On the psycho-social conditions of psychotherapy in post-Soviet Georgia

The article describes the social, economic and political conditions that influence the practice of psychotherapy in post-Soviet Georgia. The author looks at the specific Soviet and post-Soviet mentalities and defines certain characteristics of these mentalities, the master-slave relationship between the people and the State, the materialistic world view, the nostalgia for the past and idealization of Soviet times, the identity crisis produced by the socio-economic traumas. The paper then provides clinical illustrations of these phenomena and shows how they can interfere with the process of psychotherapy.