Language and the Power to Name Another's Experience

Our mission is to re-imagine psychology for the 21st century through connection, exploration, and innovation.

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In this lecture, Dr. Jessica Harbaugh explains the impact and consequence of restating another’s experience in one’s own words. Naming symptoms or even interpreting the unspoken are crucial tools not just for clinicians, but for most of us in our daily lives. But how does this naming serve the healing process when speaking on behalf of the other? With help from Foucault’s analysis of power and knowledge, we will explore clinical moments with asylum-seeking immigrants when this naming reflex broke down and both parties arrived at an impasse.

This is the third meeting from the lecture series “Untwisting Power Asymmetries Through Accompaniment”. In this lecture series, we have questioned the ways that we—in our already powerful roles as clinicians, activists, educators, lawyers, and other positions of status—are prone to repeating the powerful/powerless dynamic with the individuals we otherwise hope to serve.

Please, note that we will not be able to upload the second part of this lecture series due to the fact that clinical material has been shared.

Jessica Harbaugh, PhD, is a licensed psychologist from New York City, now living in Berlin. She completed a training year at the Bellevue Program for Survivors of Torture and collected original data from students in various mental health fields throughout the U.S., who worked with survivors of torture as part of their training experience. Jessica has also worked extensively with LGBTQ individuals and underserved adults presenting with complex trauma.

[KevinKindSongs]

The whole premise of the video is wrong, based on the latest brain science, and makes no reference to to any physiology - which is the basis of all behavior, including language. While solipsism is the dominant content of pop culture currently, it is circular semantic word-play and what proven value in problem solving for professionals and clients? Disengagement, dissociation and ad hominem, proud ignorance of science are also very pop now, it will change.