The Psychologist November 2018

the

the psychologist

psychologist november 2018

november 2018

Family trees, selfies and our search for identity Paula Nicolson heads up a special collection

www.thepsychologist.org.uk

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the

the psychologist

psychologist november 2018

november 2018

contact The British Psychological Society 48 Princess Road East Leicester LE1 7DR 0116 254 9568 mail@bps.org.uk www.bps.org.uk the psychologist and research digest www.thepsychologist.org.uk www.bps.org.uk/digest www.jobsinpsychology.co.uk psychologist@bps.org.uk Twitter: @psychmag Download our iOS/Android apps: complete access for Society members advertising Reach 50,000+ psychologists at very reasonable rates.

CPL, 1 Cambridge Technopark Newmarket Road Cambridge CB5 8PB contact Kai Theriault 01223 378051 kai.theriault@cpl.co.uk october 2018 issue 51,374 dispatched environment Printed by Warners Midlands plc on 100 per cent recycled paper.

Family trees, selfies and our search for identity Paula Nicolson heads up a special collection

www.thepsychologist.org.uk

The Psychologist is the magazine of The British Psychological Society It provides a forum for communication, discussion and controversy among all members of the Society, and aims to fulfil the main object of the Royal Charter, ‘to promote the advancement and diffusion of a knowledge of psychology pure and applied’

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We rely on your submissions throughout the publication, and in return we help you to get your message across to a large and diverse audience.

For details of all the available options, plus our policies and what to do if you feel these have not been followed, see www.thepsychologist.org.uk/contribute The main message, though, is simply to engage with us.

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Managing Editor Jon Sutton Assistant Editor Peter Dillon-Hooper Production Mike Thompson Journalist Ella Rhodes Editorial Assistant Debbie Gordon Research Digest Christian Jarrett (editor), Alex Fradera, Emma Young

Associate Editors Articles Michael Burnett, Paul Curran, Harriet Gross, Rebecca Knibb, Adrian Needs, Paul Redford, Sophie Scott, Mark Wetherell, Jill Wilkinson Conferences Alana James History of Psychology Alison Torn Interviews Gail Kinman Culture Kate Johnstone, Sally Marlow Books Emily Hutchinson, Rebecca Stack Voices in Psychology Madeleine Pownall International panel Vaughan Bell, Uta Frith, Alex Haslam, Elizabeth Loftus, Asifa Majid Psychologist and Digest Editorial Advisory Committee Catherine Loveday (Chair), Emma Beard, Harriet Gross, Kimberley Hill, Rowena Hill, Deborah Husbands, Peter Olusoga, Richard Stephens, Miles Thomas

11/10/2018 11:20

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psychologist november 2018

02 Letters

Climate change;

male

psychology;

and more 10 News

Public health;

book

awards;

loneliness;

and more

20 Psychology’s last stand – making a difference in the zombie apocalypse Ella Rhodes seeks out psychologists in our (Halloween) ‘end of days’

28 Family trees, selfies and our search for identity Paula Nicolson with the first in a collection of articles on finding who we are in the modern world

56 Careers We meet Alistair Teager from Salford Royal Hospital; and Sangeetha Rajan on her work with the Arts Quotient 62 Jobs in psychology

34 ‘Half the world away’ –

family identity and emotional geography

Antonia Bifulco

66 Books We meet Lily Bernheimer

40 Reporting your ‘dream self’

Christine Parsons and

Melanie Rosen

76 Culture Monty Wates on Magic Medicine

84 Looking back Cade Anderson-Smith on the lasting legacy of Dr Anonymous

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46 Lost and found… in translation Rebecca Poinot

88 A to Z

Our journalist Ella Rhodes’s article on making a difference in the zombie apocalypse (p.20) is a novel route in to the questions psychologists ask and how they ask them… and also simply a bit of Halloween fun. But fortuitously it has also ended up prefacing a collection on identity.

