London
Fryer, Duckett and Pratt
and sophistication). Crucially, however, unlike most other social scientists, we also require our work to be ideologically progressive.
The word ‘ideological’ is used in a range of ways and is very often used pejoratively to describe the work of others as politically biased in the sense of owing more to a preexisting political position than to any systematic process of schol-arship or research. Like Wendy Stainton Rogers (2002, p.299), we use ‘ideology’ to mean ‘the use of knowledge to promote the power of certain groups’. For us, all human activity, including all research and practice, is ideological. The issue is not whether or not it has implications for the distribution of power but what those implications are, for whom and with what consequences.
The claim that knowledge promotes the inter-ests of some, as opposed to others, may seem an odd one to those who operate on the modernist assumption that knowledge is fundamentally about cognitive representation of ‘what is the case’ in the ‘real world’ arrived at through a combination of rationality and empiricism. We believe, on the contrary, that there are as many
‘realities’ as there are persons, in each case ‘re-ality’ being constituted by the sense made sub-jectively of a unique positioning within a variety of societal structures.
Those structures include systems of ideas within which one is immersed and through which one is, at least in part, constituted. There is, how-ever, not just one set of systems of ideas but many alternatives which fit together in different ways and which serve different interests in dif-ferent ways.
Permeating and constituting much of psy-chology are systems of ideas which imply that psychological distress and illness are caused and maintained at the individual level by intra-psychic forces and processes and that it could not be any other way; that is, they are givens of the human condition. However, as Burton (2003) has argued, drawing upon Martín–Baró (1987), what many of us take as given is ideologically constructed and so needs to be ideologically de-constructed.
For us, critical refection is essentially about re-flecting on whose interests are being served by what is thought, written and done, on what the ideological implications of various positions are
and on where there is default to reproduction of problematic assumptions. When we critically re-flect on research claims, we are at least as inter-ested in answers to the question ‘whose interests would it serve if this was widely believed’ as we are to ones like ‘is it theoretically coherent?’ or
‘is it empirically supported?’
For example, consider recent work by clinical psychologists piloting and evaluating the effec-tiveness of interventions intended to reduce the psychological distress of unemployed people.
These interventions involve providing cognitive behaviour therapy to unemployed people in an attempt to increase their effectiveness in job search. Conventional critical questions can be asked about the theoretical basis of CBT, the re-search participants, the methods used and the analyses of data done, but let us assume for now that the intervention is effective in the sense that unemployed people who received CBT had a greater likelihood than those who did not of becoming re-employed and thus escaping the psychonoxious state of unemployment. Job done? Whose interests would it serve for it to be believed that the mental health problems of unemployed people were caused not by socio-economic policies but by dysfunctional cognitions;
that is, that the unemployed are to blame for their own distress? Whose interests would it serve for it to be believed that mental ill health caused by unemployment is reversible through a relatively few sessions of talking therapy? Whose interests would it serve for it to be believed that mass unemployment can be tackled by chang-ing the psychological state of individual un-employed people one at a time when, since no new jobs are created, the total of unemployed people remains the same and no more is done than redistribute unemployment from one sub-group to another? These are critical questions about the ideological implications of the work.
Why we are ‘critical’
For us, critical reflection has its roots, in part, in the work of critical psychologists like Parker (1999) who have emphasised the importance of understanding and contesting how some ideo-logically problematic versions of psychology have come to dominate others with oppressive con-sequences for academic, professional and
every-Clinical Psychology 38 – June 2004
day life. We agree that psychology as a discipline is problematic. Indeed, psychology has been among the most prominent of our social institu-tions to support the notion of poor mental health being a brain disease and has invested consider-able resources in representing the negative psy-chological consequences of oppressive and exploitative social, moral and political practices as individual medical aberrations requiring chemical and clinical interventions. However, for all that, psychology as a discipline comes lower down our list of socially toxic practices, than classism, sexism, heterosexism and racism, so that we do not want to elevate critique of the discipline over critique of all else.
For us, critical reflection also has its roots, in part, in the work of critical social psychologists like Hepburn (2003), who argues that it is im-portant not only to critique psychology but also to critique society, and that of critical psycholo-gists Fox and Prilleltensky (1997), who argue that critical psychology is about ‘focusing on the central themes of pursuing social justice, pro-moting the welfare of communities in general and oppressed groups in particular, and altering the status quo of society and the status quo of psychology’ (Fox & Prilleltensky, 1997, p.4).
However, the mission of pursuing social jus-tice – though a worthy one – seems a general one of responsible citizenship and whilst psy-chologists as citizens have roles to play, we are interested in addition in any specialised critical role we might play as community psychologists.
Many people enter psychology because they are concerned about psychological distress and want to play a role in reducing it. We have not been persuaded that clinical psychology is part of the solution. Indeed, critical reflection sug-gests clinical psychology is ideologically prob-lematic. We are persuaded that much if not most psychological distress is socially caused and could be socially prevented. Indeed, for us, critical re-flection has its roots, in part, in the appalling in-justice we see around us in the world and its connection with distress and illness. We are pain-fully shocked by the global statistics on poverty, hunger, violence, exploitation and oppression and the way disadvantage is structured by gender, race, sexuality, impairment, age and so on. To us the world seems at the point of being
over-whelmed by an epidemic of psychological dis-tress, ill health and social breakdown.
