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Hello Andrew and everybody on the list
I am interested to hear more on the plans
for psychologists to go to work in the most deprived and ‘problem-ridden’
parts of the
If such plans were to go ahead I wonder which
impact will be greater. The impact on the environment of having psychologists
present, or the impact on the psychologists of being in that environment.
I guess people would self-select to go to
such places, or be forced due to the current job shortage for clinical
psychologists. Once in these settings, workers (usually those with poor support
systems who are exposed to constant front-line stress) frequently “burn
out”, leaving posts unfilled or with incumbents on long term sick, or on
the other hand they may abandon the theories that served them well in other
contexts and start to explore other ways of working.
Cheers
Carl
From:
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Andrew Duggan
Sent: 05 July 2007 15:00
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Narrative Conference
Norway-1.ppt
Carl.
Hi again
You wrote:
There is an excellent article in this month’s Psychologist
which criticises the proposal by Lord Layard of increasing the numbers of
therapists able to work with people who are on incapacity benefit. His argument
is that by providing CBT to these people they will become less depressed and
better able to seek and take on work. They will be lifted off the list of the
inactive benefit recipients, thereby reducing the tax burden. This financial
saving could pay for the therapy service, making it self-financing.
There
are many people who have 'issues' with Lord Layard's report and its clear
directive that what we need is more CBT therapists, and when you add to this
mix the Governments intention to employ more psychologists in the most deprived
and 'problem ridden' parts of the UK, you do not have to look hard to see what
the current policy direction is. Most therapeutic approaches to working with
children do not address the issues you have outlined, they are not interested
in fiscal trauma, racism, cultural dominance, mother blame etc etc. They are
designed my white middle class, mostly male, Western orientated people who's
underlying beliefs and philosophy help maintain many of the problems that
children and their parents present with.
There is
a very clear ethnocentrism with CBT for example, which developed from the
traditions of experimental (scientific) methodology, a logical positivist,
laboratory based approach that is easy to research and yet fails to address
many of the 'issues' in people's lives which is why so many people need to have
'top-up' sessions of CBT. There is no doubt that CBT and other therapies have
their place, but you also need approaches that raise people's awareness of
their situation, that challenge the effects of a Western cultural model that by
definition creates the child and adolescent mental health issues in the first
place.
Warm
regards
Andrew
Duggan
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