In Wade Davis’s 1988 book Passage of Darkness, he writes that the ‘victim of zombification suffers a fate worse than death – the loss of individual freedom implied by enslavement, and the sacrifice of individual identity and autonomy implied by the loss of the ti bon ange’ (considered to be ‘one’s aura, and the source of all personality, character and willpower’).

What is our identity, as a magazine? Unrelenting, with an insatiable appetite, progressing with most devastating impact as part of a horde. We are stuffing these print editions with braaaains, but on our website you’ll find many more (with exclusives, extras and extracts) who have joined our steady, stumbling, onward march.

Like a zombie then, but in a good way.

Dr Jon Sutton Managing Editor @psychmag

11/10/2018 11:20

Tim Sanders/www.timonline.info

Fiddling while Rome burns?

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I read Brick and van der Linden’s article (‘Yawning at the apocalypse’, September 2018) on the way back from a degrowth conference held in the European Parliament building in Brussels. There it was clear that most of the participants had not ‘got it’: If our species is to survive we have to radically change the way we live. Projections of our ecological footprint show that it would require three to five back-up planets for everyone alive today to live as we do in the West. What is more, the laws of physics relating to the conservation and interchangeability of energy and matter show that it cannot be done. If one consumes energy or material from any source, none of the resulting products, desired and undesired, go away. They simply show up elsewhere as such things as noxious gases or products that have to be disposed of in the soil, seas or atmosphere (including space debris).

There is no such thing as ‘green energy’.

The change that is required is as great as that from an agricultural to an industrial society. And just as no one in an agricultural society could envisage what an industrial society would look like, so no one in our society can envisage what a sustainable society would look like. There can be no blueprint. All we can do is set in train changes in the institutional arrangements (i.e. governance and financial arrangements) for the management of society which might lead to the evolution of an alternative society.

And these comments apply with a vengeance to the thinking of Brick and van der Linden. Here we have a typical academic article driven by a backward-looking

review of approximately 40 references (which were not included in the printed version of the article), which do not even include a reference to the 1972 Club of Rome report Limits to Growth or von Weizsäcker et al.’s 50th anniversary update (see critique at tinyurl.com/ y7489kml).

In point of fact climate change is only one, and probably not even the most important, indication of the urgent need to change our way of life. Tackling it on its own (and Lovelock and others have argued that it is already too late) would not yield the requisite changes because the effect would be overridden by the reactions of the rest of the system.

Systemic change is needed. Amazingly, although the general population seems to be aware of this, psychologists seem to be remarkably blind to it. Indeed, if psychologists are to attend to these issues, it will be necessary to ‘turn psychology inside out’ in the sense in which Newton turned physics inside out. Before Newton, if things moved or changed direction it was because of their internal properties. They were ‘animated’. After Newton, it was mainly because they were acted upon by invisible external forces, which could nevertheless be mapped, measured, and harnessed. A similar reorientation in thinking is needed in psychology.

John Raven Edinburgh www.eyeonsociety.co.uk

11/10/2018 11:21

the psychologist november 2018 letters I accept that climate change is a substantial challenge to the world at large and something on which psychologists should have something useful to contribute. I welcome the article by Brick and van der Linden.

The term ‘climate change’ is used 26 times throughout their piece; however, to connect psychology with this ecosystem upheaval we must show that the world is going wrong for most of humanity and that it is we ourselves who are causing this.

The article refers but once to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which has ‘reaffirmed the high degree of confidence in the role of human activity in driving climate change’ – and surely this ‘anthropogenetic mechanism’ calls out for a name, to identify it separately from the change itself – ‘human agency’?

Brick and van der Linden set out three ways in which ‘climate change (can be seen as) ... a moral issue’, and three ways in which ‘we can promote social norms around sustainability’. So, we are offered six steps by which psychological expertise could help save the world.

All the above seems to imply that there is one set of climate phenomena which is changing in a coherent way (i.e. global warming, but with local extremes of cold as well as of hot weather) and another set of human behaviour patterns which are ‘sustainable’ (e.g. less globalised, more local lifestyles bordering on the vegan) that should replace the unsustainable ones (e.g. driving internal combustion engines, eating dairy and meat).

