I shan't comment (much) on the substantive debate except to suggest that 
Habermas's distinction between different 'knowledge interests' is 
potentially helpful in understanding the nature of the disagreement (and 
others that have cropped up on the list from time to time).
Habermas is a ‘critical modernist’ who rejects the relativism of post 
structuralist / post modernist theory . Instead, like the critical 
realists he tries to put knowledge claims on a secure basis while 
rejecting the errors of positivism.
There are two versions of Habermas's thesis and I'll use the earlier one:-
He argues that there are three types of knowledge that relate to three 
different knowledge constitutive interests:-

1. the ‘technical’ interest, expressed through the natural sciences and 
concerned with technical or instrumental knowledge and means-ends 
rationality;
2. the ‘practical’ interest, expressed through the ‘historical / 
hermeneutic’ disciplines, and concerned with the understanding of 
meaning through the attainment of consensus;
and
3. the ‘emancipatory’ interest, expressed through the critical human and 
social sciences, and concerned with release from arbitrary power, 
initially through self-reflection.

The protagonists in this debate on children and screening could be 
talking about different kinds of knowledge -and thereby not really 
communicating. Where it gets interestingly is when we try to tease out 
the different elements - the pro-screeners might be right technically, 
maybe practically (the term has a special meaning here). The 
anti-screeners may be right in relation to emancipation but not in 
relation to the other two.
But I doubt it. Rather than each camp mapping neatly on to one or other 
of the knowledge constitutive interests, there are technical, practical 
and emancipatory claims in each argument, but in different combinations.
What this break down of knowledges/interests does ask us to do, though 
is to be precise about the nature of the claims being made in each case.

Oh OK, I'll state my view: some times screening helps and sometimes it 
doesn't - it depends on the nature of the thing screened for, the 
interventions that follow, and the power relations that surround it. 
Some things are worth screening for, some aren't and sometimes it leads 
to worse problems - it depends.

By the way - I don't suggest you take Habermas as your guide, any more 
than Foucault (or Popper!) - both are significantly flawed, but they can 
help us to read some aspects of what is going on in the complex mess 
that we try to navigate.





McGowan John (Sussex Partnership Trust) wrote:
> Dear David,
> Made the mistake of a late evening log on. Oh dear. Not sure we're 
> going to have a meaningful exchange afterall. Lots of discussion as to 
> how critical people are but not much time for dissenting views (which 
> are readily dismissed as "acritical").
> I'm sorry you find this a destructive discussion. I was actually 
> finding Alison Smith's posts and some others quite thought provoking 
> and challenging as it seemed to me they are wrestling with something 
> that has been important to me (and remimding me of a part of my own 
> outlook that I won't deny has become blunted over the years).
> Not sure where to start with this. Or even whether to start to tell 
> the truth we are absolutely light years apart and there seems little 
> chance of any meeting within a frame where discussion can happen. In 
> this case that seems to mean that, as you disagree with me you're 
> going to ignore me. I'm not sure that this appears like questioning or 
> critical thinking. More a sense of having a a fixed opinion and 
> dismissing all disagreement.
> I'm interested that you align yourself with round earthers while being 
> so casual about the scientific enlightenment (having your cake and 
> eating it?). I can't really dismiss it so easily myself. Also can't 
> help feeling that the scientific enlightenment emerged from a set of 
> principles that are (when used well) inherently quite critical and 
> more than a little humble. Incidentally I'd be quite interested in how 
> the flat earther had come to their position and probably wouldn't 
> really mind to much that that was what their position was if I felt 
> they could justify it. You're point is taken though. I think some 
> contributers such as yourself are coming from a completey different 
> frame of reference where the power relationships, discourse and 
> oppressive practices invalidate the whole medical paradigm. I'm not 
> immune to the force of this argument (honestly I'm not) but my point 
> is... well I've said what my point is so I won't repeat it again. In 
> terms of being educated into a different frame of reference. This may 
> be hard to beleive but I have actually read a number of the authors 
> you mentioned. Here's the thing though: I didn't reach the same 
> conclusions as you from them. Amazing eh?
