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Glad to have another contribution, as my intention had been rather to open up than foreclose debate. I valued hearing of the work Senator John Lewis. And Seedat et al’s wanting to restructure psychology. Re David’s challenge as to how to demolish the Master’s psy-complex house and rebuilding it without using psy-complex tools - it’s well nigh impossible to do so just by those of us who are irrevocably bound up with the psy-complex through our jobs or our pension. We have to find ways to step back while also stepping up to use our powers for good if we can, but always questioning? …. My own experience of working with citizens outside psychology but in relation to psychology ( or health and social care) that love is the thread that is most often found most wanting and most wanted . I also get, though, that the road to hell is perhaps paved with good intentions. Or, as wikepedia gives as an alternative "Hell is full of good meanings, but Heaven is full of good works". So great to hear Sally letting us know about the Psychologists against Austerity promotion of work around housing etc and the work being done re the benefits system. Warm wishes. Annie From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Weatherhead, Stephen Sent: 05 December 2016 09:18 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Advancing social justice - Clinical and community psychology Dear all, It is interesting how many of the conversations on this email list have become focussed on ‘what is the list for?’. From this I’m taken to a wondering about which aspects of this mini community we would like to see replicated in wider communities? I try to imagine how it might be if the conversations we have in this space were set in much more perilous contexts such as peace negotiations. I think this has come home for me a bit more when reflecting on the Brexit and Trump discourses around in the Anglo-American colonised media. Many of us are coming to view these two very major events as huge for the whole world. They are. But would we be saying the same if we were caught in other parts of the world where conflict, fear for one’s life, despair and intense pain are already a part of our daily life? We have the luxury of a relatively free communication source here where we can pretty much say what we want without great fear of reprisal. Certainly we don’t have the fear associated with emails and social media in other parts of the globe. I personally think that brings with it a greater responsibility to be welcoming and open with the spaces we create. Yes it is ok to ask questions, critique and explore different views. But perhaps we should always have a sense of doing so with an imagining of what the impact would be if this space was one where our words, emails, responses did have more significant consequence than we imagine them to? I minded of Senator John Lewis and others who speak of the ‘beloved community’ and the importance living in a way we want the world to be. With this in mind, I’d ask how do you feel being part of the community of this email list? Personally I find it quite a scary place at times. Writing this email, part of me feels a fear of the verbal stones I may receive in return. Another part of me feels a responsibility and desire to send it anyway because I have been moved by some of the love offered in this list recently be people like Sarah, Suzanne, Annie, and others who ask difficult and important questions in a way that welcomes walking together in exploring new paths forward, rather than battling over which path to take and who’s been building the best one for the longest time. In times of struggle I often come back to the words of Rumi and here I am reminded of the poem “a community of the spirit” It’s a painful and beautiful work which essentially asks us to consider ourselves as our community. I wonder what we each of us ourselves would bring to the community created by this email list? And what of this list was actually a conversation where our words have greater ramifications? Perhaps we would feel a greater responsibility to ask questions which heal? I’d hope so. I make no apologies for not filling this email with psychology references, more and more of late I am finding my solace, answers, care in spaces which are not written by people who call themselves psychologists (clinical or community). So instead I’ll finish with a line from the wonderful Krista Tippet - “We are all healers of the world…It’s not about healing the world by making a huge difference. It’s about healing the world that touches you, that’s around you.” With love. Ste From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Fryer Sent: 03 December 2016 22:40 To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: Advancing social justice - Clinical and community psychology Hi Annie, Good to hear from you again. I read your post as, whilst acknowledging the need for critique, seeking to pour oil on troubled waters, to reassure newcomers to the list, to underline the need to work with each other and with others and to do so with humility i.e. emphasising the need for mediation, reassurance, collaboration and respect on the list. As someone trying to engage in critique in relation to knowledge, power and subjection in a discussion list, my preference is for us not to foreclose debate in favour of compromise but rather for us to trouble the waters, to unsettle what is taken-for–granted, to emphasise difference and, as Foucault said, to make difficult what it is currently too easy to think, say, do and be. I certainly would not condone disrespect or being unwelcoming to newcomers to the list, but as this is a community psychology discussion list, I assume trainees, academics and practioners who join this list will at least tolerate maybe welcome challenging debate of issues carried out in a frame of reference rather different from a clinical psychological