Along with the undoubted goodwill of the article, it may have offered some questionable assertions (see below) and have left a gap in what psychology could offer, to help the burgeoning world population live rewarding lives. The gap that deserves to be worked on is that of measuring human knowledge about ‘climate science and engineering’ and of identifying how better knowledge does, or may be brought to, relate with better behaviour.

Though not in this article, one reads of the ‘carbon footprint’ as something we should minimise – as carbon

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dioxide released from burning carbon fuels is represented as bad, believing that all the CO2 released reaches the upper atmosphere where it blankets in the Earth’s warmth.

Some CO2, however, is necessary for photosynthesis in plants, and it should be more widely understood what proportion is either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ footprint. (see tinyurl. com/yaqx7x5b for a discussion of this). Further, if green garden and food waste is diverted to rot, this produces CH4: methane – a more ‘powerful’ greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. So, what might be the best management strategy for individuals and communities to adopt? To burn organic waste, or rot it? How well is accurate knowledge about this question, diffused? How many are well informed about the carbon footprint entailed in setting up a wind turbine, or in covering a roof with solar panels? How long would an appliance take to work off such a footprint, before it delivers the ‘clean energy’ which supporters like to talk about?

The authors write that ‘climate change is often portrayed in the media as a future, distant, global, nonpersonal and analytical risk’, but is this true? Do they include amongst their ‘media’ the sites that people fill themselves (thus not ‘non personal’), or do they mean broadcasting and the press? These ‘output variates’ need to be measured, and it may well be found that traditional broadcasting channels have put a lot of emphasis on weather calamities and attributed them to global warming; if so, does immersion in such information influence people to want to behave more frugally?

A very recent visit to the Arctic island of Svalbard was made by Caroline Lucas, a Green Party MP, who saw abundant coal mines (indicating times when forests grew there, overtaken by icy climates not thought to be brought about by human agency, though the current warming is attributed to such), and she said that the inhabitants there urged her to encourage the UK population to be more careful about energy use, the inference being that the nearby industrial nation would

have more bearing on the remote climate of Svalbard (see tinyurl.com/ y9lu93ul). This tricky problem of inference is something which research psychologists might tackle, given that small populations such as those of Norway or even the United Kingdom many find it unconvincing to support energy-prudence when one can see that massive Asian populations may not be being so careful.

The ancient formula in psychology to study Knowledge, then Attitudes, then Practices I believe still has much to commend it.

Mallory Wober FBPsS London NW3

British Journal of Replication Psychology In his article ‘Does psychology face an exaggeration crisis?’ (October 2018) Professor Brian Hughes points to several systemic issues, including the incentive of journal publication and citations for innovative research findings. Professor Hughes suggests it might be necessary to dismantle the journal system in order to allow replication studies to receive more attention and kudos.

I see an alternative option, to publish journals that feature only replication studies. Everybody loves a ‘myth-busting’ story, and I would certainly sign up for a journal that routinely unpicked the evidence for received wisdom. I think this would be both a bestseller, and an opportunity for a wider range of psychologists to relish the ego-boost of publication. Everybody wins.

Please do publish my name with this letter, as I wouldn’t want anyone else getting the credit.

Simon Robinson Aberdeenshire

11/10/2018 11:21

Priorities in male psychology Like the thousands of others who voted ‘For’, I was ecstatic to see the ratification of a new Male Psychology Section at the AGM held on 30 August. Like so many others, I passionately argued that a Section dedicated to providing engaging, critical discussion around issues which disproportionately or uniquely effect men and boys was desperately needed. Indeed, it is my hope that such a forum provides the support and structure necessary to encourage and develop inquiry amongst psychologists into the lived experiences of boys and men across the UK, and beyond. But what to tackle first? For me, four principle areas warrant our immediate attention.

