessive in terms of an emphasis on unbridled agency, free choice (as
seen in economic theory), and neoliberal ownership toward itself, with a
coinciding responsibility to develop and market itself—as well as being the
site of intervention for its “failure” to adapt, in the case of psychopathology
(Sugarman, 2015). This perspective has received criticism from a number of
theoretical positions in the 20th and 21st centuries. Figures within cultural
anthropology, humanistic and transpersonal psychology, critical theory/criti-
cal psychology, and other disciplines to be explored in this article, have all in
various forms criticized the modern psychological “individualistic” self as
unaware of its worldly connections, as embodying a self-centered and com-
petitive/nonrelational mode of being with others, and as suffocating both its
own vitality as well as enacting violent patterns of oppression and dominance
on others (be they ethnic/gendered minorities or nonhuman forces in the nat-
ural environment).
This article will explore some of the effects of Western individualism and
highlight critiques of this subjectivity, both politically and psychologically.
Moreover, it will offer a brief sketch of alternatives to the modernist brand of
self-possessive subjectivity, particularly in reference to revolutionary thera-
peutic practices, with the goal of engendering a more ecologically sensitive,
relational, and politically active kind of human being. To this end, concepts
Ingle 927

will be utilized from a number of psychologists and philosophers as well as

various figures in critical theory, such as Felix Guattari’s notion of “transver-
sal” connections and Michel Foucault’s emphasis on the material and discur-
sive construction of subjectivity. Remembering the classic humanistic
imperative of holism, and seeing a commonplace mission of broadening con-
sciousness and daily life practices to include nonegoic factors in the under-
standing of selfhood, this article will seek to establish dialogue between
critical and humanistic-transpersonal-ecological approaches to subjectivity
and therapeutic practice. Within humanistic psychology, the work of Martin
Heidegger has been suggested for a project of reconceptualizing the self and
aligning humanistic psychology with theoretical developments associated
with the “sociocultural turn” of the poststructuralists (McDonald & Wearing,
2013). Although the current article does not take significant direct influence
from existential-phenomenology, it does recognize the contributions of
Heidegger’s work toward a more ecologically embedded understanding of
subjectivity and views this as an important and parallel disciplinary thread.
American psychologists within the critical and social constructionist tradi-
tions have defined the individualized Western subject as bounded, self-mas-
terful, egocentric, other-phobic, consumeristic, and entrepreneurial
(Cushman, 1990; Gergen, 2009; Parker, 2007; Sampson, 1993; Sugarman,
2015). Many of these thinkers propose moving toward a relational or ecologi-
cal (i.e., contextually embedded and fundamentally interrelated) understand-
ing of subjectivity which focuses on issues such as situating the self in
sociohistorical contexts (as opposed to universalizing the Western self),
emphasizing nonclosure toward the other (as opposed to egoic self-absorp-
tion and rigid boundary setting), and recognizing the self’s inherent co-con-
stitution with and reliance on others (as opposed to the concept of the
self-made person). French philosopher Michel Foucault (1995) links the rise
of this form of “interior”-centric subjectivity to the Enlightenment—to the
labor demands of industrialization and the disciplinary methods of state
apparatuses, wherein the subject becomes a biographical and autobiographi-
cal being, whose specific properties can be mapped, catalogued, and con-
trolled. Cultural anthropologist Gregory Bateson (1972) argues that this
Western subject has committed an “epistemological error,” failing to recog-
nize its ecological constitution and ultimate reliance on orders of systems
outside its direct control (p. 489).
Consequently, theorists aligned with the postmodern and poststructural
movement, such as the Marxist Louis Althusser, and more recently research-
ers in discourse analysis and critical psychology, have worked toward a pic-
ture of the individual subject as existing within and as an outgrowth of social
relations, be they discursive—that is, everyday talk and mass media images,
928 Journal of Humanistic Psychology 61(6)