> I think what I find difficult about this discussion is the (in some 
> quarters)absolute lack of tolerance for any disagreement. (I'll tell 
> you a secret. That's the other reason I picked this up. To see if 
> there was). I find it both difficult and pretty alienating to tell the 
> truth. However, I get the message. You don't want contrary views.
> John
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* The UK Community Psychology Discussion List 
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] *On Behalf Of *David Fryer
> *Sent:* 13 January 2008 17:46
> *To:* [log in to unmask]
> *Subject:* Re: Screening of children - oops
>
> Dear John,
> Community critical psychologists are trying to get away from acritical 
> modernist approaches; so are not impressed by anything being 'more 
> scientific' in the sense of the 'scientific enlightenment' and 
> Popperian philosophy of science; and are trying to get away from 
> individualistic psychologistic explanations in terms of clinicians' 
> (or any one else's) incompetence etc.
> From a community critical psychology standpoint, recent list 
> discussion has not become more constructive but more ideologically 
> problematic (because more collusive with oppression).
> From a community critical psychology standpoint, discussion would 
> preferably become more deconstructive and more sceptical as to whether 
> 'integrated assessment frameworks' backed by the status quo in the 
> form of civil services and agencies are anything other than more 
> efficient means of govern-mentality to promote the interests of the 
> status quo.
> From a community critical psychology perspective, the point is not 
> that diagnostic labelling / assessment is done inaccurately by 
> incompetent malevolents and is never 'true' but that a set of 
> practices, procedures, ways of thinking etc., with which psychologists 
> and other psy-experts are apparently willingly and too effectively 
> colluding, constitutes one of many possible realities in which labels 
> and assessments become only too 'true' for those caught up in it . . . 
> real in the sense of having real consequences for them, and moreover 
> constituting a reality which is oppressive.
> From a community critical psychology perspective, the concern is not 
> whether a particular procedure within an oppressive system is or is 
> not effective within the frame of reference of that system, or what 
> the motivations or intentions or skills of those implementing the 
> procedure, but with surfacing and contesting the oppression and, with 
> others in critical solidarity, trying to think into possibility and 
> then to make 'real' other less oppressive alternative i.e. community 
> critical psychologies.
> Paul, I invite you to consider whether you might be missing the point 
> of Paul's and Craig's and other critical posts on this community 
> psychology discussion list not because they are ill expressed or come 
> from an immature position you left behind in your twenties or because 
> our posts have not been adequately teased apart or refined with help 
> from you as a teacher but because you insist on trying to interpret 
> them from a frame of reference which is itself problematic from a 
> community psychology perspective.
> This is a community psychology discussion list so it is not surprising 
> that members wish to discuss community psychology rather than clinical 
> psychology, health psychology, educational psychology, psychiatry, or 
> other mainstream approaches. Some members of this list believe that 
> community psychology must be a version of critical psychology, if it 
> is not to be part of the problem and it is not surprising that we wish 
> to discuss critical community psychology issues.
> You have every right to post from a whatever frame of reference you 
> wish on this list but if and when you do so from a problematic, 
> acritical, medical model frame of reference, I suggest you should not 
> be surprised if people critique your posts and eventually - if you 
> don't engage with critique seriously - ignore your posts. Imagine a 
> discussion group set up by people who believed the world was round at 
> a time when most people believed the world was flat and the sort of 
> reaction there might be on that lost to posts by flat-earthers. I 
> invite you to consider that critical psychology might be as different 
> from mainstream psychology as round earthology is from flat 
> earthology. Claims in round earthology may seem ill expressed or 
> immature or inadequately taught or refined by teachers to flat 
> earthologists but the solution may not be tuition of round earthers by 
> flatearthers but flat earthers taking some time to understand the 
> concepts and frame of references of round earthers. If you are 
> interested in doing so I would suggest you read, think about and 
> discuss classic work by Michel Foucault, Paulo Freire, Ignatio 
> Martin-Baro, Karl Marx etc and more recent work by Nikolas Rose, Ian 
> Parker, John Morss, Erica Burman, Tod Sloan, Valerie Walkerdine and of 
> course Paul Duckett and Craig Newnes.