The first is ‘male mental health’ and the high male suicide rate, as our understanding of men’s experiences of poor mental health and help-seeking are still largely underdeveloped. Moreover, many are still reluctant to identify and assess gender as an important factor in the act of suicide, and it is up to the academic community to lead the way in changing that narrative. Encouragingly, there has been increasing discourse in the popular media regarding the way men experience mental health difficulties, and the challenges they face accessing and engaging with service provision. For example, the storyline detailing Aidan’s struggles on Coronation Street, created in collaboration with leading men’s suicide charity CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably), demonstrates how this taboo subject is entering public consciousness.

However, we must act to create an evidence base which is similarly reflective of men’s experiences.

Equivalent attention is needed in relation to the experience of fatherhood. So much time has justifiably been dedicated to understanding the psychology and health of mothers, that the challenges and joys of the fatherhood process, from conception and pregnancy, to birth, new-born life, to later transitions and loss, have been largely overlooked. Particularly important is increasing our understanding of how fathers cope with the

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Chris Millar makes the case for a more compassionate and psychologically informed treatment of prisoners (‘Careers’, August 2018).

We fully support this but would suggest that this is applied equally to male prisoners, because all of the reasons Millar gives for supporting women also apply to men. Even where the figures appear to apply more to women (e.g. ‘53 per cent [of women] report emotional, physical or sexual abuse as a child, compared with 27 per cent of men’), it is very likely that there is underreporting by male prisoners of such abuse.

In addition to societal pressures

stresses of fatherhood, and its impact on mental health.

For example, statistics provided by The Fatherhood Institute show that, whilst many dads actively embrace new, ‘involved’ conceptualisations of fatherhood, they still face unique challenges when it comes to parenting, be it accessing and receiving appropriate support, or being excluded or being ignored in the delivery room. We must do more to highlight and improve their experiences.

The third is the need to focus on ‘marginalised men’, for example those within the prison system, homeless men, and male victim-survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Again, for so long, damaging narratives and stereotypes have served to erase such men from both public and academic discourse, despite the existence of unique, gendered challenges faced by these groups, which are worthy of exploration. All three groups named here experience difficulties in accessing services or are actively excluded and maligned by society – why? And what can we do to improve the lives of men in these unique and challenging situations? Critical questions indeed, worthy of our effort and time.

Finally, we must invest energy in understanding what could arguably be presented as the starting point of many issues for men and boys – their disengagement from education. Boys are more likely than girls to be excluded, to be labelled as having behavioural difficulties, to get worse grades at all levels of education, and to report a lack of enjoyment in the schooling process. Why? And how do these early difficulties predict later life outcomes?

A decent education is so important – and we should lend our immediate efforts to exploring the educational underachievement of boys and its outcomes in an attempt to not only improve their direct experiences of the education system, but their prospects in later life.

Ben Hine Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of West London Co-founder of the Men and Boys Coalition

making it more difficult for men to discuss experiences of victimisation, men are often not asked by staff about abuse to the same degree that women are. However, appropriate investigation can be revealing, for example, Murphy (2018) found that 66 per cent of male sex offenders with personality disorders have a history of childhood sexual abuse, 72 per cent have a history of physical abuse and 80 per cent have a history of neglect.

Having compassion for male offenders is more of a challenge than for female offenders, because men often express their trauma in violence

and aggression that is directed at others. Regardless, psychologists should rise to this challenge and see male offenders as equally deserving of psychological healthcare as female offenders. Society has much to gain by the successful treatment of men’s mental health issues.

Dr Naomi Murphy HMP Whitemoor, Cambridgeshire Dr John Barry University College London Reference Murphy, N. (2018). Embracing vulnerability in the midst of danger: Therapy in a high secure prison. Existential Analysis 29(2), 174–188.

11/10/2018 11:21

the psychologist november 2018 letters

Whilst attending interviews this year, hopeful to be chosen for training as a clinical psychologist in our NHS, I spoke to other candidates. After the textbook ice-breaking questions, the next was usually about my gender: ‘How does it feel to be the only man here?’ No offence was taken, to me it was harmless, but one comment struck me: ‘I would love to be male in this process, it’s such an advantage.’

