 |
 |
I am thinking of sending this below. . I know a letter is a small thing.. It,s hard to get in and I imagine others may have written along similar lines Anyhow let me know by early tomorrow if anyone wants me want me to add yr name. It may already be too late to be accepted ( and maybe too long)
Dear Editor,
Richard Layard is promoting the idea that better provision of mental health services is more important than reducing social inequalities in promoting human happiness (Happiness depends on health and friends, not money, says new study, Guardian, Monday 12th December). This is a false dichotomy. Evidence suggests that austerity damages our collective health. Deepening economic and social divides, bullying, abuse, misogyny, racism, dehumanisation and consequent insecurity, trauma, social exclusion, neglect and despair underpin the current tsunami of desolation in the UK and beyond, specially in our children. These are largely economic and political matters, requiring cultural, social and political solutions. Psychological therapies, humanely delivered to those who want them, have a part to play in ameliorating human suffering, and we do need more flexible, kind and supportive services. But we must not pathologise those who are damaged by the injustices they experience. Degradation by the benefits system is now devastating many with long term illnesses in the UK. To imagine that therapy, rather than social transformation, can address or prevent the conditions that lead to despair is to be wilfully blind.
Annie Mitchell
Clinical and community psychologist
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Annie Mitchell <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 12 December 2016 00:43:11
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Layard Strikes Againyes: . thanks Jay, and David. . as reported in the Guardian, with Layard's comments ( and knowing of Layard's previous work and positioning ) this is damaging neo-liberal capitalist obscuring of the structural causes of trouble . we need to resist it.
is there any scope for those who wished to do so to write to Guardian as of community psychologists? or would that just be continuing to play the psy-complex game?
can community psychology section speak out?
I'd be happy to help/ sign if so. thanks for finding the programme David/ And I gather Layard was on BBC Today programme this morning - I missed it but others may have heard it? NHS colleagues here were concerned... -
Annie
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of David Fryer <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 12 December 2016 00:26:49
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Layard Strikes Again___________________________________ 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=COMMUNITYPSYCHUKDear Jay,
Thanks for alerting list members early to this, as you say, dangerous, damaging, discourse being currently disseminated. See also attached. You ask us to do what "we can do to chip away at this narrative as it emerges". Here is another thruppence worth from me which - I hope - also helps to take the discussion some of us have been having on the list half a step forward.
Lord Layard, Emeritus Professor of Economics at the LSE, has long been a relayer of discourses which simplistically re-position oppressive, complex, socially-constituted, phenomena as individualised psychological problems which have individual psychological solutions i.e. Professor Layard is a relayer of psy-complex discourses. These discourses function to obscure the role of social, structural, material and political factors, to individualise, psychologise and depoliticise and to absolve interest groups implicated in the oppression of responsibility for what is the case and of responsibility for for playing a role in effective intervention. Combined with Professor Layard's historically preferred mode of intervention (e.g. CBT) to address individual psychological problems, individual cognitive-behavioural dysfunction is victim-blamingly ultimately positioned as the cause of social problems.
In this deployment of the psy-complex, the discourses peddled by Professor Layard are of course essentially no different in principle from those peddled by many psychologists. So far this is critical psychology 101. However to go a little further, it is important not only to resist the psy-complex wherever it is inscribed but also to resist temptation to resist it within the frame of reference within which it is presented. To engage in debate about whether 'tackling depression and anxiety' would be more or less effective than 'tackling poverty' would be to play the master's game by the master's rules and so to reinforce them. Rather we should try to uncover the interlocking systems of constituting forces through which human subjects are reconstituted under current politico-economic conditions and - as Biehl, Good and Kleinman (2007) put it - "inner processes are reshaped amid economic and political reforms, violence and social suffering". That is: to understand the genealogy of the contemporary neoliberal subject and to find ways to resist the constitution of such subjects, including finding ways to resist our own reconstitution as neoliberal subjects.
David
From: J Watts <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, 12 December 2016, 19:36
Subject: Layard Strikes Again
___________________________________ 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
Folks, forgive me for not being an active member of this egroup, especially with such rich discussions going on. I am just popping up now to ask if you could use your networks, and social power, to respond to Layard's new 'landmark' study which has hit today, and is getting lots of press. I don't have the methodology as yet, it is being presented at the LSE/OECD wellbeing conference today. However you can read a bit about the study here. This sample quote from the Guardian may be telling: “Tackling depression and anxiety would be four times as effective as tackling poverty. It would also pay for itself,” he said. Dangerous, damaging, and happening now. Everything we can do to chip away at this narrative as it emerges will help.
In solidarity - Jay
This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. 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] 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
This email and any files with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the recipient to whom it is addressed. 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] 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
