Hi Sue,
Thanks for your response. No, I wasn't feeling victimised. And I agree that there is a risk of me just talking to other psychologists, so it is good to have you and Mike active on the list. I agree that psychologists in work do have power, and I worry both about the responsibilities that go with that power and also about the risk of abusing it..As Mike said on another posting, community psychologists tend to be very critical of ourselves - I feel that it is important to be critical and to remain open to criticism, but also to be forgiving, supportive and enouraging both to ourselves and to others who share socially inclusive values but with whom we may not always completely agree.
In my last posting I was just musing aloud really about my worries, and wanting to keep the debate going. . I am concerned about how we all - (I as an individual, us list members as people interested in psychology and all of us as members of society, and the government) are going to respond to Lord Layard's proposals and was stimulated to write by David's comments about the need for different sorts of training in psychology. . Of course you are right - work is hugely important. Life and humans are so complex - as soon as we focus on one aspect ( eg relationships - and I meant all our relationships, including but not only personal relationships) it is easy in doing so to turn attention away from other things that are also important ( eg work).
In the bit where I mentioned talking therapies for people who are psychologically distressed - there I was referring to Layard, who, in his government report, uses evidence that people want greater access to psychological therapies or talking therapies as part of his justification for arguing that there should be more public money spent on training more psychologists.
Regarding employment - I think that there have been good legislation improvements recently regarding equal opportunities and, where these are properly applied, it should be ability, skills and knowledge that count; it's bad in all sorts of ways to experience injustice in employment. And of course we all know that policies don't always get properly applied and that injustices do happen. And we are all vulnerable to such injustices - I am sorry that you have had bad experiences in this regard.
For those who are interested in "New Ways of Working as Applied Psychologists" there is what is called a stakeholder conference, run by the British Psychological Society (BPS) coming up very soon (14th july) in Wolverhampton - further information can be found on http://www.bps.org.uk/the-society/boardscommittees/professional-practice-board/new_ways_of_working_for_applied_psychologists.cfm-
Good wishes,
Annie
-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List on behalf of Sue McPherson
Sent: Sun 02/07/2006 13:08
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Careers Re: 10000 more psychologists needed....
Annie Mitchell
I hope you are not feeling victimized because I was critical of the motives of psychology and other therapies in society. It should not be forgotten that you are the ones with the power - to encourage others to be inclusive, or to dissuade them by your own behaviour. One way you can make a difference is to respond directly to those who approach you with their concerns. I would appreciate it if you did that, to my post. If you want to challenge social forces at work, that's probably one of the best ways of doing it. Otherwise, it is simply you (psychologists) talking amongst yourselves about "them."
I think that psychology should be, or could be, a "talking therapy." I'm not sure what you're getting at when you mention that subject - that I am one of the psychologically distressed? It is a topic I approached in my post, if I recall correctly. It's actually work that can underly our well-being, in my view, and not simply personal relationships, as you suggest. That's probably an old-fashioned view that personal relationships count more. But for people who are single, it's work that counts. Believe me! Again, this seems to be an indication of social problems being approached from one perspective only. To working people with spouses, what's important appears to be the relationship. But it might not be to people with neither the job nor the relationship.
And communities don't tend to be inclusive of people with neither of these (job nor relationship). So how are you going to challenge that kind of thinking unless you start doing it yourself - being inclusive on a discussion list and not simply responding to other psychologists?
You are the ones with power, as I said. You set an example by your actions. You can simply sit up there and do nothing, and people will follow your example. Of course personal relationships are important. I agree with that. But having a job is what gives you the identity to be able to relate to people on a level other than "underclass," (unless one is independently wealthy, or can demonstrate ownership of property, or membership of the "right" family).
To some people, it is the job that matters. And I know this because it is the job - the lack of one - that holds me back. I applied to the position mentioned on this list recently, for Nigel Wellman, but even with all the research I've done, what chance do I have? You're right, it is relationships that count. One needs the relationships to get the job. Or is it youth that counts. And sexual attractiveness, and all the possibilities that holds with it. Add that one in as another factor I am lacking, by today's standards. Yes, the relationship is important. It's too bad that it is what counts in todays' world, and not ability, knowledge, and experience. The relationship gets you the job, and the job enables one to form new relationships, and so on, up the ladder to success.
Sue McPherson
----- Original Message -----
From: "Annie Mitchell" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2006 11:15 AM
Subject: Re: Careers Re: 10000 more psychologists needed....