> David
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* The UK Community Psychology Discussion List on behalf of 
> McGowan John (Sussex Partnership Trust)
> *Sent:* Sun 1/13/2008 16:10
> *To:* [log in to unmask]
> *Subject:* Re: Screening of children - oops
>
> Yep, emphatically not Paul on this issue!
> I think one of the main reasons I picked this up (other than feeling 
> uncomfortable with the original point) was to see if a case could be 
> made for the original assertion beyond this this kind of suggestion 
> that its 'my way or the highway', (though in rather more melodramatic 
> language). I sort of feel I left this kind of absolutism somewhere in 
> my twenties and accept that others might flatly disagree with my most 
> dearly held, morally urgent beleifs. I think that one of the things 
> that interests me (particularly as a teacher) is to try and tease how 
> people are arriving at their own view and to see if that view can be 
> refined in discussion. Even if I disagree with them!I'm afraid I' sort 
> of attatched to this sort of spineless moral relativism and I have 
> actually been very interested how some contibutors have developed the 
> point.
> I found two recent copntributions very thought provoking. Mark 
> Wilson's recent posting seems to me to capture some of the complexity 
> of these kinds of decisions it a way that I feel more comfortable 
> with. (Also contained some material which was interesting to me - I 
> don't work with children). I take the point about science being 
> humble. At its best is should provide a method of being extremely 
> humble. I recommend a talk about how the values of the scientific 
> enlightenment are debased by David Colquoun (the Pharmacologist who is 
> spending his retirement slagging off quackery) which is on video the 
> UCL website. He is not kind to many of his fellow labourers in the 
> fields of science on the point of humility.I also found that Mark's 
> post also made a point about going beyond medical veiws into other 
> factors in a way which I found more compelling and urgent than simply 
> dismissing those views (if I'v understood it correctly).
> The other post which I found interesting was by Alison Smith. I found 
> the injunction to think about what we say in this compelling and 
> necessary and I also sense of being passionate about alternatives very 
> resonant. I think I might begin to deviate when it comes to the 
> simplest arguments in the face of complexity. I can't help feeling 
> that this leads us to somewhere like the position occupied by Lord 
> Layard, who offers arguments of insufficient complexity to meet 
> difficult challenges. I can't halp feeling just stopping using medical 
> language is actually simplistic rather than simple.
> John
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* The UK Community Psychology Discussion List 
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] *On Behalf Of *Craig Newnes
> *Sent:* 12 January 2008 18:15
> *To:* [log in to unmask]
> *Subject:* Fw: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Screening of children - oops
>
> I meant type John, etc. But of course the same position applies to all 
> of us prefering debate over death
> Craig
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Craig Newnes <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> *To:* The UK Community Psychology Discussion List 
> <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> *Sent:* Saturday, January 12, 2008 6:13 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Screening of children
>
> Paul, your thinking is irrelevant. People who are prepared to kill 
> people rule the world - these include those in the Psy-complex 
> supporting those making mega-bucks out of misery through drugs etc. 
> Stop discussing - it makes no odds at all.
> Craig
>
>     ----- Original Message -----
>     *From:* McGowan John (Sussex Partnership Trust)
>     <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>     *To:* [log in to unmask]
>     <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>     *Sent:* Thursday, January 10, 2008 10:52 PM
>     *Subject:* Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Screening of children
>
>     As this debate goes on I increasingly feel like someone eating a
>     steak in a room full of people who think meat is murder.
>     After Craig Newnes initial message my intention was to suggest
>     that a complete damning of diagnostic labelling might be a, how
>     shall I put it, simplistic perspective. Since this position has
>     been characterised in several different ways (apologies if I've
>     missed or misrepresented any). I'll leave out the stuff on
>     detention, ECT and those evil folks in "big Pharma" (who I wont
>     dispute are very often venal in the extreme) as I think Paul
>     Duckett is right that they muddy the waters. So in no particular
>     order:
>     -Diagnosis is the thing that is unsophisticated- (Wouldn't for a
>     second deny that this is often true. Also one of my most treasured
>     critiques of Lord Layard. However, not actually connected to my
>     point which was about the crudeness of simply dismissing it).