I felt awkward, but was it true?

I knew clinical psychology was a female-majority profession, and I knew concern was growing about the lack of males in psychology. I also remembered the statement on the clearing house website: ‘We welcome applications from people from ethnic minority backgrounds, people with disabilities and men as these groups are currently under-represented in the profession’ (my italics). But did this mean my chances of getting a place were higher?

No. What I have recently discovered is that overall, male applicants are statistically and systematically less likely to be accepted onto clinical psychology doctorate courses than females.

The clearing house equal opportunities data shows us that this year 678 males and 3088 females applied, and 83 males and 498 females were accepted. Of course, there are going to be more female acceptances, after all there are far fewer males applying. However, what deeply concerns me is when we look at this in relative percentages.

Males made up 18 per cent of the total applicants, and female applicants made up the other 82 per cent. Yet, those 83 accepted males only made up 14 per cent of the total, with female acceptances making up the other 86 per cent. Relatively speaking then, last year, females had a 16 per cent chance of being accepted onto training, whilst males only had a 12 per cent chance.

Hoping this was just a one-off, I explored previous years. The pattern, however, was almost systematic.

Apart from 2011, males had a relatively lower chance of being

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accepted in every year after 2005.

It is fair to say the NHS could benefit from more male psychologists. It makes sense that men and boys entering NHS psychological services can request to see a male psychologist; after all, we all reasonably expect to be able to see a same-sex GP when we have personal physical health issues. More male psychologists could also inform a more gender-inclusive service, which is critical when we consider that suicide is the biggest killer of men under 50 in the UK, and 75 per cent of suicides are male. It is even more critical when we consider that 25 per cent of these males seek help from a health professional in the week leading to their suicide. Is the NHS meeting their needs effectively?

We are not lacking male applicants. Enough apply to fill over 50 per cent of places in any given year. I do not have enough knowledge of doctorate course selection procedures to evaluate them, I do speculate that male applicants typically have lower academic achievement than their female counterparts. It makes sense that the top scoring candidates get accepted; presumably they would make higherquality psychologists. However, the entry requirements from the clearing

house state you need at least a 2:1 degree that confers graduate basis for chartered membership (GBC) and an unspecified amount of clinically relevant experience. It would be reasonable to assume that all, if not the majority, of male applicants met these requirements before paying £23 to apply. Therefore, it is reasonable to say, some university selection procedures, which are not controlled directly by the NHS, are disadvantaging male applicants.

I think the profession needs to look into this further and consider the implications if it were to continue.

More diversity in the profession will only better meet the needs of our diverse range of service users. But things could get worse yet; less success could be further pushing males away from the profession. In the last four years, the number of female applicants has fallen by 2 per cent; however, for males this has fallen a staggering 8 per cent from an already relatively small number applying anyway in 2013.

Given clinical psychology training is funded by public taxpayers’ money, directed from our NHS, is it fair to say males should have an equal chance of being trained?

Kane Baker Bristol

Letters online: Find more letters at www.thepsychologist.org.uk/debates, including Sandie Hobley asking ‘what is the British Psychological Society for?’; and Heather Flowe on Dr Ford, alcohol and remembering sexual assault.

Deadline for letters for the December print edition is Friday 2 November 2018.

Letters received after this date will be considered for the following month and/ or for publication online. Email letters to psychologist@bps.org.uk with the subject line ‘Letter to the editor’.

11/10/2018 11:21

Improving public health

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The government has announced new guidance that promises a ‘comprehensive and collaborative strategy to enable public health professionals to use behavioural and social sciences to improve health and wellbeing’. Led

by Public Health England’s Behavioural Insights Team, along with the involvement of many psychologists and the British Psychological Society, the Improving People’s Health document was published in October.

The approach was driven by the growing recognition of the role of structural, social and behavioural factors on the population’s health. The authors also point to the under-utilisation of findings from these sciences despite wide-reaching contributions that could be used within public health.

