To anyone left on the list and not auto deleting my contributions.
I am very disappointed to read these last two divisive and aggressive
postings by Penny and Mark. I had hoped list members would take
responsibility for the roots of needless personal and social ills by
revealing and discussing them. Perhaps if there are any other members on
this list who remember the last world war and/or its aftermath, you will
recall what people really need and why this even more important now with our
global state and direction. Some of you may also understand why utopia is
not an ending but a pre-requisite of our greater expansion and adventure as
a species. Current list activity is rather like splashing paint around
willy-nilly in the hope a masterpiece will result. This is not the way
responsible creative teams work.
Mike S (space craft abuser)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Penny Priest" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, July 23, 2006 7:16 PM
Subject: Re: methodology, conflict, splitting and war
There is of course Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social
Responsibility (www.pcsr.org.uk) in the UK, but maybe this is a bit heavy on
the therapy perspective for some people on this list.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Burton" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, July 23, 2006 1:13 PM
Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] methodology, conflict, splitting and war
A useful model is that of Psychologists for Social Responsibility. See
http://www.psysr.org/index.htm This is a North American organisation.
It would be useful to have a similar vehicle to denounce from a
knowledge based perspective (and yes I know that knowledge is
contestable and all that, but we know a cause of psychological trauma
and the destruction of social fabric when we see it) things like Israeli
aggression, US destabilisation, UK's craven support for US / own account
imperialist policies and so on.
Annie Mitchell wrote:
> Dear all,
> I have been uncomfortably aware that while our discussion list has been
> engaged internally in conflict and trying to process difference, desperate
> injustices and wars are raging around us; the escalation of violence in
> the middle east and the bombardment of Lebanon is surely in all our minds
> and hearts. Some while back Paul wrote a very effective piece challenging
> us as psychologists and arguing that our silence almost leaves us
> complicit in unjust actions. In our reflections on our recent experience
> of conflict are there any lessons we can transfer to our understandings
> and actions in our wider world?
>
> The current exchanges prompt me to question whether our tendency to
> split and separate at many levels, including minds and feelings, is part
> of the difficulty? I feel ambivalent about a person choosing to leave our
> list - I know some of us, myself included, took a tough line in the
> recent conflict ( and I don't think labelling helps make sense of the
> struggle unless perhaps it helps make us kinder) and while I am glad now
> that others feel that they can speak out more readily I also wish we could
> have resolved the conflict internally without splitting, and could have
> better created the conditions on the list for people to feel free to speak
> out. I regret that my own line, while trying to be honest , contributed
> to the splitting, perhaps in part because tough words unsoftened by actual
> human contact are particularly divisive? Or, perhaps it is the case that
> as a community we can be more effective ( begging the question of what
> effective means in this context) with a sense of shared identity created
> through actively negotiating who and what is in and out? If so, I prefer
> the widest possible inclusion of difference that is compatible with
> getting on with whatever we are trying to get on with here together..
>
> Annie
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List on behalf of Michael
> Swindlehurst
> Sent: Fri 21/07/2006 23:46
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: methodology
> To all, Lovely to see you real Psychologists are human and not 'by the
> book' unfeeling academic robots. Perhaps one day with such sensitive
> insight and outsight, Psychology may be able to understand one of the most
> alien mental and emotional conditions ever known to mankind -womankind.
> The differences that divide us can also be the joy which constructively
> unite us. Expect I have pissed Penny off even more now but I see all list
> members, without exception, as expressing creative human thoughts and
> feelings to the same community end. Imagine what you can all do with your
> personal and collective knowledge when applied to any given community
> subject.
> Penny: Any chance of a date? Thought not.
> Mike S ----- Original Message -----
> From: Penny Priest To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Friday,
> July 21, 2006 9:24 PM
> Subject: Re: methodology
>
>
> Hi Ursula and List People
> There's bits I agree with you too, and others who came out and really
> said what they felt - Paul Duckett's contribution is the one I remember
> most. When I read his contribution, a big part of me thought, well done
> for being so honest. I like to think of myself as honest and outspoken
> too, but as I said earlier, I've been arguing with MYSELF about all this.
> When I am so valuing of honesty, I start to question why I should think
> it's such a good thing to be honest (and there have certainly been times
> when I've been deceptive and kept secrets...) Other times I question why
> people are being silent and when silence is a good thing, or when it might
> be an oppressive thing, and so on. And sometimes I get just plain
> irritated by people being what seems really right-on and I applaud people
> who buck the trend (maybe it's because I once had a boyfriend whose
> right-on-ness was really refreshing after the bastard I had just been
> with, but after a couple of years, it was just boring!)
