UberTherapy

“Uber Therapy traces the roots of our current public mental health crisis to two interlinked forces that emerged at the end of the first decade of this century: public austerity and the rise of mobile technology platforms. In their wake, public mental health care delivered by qualified professionals has been steadily overtaken by AI-driven therapies — a model of creeping privatisation, datafication, financialisation, and commercialisation. We now inhabit a world of mental health care where we know the ‘dynamic price’ of everything, but the intrinsic value of nothing — where community, patient and workers’ rights are displaced by the illusion of a technology-aided recovery. Elizabeth Cotton is the therapist’s therapist – the people’s therapist – teaching us that the future of care lies not in a Silicon Valley fantasy, but in solidarity: the collective power to demand and create the much better help we all deserve”, James Farrar, Worker Info Exchange.

“The field of therapy, however you define it, is overflowing with books. Many are informative some excellent but what they all have in common is specialism and invitations to join specific club perspectives. What is rare is that Elizabeth Cotton has not fallen into this trap but has the wit and courage to present matters in a wider perspective as evidenced by her new book UberTherapy. l strongly recommend this book to all who wish to retain a free enough state of mind in life and work”, Anton Obholzer, Psychoanalyst & former CEO of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust.

“A must-read for all therapists right across the professional field, spurious hierarchies and all. Democracy, free expression, intelligence and passion radiate from every page. Simply the best defence and championing of ‘real therapy’ in the face of a plethora of cheap substitutes, whether the state organised juggernaut or rapacious free enterprise offered on a retail basis. And clients and patients might also want to see what they are getting themselves into these days. Over the last years, Elizabeth Cotton has emerged as the best chronicler of what is wrong in the therapy world – and also a beacon of hope that things might improve. The style of writing is punchy and humorous, and I hope the book gets the readership it deserves”, Professor Andrew Samuels, author of The Political Psyche and former Chair of the UK Council for Psychotherapy.

Elizabeth Cotton is Associate Professor of Responsible Business at the University of Leicester and the founder of Surviving Work which carries out socially engaged research about mental health and its relationship to work. She has worked extensively with health teams and trade unions and has worked as a psychotherapist in the NHS. Elizabeth runs The Digital Therapy Project, a group of UK and US researchers and practitioners interested in understanding future therapies from both sides of the therapeutic relationship.