or material—that is, institutional hierarchies and socioeconomic practices

(Henriques, 1984). French philosopher and psychoanalyst Felix Guattari
(2000) proposes an order of “three ecologies” to which individuals belong
and through which they are pierced (and perhaps “decentered”): social ecol-
ogy, mental ecology, and environmental ecology, arguing for an “ecosophi-
cal” approach which will consider all three orders in dynamic collaboration
(p. 28). It will be the project of this article to explore the extent to which a
revolutionary therapeutic political praxis is possible, which would decenter
the individualist self, returning the subject to its “home territory” in a world
of multiple, intersecting flows of ecological influence and constitution, be
they to do with the so-called natural world, with the world of communication
and social interaction, or with the “intrapsychic” world of feelings, thoughts,
and other conventional psychological phenomena. It is the political assump-
tion here that a more ecologically aware and active subject is necessary in the
current Western climate, where many human beings suffer from disconnec-
tion and alienation, and where the ecological systems to which we are
beholden may teeter on the edge of unsustainability because of neoliberal,
individualist values and practices, such as a self-centered emphasis on per-
sonal financial gain to the exclusion of consideration toward “the common,”
or human life as relationally and systemically conceived (Gergen, 2009;
Hardt & Negri, 2011; Sugarman, 2015).
Critical and liberation psychologists have argued that psychology gener-
ally and psychotherapy in specific have focused too strongly on subjective
interiorities, to the exclusion of external factors which contribute to the con-
stitution and framing, as well as content, of those interiorities (Gergen, 2009;
Guattari, 2000; Parker, 2007; Watkins & Shulman, 2010). Felix Guattari
(2000) sees interiority as something like a nexus point between many differ-
ent flows of discursivity and materiality:

Rather than speak of the “subject,” we should perhaps speak of components of

subjectification, each working more or less on its own. This would lead us,
necessarily, to re-examine the relation between concepts of the individual and
subjectivity, and, above all, to make a clear distinction between the two. Vectors
of subjectification do not necessarily pass through the individual, which in
reality appears to be something like a “terminal” for processes that involve
human groups, socio-economic ensembles, data-processing machines, etc.
Therefore, interiority establishes itself at the crossroads of multiple components,
each relatively autonomous in relation to the other, and, if need be, in open
conflict. (p. 36)

Some theorists have come to label this interior fixation as “psychologiza-

tion,” a turning-inward which works against broader social understandings of
Ingle 929

the self, in unwitting service to status quo sociopolitical arrangements

(Parker, 2007; Rose, 1990). On another front, transpersonal and eco-psychol-
ogists such as Craig Chalquist (2007) have argued that this fixation on inte-
rior dynamics has separated the modern subject from a conscious
interrelatedness with the world, producing unanticipated psychological
effects:

When people inhabit a particular place, its features inhabit their psychological
field, in effect becoming extended facets of their selfhood. The more they
repress the local, multifaceted sense of environmental presence, the likelier its
features will reappear unconsciously as symbolic, animated forces seething
from within and from without. (p. 7)

Anti-Individualism and Therapy

A subject may become, heeding these critiques, understood as broadly eco-
logical with regard to both sociopolitical and economic, as well as local and
natural-world influences. A number of psychologists have, since the mid-
20th century, attempted to understand individuals interpersonally and sys-
temically, rather than atomistically, utilizing concepts from systems theory/
cybernetics, phenomenology, dialogical thinking, and other notions of self-
other relatedness (Atwood & Stolorow, 1984; Bateson, 1972; Hermans, 2001;
Jackson & Fox, 2014; Taipale, 2016). These conceptual systems, sometimes
associated with therapeutic practices such as family systems therapy, inter-
subjective systems theory, and open dialogue dialogic practice, have made an
important shift in theorizing selfhood. They have begun to situate the subject
within intersubjective, dialogical/dyadic, and systems-oriented contexts,
rather than existing as a wholly self-possessive or self-constituting entity.
These modalities have allowed for different therapeutic conceptualizations
and different therapeutic practices—for example, treating the client as a
member of a system whose “essential, internal attributes” have grown out of
and are sustained by relational processes. Arguably, however, they have not
gone far enough in bringing to bear not only one’s local interpersonal and
familial contexts, but larger cultural and environmental contexts.
Along a different progressive line of thinking, Felix Guattari’s work at the
French clinic La Borde attempted to expand therapeutic practice beyond its
formerly bounded scope, bringing in “transversal” methods which sought to
expand the awareness and capacities of the clinical patients involved, based
on a Spinozist ontology of the relations between bodies. “Transversal” in this
sense refers to a diagonal cutting across or interpenetration of traditionally
parallel or hierarchical boundaries between individuals. Guattari (2000)
930 Journal of Humanistic Psychology 61(6)

