Value in Therapy

Part 4, The Hidden Values of Therapy

In the last post, I floated the view that therapy, far from being value-neutral, may be smuggling the values of liberalism into our pursuit of mental health. If so, therapy might be compromised in various ways in facilitating our flourishing. Not to say therapy is ineffective, but circumscribed in what it can envision and achieve.

That psychology traffics in the values of liberal individualism is the argument made by Brent Slife, Greg Martin, and Sondra Sasser in their chapter from The Hidden Worldviews of Psychology's Theory, Research, and Practice. This was the issue I raised in the last post, how the values of liberalism are so assumed and ubiquitous we don't even recognize them as regulating our commitments. Everything is operating behind the scenes, hidden and out of view. We're making moral discernments and choices without even noticing.

So, according to Slife, Martin, and Sasser, what are the values of liberal individualism hidden within the practice of therapy? They describe six:

Atomism: Individual identity is relatively independent of context and relationships.

Autonomy: Individuals have the power and right to govern themselves and decide their own therapy goals.

Happiness: Individuals should pursue the satisfaction of their own desires, including happiness and well-being.

Instrumentalism: Individuals should use the world, including people, as resources for their own ends.

Neutrality: Therapists should strive to practice in a manner that is as free of their own values as possible.

Freedom From: Individuals should reject unnecessary obligations as obstacles to their freedom and self-expression.

These are the values of neoliberalism, a market-shaped view of human flourishing that conceives of individuals as autonomous, self-interested agents within a marketplace of choices where we pursue utility maximization.

Now I want to be pretty clear here about what I am and am not suggesting. There have been plenty of criticisms leveled at therapy by conservative Christians, decrying therapy as toxic. That is not what I am suggesting here. So let me say this clearly: Therapy is effective and life-saving. What I am suggesting is that, insofar as therapy traffics in liberal values, it will be limited in its ability to see and reach for other goods that promote flourishing. By failing to introduce values into the therapeutic context or, as we've come to see, defaulting to "hidden" and unexamined values, therapy is delimiting the conversation it can have with clients about their health and well-being.

What exactly that larger conversation might look like in therapy is what we'll turn to in the next post. There is more to share from Slife, Martin, and Sasser.