ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that other therapy "patients", particularly in relation to feeling totally disempowered, which had felt abusive. It suggests that there was a strong and developing critique of psychotherapy because of the sometimes abusive nature of the relationship. Psychotherapy held out much hope for transformation, and some of this has been disappointed. This dilemma is faced head on by G. Larner, in his unravelling of the implications of Derrida's deconstruction of power for a "deconstructing" form of psychotherapy. The therapeutic relationship there can be violence in the use of words and in the way things are put by the therapist that do not allow for engagement and discussion, but only for acceptance, willing or otherwise. A therapeutic relationship where the therapist maintains their "power over" the client is essentially violent and can do nothing to change the wider culture of violence.