argues that it is necessary to expand one’s sense of self into communally con-
nected and interpenetrative forms of subjectivity, which he does by working
materially in opening the capacities of the embodied subject, exemplified in
the emphasis on communal and artistic methods of therapeutic work. This
can be seen in the role-play boundary crossing of conventional identity posi-
tions at the La Borde clinic, where, for example, patients acted as administra-
tors and cooks, and both patients and clinicians participated together in
theater productions. All of these approaches have contributed to a more holis-
tic and ecological understanding of the psychological subject, with Guattari’s
work in particular employing a radically subversive understanding of embed-
ded and interrelated subjectivity. The article will now turn to an exploration
of narrative therapy, feminist therapies, and ecotherapies, for their potential
in furthering this ecological understanding of subjectivity and offering pos-
sibilities for therapeutic work which honor the ecological subject and attempt
to restore its severed worldedness.

Narrative Therapy
Following the work of the previously discussed thinkers and clinicians,
another important shift began in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the
advent of the Foucault-inspired narrative therapy. Michael White and David
Epston (1990) are explicit in advocating an anti-individualist framework,
working to include the issue of subjective interpellation into cultural narra-
tives (such as biomedical-based forms of pathologization) as part of thera-
peutic awareness and practice.
Narrative therapists present an avenue for reconfiguring subjectivity
through the deconstruction of dominant individualist discourses, following
the intellectual legacy of Foucault. Biomedical and cognitive discourses sur-
rounding mental illness threaten an ecological understanding of the sources
of and solutions for contemporary forms of suffering. As long as an individ-
ual, and indeed a mass of individuals, interprets their psychological symp-
toms along the lines of an atomistic medical or cognitive–behavioral model,
little can be done to inspire change in a more fundamental social or ecological
sense, for the “problem” in these frameworks rests squarely with each person,
rather than having anything to do with ecological and systemic issues, such
as a global decline, in the west, of vital communities and shared meaning
structures (Gergen, 2009; Putnam, 2007).
Narrative therapists help clients deconstruct life narratives that involve
disempowering, individualizing aspects through which clients have become
intelligible to themselves (Van Wyk, 2008, p. 258). The self here is under-
stood as constructed through discursive and institutional social webs, coming
Ingle 931

into being through available “dominant discourses” of subjectivity, never as

wholly autonomous. Narrative work sees the self as an in-process living out
of particular stories, be they local/familial “subjugated knowledge” in the
case of some cultures which have experienced oppression, or broader socio-
cultural “dominant discourses.” Therapists operating in this mode sometimes
“externalize” problems, locating their source not in the essentiality of indi-
vidual self-biology or cognition, but in discourses which overcode the life-
worlds of subjugated or alternative possibilities for identity (it should be
noted that externalization has a more precise definition and function within
narrative therapy which need not necessarily include sociocultural elements).
These narratives are all too easily constructed and professionally reified
within the biomedical model of psychopathology, which lays ideological
claim to a large swath of clinical practitioners and institutions within the U.S.
mental health system. Narrative workers focus instead on what they call
“unique outcomes,” events or narrative fragments in each person’s life that
contest dominant narratives, which can be cultivated into healthier, less
pathologizing self-stories (White & Epston, 1990). This may involve, for
example, dealing with racial stereotypes and discourses in the school system,
as in one recorded session with narrative therapist Stephen Madigan (n.d.).
This form of deconstruction through critically examining accrued self-
narratives is a powerful method for freeing contemporary subjects from
harmful, individualistic narratives which threaten their sense of identity and
prevent their ability to act creatively in the world. The underlying construc-
tivist notion of self here is never separate, but always in relation, both locally
and within the contexts of the larger sociocultural/political and economic
world. This may open the door for discussions, as do occur in narrative work,
concerning both material, institutional aspects of social life as it relates to
subjectivity, that is, work conditions, environmental conditions, broader
socioeconomic conditions, as well as ideological aspects, such as particular
discourses about normative models of mental health, relationship dynamics,
gender and sexuality, institutional racism, and so on—around which “prob-
lem” identities or stories may circle.
One can see how it may be appropriate in a narrative therapy session to
question normative discourses and ideals around fundamental cultural values
such as ultimate self-interest and self-possession, consumerism, and other
harmful neoliberal, individualist discursive formations. This is likely occur-
ring already for many practitioners in the psychotherapeutic community,
though they may lack the anti-individualist theoretical foundation to tie their
work to broader social structures.
One issue that crops up in narrative work is the desire to equalize power
relations between therapist and client, which can become problematic if a
932 Journal of Humanistic Psychology 61(6)

