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Any chance of getting her a male companion? You could call him Ernesto Lacow. I'd expand on this but there's not the time right now, I'm busy hand-weaving a batch of yoghurt. J Deborah Chinn wrote: > > Funnily enough we've just taken delivery of a milking cow we have named Chantal Moooof > > > >> Message Received: Jan 16 2008, 01:52 PM >> From: "Paul Cotterill" >> To: [log in to unmask] >> Cc: >> Subject: Re: a day in the life of a critical community psychologist >> >> Deborah > > Very good try, but disappointed that you didn't seek to problematize the fact that children were segregated, for entirely hegemonic purposes, into different year groups in the first place. Or perhaps you'd done that the day before. And I hope the goat has a sister called Chantal Mouffe. > > "The UK Community Psychology Discussion List" <[log in to unmask]> writes: > At the risk of sounding a tad smug - here is an example of a typical day... > > > Got up early to climb on the roof and resite the solar panels. In a dash to cycle with the kids to school - delayed by having a row with Josh who was refusing to wear fair trade knitted Peruvian jumpsuit to school. Went over links between Nike sportswear, globalisation and trafficking of baby orphans from South America. didnt take long for Josh to see sense and he asked me if he can learn to knit himself. At school put on my head of governors' hat to convene meeting with Tarquin, community activist from year 4. He said that year 6 are refusing to eat school lunches since the pupil council decided that all food was to come from the school allotment that I established with help from the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund. This means meals this week have consisted of spuds with watery cottage cheese made from milk from Rosa Luxembourg, the school goat. Obviously we need to have another grassroots workshop with year 6 to deal with this. > > Cycled on to work. I had really been looking forward to the Smash Hegemony paintballing battle I'd help organise between the local Hearing Voices group and the psychiatrists. Seemed that victory to progressive forces was inevitable as the psychiatrists are all very weedy, but the consultant completely bottled out - to make a presentation to the House of Lords about the new mental health act apparently (angling for a knighthood obviously). Had a session with local clinical psychology trainees in the afternoon - they were so moved by having their naive positivism gently but firmly demolished that a number were reduced to tears. We decided to put words into action by spending the rest of the day rebuilding the neighbourhood community centre. > > Wrote a couple of articles in the evening on the challenges to stepped care from South American liberationist theology, baked another batch of spelt bread for the local food co-operative and fell into bed. Escaped capitalism with an vigourous bout of self-pleasuring. > > > > > > > > >> Message Received: Jan 16 2008, 09:02 AM >> From: "John Cromby" >> To: [log in to unmask] >> Cc: >> Subject: Re: diagnosing >> >> But psychiatric diagnosis is neither valid nor reliable - it *isn't* >> accurate. So-called 'co-morbidity' - meeting the criteria for more than >> one diagnosis at the same time - is the norm rather than the exception. >> There's lots of evidence for this, some of it summarised succinctly in >> Bentall's "Madness Explained". There are also deeper, conceptual >> problems with psychiatric diagnosis; see for example Kirk and Kutchins >> "Making us Crazy" and for probably the most telling analysis of all Mary >> Boyle's "Schizophrenia: a scientific delusion". >> >> The unreliability and invalidity of psychiatric diagnosis not only makes >> it problematic for all of the uses suggested, it also has other, malign >> effects: it distorts research, obstructs efforts at prevention, and >> raises profound ethical issues (I'm leaning on Mary Boyle again here, a >> short article she wrote recently in The Psychologist). Oh, and see >> Carl's posting about its role in legitimating toxic power relations, too. >> >> J. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Tim Anstiss wrote: >>> Doesn't it work a little like medical diagnosis, sometime? >>> >>> If I am told someone is having panic attacks, that provides me with some information about that person, rather than providing me with a longer description of symptoms. Similarly, depression. >>> >>> It doesn't tell me anything about why they have these symptom clusters, nor anything about other aspects of the persons situation, context, environment, past exposures, etc. >>> >>> But if the diagnosis is accurate, it does provide me with information, surely? >>> >>> Also, if I wanted to learn about the "causes" of some syndromes, or learn about what works in helping people recover from some syndromes, or whether or not some syndromes are becoming more common over time, then again, some way of "classifying" syndromes is surely helpful. >>> >>> Of course, if you are not interested in discovering causes, uncovering trends or discovering "remedies" then diagnostic labels may be if little use. >>> >>> So I still think that psyciatric diagnosis fulfills some functions / purpose that other tasks do not. Whether or not you want to do these things is another matter. >>> >>> So, can the tasks I describe above be fulfilled by some non-diagnostic activity? >>> >>> Tim >>> >>> John Cromby wrote: >>> The discussion on this thread is specifically about *psychiatric* >>> diagnosis. I didn't spell