Great blogs, John. Thanks! V refreshing. Would go down a storm here in Transition epi-centre Totnes! Impressive way to provoke, entertain and educate in local media .
A good social justice-promoting greenish-leaning B sky B reporter happened to interview me as a sad wet commuter bedraggled on the bus this week ( I represented stoical acceptance on that particular occasion rather than hysteria which I;ve also been feeling) .....he said that the journalists won't cover climate change ( or frame the global pattern of increasing frequency of extreme weather events as climate change) because the public don't find it entertaining ( and of course that sort of discourse, especially with a social justice frame , doesn't fit with commercial advertising priorities to sell the papers/ stories), and that present politicians are running scared because addressing green issues are not ( ?yet) with the public mood /voters' priorities . Climate change denial is what Joanna Macy and psychodynamic writers call it of course ... and they argue that without emotional engagement with the issues we will stay stuck. But maybe with it we'd stay stuck, too....How to address and acknowledge our vulnerability in all of this? How to find realistic hope? How to take action that is not just good intention paving the road to hell? That's why I think Polly Higgins with the ecocide approach is inspiring - she's linking emotional engagement with attempts to achieve structural change . And perhaps it's not a coincidence that she's approaching this somehow in a way that resonates strongly with other women ? see http://www.hemeltoday.co.uk/news/columnists/why-ecocide-should-rank-with-genocide-as-a-crime-against-us-all-1-5869746
Different in many ways but I find myself reminded of Cathy McCormack The Wee Yellow Butterfly and her passionate war without bullets.
And, I think it's related though perhaps not obviously so - playright and campaigner Eve Ensler in her One Billion Rising campaign against sexual violence - great article on this in Guardian last Saturday. http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/feb/07/eve-ensler-vagina-monologues-one-billion-rising.. She asking why we are not all hysterical about the injustices we see.
Addressing climate change surely requires a whole heap of different approaches, certainly complicated....and it's not at all clear to me that psychology has much of a decent part to play in it, ( though full of admiration for Mark Burton's local political ways and others here local to me who are finding that local government is a good place to act) or indeed whether psychology is relevant at all or is more of the problem than the solution and should stay well out of it - - but .... as I think Nikki is perhaps saying or asking ( sorry Nikki if mis-representing you!) surely our hearts AND minds AND bodies need engaging.
Annie
-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of McGowan, John ([log in to unmask])
Sent: 12 February 2014 12:06
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Pub talk about DSM
Yes indeed. Thanks. Very interesting stuff Annie. Makes the points about where we tend to end up (individual responses etc) very well.
That section E though. 'What do we do?' is, IK think, where the questions get terribly complicated. Still, it seems to me to be where the debates should be, rather than the 'Is it or isn't is happening?' argument which seems to get so much air time.
In a slightly lighter vein I spent a couple of years annoying my local TT group with a column in the town web mag. The pieces are archived on this blog site under the tag 'environmental piety' which I guess kind of signalled that I was getting a little annoyed. Your response is admirably more constructive.
Pieces are here http://lewesthetroublewith.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/environmental%20piety
BW John
________________________________________
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Jacqueline Akhurst (J.Akhurst) [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 07 February 2014 17:56
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Pub talk about DSM
Hi Annie,
Thanks very much! You have attached a paper that is rich in its complexity and speaks to many of the fundamentals that need attention. This is a really eloquent weaving together of the issues and potential ways forward, in an accessible way. I appreciate your sharing this resource with us.
Regards,
Jacqui A
On 7 Feb 2014, at 16:29, "Annie Mitchell" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Hi John,
Great thanks for sharing the slides. So good. And pubs democratising ...
Yes 'm on ambivalent edge or our TTs here in Devon.... - risk of individualising and distracting from social inequalities and economics underpinning , yet also providing a shared framework for articulating and beginning to activate political pressure for action...- attached are the notes for a talk / workshop I;ve given for a few Transition Town / Café Scientifiques in Devon on psychologies of change and climate change. My experience is that many people are interested in a message that joins the strands... making personal /political links. There's an interesting climate change person here in Devon done some great visuals and is convincing re scope for hope with the new technologies and for clarifying the and articulating the democratic and business interest economics of the issues: http://www.carbonvisuals.com/
Annie
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of McGowan, John ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>)
Sent: 07 February 2014 11:58
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Pub talk about DSM
Hi Annie,
We have some audio slides from an earlier time we did it in Sussex. See below.
http://discursiveoftunbridgewells.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/is-life-disease.html
A pub turns out to be a great place to have these kinds of discussions. Doesn't quite iron out power differentials but there is a sense in which everyone seems a bit more like a punter.
I think in the talk we're trying to capture both ends of it. The value the a lot of people place on diagnosis (all of us are vested interests perhaps) and why but the limits of that and the huge problems it raises. Trying to draw people into the discussion a bit. Feelings run so high that sometimes communication feels difficult when these areas are raised.
The ecocide site is interesting thanks. Draws attention to a lot of important stuff. I also wonder though (and this is completely separate point) about what anti-environmental behaviours are and how we should judge them (after all the pressure to maintaining cheap oil prices is complicated and the results not always bad). Something lie the Transition Town movement (am I right in remembering you've had some involvement in it) is interesting in this regard. I worry a bit that my local TT branch frequently conflates behaviours that feel moral (local currency or people making sourdough bread or whatever) with things that might be effective. A whole other story though.
BW
John
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Annie Mitchell
Sent: 06 February 2014 13:26
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Pub talk about DSM
Sounds so good -
I;e been thinking if we used a social disease metaphor, what would be the cultural disease label that would label political climate change denial madness or some such.
I;ts up in my awareness today, marooned in Devon with the UK southwest peninsula railway ie most of Devon and all of Cornwall cut off from the rest of the land at least the next 6 weeks following unprecedented coastal storm and floodcdamage,
The human rights lawyer Polly Higgins is working at an international level to get the crime ecocide on the international law stature books. What might a social psychological parallel look like _ I suppose Oliver james calls it affluenza but there is a risk of individualising it... - do we need a sort of anti-DSM at a global level about collective madness... ..
See http://eradicatingecocide.com/
Annie
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of McGowan, John ([log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>)
Sent: 06 February 2014 13:08
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Pub talk about DSM
Hi Folks,
Some list member in the Kent and Sussex areas area might finds this of interest. Anne Cooke and I are giving our pub talk 'Is Life a Disease?' about psychiatric diagnosis and the DSM5 in Tunbridge Wells on the 6th of March. Full details are in that link below.
http://tunbridgewells.skepticsinthepub.org/Event.aspx/1893/Is-Life-a-Disease
BW
John
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