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Philip Cushman’s collection of papers showcased in his recent book, “Travels with the Self: Interpreting Psychology as Cultural History” coalesce to form a strong critique of psychotherapist/psychoanalytic practitioners, and their compliance with socio-political norms and expectations. Cushman casts a critical eye towards psychotherapists/psychoanalysts for colluding with power dynamics that operate in the larger social sphere, and for not recognizing the degree to which they’re going along with them. Cushman urges practitioners to become more politically aware, and to actively work to change the power elite that governs our work. His voice of protest gains steady momentum throughout his writing, and he gets more vehement about his protest-perspective in each subsequent essay. As a whole, the book serves as a wake-up call to psychotherapists and psychoanalysts—to think about our collusion with society and the corrupted values that are dictated by the power elite.
The book is entitled “Travels With the Self” to show the way the self changes along with broader changes in social, political and economic factors. Cushman believes the self is socially constructed, and therefore the self exists in the context of the particular socio-historical era it inhabits. In terms of research methodology, Cushman draws from “cultural vernacular”—such as comic strips, radio talk shows and commercials. One of these comic strips is Gasoline Alley, a series that “centered on the lives of patriarch Walt Wallet, his family, and residents in the town of Gasoline Alley, with storylines that reflected traditional American values” (Wikipedia). One of Cushman’s oft-cited referents is Clovia, born in 1949 in a taxi on the way to the hospital. She was named Clovia because of a small, but portentous birthmark on her hand, a four-leaf clover. In Cushman’s view, Clovia symbolizes a new generation: luckier, less restrained, privileged; free from the war, the Great Depression, and from irrational, rigid