that out because I imagined it was clear in >>> the context. In this regard, see Paul's post on the distinction between >>> being anti-psychiatry and being anti the medical model. >>> >>> If psychiatric diagnosis actually did work like medical diagnosis, for >>> example of diabetes, perhaps there wouldn't be so much opposition to it. >>> But it doesn't. >>> >>> J. >>> >>> >>> Tim Anstiss wrote: >>>> John, >>>> >>>> I understand diagosis to help us talk about conditions without going into a huge description, and also to help with research into causes and treatments. >>>> >>>> for instance, if I am told someone has type II diabetes, I know something about their physiology, the kind of conditions they are more at risk of, and the kind of things that may help them not go blind, lose a foot, or develop renal failure. I can also get a group of people with type ii diabetes together, and see if something helps them stay healthy, etc. >>>> >>>> Also, when I am talking with another clinician, I can communicate lots of information to them about the person/patient, by telling them that they have a diagnosis of type ii diabetes. And the patient themselves can discover information about their physiology, metabolism and prognosis by searching for information about diabetes. >>>> >>>> So for me, a diagnosis is shorthand for a longer description about something, and helps with communication and research. >>>> >>>> It can also be unhelpful in several ways, but that was not what you asked about. >>>> >>>> If anyone can tell me how these benefits can be provided in a way other than diagnosis, that would be helpful. >>>> >>>> Tim >>>> >>>> >>>> John Cromby wrote: >>>> Can anyone participating in this discussion simply state what concrete >>>> benefits diagnosis provides that couldn't possibly be provided in any >>>> other way? >>>> >>>> Doing so would surely facilitate the creation of a Habermasian space of >>>> communicative rationality. >>>> >>>> J. >>>> >>>> ___________________________________ >>>> COMMUNITYPSYCHUK - The discussion list for community psychology in the UK. >>>> To unsubscribe or to change your details visit the website: >>>> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/COMMUNITYPSYCHUK.HTML >>>> For any problems or queries, contact the list moderator Rebekah Pratt on [log in to unmask] or Grant Jeffrey on [log in to unmask] >>>> >>>> >>>> ___________________________________ >>>> COMMUNITYPSYCHUK - The discussion list for community psychology in the UK. >>>> To unsubscribe or to change your details visit the website: >>>> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/COMMUNITYPSYCHUK.HTML >>>> For any problems or queries, contact the list moderator Rebekah Pratt on [log in to unmask] or Grant Jeffrey on [log in to unmask] >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> ___________________________________ >>> COMMUNITYPSYCHUK - The discussion list for community psychology in the UK. >>> To unsubscribe or to change your details visit the website: >>> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/COMMUNITYPSYCHUK.HTML >>> For any problems or queries, contact the list moderator Rebekah Pratt on [log in to unmask] or Grant Jeffrey on [log in to unmask] >>> >>> >>> ___________________________________ >>> COMMUNITYPSYCHUK - The discussion list for community psychology in the UK. >>> To unsubscribe or to change your details visit the website: >>> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/COMMUNITYPSYCHUK.HTML >>> For any problems or queries, contact the list moderator Rebekah Pratt on [log in to unmask] or Grant Jeffrey on [log in to unmask] >>> >>> >>> >> ___________________________________ >> COMMUNITYPSYCHUK - The discussion list for community psychology in the UK. >> To unsubscribe or to change your details visit the website: >> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/COMMUNITYPSYCHUK.HTML >> For any problems or queries, contact the list moderator Rebekah Pratt on [log in to unmask] or Grant Jeffrey on [log in to unmask] >> >> > > ___________________________________ COMMUNITYPSYCHUK - The discussion list for community psychology in the UK. To unsubscribe or to change your details visit the website: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/COMMUNITYPSYCHUK.HTML For any problems or queries, contact the list moderator Rebekah Pratt on [log in to unmask] or Grant Jeffrey on [log in to unmask] > > > > > ___________________________________ COMMUNITYPSYCHUK - The discussion list for community psychology in the UK. To unsubscribe or to change your details visit the website: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/COMMUNITYPSYCHUK.HTML For any problems or queries, contact the list moderator Rebekah Pratt on [log in to unmask] or Grant Jeffrey on [log in to unmask] >> > > ___________________________________ > COMMUNITYPSYCHUK - The discussion list for community psychology in the UK. > To unsubscribe or to change your details visit the website: > http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/COMMUNITYPSYCHUK.HTML > For any problems or queries, contact the list moderator Rebekah Pratt on [log in to unmask] or Grant Jeffrey on [log in to unmask] > > ___________________________________ COMMUNITYPSYCHUK - The discussion list for community psychology in the UK. To unsubscribe or to change your details visit the website: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/COMMUNITYPSYCHUK.HTML For any problems or queries, contact the list moderator Rebekah Pratt on [log in to unmask] or Grant Jeffrey on [log in to unmask]