COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY FESTIVAL: 2017

CRITICAL PSYCHOLOGY DISCUSSIONS:

Political and socioeconomic reasons the research

base is what it is: Vested interests within a
- capitalist society e.g.
Focus on inner psychological processes
Pharmaceutical companies,
- Focus on neuropsychology governmental productivity
- Focus on 'conditions' and 'diagnosis' requirements
- Focus on biological determinants of distress

Defines and validates what reality is  ‘Mental illness’, biological illness

Shapes social actions  Services, treatments (psychiatry / medical model / medication /
individually-focused interventions)

Social discourses that dominate shape

how problems and their causes are
defined, viewed, researched and
therefore validated as reality

What is Community Psychology:

- Different way of viewing, formulating psychological and mental health difficulties
- Consider the person in social, physical and material context

Working in partnership with people, communities, individuals:

- Not 'doing to' people but 'doing with'- not sitting in ivory towers, working on the ground
- Not imposing ideas and solutions on communities/individuals but seeking goodness of fit
- Co-participatory approaches- having conversations, co-create together, co-ownership
- What we will do, how to do it, what are the important outcomes and how to measure them

Focus on:
- Prevention e.g. Perinatal support, parenting support, family interventions, healthy communities
- Early intervention e.g. School interventions, university interventions, workplace interventions
- Resilience e.g. positive psychology, strengths-based approaches
- Reducing health inequalities e.g. Housing, healthcare, education- reducing power inequalities

Framed within a capitalist model:

- Where does the problem lie? Emphasis from those in power on
- Who has the problem? impact on productivity (e.g. days of
- Problem impact (cause or effect?) work missed), rather than wellbeing
- How problems are defined? e.g. diagnosis

Making Mental health everyone's business-reducing inequalities is central to prevention &

early interventions
Critical Psychology:

- Thinking differently- alternative approaches to mainstream psychology

- Deconstructing taken for granted realities- Query standard procedures, status quo
- Privileged position for our training and backgrounds- critical hat on, not everyone has awareness
- Going against mainstream ways of working, can be challenging and difficult- consider how you
challenge- friendly and respectful, build relationships, explore collaboratively with others
- Terminology ‘critical’ has negative connotations and can scare people- more about thinking
differently

‘It's not always easy to be a critic. Doesn't mean you shouldn't do it though.’
Lucy Johnston

Challenging to do within current

systems e.g. NHS, that are saturated
by dominant narratives

Working Beyond the Individual Level:

Policy:
- Psychologists need to be involved in influencing policy
- Research / evidence-base needs to be participatory and inclusive e.g. Participatory Action
Research (PAR)- Psychologists have the skills to work in collaborative and inclusive ways
when undertaking research
- Move research, reality construction away from academic institutions- involve ‘subjects’ as
participants, support communities to create and define their own realities through PAR
practices
- Ideology big driving factor, multiple influences in policy – psychologists have the skills to liaise
and link with lobbyist groups to influence policy

Structural issues connect to mental health & wellbeing issues:

- Local councils using 80% of tax payers money to repay council debts, little money available for
residents
- Joining with local organisations, charities e.g. Debt Resistance UK to challenge injustices

Housing issues connect to mental health and wellbeing issues:

Liberation
- Insecurity Psychology:
- Removed from connections and social capital Fight oppression- resist
- Lack of control, powerlessness oppressive practices
- Feeds into core beliefs, inner working models

Community actualisation versus Individual actualisation

Approach, method, technique:

- Ways of working, ethos underlying methods utilised when engaging with others and techniques
offered
Lucy Johnston Talk: Moving Beyond Diagnosis

Epistemic Injustice:
- Define people's reality for them- epistemic injustice
- People deprived of ability to make sense of their own experiences
- Psychiatric diagnosis should be an informed choice, not an imposed version of reality
- It can turn people with problems to patients with illnesses

Evolutionary Psychology:
- Distress is 'normal'
- We are designed to feel distress
- Suffering part of the human condition
- Normalise
- Work with our strengths e.g. positive psychology

Alternatives:
- Listening to people's stories
- Use our words to tell our own stories
- Everyone has a story
- Diagnosis obscures a person’s story

Construct a story:
- Formulation
- 2 people sitting together and telling a story of how a person got to that place in their life
- Formulation offers a way out of brain or blame trap
- Strengths focuses
- What's happened to you versus what's wrong with you

Challenging existing ways of thinking, challenge to power and ideological power

Being more service-user orientated

Epistemic Injustice- People deprived of ability to make sense of & define their own reality &
experiences #commpsyfest2017

100,000s of people's stories are being obscured by diagnosis- Diagnosis can turn people
with problems to patients with illnesses. #commpsyfest2017