Lord Layard, whose government report advocates training more clinical psychologists so as to support the provision of more psychological therapies, provides an analysis in his book Happiness (2005), of why in most Western countries, including the UK, depression rates seem to be rising and happiness rates not rising despite overall increases in material well-being. As an economist he has to express surprise - political economy expectations had been that increases in GDP would bring increases in citizen well-being overall, yet that simply hasn't happened, at least not in the arena of psychological well-being. He looks at the psychological literature and concludes that social comparisions are an underlying mechanism: He says "We have a good idea why happiness has risen less than was expected: our norms have risen, as other people's incomes have risen and likewise our own experience of comfort. The central mechanism at work here is our habit of comparision." Now, one possible route for an economist interested in psychology to follow on unearthing this insight would be to start thinking about how psychology could help in challenging the social forces at work that promote unhelpful expectations and aspirations and that fuel inequalitites, social divisions and war ( eg the role of advertising, the role of the media, the role of big business and shareholder economics in structuring western society towards ever increasing expecations of share holder rewards, the role of social denial in the face of huge evidence that unsustainable levels of consumption are fuelling environmental degradation and climate change). Indeed, there is plenty in his analysis to take us along the route in exploring these issues. However, his advisors from mainstream psychology are not too good at providing help with all of this. Psychology as it has been advanced in the west is largely ( though not entirely) the cognitive psychology of the individual, with a significant interest in clinical psychology in how to change people's thinking -- and given political avoidance of tackling the vested interests at work in advancing the social inequalities underpinning human distress, it is unsurprising that it is psychological therapy (changing individuals' "faulty" or "unhelpful" ways of thinking) that is currently attractive politically. If we concentrate on getting the population happy with things as they are, there is less political threat to those who stand to benefit from things being as they are.
Yet at the same time, there is plenty of policy analysis in the Uk currently that acknowledges the need for more socially just services and provision - the NHS and public services are inceasingly asked to contribute to efforts challenging social inequalites at a service provision level - there are numerous examples of policy initiatives such as the Ten Essential Shared Capabailites of the Whole of the Mental Health Workforce which require us to work in ways advocated by community psychology - promoting partnership. prevention and empowerment ... there is lots of scope for challenging or providing a counter-balance to the current pre-occupation with individual therapy. However, since community psychology is so marginal to professional structures and therefore has no sort of political voice, we don't have much if any influence - currently the loudest voices in the applied clinical field are those of cognitive behaviour therapists. I fully agree with David that we need more community psychology at all levels of psychology learning.
Of course it is the case that people who are psychologically distressed are asking for more talking therapies. We all know that human relationships underpin our well-being ( indeed Layard's own analysis summarises some of the evidence that this is so). But the evidence is that when psychological therapies are helpful they work through the provision of effective therapeutic relationships. But the social danger in focussing too much on the provision of "expert" relationships is that we thereby contribute to the diminishing of naturally occuring helpful relationships within communities - we perpetuate the idea that people cannot help one another but instead must rely on "expert" help. Yet as David points out, we know that non-experts can be just as helpful as trained professionals. (But trained professionals are not keen on exploring that further - we want to belive that our own therapies are special and complex thereby justifying our own existence). Yet there is evidence, for example in the field of psychological debriefing after disasters, that expert interventions, applied uncriitically, can make things better rather than worse, apparently by interfering with naturally occuring social healing processes.
I worry as a trainer in clinical psychology that the debate is polarised - how can we contribute to advancing our social and psychological understanding of the deeper forces underpinning human distress, while at the same time adressing the deep human need for sympathetic humane response to psychological distress in human individuals. Where is the space for public health psychology? At the same time, how do we stop ourselves simply serving our own vested interests - especially given the need to justify the relatively large salaries that clinical psychologists earn? And how we we bring together a genuinely social applied psychology given the pressures and divides within our own discipline - and the various envies and disgruntlements between the different branches of psychology? And how do we genuinely work together with our non-professional psychology colleagues/ comrades to contribute to social change? I am aware that many clinical psychologists ( including many that I have been involved in training) want to apply their critical knowledge of community psycholgy in practice yet experience difficulties in doing so because current NHS employment pressures along with uncritical management acceptance of the evidence base of what works in practice limits the scope of their activities. It is hard ( though not impossible) to promote social change from within - it seems to me that we need to work together both within and without professional structures if we are to tip the balance away from simplistic solutions towards more complex analyses of what will improve our collective well-being.