one. We agree there is an urgent need to question the relationship between truth and power. You invite suggestions of authors other than white men who can help us in that. In that spirit I would recommend reflection upon an important statements Mohamed Seedat and colleagues from Community Psychology: Theory, Method and Practice – South African and Other Perspectives (2001:4). Mohamed skewered “the discriminatory approaches and hegemonic and epistemological domination evident in Euro-American psychology” and wrote: ““Community Psychology in the northern hemisphere has tended to assume an accommodationist position seeking greater influence within the mainstream fraternity without necessarily challenging the restrictions and outcomes imposed by exploitative economic arrangements and dominant systems of knowledge production. The European Network of Community Psychology, for example, does not explicitly address the issue of theoretical and methodological ethnocentrism in their statement of objectives. Instead the ENCP seeks to promote community psychology within the wider discipline of psychology, perhaps inadvertently excluding an analysis of the possible restrictions imposed by the general discipline on the theory, method, and praxis of community psychology”. Published 15 years ago, these claims are still spot on in my view in relation to psychology, including clinical and community psychology in the UK as well as Continental Europe (and of course even more the USA) and point to one set of reasons for demolishing the Master’s psy-complex house and rebuilding it without using psy-complex tools? David ________________________________ From: Annie Mitchell <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Sent: Friday, 2 December 2016, 18:53 Subject: Re: Advancing social justice - Clinical and community psychology Dear Sarah and Livia and David and Dawn and all, Thank you for this exchange. I just read a piece by phycisist Stephen Hawking http://gu.com/p/5dpgy. :- entitled, this is the most dangerous time for our planet . He says ( and, for what it's worth, I agree with most of what he says), about inequality and the global political situation "For me, the really concerning aspect of this is that now, more than at any time in our history, our species needs to work together. We face awesome environmental challenges: climate change...." He finishes by saying "We can do this, I am an enormous optimist for my species; but it will require the elites, from London to Harvard, from Cambridge to Hollywood, to learn the lessons of the past year. To learn above all a measure of humility" Members of the psy-complex are part of the elite who, like others, urgently need to do the questioning of the relationship between truth and power that David urges. We need to do this with humility, as , among others, David and Jan Bostock and Mark Burton have always said we should do as community psychologists. Drawing on critical ( and I would add, creative) resources beyond the discipline of psychology is really important in this, as David says , as is questioning and challenging our own vested interests. Asking always , in whose interests is this.....and acting to shift the balance of power towards those who have least, where ever we can. And how hard is this, when we individually and collectively numb ourselves against pain. I have been re-reading the sociologist Stanley Cohen on States of Denial: Knowing about atrocities and suffering. He says:- we need to turn to a political critique of the atrocities" . Another thing to consider is that community psychology as a subject/ discipline / activity is unregulated. It is not a formal part of the psy-complex , in that it is not a protected title, at least not in the UK. Though we do have a BPS Community Psychology Section, in which can work inside the psy-complex and at its edges, it is also important that we can also work together with anyone who feels psychology is worth engaging with, as community psychologists and citizens together, outside formal regulated structures. That ( including this list for which I am grateful ) gives us a realm for shared critique and activism around psychology and beyond it, that can overlap with our various professional, academic and personal and social Identitites and activities. I know that it is very hard for people who are training as professional or academic psychologists to take on board critical ideas , which seem to threaten the very foundations, subjects and identities they wish to take on , unless they have strong critical role models and mentors. So I appreciate you Sarah for asking the question and you others for being such strong and able critics and inspirers of challenge. Much needed, as much as ever if not more, at this time. Oh oh oh , on re- reading..I realise that nearly all the authors I have quoted here are white men. So much for my critical self! Maybe others can add more from other sources? Warm wishes to all Annie ________________________________ From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> on behalf of David Fryer <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> Sent: 01 December 2016 12:33:20 To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Advancing social justice - Clinical and community psychology Dear Dawn, Thanks. What you and colleagues are attempting to do at Notre Dame, WA, is impressive. I think it is relevant to this discussion that at Notre Dame University you and your colleagues are engaged in education beyond the reach of the institutionalised psy-complex (in the form in this case in Australia of the Australian Psychology Accreditation Council / Psychology Board of Australia) to regulate and police what is and is not taught and how it is and is not taught (but institutionalised psy-complex regulation and policing takes different forms in different countries). Do you agree? David ________________________________ From: Dawn Darlaston-Jones <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Sent: Tuesday, 29 November 2016, 12:42 Subject: Re: Advancing social justice - Clinical and community psychology Hi David I loved this response, particularly the final paragraph, it captures what I and others are attempting to achieve in the realm of education Dawn ____________________________________________________ Associate Professor Dawn Darlaston-Jones, PhD MAPS MCCMP Registered Psychologist Behavioural Science School of Arts & Sciences University of Notre Dame 19 Mouat Street (PO Box 1225) FREMANTLE Western Australia WA 6959 Tel: +61 8 9433 0124 e-mail [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> CRICOS Code 01032F "Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world" - Nelson Mandela [http://www.swan.wa.gov.au/files/989f4903-2fa3-4415-b11a-9eb600e8b9ba/EnvironmentalMessage.gif] From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] On Behalf Of David Fryer Sent: Tuesday, 29 November 2016 10:37 AM To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: Advancing social justice - Clinical and community psychology Dear Livia, Thanks for continuing the discussion. I waited a while before picking up the thread in case Sarah or anyone else wished to open other important issues before I head off down one limited interest track with a reply. You asked “What is the ‘next step’ that such a radically critical approach would propose?” What one’s ‘next step’ should be depends on what one is trying to achieve? That may seem obvious and perhaps it might be taken for granted that members of this list in general, and Sarah, you and me in particular, will be in agreement about what we are trying to achieve? In Sarah’s post it seemed to me that it was positioned as obvious that community and clinical psychologists are committed to making “efforts to contribute to advancing social justice” and in your post it seemed to me that it was positioned as obvious that clinical/community/critical psychologists aspire to “actually make a difference in people’s lives”. From the perspective within which Sarah’s and your posts were framed, a key question of a ‘critical’ approach is how it could be translated into ‘something manifest in the world’ which psychologists can do which will actually ‘make a difference in people’s lives‘/ which will ‘advance social justice’. It makes sense to ask it and you did. From the critical perspective within which I work, the psy-complex (“the heterogeneous knowledges, forms of authority and practical techniques that constitute psychological expertise” (Rose, 1999: vii) is already only too ‘manifest in the world’, already makes only too great a difference in people’s lives by discursively positioning domains of human life as ‘psychological’, constructing and deploying expertise in relation to them and regulating them through the (re)construction of subjectivity. A key question is not how to deploy it, collaboratively or not, but rather how to resist it. I reject the modernist positioning of the subject as unitary, rational, agentic, and the modernist notion of power as a phenomenon an individual can adjust e.g. through empowerment. I also follow Hansen (e.g. 2016) and others in rejecting normative approaches which position a key task as “unmasking the structures that impede justice from actualization”. In relation to discourse and practices of ‘social justice’, ‘human rights’ etc., I prefer to critically investigate how they are deployed, with what effects, in whose interests etc. rather than position them as taken-for-grantedly as ‘good’ and beyond critique. There is lots more which could be said but this reply is already too long. I also do not want to get too technical or inaccessible. It is probably enough already to explain why I am not interested in approaches in which community and clinical psychologists are unproblematically positioned as making “efforts to contribute to advancing social justice” or “actually mak(ing) a difference in people’s lives” through problematic ways. My critical interest is in troubling psy-complexification, modernist notions of the subject, of power and of normative approaches to social justice. My next step within the critical approach I work within is, as Foucault (put it (2007: 47) to “question truth on its effects of power and question power on its discourses of truth” and more particularly to question psy-complex ‘truth’ on its effects of power and question power on its discourses of psy-complex ‘truth’ . More broadly my next step is not to find a different way to psy-complexify etc. but to abandon the psy-complex, to strive to engage with subjectivity and power without drawing upon psy. For stimulation and support with this I look to trans-disciplinary approaches to the genealogy of the subject drawing on critical theory, contemporary anthropology, radical politics, feminist and queer theory studies and so on rather than psy (clinical or community). I would recommend any clinical psychology trainee in “the process of developing a question for a professional issues essay” to draw upon those approaches too. David ________________________________ From: "Ottisova, Livia" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> Sent: Monday, 21 November 2016, 20:50 Subject: Re: Advancing social justice - Clinical and community psychology Dear David, Thank you for your thoughtful reply. As someone with an uneasy foot in each camp (community/critical and clinical) I wonder, what is the ‘next step’ that such a radically critical approach would propose? In the second part of Sarah’s question, she asked about the potential for collaboration between clinical and community psychology to advance social justice, and what this might look like in practice. Your response is that clinical psychology (and its all too often individualistic, intra-psychic, medical model) is actually an impediment to developing and deploying a more critical approach – and, if I understand