Power, knowledge and resistance in therapy: exploring links between discourse and materiality

Abstract

This paper argues that power in therapy needs to be considered in terms of two dimensions: discourse (what is said or done) and materiality (the geographical spaces in which certain talk and action becomes possible). A failure to appreciate the mutual relatedness of these two dimensions leads to an impoverished view of therapeutic power operations. Within therapy, therapists simultaneously employ knowledge and power in work with clients. Therapy can thus be seen as a power/knowledge network. However, without the support of therapy's material dimensions, and the resulting positioning of participants, power becomes detached from therapeutic knowledge, compromising the latter's generative abilities. I explore the effects of materiality on therapeutic discourse, focusing on understandings and treatments of client resistance. It is argued that within therapy, it becomes possible to deal with resistance in ways that would be considered disrespectful in other (non-therapeutic) settings. I aim to highlight this difference in a critique of therapy, and consider how an inattention to material processes obscures from view the power and disrespect implicit in some of our accepted practices. A discourse analysis of interviews with eight therapists, who discuss interactions in two different settings (a therapy and a business setting), illustrates these points.