Dear David,

To keep going in work which goes against the grain of the status quo, building comradeship  with those who are on the edges of society, criticising policy and prevailing economics requires a huge amount of courage and energy and trust.

I would be amazed if Sally and her colleagues were not already engaged in critical thinking around the issues you raise:- "in relation to: the inscription of problematic psy-complex states; critical consideration of ‘links’ [ between] policy and problem; the warranting of claims through ‘PAR’; and forms of constituted authority and how they function."  From all I can glean of the work and the intentions ( without having actually read the report) that,s exactly what it seems to be all about.  It might not be perfect - what is?  but it concerns me that in terms of progressive action, the best of critique might be the enemy of the good. It feels wrong to imply that these things have not been thought  about without  asking first.  Critical curiosity perhaps ?

Not that Sally needs my words.. I feel sure she and her colleagues are robust in the face of critique and that they rise with it.   But it reminds me of the pain and discouragement I have felt when I have felt attacked  ... recognising that this even when not meant personally can feel so subjectively. I know I  / we need  to be robust in engaging with critique but that,s hard, especially when there are so many in the virtual room witnessing the debate and perhaps feeling scared or reluctant to join in.  I hesitated before sending this as I would much prefer others to feel emboldened to post. And everyone is so busy too. I am fortunate to be a part time worker so I have the luxury of time to think and reflect when not racing around with a thousand bureaucratic tasks.

You may not like so much to draw on the notion of love in this context, David , and that,s your prerogative of course.   But many of my own comrades and colleagues and friends and patients and clients do.  And the excellent posting that followed up in that, with the PhD link ( thank you  ) i found really helpful. .   I remember it being said, in what I experienced as a disparaging tone at a community psychology event many years ago that " there is nothing Annie likes more than a group hug".  I cringed at that but it has stayed with me as a warning against my being too touchy freely in the wrong places.  But it has also held me back around expressing some of my deepest beliefs. We do need a new framework and narrative , as George Monbiot keeps pointing out, if we are to make progress in addressing  our greatest problems. - . climate  change and inequalities - and if we are to find any sort of way forward from the dismal economic and political states that we find ourselves in. No- one yet picked up on my reference to the States of Denial book that I mentioned in another posting. It,s a challenging and uncomfortable read. I wonder what distress and suffering  we are perhaps denying here  ( and in our lives more broadly) and what are the processes that underpin what we do and don't speak of. Our vulnerability? Stanley Cohen says this: "there is only one way to include the distant stranger: to define the threshold of the intolerable as exactly the same for everybody. The starting point is not pseudo- universalism or touchy- feebly empathy, but a recognition of the radical and irreducible differences that do matter..... It is precisely because these differences are so profound that the most ignored of revolutionary principles has to be evoked: not liberty, not equality, but fraternity". But even here the language distances.  As a woman it,s not fraternity but  kinship that I want in our inter-connected humanity.  I believe the derivation of the word kinship is as from kindness.  Yes, we need critical kindness, critical friends and kindly critique.

As I do know you David and have enjoyed working  with you in what feels like the distant past ,  I have a strong sense of your integrity and kindness , and your inspiration around addressing issues of power, and  so I feel enough trust to be able to speak my mind and heart to you here.   That,s so important when  the world, as Ste indicated , is  very dangerous indeed in many places. It's a privilege to have this safe space to share and connect, agree and disagree.

Warm wishes

Annie


From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of David Fryer <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 08 December 2016 11:57:52
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Housing, Structural Power and Mental Health

Dear Sally,

Thanks for making information available about the campaign to expose links between structural power, housing and mental health and about the event you are planning in Feb/March to facilitate learning from the Focus E15 group, promote the PAR report and find ways of supporting the campaign.

It is striking that this issue has received a lot of supportive interest from list members. I waited for expressions of that to subside before writing raising a few issues for consideration.

I’d like to follow up on the recent discussion on the list about clinical, community and critical frames of reference and differences and similarities between them. I hope you would find it of interest to explore issues raised in your post in relation to these frames of reference.

Here are a few points I think are worth reflecting upon within a critical frame of reference.