In industrialised Western countries mass un-employment and relative poverty blight many communities, whilst the so-called flexible labour market inexorably reduces the number of remaining secure, permanent, full-time, psy-chologically satisfying, reasonably paid jobs and replaces them, when they do that at all, with in-secure, temporary, part-time, skill, low-control, low-status, low-satisfaction, low-paid, alienating, psychologically corrosive jobs or alleged training which is actually more about reinforcing work discipline and hiding unem-ployment than about facilitating skill acquisition.
Vast numbers of communities are blighted by gross and increasing inequalities in wealth and health, by disease, homelessness, alcohol and drug-related problems and by endemic violence by men against women, seated within a broader context of violence within and between nations.
Globally, we see many millions of people facing environmental degradation and catastro-phe, abject poverty, famine, preventable disease, harsh subjugation, racism, ethnic cleansing, tor-ture and war or fleeing them for ‘asylum’ only to find they have exchanged one form of hostility and risk of confinement for another.
Given the evident social causation of so much of the above and the centrality in them of abuse of power, we believe that psychologists should be in the vanguard of attempts to understand, intervene and prevent psycho-socially caused oppressive distress and illness. Instead, we not only find most psychologists failing to engage with psychological aspects of socially caused problems in general, and abuses of power in particular, but actually claiming power neutral-ity whilst intentionally or unintentionally col-luding with the powerful. Moreover, whilst some community psychologists have engaged with issues of power, most who do are stronger on rhetoric than action and some of what is done is part of the problem rather than of the solution.
However, whilst we are appalled by the scale of problems and the irrelevance, ineffectiveness or complicity of psychology in the face of them, we simultaneously see grounds for hope in the power of civil rights movements, the women's
Fryer, Duckett and Pratt
movement, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered movements, disability movement, black move-ment and many others, such as the protests against G8 summit meetings, against World Trade Organisation meetings and against arms fairs, demonstrations against the war on Vietnam and now against the war on Iraq. These social movements and popular uprisings are about making transparent the painful contradic-tions of the world in which we live (e.g. famines when the world has a surplus of food, unemploy-ment when so many employed people are over-worked, millions dying from preventable disease while billions are spent on war). Such movements demand change and call for a stop to global oppression and exploitation.
We are inspired by such examples of progres-sive critical thinking and action. We wish to do our bit to make our discipline a more effective force for social justice and to rid it of complicity in oppression and misery.
How others seek to dismiss critique Ideologically critical feedback is seldom wel-come. Critical feedback is usually reinterpreted as something else. Our own critical reflection has usually been re-presented as: academic terri-torialism, ambition, arrogance, disloyalty, hostil-ity, intellectual exhibitionism, Machiavellianism, rudeness, self-righteousness, social disruptive-ness and social incompetence. At their most per-nicious, these re-presentations have become internalised. We have become concerned that we are voicing our critique for unworthy reasons and we have self-censored.
These reinterpretations of critique can be dis-appointing and irritating and critique does not often gain you friends. Perhaps critical reflec-tion should bear a health warning: ‘Being critical can seriously damage your social support.’ More seriously – especially for those who are not in secure tenured positions or are lower down in the academic hierarchy – retaliation for being critical can damage your employment and pro-motion prospects.
Note the ironic nature of these re-presentations:
not only do they damage the critic, they also re-inforce and maintain that which the critic was seeking to critique since they are themselves manifestations of psychologistic individualistic
frames of reference. The critique is re-presented as a variety of personality or characterological dysfunctions and the moral nature of the con-cerns being voiced with regard to social justice is being re-presented as personal immorality.
How critical community psychology could be done
For us, critical reflection has its roots, in part, in community psychological principles such as those embodied in the University of Waikato commu-nity psychology graduate programme, based in Hamilton in Aotearoa/New Zealand.
As community psychologists we try to work in ways that promote the empowerment and en-hance the competence of the most marginal and disadvantaged individuals and communities.
Crucially, enhancing competence involves re-moving barriers and impediments in the multi-level social environment rather than just enhancing individual skills. Emphasising compe-tence enhancement rather than deficit maximises chances that critique will be heard and used. It is also vital to develop our own competence both in terms of seeking critique and giving it to others.
As community psychologists we are constantly concerned with issues of social justice, for ex-ample challenging others’ discriminatory views or practices and highlighting inequities through critical engagement with the work of others. It is essential to keep asking if our own practice, including critique, promotes social justice, either through making sure the voices of others are heard or through using critique to offer a differ-ent perspective to allies.
