From the couch to the concrete: How psychotherapy can help build healthy cities

Abstract

Psychotherapy offers a historical, social and relational understanding of the human condition — the being and becoming of the human — and helps people to better understand the impress of the social world on their psychologies so that they might flourish and enjoy wellness. This paper reflects upon the extent to which, thus defined, psychotherapy might usefully articulate with and enrich urban planning, design, regeneration and renewal. It weaves together a double play between psychotherapy in the city (homo-urbanus on the couch — focusing upon extending therapy to social and historical urban citizens and their psychologies) and psychotherapy of the city (concrete on the couch — construing the city as a social and historical being just as a human being and replicating psychotherapeutically informed remedies and interventions at the scale of the city). In the first case, the impress of urbanisation on psychologies and what might be done to ameliorate urban stressors provides the focus. In the second case, a more reflexive historical, social and relational understanding of the urban condition — the being and becoming of the city — could help cities themselves to more effectively harness self-care tools. The implication is clear. The psychotherapy profession should be represented in governance institutions which oversee regeneration and renewal projects so that these projects might leave as their legacy more enduring therapeutic and human-centred landscapes.