Fanon, Foucault, Feminisms: Psychoeducation, theoretical psychology and political change

In this paper I juxtapose three critical resources for theoretical psychology: Fanon, Foucault and feminisms. While the primary focus is on Fanon some shared methodological assumptions - arising from the influence of Marxism and psychoanalysis on all three - are noted, albeit giving rise to mutual tensions. I then apply this critical frame to a close reading of a clinical case discussed by Fanon in Wretched of the Earth. As a psychiatrist, but also political revolutionary and psychoeducator, Fanon's account is read here as indicative of his pedagogical address in motivating for socio-political as well as personal change and his therapeutic approach, albeit in need of a feminist re-reading of the gendering of violence, including sexual violence. The paper concludes by suggesting that Fanon's psychoaffective analysis, firstly, indicates how resistance and transformation are simultaneously intrapersonal, interpersonal and socio-political, but also that, secondly, attending to their shifting unstable and relational features works not only to renew and reinvigorate theoretical psychology but also the interventions and perspectives informing psychological and pedagogical activisms.