Perfect. Let’s construct a tailored discourse analysis framework for psychotherapy, particularly focusing on how psychotherapy constructs subjectivity, truth, and healing through language. This framework will draw from Foucauldian, Lacanian, and critical discourse analysis (CDA) perspectives—like Ian Parker’s—and is suitable for analyzing therapy sessions, training materials, case reports, popular therapy culture, or even specific schools of thought (e.g. CBT, psychodynamic, existential therapy).
Title (Working):
“The Discursive Construction of the Therapeutic Subject: Power, Language, and the Psy Complex”
I. Research Questions (examples to refine):
• How is “the self” constructed in psychotherapy discourse?
• What kinds of truths, norms, and subjectivities are authorized by therapy talk?
• How do therapeutic discourses define pathology, normalcy, healing, and transformation?
• How is power exercised in the therapeutic setting through language?
• What fantasies or affects structure the therapeutic relationship?
II. Theoretical Anchors
|
Tradition |
Key Concepts |
Application |
|
Foucault |
Power/knowledge; confession; normalization |
Analyze how therapy functions as a regime of truth and moral regulation |
|
Lacan/Parker |
Discursive complex; split subject; desire; fantasy |
Understand how the self is structured through lack, and how therapy addresses or sustains this |
|
CDA (Fairclough) |
Hegemonic discourse, intertextuality, subject positioning |
Trace how broader ideologies (e.g., neoliberalism, medicalization) infiltrate therapy |
III. Methodological Steps
1. Define the Corpus
• Clinical transcripts (real or training-based)
• Therapy manuals (e.g., CBT guides, DBT handouts)
• Therapeutic apps and chatbots
• Popular psychology books, YouTube therapy influencers
• Institutional materials (DSM, APA ethics codes, mental health campaigns)
2. Map the Discursive Context
• What is the institutional and cultural context of the therapy?
• Is it state-funded? Private? Tech-based?
• Western, Eastern, postcolonial, Indigenous framework?
• What dominant ideologies surround it (e.g., individualism, productivity, trauma culture)?
3. Identify Discursive Formations
• What types of selves are being spoken into existence?
• What binaries emerge (e.g., healthy/sick, resilient/broken, rational/irrational)?
• What moral imperatives are embedded in the discourse (e.g., self-care, insight, emotional regulation)?
4. Trace Master Signifiers
• “Healing,” “resilience,” “trauma,” “authentic self,” “growth,” “disorder,” “boundaries”
• These function to anchor meaning, but also obscure contradictions.
Ask:
• What do these signifiers exclude?
• Are they defined positively, or only through what they are not?
5. Analyze Subject Positions
• How is the client positioned?
• As damaged? Empowered? A truth-seeker?
• How is the therapist positioned?
• As expert? Companion? Interpreter? Mirror?
Ask:
• Is the client invited to speak, or guided toward certain truths?
• Are some kinds of suffering validated, others pathologized or ignored?
6. Explore Fantasy and Desire
Use Lacan’s formula: $ ◊ a
• $ = split subject (client)
• a = object-cause of desire (wholeness, self-love, healing)
Look for:
• Promises of restoration (“You can become whole again”)
• Therapies that address lack by substituting fantasy (e.g., “You’ll find your true self”)
7. Interrogate Power and Jouissance
• What power dynamics are embedded in therapeutic speech?
• Is there enjoyment in suffering? (e.g., repetition, self-blame, confessional pleasure)
• Does therapy relieve suffering—or recycle it within socially acceptable limits?
IV. Coding Template (for use in text or transcript analysis)
|
Discursive Feature |
Example |
Function |
|
Master Signifier |
“Healing” |
Anchors narrative of progress |
|
Subject Position |
“You are not your thoughts” |
Distances client from pathology |
|
Fantasy Frame |
“Your inner child needs love” |
Constructs an object-cause of desire |
|
Power Mechanism |
“Evidence-based treatment” |
Authorizes therapist’s knowledge |
|
Silencing/Omission |
No discussion of structural trauma |
Reframes all distress as internal |
|
Jouissance |
“I always mess up again…” |
Repetition of self-blame as painful enjoyment |
V. Applications & Extensions
You can apply this framework to:
• Critique therapy as ideology: How it reinforces neoliberal norms (e.g., self-responsibility, productivity).
• Explore resistance: What happens when clients reject the therapeutic frame? What forms of speech are censored or disallowed?
• Trace transformation: How does therapy help create new subjectivities, desires, or ways of speaking?
VI. Ethical & Philosophical Reflection
• Are we producing subjects who are more free, or more self-monitoring?
• Can there be a therapeutic discourse without normalization?
• Is therapy about truth, or fantasy management?
Would you like me to apply this framework to a sample therapy transcript or to a specific school (like existential therapy, CBT, or Internal Family Systems)? Or, we could trace how trauma discourse functions as a contemporary therapeutic master narrative.
