View article

This chapter represents a dialogue between two interdisciplinary social theorists (Alyson K. Spurgas and Elliott Schwebach) who discuss how psychological assumptions and psychotherapeutic practices are too often complicit with structural patterns of oppression, including gender-based violence and sexual control. Alyson unpacks the development of their research into the iatrogenic (re)production and invisibilization of feminized traumas within psychotherapeutic and sexual therapy settings, and Alyson and Elliott discuss the challenges of interdisciplinary psychosocial research and the complexities of psychoanalytic approaches toward human behavior. In addition, Alyson and Elliott explore questions of feminized trauma and sexual desire to challenge canonical assumptions regarding the construction and negotiation of political identities, as well as the seemingly apolitical or benign nature of alternative mental …