Yes; I agree with david's points here. I can find trickery entertaining but I dislike the potential for humiliating people ( like myself) who earnestly reply assuming honest intentions. Jokes and humour seem to me to be about in-and out-group behaviour - not at all socially inclusive.
It was lovely to have Steph's input - Steph thanks for reminding us about compassion and sustainability. I don't know about our expertise as psychologists in this; I think Greenroots now have good humane expertise on this which we could collectively learn from.
Annie
Annie Mitchell
Clinical Director,
Doctorate in Clinical Psychology,
School of Applied Psychosocial Studies,
Faculty of Health and Social Work,
University of Plymouth,
Peninsula Allied Health Collaboration,
Derriford Road,
Plymouth,
Devon
PL6 8BH
Phone Programme Administrators:
Jane Murch, Emma Hellingsworth
01752 233786
Please note I work 3 days per week:
usually Monday, Tuesday & either Wednesday or Thursday.
-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Fryer
Sent: 08 September 2008 07:25
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: spoof CPUK press release
Hi Paul,
Thanks for inviting discussion about, amongst other things, how an 'online community' should function and makes decisions? I would like to take you up on the offer of critical discussion. Here I want to problematise two aspects: process and substantive point.
First, isn't the original post and the process precipitated critically problematic? You describe these as 'a piece of theatre intended to stimulate thought and discussion prior to our gathering in Edinburgh", especially in relation to 3 parallel sessions on the Thursday afternoon. Apart from whether the interests of those presenting at or attending an afternoon of parallel sessions at the Edinburgh Conference have been privileged over those of list members more broadly, within a community critical frame of reference: do ends justify means? Isn't emancipatory procedure is at least as important as aspirations of emancipatory outcome? Does re-describing deception and snares as 'theatre' make them unproblematic on a list like this? Isn't this just as indefensible as mainstream / male-stream psychology's justification of its use of misleading, deceiving and manipulative methods as means justified by ends? Can we dismantle the master's house using the master's tools, after all? What will be the effect of this post on list members' engagement with genuine appeals for urgent support in the future?
Second, the substantive issue you seem to want to address is that "our network produced a statement of support that was, at best, asinine and, at worst, undermining of the work of SUG - our
use of the phrase 'inadvertent harm' This phrase suggest that the pharmaceutical industry unknowingly caused harm to public health. This is not the case. SUG and others have accumulated compelling evidence that the harm is caused knowingly'" Isn't positioning an outcome as known and advertent i.e. intentional problematic because it reproduces and reinforces individualistic and psychologistic discourses? Are community critical objections to the social construction and then pharmacologisation of misery reducible to what people working within the pharmacology industry know, intend or predict?
The actual phrase in the statement referred to "inadvertent harm caused by the pharmaceutical industry and the medical and allied professions". The phrase "medical and allied professions" includes all on this list engaged in clinical, counselling, health and, yes, community and critical psychology too ... indeed the psy-complex generally. We sometimes debate on this list the harm done to people by the psy complex activities in which we are collectively engaged. Is the harm we do as psychologists done by us advertently and knowingly? Are people working in pharmacology any different in this respect from those working in psychology? Does whether harm is advertent or not affect whether we should stop it? Do we want to prevent harm or to individualise and psychologise the aetiology of harm? Do we really want a distracting debate about intentions?
In brief, is a process which involves deception, which is positioned within individualistic and psychologistic discourses and which privileges the interests of a sub group of conference goers over list members how an 'online community', a discussion list of community critical psychologists, should function and makes decisions?
David
________________________________________
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul@home [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 05 September 2008 23:31
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: urgent CPUK press release
Yes, I confess, the proposed press release was a spoof. Thankfully my ruse
has been spotted because it prevented my next email this evening which would
have announced to the list that the statement had been released and picked
up in the lead editorial of the Norfolk and Goode Evening Echo!
The spoof statement was sent to the list as a piece of theatre intended to
stimulate thought and discussion in anticipation of our forthcoming CPUK
gathering in Edinburgh and for, to quote Rhona, "facilitat[ing] interaction
amongst the 3 parallel workshops on the Thursday afternoon - media & press
management; our online community; and developing our collective
voice....[and to throw] into relief all of these issues and how they
intersect - who are 'we' as a community? How does/can an online community
function and make decisions? To whom are we accountable? And what
relationship do we want to have with the media?". As a list and as a
network, we have issued a number of public statements since our last
conference. I suspect that the themes of the forthcoming CPUK conference -
the relationship between critical and community psychology (day one) and
mental health in our communities (day two) - might cause us to want to make
our voice heard once more...
In my spoof press release I sought to issue a statement to the list that
would contain factual inaccuracies, ideological inconsistencies and an
underlying oppressive discourse (both in terms of relationships within our
network and in terms of our network's relationship with those outside of it)
but to contain sufficient linguistic snares to make enough of it appear
plausible enough to enough of us. The intent was to raise some issues in
relation to how statements are generated, agreed and released by our network
and to give us a glimpse, through a grotesque characterisation of what our
network might do, of what our network might be.
Now, to point to one of the statements we collectively(?) agreed(?) upon and
which I was responsible for generating, agreeing and releasing and which was
not done in jest - the statement of support to the Seroxat User Group. Here
is a reminder of that statement:
""The Community Psychology UK Network (CPUK) supports the work of the
Seroxat & SSRI User Group (SUG) in their efforts to protect public health
from any inadvertent harm caused by the pharmaceutical industry and the
medical and allied professions. CPUK support SUG's aims to ensure UK health
regulatory bodies have sufficient remit, responsibility and resource to
guarantee public health and to ensure that those harmed by the products of
psychopharmacy are given the support they need to seek justice and get
well."
With the best of intention, our network produced a statement of support that
was, at best, asinine and, at worst, undermining of the work of SUG - our
use of the phrase 'inadvertent harm'. This phrase suggest that the
pharmaceutical industry unknowingly caused harm to public health. This is
not the case. SUG and others have accumulated compelling evidence that the
harm is caused knowingly (and this evidence has been 'proven true' in legal
action taken against GSK in the US). So, a message of support, though
gratefully received by SUG, was not as helpful as it could have been - some
list members (but not enough) pointed out to me at the time their
disappointment with the inclusion of the phrase 'inadvertent'.. I say all of
this as the author of that statement having gone through the process of
seeking a collective voice from our community (our network) through our
online community (our list) that could be publicly released (our voice).
p
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