ABSTRACT
A dilemma often arises for any counsellor or therapist around the issue of the personal versus the political: how much of what a client is going through is due to what is outside the person, and how much of it is due to what is inside the person. Psychotherapy, counselling and personal growth are interested in the person within the person. In an attempt to pursue this analysis, some writers have been using the notion of the Patripsych - an internal constellation of patriarchal patterns. This is a structure inside, which corresponds to oppressive structures outside, each supporting the other. The internal structure arises out of a set of movements towards, against and away from a symbolic patriarchal figure or set of figures, and is held out of consciousness by the usual defence mechanisms, this time in the cultural unconscious.