correctly, collaboration would therefore not be desirable. So where do we go from here? How do we translate this more critical approach into something manifest in the world, that will actually make a difference in people’s lives? Thank you for your thoughts, I am very interested to see what emerges from these questions and reformulated questions! Very best wishes, Livia From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>] On Behalf Of David Fryer Sent: 21 November 2016 07:25 To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> Subject: Re: Advancing social justice - Clinical and community psychology Dear Sarah, Thanks for raising some interesting issues and also for being open to different ways to respond to them, including allowing the possibility that the questions you are asking might be usefully reformulated in other frames of reference, at least for some members of the list. I think you raise issues of interest to many on this list. Thanks. However, in the context of this list, rather than ask whether clinical psychologists should concern themselves with community psychology as part of their efforts to advance social justice, I would ask whether there is a need to develop approaches to subjectivity and power which thoroughly reject individualistic, intra-psychic, medical model, mainstream ‘scientistic’, treatment approaches to promote what are positioned within dominant, metropolitan discourses as taken-for-granted, normatively-desirable, socially-just, forms of human social life. This is to ask the question of whether a radically critical approach to collective subjectivity and socially-constituted power is required. In my own, critical, frame of reference, it is required and clinical psychology – and community psychology too in many of its clinically psychologised manifestations - is an impediment to developing and deploying such a critical approach. That may not be an appropriate alternative question for your professional issues essay as a clinical psychology trainee but thinking about the issues raised by the reformulated at question, or discussing them on this discussion list, might lead to interesting alternative questions. Good luck! David ________________________________ From: Sarah W <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> Sent: Thursday, 17 November 2016, 20:36 Subject: Advancing social justice - Clinical and community psychology Hi All I am in the process of developing a question for a professional issues essay and I wondered if I might invite comments. I'd like the finished product to be a worthwhile contribution. As a clinical psychology trainee I have been introduced to community psychology through the activities of members of the Community Psychology Section and the Division of Clinical Psychology, the DCP's Pre-Qualification group, Psychologists Against Austerity and influential experts by experience. I'm curious about: 1) whether clinical psychologists should concern themselves with community psychology per sé as part of their efforts to contribute to advancing social justice (assuming the implied boundaries exist)? - my sense is that there are a variety of views on this, but I might be wrong. 2) what collaborative efforts to advance social justice might look like in practice - specifically, how might the day-to-day role of the clinical psychologist need to evolve with these shared values/aims in mind? e.g. involvement within public health - no doubt this would involve overcoming many challenges. I suspect I'm asking the 'wrong' questions in a way - please excuse me if so. I'm opening this up at the very early stages in my thinking process! Perhaps they have been answered fully elsewhere? I hope no one minds me using the email list as a resource in this way. I'd value any thoughts at all. BW Sarah ___________________________________ ___________________________________ The list is jointly managed by David Fryer [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> and Grant Jeffrey [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>, either of whom are able to deal with queries. To unsubscribe or to change your details on this COMMUNITYPSYCHUK list, visit the website: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=COMMUNITYPSYCHUK IMPORTANT: This e-mail and any attachments may be confidential. If you are not the intended recipient you should not disclose, copy, disseminate or otherwise use the information contained in it. 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If you are not the intended recipient then copying, distribution or other use of the information contained is strictly prohibited and you should not rely on it. If you have received this email in error please let the sender know immediately and delete it from your system(s). Internet emails are not necessarily secure. While we take every care, Plymouth University accepts no responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan emails and their attachments. Plymouth University does not accept responsibility for any changes made after it was sent. Nothing in this email or its attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied by an official order form. ___________________________________ The list is jointly managed by David Fryer [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> and Grant Jeffrey [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>, either of whom are able to deal with queries. 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Nothing in this email or its attachments constitutes an order for goods or services unless accompanied by an official order form. ___________________________________ The list is jointly managed by David Fryer [log in to unmask] and Grant Jeffrey [log in to unmask], either of whom are able to deal with queries. To unsubscribe or to change your details on this COMMUNITYPSYCHUK list, visit the website: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=COMMUNITYPSYCHUK