clinician assumes expert knowledge over clients, even if that expert knowl-
edge relates to oppressive discourses and material conditions. In light of
this concern, narrative therapists emphasize the importance of working
collaboratively, treating the client as expert of their own world and experi-
ence, and focusing on the work as a dialogical and intersubjective process
in the construction of new meanings. It is the job of the therapist in this
context to invite new and alternative understandings through curiosity and
open questioning, but not to didactically inform or construct their own
preferred meaning system (Anderson & Goolishian, 1992). This does not
prohibit the therapist from opening onto vital questions of individualism,
however, as the client’s own discursive material, as a Western subject,
involves the cultural context of individualism and other sociopolitical
issues like race, previously mentioned. Conventional psychological issues
such as loneliness/alienation, depression, social anxiety, schizophrenia,
and more often find easy connection with cultural problems such as indi-
vidualism (Parker, 1995; Sugarman, 2015). Restorying can and should
occur with fundamental respect for the expertise of the client’s own world
of experience, which is not without challenge, as the position of the thera-
pist intersects with issues of power that may not be easily dispelled through
egalitarian and collaborative intentions alone.

Feminist Therapies
A second field of therapeutic work which disavows individualizing tenden-
cies can be found in feminist theory and modalities, though it should be
noted that both feminist theory and feminist psychotherapy are heteroge-
neous zones of work involving diverse sets of ideas and practices. Celia
Kitzinger, for example, has strongly opposed the individualization of women
in Western culture, lest the feminist dictum of “the personal is political” be
forgotten (Bell & Klein, 1996). Although Kitzinger and other feminist writ-
ers have denounced psychotherapy as a whole, it is the assumption of this
article that the practice is not irrevocably lost to individualizing narratives
and practices. Maeve Halpin has examined the practices of feminist thera-
pists on the ground, noting that while feminist therapists may believe in the
sociocultural interrelatedness of personal problems, care is also taken to pre-
serve the individual subject’s idiosyncratic interpersonal and psychologi-
cally historied life (Halpin, 1992). Feminist therapists, according to Halpin,
often attempt to balance sociocultural critique with personal sensitivity.
Alongside the need for sensitivity toward the personal (an ideal toward
which humanistic psychology excels), it is important for many feminist ther-
apists to open a clearing for the discussion of social discourses and material
Ingle 933

practices surrounding the oppression of women. Evans, Kincade, and Seem

(2011) argue that it is indeed possible to value both individual women’s
experience and include larger sociocultural discussions of oppression within
a therapeutic environment; they believe that the work of a feminist therapist
is to bring awareness of social context and oppression to the therapy session
and to one’s own being:

Being a feminist therapist means that you believe that causes of psychological
distress can be contextual rather than individual. It means personally making
those connections between the personal and the political. It means closely and
consistently examining your beliefs and values to ensure you have not
unconsciously accepted your culture’s definitions of what it means to be a man
or a woman, about gendered behavior, about relationships, and about power,
oppression, and cultural values. This, of course, is no easy task. It requires
vigilance. The values and beliefs of the dominant culture are insidiously strong.
Being a feminist therapist is about a way of being in the world and, as a mental
health practitioner, about a set of beliefs that helps you make those necessary
connections in order to live the change you advocate for your clients. (pp. 21-22)