Valuing human diversity and difference, in terms of culture, gender, class, sexual orientation and ability is central to our vision of community psychology. In engaging critically with others’
work we should always try to examine how diversity is considered or promoted. Taking time to develop awareness of our own cultural identities, such as our group memberships based on gender, class, sexual orientation and ability, helps us better understand the way we operate in our work. Respecting diversity means taking time to understand what informs how people view the world – it can be easy to lose sight of the value of multiple perspectives – and
Clinical Psychology 38 – June 2004
how important it is to take time to learn about the perspectives people bring that are different from our own. This means allowing room to agree to disagree and positioning critique as offering an alternative perspective. There can, of course, be tensions between values. For example, the values of social justice and respect for diversity may not always sit comfortably with each other.
Is it right to respect diversity of another’s view if their work discriminates, marginalises or harms another group?
As community psychologists, we believe that supporting participation and development in communities is important and that long-term positive change is most likely to be achieved through working in collaboration and partnership with people living in communities (who have great expertise concerning the issues needing to be addressed). Sometimes we engage in critique as part of building relationships of collaboration.
As community psychologists we are concerned with the importance of social, organisational, in-stitutional and community context in creating and maintaining social problems. Accordingly it is important for us to keep critique in context and perhaps we need to ask if, at different times, we can engage critically in different ways.
Conclusion
Because so much of the feedback community psychologists receive in mainstream academia, professional organisations and in the workplace, is negative, non-constructive and sometimes even destructive, and because community psy-chologists value the provision of support, look actively for strengths and competence, celebrate diversity and work for inclusion, collaboration and cooperation, there is a tendency for com-munity psychologists, when they get together at conferences or in journal ventures, to provide mutual affirmation and to avoid looking for, recognising or drawing attention to problems in each other’s work.
Whilst such uncritical affirmation serves a variety of useful functions, particularly in the early days of a new approach, we believe that at its current state of development, community psy-chology receives, to its detriment, insufficient serious critical scrutiny from within its own terms of reference. We community psychologists
are as likely as anyone else to reproduce in our work ideologically problematic assumptions, which actually go against the interests of the very people whose interests we claim to pro-mote. The challenge remains that we find ways to deal with the difficulties of critique and move on to collectively build a reflexively critical com-munity psychology.
References
Burton. M. (2003). Liberation psychology: learning from Latin America.http://homepages.poptel.org.uk/
mark.burton/PSLarticle.pdf (retrieved 7 December 2003).
Fox, D. & Prilleltensky, I. (Eds.) (1997). Critical psy-chology: An introduction.London: Sage.
Hepburn, A. (2003). Introduction to critical social psychology.London: Sage.
Martín-Baró, I. (1987). El latino indolente. Caracter ideologico del fatalismo latinamericano. In M.
Montero (Ed.) Psicologia politica Latinoamericana.
Caracas: Pamapo.
Parker, I. A. (1999). Critical psychology: Critical links.
Annual Review of Critical Psychology, 1,3–18.
Stainton Rogers, W. (2002). Critical approaches to health psychology. In D. F. Marks (Ed.) The health psychology reader.London: Sage.
Address
Community Psychology Group, University of Stirling FK9 4LA; [email protected]
Racism
Anna Daiches and Laura Golding are editing a special issue on Clinical Psychology and Racism. If you would like to contribute to this special issue, please contact one of them as soon as
possible:
[email protected] [email protected]
The UK Critical and Community Psychology Conference happened in the same week that James Naughtie could be heard poking fun at a spokesperson for ‘Anti-Tourism’ on Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme. Anti-tourism, it seems, is critical of the focus and activities of mainstream tourism. So, for example, instead of going to Paris and taking a photo of the Eiffel Tower, the anti-tourist goes to the Eiffel Tower, stands in front of it, and takes a picture of everything but the Eiffel Tower, of the alternative perspective. Some of the presenters at the Critical and Community Psychology Conference had similar suggestions about psychology research.
tourist n. 1.a. a person who travels for pleasure, usually sightseeing and staying in hotels.
D
avid Fryer gave the example of research he was commissioned to do, to examine how people with disabilities could be helped to adapt better to their work environ-ment. He turned the agenda around, focusing in-stead on the people who had commissioned him to do this work and how they might change in order to better accommodate the needs of their employees. Jim Orford described research into aspects of the New Deal for Communities initia-tive. One method of investigation was photo-elicitation, which involved focus group collaborators taking photographs of their com-munities to illustrate issues raised in the group.They then re-grouped and discussed the photos.
This way of working helped to add more weight and substance to their views.
What the presenters and the anti-tourist have in common is that none of them are part of the picture being viewed. They are all tourists. They might be trying to look at something in a differ-ent way from everybody else, but ultimately they are all looking at something they are not part of.
They do not necessarily include themselves in
the picture, although conference delegates might argue that they would urge their discipline to in-clude themselves in the picture. In contrast, Mike Fox came to present his own views and ex-perience of poverty and exclusion, a picture that he is part of. In some ways, I guess he too was a tourist, of a different kind, looking in on a gather-ing of people critical of mainstream psychology.
At this point it is important to say that Mike described himself as ‘not one for writing’,
At this point it is important to say that Mike described himself as ‘not one for writing’,