Lothar Duda, Manfred Wiesner, Eugene Epstein
Eugene, Manfred and Lothar share much in common: All three are psychologists and practicing psychotherapists in Germany, with much experience as trainers, supervisors and practitioners; they share a critical stance toward mainstream psychiatry, the pharma-medical- industrial complex, as well as the ever-expanding therapeutic state. They understand the term “therapeutic state” to mean the widespread and continually increasing use of therapeutic language and vocabularies to describe any and all aspects of our normal lives, or in other words, the pathologizing of everyday life. They have been colleagues and friends for many years and share a strong affinity towards social constructionist theory along with a love of film. They view psychiatric diagnoses as rather unaesthetic and unhelpful vocabularies of infirmity, psychotropic medications and forced treatment as unnecessary excesses of a society that places little value upon relationship. Creating film collages utilizing material from a wide range of cultural sources, they invite others to engage with them in new thinking about possible post-therapeutic futures.
Selected Writings:
Selected Writings:
- Epstein, E., Wiesner, M. & Duda, L. (2013) DSM and the Diagnosis-MacGuffin: Implications for the Self and Society, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy 2013, 34, 156–167
- Epstein, E., Wiesner, M. & Duda, L. (2013) From Psychiatry and Psychotherapy’s Grand Delusion Toward Constructions of a Post- Therapeutic State. madinamerica.com /2013/01/from-psychiatry-and-psychotherapys-grand-delusion-toward- constructions-of-a-post-therapeutic-state/
- Wiesner, M., Epstein, E. & Duda, L. (2015) The Crisis of Psychotherapy and the Road to a Post-Therapeutic Future. Orig. published in German in Verhaltenstherapie & Psychosoziale Praxis (VPP), 3/2015 under the German title “SPRACHEMACHTSINN”, p. 581-593.