Accounting for the tangible discursive and material effects of a patriarchal

society shows great promise for working against conventional individual-
izing psychological narratives, and like Narrative workers, feminist thera-
pists often emphasize a collaborative, egalitarian, co-constructive
relationship between clinician and client, as well as advocating for social
justice and greater solidarity between individuals, in addition to individu-
alized “psychological transformation.” Historically, many feminist theo-
rists and therapists have advocated group-work as opposed (or in addition)
to individual therapy, which they argue has a greater potential for individu-
alizing and emphasizing too strongly the intrapsychic; others, however,
have viewed individual therapy as a “consciousness-raising group of two”
(Enns, 1992, p. 460). Radical and socialist forms of feminist psychother-
apy hold promise as well, as they focus on offering sociopolitical analyses
(as pertaining to, e.g., race, the social construction of gender, and eco-
nomic class), rather than a more conservative take on projects of self-
growth and unified subjectivity attributable to liberal feminist and
psychodynamically oriented modalities (Enns, 1992).

Ecotherapies
A third method of bringing greater context into therapeutic work can be
seen in the many forms of ecological practice which are inclusive of the
natural world and local forms of interconnectedness, such as intensive,
nature-based interventions—for example, wilderness therapy and equine
934 Journal of Humanistic Psychology 61(6)

therapy, or even forms of embodiment-based therapy like dance arts, if we

are broadening the scope to include all methods which endeavor to connect
bodies to each other and their environmental surround. As radical ecopsy-
chologist Andy Fisher (2013) states, the field of ecopsychology has many
applications to therapy: “[ . . . ] nature-inclusive psychotherapy, animal-
assisted psychotherapy, ecological dreamwork, wilderness work, horticul-
tural therapy, therapy for traumatized nonhuman animals, the psychology
of peak oil and climate change, ecospirituality, shamanism, and commu-
nity- and place-based perspectives” (p. 220).
The incorporation of these practices into models of therapeutic work
involves Felix Guattari’s aforementioned “transversal” elements, opening the
self onto greater levels of connection and interbeing with a greater set of pos-
sibility opening dynamical contexts, both human and nonhuman. Transversal
connections may bring about greater heterogenous and interrelated forma-
tions of identity, rather than the bounded, fixed ego structure of the conven-
tional psychological subject. Ecotherapeutic practice may achieve similar
results in its emphasis on interrelatedness between self and world, especially
as it encourages interaction between embodied subjects and greater ecologi-
cal forces and entities. Fisher conceives of ecopsychological practice as a
radical subversion of the psyche/society and psyche/world dichotomies and
as an attempt to return psyche to the world, as part of a larger community,
rather than distinct from or dominant to nature. He argues that ecopsychology
is a project which is inherently political: the harbinger of a move to “ecoso-
cieties” which relate differently to life contexts, such as the natural world,
from current capitalist societies (Fisher, 2013, p. 198). He further warns
against the appropriation of ecopsychological ideas into current sociopoliti-
cal and subjective configurations; rather than incorporating ecotherapy into
reigning psychological regimes of mental health and the sociopolitical status
quo, ecotherapy should fashion itself as a “transitional” movement with the
goal of significant social change. Fisher (2013) rightly challenges much of
ecotherapeutic practice to be as radical as some of its underlying theoretical
grounding, and not to bend to individualistic imperatives:

Since first writing this book I have come to think that the practical and critical
tasks I identified in chapter 1 need to be more tightly integrated, so as to
generate radical praxes that offer “therapy” that is as much cultural and social
as personal. (p. 221)

Fisher (2013) criticizes ecotherapy practices which focus exclusively on a

general sense of wellness, rather than incorporating the subversive ideals of
rearranging social structures so as to change human subjectivity and its
Ingle 935

relationships, though he is also careful to express that ecotherapy need not

necessarily focus exclusively on activism, as there is subversive potential in
the psychological aspect of the work, involving: “poetics, healing, earth cel-
ebration, ritual, care for the human lifecycle, rites of passage, embodiment,
ecospirituality, and so on” (p. 222). These arguments are worth considering
as ecotherapy evolves as a field of practice and as a potential site for the
reconfiguration of human subjectivity, as well as human relationship to the
world, local and global. When minding these precautions, ecotherapy pres-
ents, like narrative and feminist approaches, an opportunity to revise current
conceptions and experiences of subjectivity toward a more ecological model
of selfhood, which is open to its embodied positionality and location within
the greater webs of the social and natural world.

