In a new article, Joanne Hunt critically examines the underlying assumptions within psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy that perpetuate exclusionary practices. These disciplines, she argues, align traits such as rationality, independence, productivity, and self-control with the norms of white, male, middle-class, cisgender, and heterosexual individuals—marginalizing those who do not fit this mold. Hunt calls for a shift in perspective, one that centers the experiences and knowledge of those historically othered by the psy-complex.
“Feminism, particularly feminist psychology, bears a long tradition of critiquing the practices and discourse of the psy disciplines, understood here as psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy,” Hunt writes. “Feminist literature demonstrates how the psy complex (the interplay between psy’s ‘expert’ knowledge regimes and those who are interpellated into and governed by these regimes) constitutes a ‘self’ or subject whose ostensible universal nature derives from its oppressed Other, where oppression is acknowledged as gendered, racialized, sexed, classed, and sexualized.”
Hunt’s analysis delves into how the psy-disciplines, in their quest for a universal subject, often pathologize differences, particularly in individuals with medically unexplained and energy-limiting conditions like ME/CFS and long COVID. Drawing on feminist disability studies, she contends that prevailing psychological models not only fail to address the needs of marginalized individuals but also reinforce a harmful hierarchy that privileges certain bodies and minds over others.
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“The exclusion of disabled and feminist perspectives, Hunt concludes, damages everyone—discrimination against anyone creates room for the discrimination of everyone.”
I agree, and that’s where we are. Good God, the Covid measures were abuse of all.
Let’s hope and pray that some day the paternalistic corporations and industries will change from their evil and scientifically “invalid” ways, and learn all people (including the women) need to be treated in a mutually respectful manner.
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The politics of patriarchy are part and parcel of western medicine/”psy” disciplines.
Solutions lie in avoiding western medicine as much as possible and instead find qualified practioners trained in Eastern medicine which allows the body and mind to heal naturally of their own accord.
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I agree, we need to get rid of basically all of the greed only inspired, “Rockefeller medicine” / big Pharma iatrogenic illnesses creating medical system.
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☺️❤️
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