Thank you Michael,
 
I am not only grateful for demonstrating your belief in the value of all people (as other list members) by explaining this, it further helps bridge the gap of understanding to better enable contributors at our recipient end to continue offering thoughts and experience on these issues (through the various channels such as Government 'listening to experts by experience' scheme). Indeed, you also demonstrates that much such co-operation has already taken place for the good of all. Obviously, I am now particularly interested in your comment:
 
".. but rather the structures in which they/I work which priviledge some forms of knowledge and eradicate others. I see no purity in anyone's position, least of all my own, and see much of my actions and work (as an assistant psychologist) largely as problematic"
 
I gain the impression that this fits in with what other professional list members are saying about the restrictions they experience in the quest for positive change. Whatever, it does appear from our end that many good ideas have already resulted from this 'across-the-board co-operation' and that it may not just be a question of limited resources preventing these measures and further positive research being implemented to the level required. We have a sense that there are powerful people who still control all our lives, motivated either by self-interest or by belief - such as 'survival of the fittest' and 'competing against each other', as opposed to the observations and findings of you true humanitarian scientists.
 
Wonder if it also relates to my brother's experience with his business at the cutting edge of IT. For 8 years, he and his family fought against the 'big boys' of business, despite suffering much ill health and poverty, only to lose out to them - as so many do - in the end. His motivation for the innovation was the good of all, rather than personal profit, but the powerful purse-string holders such as those that enable/allow our Governments to be elected, appear to have little concern for the product and common good. Is my view and spirit totally irrational and useless? I have no wish to waste anyone's time on the list, including my own, if there is no hope I can be of some possible use. I am still very confused about who and what the list is for.....
 
Sue,
 
I certainly will not accept a role as punch-bag by anyone appearing to have no positive beliefs about themselves, others, psychology and life. My goodness Sue, if that is the way you feel about yourself, what does this say about your views and feelings on those masses of us you appear to see as below your well demonstrated wrongly perceived nothingness? If we are not all equal in potential value, despite our wide ranging differences, fortunes and handicaps, I have certainly misunderstood the meaning of Communiy Psychology. In your word 'intentions', I thought you mean't unity of good hearted people is the most important factor in our quest for positive change - a point and power I hope all list members can agree on. Yet again, I join with those on the list who are offering you an warm open hand, not a cold hard fist. Seems you have already had far too much of that.
 
Mike
 
----- Original Message -----
From: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">Michael ridley-Dash
To: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]
Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2006 10:49 AM
Subject: Re: List definition

Michael
 
I pefect understand what mean by 'it' - therapy/psychologising and 'its' (there I go again) many arms or as it's dubbed in some critical psychology literature the 'psy-complex'. This is a political (do you have to be a politician to mention the word politics?) tool in which problems that stem from inequality (which allows huge groups such as older people to be on the margins of poverty, whilst others enjoy the 'fruits of careers' etc.) are redifined as individual deficiencies for example inability to save and plan for the future. Indeed such discourse threads itself through therapeutic practice/magazine articles right throught to everyday speech.
 
Community psychology (for me) is partly an attempt to see how such destructive discourses and their enactment through societal arrangements both covers up for and perpetuates inequality (we could all have careers if only we were thinking/attributing/behaving correctly) but also produces a futher level in which people can be unequal in terms of the self. i.e. the rational self (employable/useful/coherent) vs the irrational self (unemployable/useless/incoherent). It is taken as a given that a strategic use of therapy (as highlighted for the unemployed in Layard) is a political act in the way that it produces ideas of employability.
 
For example -
 
'You find that 'flexible' work opportunities with increasingly less sick pay, holiday pay etc. anxiety provoking. Well rather than challange these changes in the working enviroment, which we can't do as two individuals. Let's see how we can make this practice more acceptable to you by changing your thinking about it and how you behave'
 
Obvious subtext - 'Stop complaining and get back to work'.
 
This is not to blame the people who enact therapy. Anymore than I 'blame' myself for wanting a career I can't step outside of societal arrangements as they stand.
 
These factors are a given for me - they are a 'baseline' from which I try to conceptualise.
 
As for experts we have a clever system in the National guidelines for Clinical Excellence (NICE), in which at first glance expert opnion is placed low on the list of influence for policy. This would make up believe that expert 'opnion' is far from the basis in which descions are made.
 
However, the highest influence is that of Randomised Control Trials (RCT's), which are defined, run, analysed, interpreted and disseminated by and to... wait for it Clinical experts, researchers, academics etc. Of course, however, these trials are presented as objective experiements which represent the uncovering of truth about the world, but the very fact that clincians/researchers get to choose what is catagorised as something (people with depression, for example) and then can choose to ignore all societal context (or merely cast one variable as societal context) build policies around individual interventions which serve to reinforce societal arrangements.
 
So I am not concerned about the falliability or infalliability or experts, but rather the structures in which they/I work which priviledge some forms of knowledge and eradicate others. I see no purity in anyone's position, least of all my own, and see much of my actions and work (as an assistant psychologist) largely as problematic.
 
Apologies if any of this appears diffuse and unintelligible (and badly spelt) it's my irrationality at play and I should definetly get back to work,
 
With all affections,
 
Mike

Thank you for the encouragement John,
 
I do agree with Sue about the omnipotent powers of 'experts', regardless of whether deserving highly influential titles or not, and suspect this is why many members without letters after their name are are afraid to speak up or feel it is a waste of time. As a Pensioner non-academic 'mental health client' contributor to Annie's Psychology Service User Advisory Group, our work together as a wide range of experts in living - as all people are - has already introduced practical changes toward any potential for turning psychology into a rational and positive science. The key has been genuine respect for each other's views, knowledge and experience - accepted as of equal value in our guiding concern for the prospects of all people. My first awareness of community psychology as a practical art and science was as a commercial art student. Here one is taught how to con the public into thinking, feeling and acting in ways that mostly benefit a minority at great costs to the majority and our planet. The same principle is used in most aspects of our society, not least religion and politics, so I feel that learning to live with it is very dangerous for all of us. In the meantime, we can need individual treatment to keep us going or restrained but it must not be allowed to be used as a political tool to ignore and maintain the root causes of ever-growing individual, social and global ills.
 
Mike
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">John Cromby
To: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2006 9:04 PM
Subject: Re: List definition

Hi Mike
I'm sorry and surprised to hear that you had a bad response to your earlier post. I thought your characterisation of CBT as 'coercive bullying tactics' was fantastic. And I agree, the list should have more of a focus on how social and economic structures impact upon us in our daily lives.
John
 
----- Original Message -----
From: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">MICHAEL SWINDLEHURST
To: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2006 5:29 PM
Subject: List definition

It does appear from recent postings that there is a need to define who and what the discussion list is for. My hope in joining was that it may be a medium for discussing practical ideas to change the social and economic structures behind most mental ill health. A recent response to one of my postings certainly made me feel like 'riff-raff' and I wonder how many other 'experts by experience' members at client and CMHT level are afraid to offer responses and ideas for fear of feeling the same. Perhaps there is need to be mindful of what 'Communiy Psychology' means?
 
Mike
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