First, a key issue is raised by your reference to “links between structural power issues, housing and mental health”. Your post refers a number of times to ‘mental health’, to ‘suicidal ideation’ and the Red Pepper link refers to ‘anxiety’ and ‘mental trauma’. Within a critical frame of reference use of such terms requires critique. To mention just a few reasons: work with survivors of psychiatry demonstrates that the interconnected apparatus of diagnostic ‘psy-expertise’, big Pharma, policing of the law’ is often profoundly oppressive; the constitution of problematic ‘disorders’ such as ‘oppositional defiant disorder’ in DSM5 and the appalling record of diagnostic othering approaches symbolised by the historic positioning of homosexuality as a disorder by DSM raise wider issues of concern re. such terms and how they can be used; work by Palestinian colleagues demonstrating how the deployment of the discourses and practices associated with ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ functions in the colonial project of occupation to undermine collective resistance raises yet more concerns. The psy-complex is intimately involved in the constitution of ‘mental health’, ‘suicidal ideation’, ‘anxiety’ and ‘mental trauma’ as ‘real’ in a naïve realist sense of course. Many on this list are sceptical of diagnostic approaches to mental health in general and DSM in particular and it is important not to let that scepticism waver just because one approves of the message in a particular case?

Second, reference to “links between structural power issues, housing and mental health” raises the issue of how ‘link’ is to be understood. In the Red Pepper piece there is a phrase: “‘Living on a settee causes anxiety’ and reference to a member of Focus E15 explained that mental health issues are “a result” of housing issues. Just throw away lines perhaps but a causal reading of “links” assuming that ‘psychological states’ are ‘caused’ by independently existing real phenomena is only too easy to do within discourse dominated by the psy-complex.

Third, reference is made to “the impact of . . .  social housing policies on individuals, families and communities”. Apart from issues raised above (causal impact, psy outcomes etc.), within a critical frame of reference the relationship between problematisation and policy is contested. In ‘common sense’ (i.e. within a dominant discourse) a problem is positioned as identified (first) and then a policy is written and deployed to address it (second). Carol Bacchi’s work positions policy development and deployment coming first as part of a process of the social construction, second, of problems as problems, all part and parcel of the project of the conduct of conduct (governmentality). Reference to ‘the impact’ of ‘policy’ requires careful reflection within a critical frame of reference.

Fourth, reference is made to ‘participatory action research’ (PAR). Not so long ago positioned as epistemologically outlandish, PAR is now the now widely acritically applauded and widely adopted by the status quo. The devil is in the detail however: participation in which decisions at which stage in which ways by members of which interest groups with what potential for influence etc.? In practice much PAR involves minor real participation relatively late-on, other than by researchers, in the project as a whole. Of course the PAR to which reference is made may be exemplary but a label as PAR tells little. Classic PAR in relation to housing and health as conceptualised in the mainstream has been described by key participant Cathy McCormack and involved the work of Claudia Martin, Steve Platt and Sonja Hunt and surely would need to be a bench mark in your event. PAR needs painstaking reflection within a critical frame of reference.
Fifth, one of the widely assumed strengths of PAR is that people with ‘lived experience’ are central to the knowledge claim production and warranting process. In some frames of reference, lived experience is positioned as having ‘authenticity’. Within the critical frame of reference within which I work at least, subjective experience is the momentary phenomenological manifestation of ongoing interrelated processes of subjectification, always has a genealogy and is to be starting point for critical investigations of authority a justification of it.
In summary I would suggest that the event you propose to organise in Feb /March 2017 would benefit from careful critical reflection in advance and at the time. This would be in relation to: the inscription of problematic psy-complex states; critical consideration of ‘links’; policy and problem; the warranting of claims through ‘PAR’; and forms of constituted authority and how they function.

You asked if anyone would be interested in helping with your event. ‘Critique’ is widely misunderstood by mainstream psychologists many of whom seem to mistakenly use the term ‘critical’ to mean interpersonal criticising rather than engagement at the non-individual level with apparatuses which constituted nexuses of knowledge, power and the subject. I would not personally be as comfortable as some to deploy a discourse of ‘love’ in this context but I do think of critique as a form of solidarity and of ‘critical allies’ / critical friends as essential in any project and hope you will see this post a constructive way of helping with your event at a distance (I am based in Australia).

I also hope that those who - like Sarah are asking important questions about relations between clinical psychology, community psychology and “efforts to contribute to advancing social justice” and looking for ways forward will find a more detailed application of a critical approach to specific issues of interest.

David


________________________________
From: Sally Zlotowitz <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, 8 December 2016, 22:46
Subject: Re: Housing, Structural Power and Mental Health

Hi everyone

Thanks so much to people who have contacted me off and on list about this and for your support, it is much appreciated. I will be in touch with copies of the report and taking up your offers of help for the event and any other ideas around taking this work forward in the next few days!

Thank you again,
Sally

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