Conclusion
Following the imperative of archetypal psychologist James Hillman, current
and future work in critical realms of therapeutic practice should sustain a
focus on creating the kind of therapeutic environment which critiques con-
ventional individualistic theory and practice, and develops new modes of
ecologically sensitive healing:

The theory that they [psychologists] practice with is all wrong. It’s not
revolutionary. This room should be a cell of revolution, which means it
should be very aware of the political and social world that people are in.
Not just a revolution of consciousness, but of the actual social situations.
(Capen, 1996)

Continued efforts must be made in psychotherapeutic praxis to combat

Western individualism in its devitalizing, nonrelational, and alienating
effects, with the ultimate hope of a new kind of being-human adequate to
the task of just social practice, ecological sustainability, and personal–col-
lective fulfillment. The models of therapeutic practice sketched in this arti-
cle offer distinct possibilities for a reconfiguration of the current atomized,
alienated self at the heart of much psychological work. Each shares in a
vision, as the existential-phenomenological foundations of humanistic psy-
chology has classically advocated, of a human being who is not apart from
the world, but is ecologically situated and always already involved in cul-
tural practices extending beyond its immediate, bounded personhood
(McDonald & Wearing, 2013).
As a final remark, it should be noted that many forms of liberatory psycho-
logical practice exist outside of the therapeutic dyad or group. Psychotherapy
936 Journal of Humanistic Psychology 61(6)

is not a substitute for social activism and political change, though it may sup-
port and complement other forms of transformation—as this article argues, it
need not be exclusively personal; it may involve itself in the lifeblood of larger
efforts toward communal/ecological restoration and sociopolitical–economic
justice. There are many other powerful and necessary modes of social trans-
formation, such as participatory action projects, community clinical work,
rituals of communal remembering and healing, grassroots organizing and pro-
testing, movements associated with social and economic reorganization, and
so forth. Watkins and Shulman (2008) discuss a number of these, as well as
other avenues for social transformation, in their fantastic account of a decolo-
nizing liberation psychology.
As for psychotherapy’s relationship to broader avenues of social trans-
formation, similarly to the sensitivity displayed by feminist approaches
which conjoin the personal and the political, this author contends that many
individuals in westernized culture may benefit from personalized assistance
in addressing and overcoming the symptomatic effects of the broken sys-
tems to which they belong. Just as psychotherapy is no substitute for social
activism, the reverse is also true. If we profess to value the well-being of
the individual, we must take into consideration the effects of society and
even social transformation on the individual, and we must be open to the
kinds of scaffolding efforts which would preserve the dignity and well-
being of those affected by systems of violence and domination. To end on a
final quote from James Hillman:

When I criticize therapy, I’m not really out to get therapists. I think they’re
doing some of the most important work in the culture because they are sincerely
trying to pick up the pieces that capitalism throws into the street. They’re trying
to hold people together in one way or another, which is a nurturing, a nursing
kind of task. (Capen, 1996)

Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Dr. John L. Roberts, Dr. Marie-Cecile Bertau, and
Garri Hovhannisyan for reviewing the article prior to its submission.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publica-
tion of this article.
Ingle 937

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Author Biography
Micah Ingle holds a MA in psychology and is a second year
PhD student at the University of West Georgia, where he
studies humanistic, transpersonal, and critical psychology, in
addition to teaching Intro to Psychology. His research interests
include archetypal psychology, existential-phenomenology,
poststructuralism/posthumanism, and social justice. He is a
student representative for Division 32 of the APA and
regularly attends conferences for the American Academy of
Psychotherapists.