Annie
-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List on behalf of David Fryer
Sent: Sat 01/07/2006 10:54
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Careers Re: 10000 more psychologists needed....
Apologies if my previous posting was misleading for some.
I am indeed based at Stirling University myself but I certainly did not provide a link to the Stirling site to stimulate interest in careers via that route. I drew attention to that masters course in the Department of psychology at Stirling, as part of the debate re 10,000 extra psychologists, because it is an example of the newer courses I expect to see proliferating - they are far shorter than clinical courses and so the graduates are far cheaper to produce. Such shorter courses will inevitably cover less material in less depth than three year clinical doctorates because so much shorter and will provide a new workforce of psychologists for the NHS which is cheaper than employing clinical psychologists.
Of course one can take different positions on such courses. From a critical perspective they share many of the problems of mainstream clinical psychology: both are primarily are about 'treating' individuals within a medical model frame of reference through intra-psychic change rather than preventing or addressing collective causes of distress within a social justice frame of reference through societal change. Both collude with victim blaming. Some might argue that three years of clinical training provides more scope for engaging with more approaches to intervention (some clinical courses include modules on community psychology) and more scope for critical reflection on the 'scientific practitioner' mantra. However, others might argue that because it is shorter the training for a one year masters has less chance for trainees to be socialised into problematic clinical ways and less opportunities for the effectiveness of trainees to be diminished than clinical training (thinking of Durlak's classic work suggesting that non professionals are often more effective than professionals in addressing psychological difficulties).
What I would really like to see is more opportunities to learn about critical community* psychology in the UK as there are in many other countries. Regrettably I cannot currently recommend Stirling in that regard to members of this list. An established undergraduate module in critical community psychology has recently been discontinued by the University and whilst there is some really good postgraduate critical community psychology going on here now that particular work will be drawing to a close within a few months. Whilst future postgraduate supervision in critical community psychology is available in theory, in practice funding is very difficult indeed to get. Further community psychological praxis at Stirling involving more personnel depends, as elsewhere, upon the availability of external funding but such funding seldom allows genuinely critical praxis for obvious reasons - why would the powerful fund work fundamentally devoted to depowering it?
David
* interesting social psychology at Stirling is developing following the relatively recent appointment of Alex Gillespie
________________________________
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List on behalf of Sue McPherson
Sent: Fri 30/06/2006 13:52
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Careers Re: 10000 more psychologists needed....
. . . . .
Nevertheless, you will have many interested people (in careers, probably) looking at the Stirling site. It would be better, I am sure, if society is going to get stuck with more top-down cures that there is more variety. . . .. Are you at Stirling, by the way
Sue McPherson
----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Swindlehurst <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 11:23 PM
Subject: Re: 10000 more psychologists needed....
No spelling mistake (on this occassion) with my use of the word 'canon'. This was a reference to the power of religion. The 'barons' refer to those who mostly control our social and economic structures as well put by Cathy and David below. The intended construction and advance of the 10k may help a little toward enlightening the big guns but I fear it is more likely to shield and prolong their reign at even greater loss to us all, including themselves. Our species and planet cannot cope with these 'valley of death' conflicts and inequalities indefinately. I just hope we can come up with a universal light giving brigade before it is too late for all of us. My hopes for this are currently largely with list members and your allies - most people on this planet I should imagine.
Mike S
----- Original Message -----
From: David Fryer <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 3:21 PM
Subject: Re: 10000 more psychologists needed....
Who would train the 10,000 psychologists? Yet more psychologists (to be employed and trained to train) of course.
Would they come from the same school . . . . I would bet on training primarily to deliver cognitive behaviour therapy to people diagnosed as 'anxious' or 'depressed' . Much easier (and politically acceptable) to offer people psychological snake oil than to change our society to remove social causes of psychological distress and physical illness like unemployment, stressful employment, domestic violence, racism, heterosexism, disabling practices . . . . .