> The thing I think I agreed with most about what Rebekah has said was
> about psychological problems. I don't think that in general a community
> psychology perspective ignores the subjective and focuses solely on the
> environment. To me it just seems to have a hard job of trying to redress
> the balance that you have called for, and therefore might appear to ignore
> subjective experience sometimes. But also, I feel really uncomfortable
> about getting into situations where the only conclusion seems to be to
> write people off because they're mad and a nuisance (although I'm not
> saying that this is what has happened necessarily). When I am at my
> maddest, I am at my least articulate, and therefore my most likely to piss
> people off and then to feel even madder, and even more desperate and
> lonely. And I suppose I don't want to contribute to someone feeling like
> that, however much they piss me off. Also, when I spend so much time with
> individuals, one-to-one in a little room, constantly thinking how
> understandable it is that they are distressed, and constantly being
> surprised at them being surprised that I don't think they're mad, then I
> begin to wonder what's going on when I start to lose that sort of
> understanding and become really irritated with someone and start thinking
> about describing them as mad. And where I often come back to is that it's
> environments that are sick and need diagnosing, not people. Just a final
> point about the tensions around being personal and methodology (as you
> have provided this new subject heading, Ursula); some thinking we should
> keep personal out, some thinking it's okay to keep in. I have been
> personal here. I don't think I can be anything other than personal. I try
> to be respectful, but wouldn't be able to guarentee it. But the way it is
> for me might be described a little by saying how I like ethnography as a
> methodology (and had the joy of doing a mini-ethnography for my clinpsyd).
> It felt like the most honest (yes, honesty again) way possible of doing
> research (although this probably isn't at all true of all ethnographies)
> because it was not only possible, but pretty much imperative, to reflect
> on how me as a person and all my various proclivities were affecting the
> research process, and how for me, it doesn't feel possible and doesn't
> even make sense to not be personal.
> Well, sorry to have rambled on, but if you got bored or irritated, you
> could have just deleted it and I would never have known...
> Penny
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Ursula Troche To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Friday,
> July 21, 2006 7:18 PM
> Subject: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] methodology
>
>
> Dear Rebekah, Penny etc.
>
> yes, of course iīve been very frank - and frankness can sometimes be
> unsettling.
>
> In general of course i agree we have to respect each memberīs or
> ex-memberīs contribution. But also, where does personalism clash with
> honesty? As psychologists, community- and otherwise, we canīt ignore our
> feelings either, that is, somewhere the personal will come in. For the
> sake of honesty and even because itīs unavoidable. This is why everywhere
> in the social sciences the narrative has become more important, not
> because we are all individualists now but because researchers in general
> realise that we have to listen to the person as well as to the
> surrounding - and the person also includes listening to ourselves. We
> have to strike a balance.
> Of course mainstream psychology does not strike that balance but only
> looks at the person. But neither can we do the opposite by only looking
> at the environment. It is this constant interaction between the person
> (others but also ourselves) that we have to look for. If we donīt look at
> individuals at all, we will be just as disempowering as those who do not
> look at the society at all.
>
> Ursula
>
>
>
> Penny Priest <[log in to unmask]> wrote: Hello everyone
> I would just like to say that I agree with Rebekah. I have argued a
> lot with myself about recent exchanges on the list, but ultimately I think
> that what has been happening has brought up some really fundamental
> questions about how this list/community functions. I think we could use
> this.
> Penny
>
> --
> Message sent with Supanet E-mail
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rebekah Pratt To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Sue's departure from the list.
>
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > Sorry - this is my second post today! It is actually one I'm
> really
> > reluctant to make as I think it is just great when rare
> contributors post
> > and I don't mean to discourage by adding on a few points of
> difference - I'm
> > only hoping to speak to a few points I feel are important to add.
> > =20
> > I can understand the comments about Sue, but I guess I would just
> like to
> > say I am worried that we risk replicating what was so problematic
> about some
> > of Sue's postings by personalising and psychologising her input.
> Sue might
> > not be subscribed to the list any more, but it is a public list,
> our
> > archives are public , anyone can read them, anyone can subscribe
> and
> > resubscribe, and are welcome to do so. I worry that reducing the
> recent
> > list dynamic as being only about Sue misses an opportunity to
> think more
> > broadly about what this list is about. =20
> >
> > The reference to psychological problems in Ursula's email bothered
> me a
> > little and I wanted to offer why (and I don't think that I think
> Ursula
> > intended this effect but I feel compelled to offer this point). I
> agree
> > with Ursula that having what can be described as psychological
> problems and
> > needing help is a common experience but I am more interested in
> finding a
> > way that we can psychologise society rather than any
> individual/s - and
> > challenge dominant psychological discourses. I think it is really
> > important to be totally clear that having a label of a
> psychological problem
> > does not exclude anyone from this list, at all. In fact I would
> hope that
> > just by subscribing to the list we are participating in an act of
> having a
> > shared psychological problem - that problem being psychology
> itself, and
> > that this problem we all have might discourage us from
> psychologising
> > individuals.
> >
> > Rebekah
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _____
> >
> > From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List
> > [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ursula
> Troche
> > Sent: 20 July 2006 17:16
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Sue's departure from the list.
> >
> >
> > Hi everybody,
> >
> > i am also a very rare contributor. I havenīt forgotten you and am
> planning
> > to become more active again when time allows. Am currently on
> īconference
> > tourī, that is, speaking at a conference and attending two more.
> > After having enjoyed last yearīs comm psy conference with its very
> > important issues, i always felt i should stay in touch but usually
> did not
> > manage due to too many commitments.
> >
> > Interestign SM left the list. I too thought some of her points
> were
> > interesting but she was often too personal and too aggressive as
> well. I
> > canīt help thinking she has a psychological problem and needs
> help. Very
> > ridiculous of me to say this as it all relative (and at some point
> we are
> > all in the same boat), but to be honest, thatäīs what i thought.
> >
> > greetings, Ursula
> >
> >
> >
> > ___________________________________
> > COMMUNITYPSYCHUK - The discussion list for community psychology in
> the UK.
> > To unsubscribe or to change your details visit the website:
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