Benjamin Schoendorff
| Benjamin Schoendorff Facebook LinkedIn Twitter (Psychologist, blogger) | |
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| File:Benjamin Schoendorff.jpg | |
| Born | 21 August 1961 Lyon, France |
| Alma mater | Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Université Pierre Mendès-France (Grenoble II), Open University, Université Lumière Lyon 2, University of Oxford |
Host of the Resistance is Fertile podcast | |
Benjamin "Benji" Schoendorff is a clinical psychologist and international trainer, living and working in Canada. He trains clinicians from all backgrounds in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP). In addition to his clinical and training practice, he currently researches ACT in the treatment of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder as part of the Montreal University mental health institute.[1]
Socialist Alternatives
While studying at Oxford University, Schoendorff was a member of the Trotskyist group Socialist Alternatives. He founded the eponymous magazine Socialist Alternatives[2] that co-student Keir Starmer edited from 1986 to 1987.[3][4][5][6] Starmer's editing of the magazine was used by his supporters in the 2020 Labour Party leadership contest to demonstrate his left wing credentials,[7] as well as his support for Militant Tendency, which MI5 saw as a threat to to the British state.[8]
The magazine is believed to have been produced by the Pabloist IRMT,[9][10] and advertised its events and publications, although one of the authors identified it as being an outgrowth of the Socialist Society connected with Ralph Miliband and Hilary Wainwright,[11] who both wrote for Socialist Alternatives.
Paul Mason has called it a "Trotskyite front magazine",[12] although this is disputed and its ex-editor Ben Schoendorff called it "post-Trotskyist".[13] The French Trotskyist journalist Maurice Najman was also cited as a key supporter.
Podcaster
Benji Schoendorff hosts the Resistance is Fertile podcast together with psychologist Sacha Rombouts and psychiatrist Nounja Almasude.[14]
Western genocide
On 22 August 2025, Benji Schoendorff posted on X:
- The mental health profession, of which I am an active member as a clinical psychologist, has been particularly cowardly throughout this genocide.
- How can the countless clients affected by the ongoing Western genocide of Palestinians trust that they will get proper care when so few of us have dared speak up?
- If we are unable to stand for basic humanity in public, why should clients trust us to stand for their humanity in the privacy of the therapeutic relationship?[15]
Books
Benji Schoendorff is the author of two French language books, an ACT self-help book, and a clinician’s manual based on the matrix diagram.[16]
References
- ↑ "Amazon: Benjamin Schoendorff"
- ↑ "The Socialist Alternatives experiment - an 1980s attempt to search for a new revolutionary subject"
- ↑ "Starmer's old friend calls out links with the deep state"
- ↑ "Keir Starmer: Radical who attacked Kinnock in Marxist journal"
- ↑ "Interview with Keir Starmer: Fatboy Slim, open selections, Trotskyism and more"
- ↑ "Keir Starmer: The sensible radical"
- ↑ "Jeremy Corbyn's local Labour party backs Keir Starmer for leadership"
- ↑ "How the rise of Militant Tendency transformed MI5’s perception of Trotskyism’s ability to pose a threat to the British state"
- ↑ An archive of Socialist Alternatives is here: https://web.archive.org/web/20200702133701/https://britishpabloism.wordpress.com/
- ↑ "Keir Starmer, Trotskyism and Pabloism"
- ↑ "Comrade Paul Mason Backs Keir Starmer"
- ↑ "Clive Lewis and Keir Starmer are the candidates who understand how Labour must change"
- ↑ "The Socialist Alternatives Project & Keir Starmer 1986-2024. The dialectic of timely historical research"
- ↑ "Resistance is Fertile Substack Podcast"
- ↑ "How can the countless clients affected by the ongoing Western genocide of Palestinians trust that they will get proper care when so few of us have dared speak up?"
- ↑ "Hachette: Benjamin Schoendorff"