The Woman Psychotherapist’s affections

Abstract

This article maps the affects experienced by female psychotherapists interviewed in 2022. We selected accounts related to the affect of fear, the possibility of suffering violence, and its repercussions. The analysis was based on Spinoza’s theory of affects. We also considered the political aspects in the literature of Deleuze and Foucault. We mapped the affective plane of female psychologists in their respective clinical practices, observing how their affects are present in the assessment of the therapeutic field and its processes. Fear induces a state of vigilance that, if prolonged, leads to the depotentiation of a person, compromising their ability to act. According to Spinoza (2009), sad affects—such as fear—prevent the mind from forming clear and distinct ideas, thereby limiting the ability to perform effective therapeutic interventions. This mapping highlighted the impact of gender violence, the actions of making female bodies submissive and docile, and the coping strategies of these women. This work aims to highlight the difficulties that psychotherapists face in carrying out their work, precisely due to the relations of power established between genders, in a distinctive opposition that places the masculine in a position of superiority over the feminine.