>     -I'm a paid up vested interest so my opinion doesn't count-
>     (Manages to be both personal and lame at the same time. Neat. Best
>     to draw a veil over it).
>     -Diagnosis is a construct bourne out of power and oppression-
>     (Undeniable. But again not really my point).
>     -Psychiatry has been involved in some terrible things-
>     (Absolutely. But once again not really my argument. Remember
>     Popper and looking for the black swans).
>     -Because of this it has no redeeming features and is completely
>     wrong- (OK this is connected to my point. A matter of opinion and
>     the nub of the matter but an opposing opinion might actually be
>     sincerely held and bourne out of experience of black swans. I
>     don't really see any consideration of these).
>     -Diagnosis is there to serve the interests of multinational
>     pharmaceutical companies- (Once again often true but perhaps not
>     the whole picture).
>     -Diagnosis being used to access resources just reinforces the
>     power structure and oppression- (Well I guess I was being
>     pragmatic but I can't deny that you've got me there. Bang to
>     rights. No place for weak pragmatic issues as they are a poor
>     pro-diagnosis argument. Can't help feeling that they occasionally
>     make quite a substantial difference to the people I see, but I
>     accept the point).
>     -Diagnosis can only be employed fraudulently as it is part of a
>     power imbalance- (Maybe so. However, the way it is employed
>     remains hugely important to me as does looking beyond it wherever
>     possible).
>     -Critiques of diagnosis are more scientific than diagnosis- (I'm
>     afraid they are coming across to me as being more about predjudice
>     in this discussion. I do concede that Psychiatry has not always
>     been a shining example of embracing the values of the scientific
>     enlightenment but it does have its moments of effort).
>     -Clinicians always diagnose out of incompetence, carelessness or
>     self-interest- (Well they sometimes do I grant you but always sems
>     less than justified. I refer back to my previous point about
>     predjudice).
>     -I am asked (respectfully) not to express this opinion on this
>     list because anti-diagnosis views regularly get criticised
>     elsewhere- (Sorry to upset you. I'm afraid I sometimes have this
>     inclination to make comments on views and ask for elaboration
>     about that I think are poorly expressed and argued. Particularly
>     when they are about important matters. I'm funny like that. Sorry
>     I don't agree with you Paul but I really don't. I'm also sorry
>     that you meet with a negative or predjudiced reation outside of
>     forums like this but I'm afraid it the kind of statements that
>     initiated this discussion are the way the argument is put forward
>     I'm not really surprised. PArt of the reason I took up this one
>     was to see it others could make the case to completely move away
>     from diagnosis in that I found more convincing).
>     .
>     -My thinking has been disabled by the dominant medical power
>     structure- (Another serious and substantive issue. Could be true.
>     Who knows. I'd never rule it out. I've been working in acute
>     psychiatric wards for 6 years and am certainly not the critical
>     voice I once was. On the other hand I often comfort myself with
>     the beleif that my understanding is than it was 6 years ago and I
>     have a clearer idea of what I think is important. A lot of that is
>     about moving on from diagnosis when this seems valuable and using
>     it when it seems of value. Perhaps I'm kidding myself though and
>     I've been had. I have to say though that I do find suggesting that
>     the person who disagrees with one has been more or less
>     brainwashed could be considered a slightly dubious argumentative
>     strategy in some company.)
>     I find myself curious about some elements missing (to me at any
>     rate) in all these contributions. One is the complete absence of
>     the idea that there might ever actually be good or valid or worthy
>     reasons for actually thinking that diagnostic labelling (including
>     in children) has its uses and benefits. Another is the absence of
>     any curiosity as to the possibility that someone such as myself
>     who holds such a view might actually have (from my own
>     perspective) worthwhile and sincere reasons for doing so. Am I
>     alone in finding a lack of any sense that this can actually be
>     viewed as a complex or morally ambigious issue slightly weird in a
>     group of who are apparently critical thinkers? Evidently so.
>     I guess though that instead I might be seen as either a slave
>     holder or hapless dupe of a medical conspiracy.
>     John
>     */-/*
>
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