If you want to get a glimpse of the likely future have a look at the MSc Psychological Therapy in Primary Care at Stirling University: "A variety of studies by central government and professional bodies have identified the growing demand for psychological interventions for adults presenting with common mental health disorders (e.g. anxiety and depression) in NHS Primary care. There is also widespread recognition of the difficulties in meeting that demand. This Masters program, delivered jointly by the Universities of Stirling and Dundee has been designed by National Health Service (NHS) professionals and experienced academics to train people to deliver psychological therapies for common mental health disorders in adults in Primary Care." <http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/postgrad/propspectus2.php> http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/postgrad/propspectus2.php
To get back to Tennyson . . . I too struggled with the light brigade comparison, find the poem's images repugnant on a variety of levels and certainly do not see the 10K psychologists as the innocent victims. Cathy McCormack has spoken powerfully of the 'war without bullets' being waged against people lower down the social hierarchy by people higher up it . . . .a war being fought with brief cases, policies leading to widening inequalities, stigma, disabling practices and psy-techniques which lead people to internalise understandings of themselves and their settings which are damaging to them and serve the interests of the status quo. So if we are to think in terms of the charge of the light brigade at all, I suggest imagining those advancing into the valley of death as being those millions of our fellow citizens who epidemiologists have repeatedly shown have shorter, less healthy, more brutalised lives due to a variety of forms of societal inequality and imagine the the 10,000 psychologists as camped on the sides of the valley operating the CBT cannon to the left of them, the person centred cannon to the right of them, the stress management cannon in front of them and the positive psychology cannon behind them
As for Marx . . .. I don't know about others but if my work was described as Marxist I would take it as a compliment . . .
David
David Fryer
Community Psychology Group
University of Stirling
FK9 4LA
Scotland
+44 (0) 1786 467650 (tel)
+44 (0) 1786 467641 (fax)
[log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sue McPherson
Sent: 29 June 2006 1:53 pm
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] 10000 more psychologists needed....
I don't know who you are or what you do. Sounds Marxist to me. I can't come up with a different metaphor at this moment but how about just not seeing the world in terms of them and "us" with psychologists the innocent victims in all this.
Does not anyone know the theory behind this - that as people are rewarded they will align themselves with the oppressors? Psychologists can do harm as well as good, as any of us can. But they do have a lot of power.
I would want to ask, who is going to train all these psychologists? Are they all going to come from the same school - the same way of thinking. Wouldn't it be better to have a variety of mental health professionals - if there has to be - to deal with different kinds of people - psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, trained women's counsellors, and so on. It's frightening to think of so many psychologists wandering the social community seeking out new "victims" to indoctrinate into their way of thinking - particularly if they've all studied and come from the perspective of behaviourism.
Sue McPherson
Sociology (social-psychology and women's studies), envisioning wannabee psychologists rubbing their hands with glee.
----- Original Message -----
From: Serdar M. Degirmencioglu <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 5:29 AM
Subject: Re: 10000 more psychologists needed....
Well put...
Serdar M. Degirmencioglu
----- Original Message ----
From: Michael Swindlehurst <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2006 1:21:15 PM
Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] 10000 more psychologists needed....
Into the valley of death rode the ten thousand - canons to the left of them, barons to the right of them. Yet more measures to protect the big guns who are destroying all of us.
Mike S
----- Original Message -----
From: David Fryer <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, June 26, 2006 9:59 PM
Subject: Re: 10000 more psychologists needed....
Why 10,000 psychologists needed?
In his paper, The Role of the Psychologist, Ignacio Martin-Baro cited French psychologist, Richelle, as asking Why psychologists?, why the quiet proliferation of a new species and Deleule as offering an insightful reply psychology offers an alternative solution to social conflicts: it tries to change the individual while preserving the social order, or, in the best of cases, generating the illusion that, perhaps as the individual changes, so will the social order. Martin Baro commented when looking dispassionately at the place some psychological concepts occupy in the dominant political and cultural discourse, or when pondering the role played by the majority of psychologists in our countries, one has to concede that Deleule makes a lot of sense (Aron and Corne, 1994:37).
Aron, A. and Corne, S. (Editors) (1994). Writings for a Liberation Psychology: Ignacio Martin-Baro. Harvard University Press: Cambridge , Mass.
David
David Fryer
Community Psychology Group
University of Stirling
FK9 4LA
Scotland
+44 (0) 1786 467650 (tel)
+44 (0) 1786 467641 (fax)
[log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sue McPherson
Sent: 23 June 2006 1:38 pm
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] 10000 more psychologists needed....
Or, people could respond on this list, if they don't mind not making "rapid response." What do you think, Petra? You must have an opinion on this, surely.
Sue McPherson
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