The strategy points to some of the many contributions of the social and behavioural sciences in the public health realm, including key theories and tools developed by health, social and cognitive psychologists. It also points out that transdisciplinary approaches could be more widely adopted within public health.

In a blog on the new strategy Dr Tim Chadborn, Head of Behavioural Insights and Evaluation Lead at Public Health England, wrote: ‘In order to effectively prevent poor health, we need an approach that takes account of

the whole person, social context, and wider aspects such as education, employment, social norms, and the built and online environment. This would be a comprehensive systems approach that draws on multiple behavioural and social sciences, including psychology, behavioural economics, sociology and anthropology.’

The groups involved with developing the strategy, including the Association of Directors of Public Health, Faculty of Public Health, the Behavioural Science and Public Health Network, and the Local Government Association, identified eight priority themes to work on in the coming months and years. These include making the knowledge and skills from the social and behavioural sciences mainstream within organisations that commission, research, design and deliver public health services and increasing programmes, policies and interventions underpinned by this evidence. There is a commitment in Year 1 to the Behavioural Science and Public Health Network and British Psychological Society Division of Health Psychology creating a contact directory of behavioural science experts and public health professionals.

Professor Jim McManus, Director of Public Health at Hertfordshire County Council, who has been instrumental

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Getty Images

in the development of this new approach, said: ‘We will now start work on a series of quality standards of how the public health system should incorporate social sciences and behavioural sciences in their work, which will be part of the suite of standards being produced nationally for aspects of the public health system.’

Karen Rodham, Professor of Health Psychology, Staffordshire University, said it was a privilege to play a small part in the development of the strategy. ‘It is the first time that professionals from many fields have come together to develop a truly collaborative behavioural and social science public health strategy.

The reason that this is important is that it has the potential to make a huge difference to our ability to improve and protect the public’s health and wellbeing because it provides a foundation for cross-disciplinary coordinated action; something that is vital if we are to address and reduce the key public health issues of our time.’

Nigel Atter, from the British Psychological Society’s Policy Team, served on the Writing and Reviewing Group. Other psychologists involved included Jo Hart, Roxanne Gervais, and Stephen Sutton (from the Society’s Behavioural Change Advisory Group). er

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the psychologist november 2018 news

The best in psychology writing honoured This year’s British Psychological Society Book Awards have honoured some leading researchers and authors across fascinating areas of study.

Professor Chris Chambers (Cardiff University) won in the Academic Monograph category with his book The Seven Deadly Sins of Psychology: A Manifesto for Reforming the Culture of Scientific Practice (see our website for an extract). An open science advocate, Chambers outlines the powerful biases at the heart of science that can skew research and results. Chambers said he was deeply grateful, and still slightly surprised, at the positive published reviews the book had received, but the most satisfying reaction came from comments from early-career researchers. ‘Since the book came out last year, I’ve had a steady stream of interactions with young scientists who found the book useful to them in one way or another… every one of these messages is a salient reminder that it is the young scientists of today who will lead the psychology of tomorrow.

The onus is on us as senior academics to get the field into shape for them.’

Forensic Psychology: Theory, Research, Policy, Practice by Professor Jennifer Brown (London School of Economics), Yvonne Shell and Dr Terri Cole (Bournemouth University) won in this year’s Textbook category. Shell, Director of Criminal Justice at Together for Mental Wellbeing and a Senior Clinical Teaching Fellow (Portsmouth University) has known and worked with Brown for around 20 years, while Cole was formerly a PhD student with Brown.

Shell said they hoped with the book to give future forensic psychologists a real taste for work in the field. Brown said reviews had been very positive: ‘The comments from students have been really encouraging; they particularly liked the setting-out of the political climate, the reflective exercises and the commentaries from colleagues about the realities of life as a forensic psychologist.’

The Influential Mind: What the Brain Reveals about our Power to Change Others by Dr Tali Sharot won in the Popular Science category – her second BPS book award.

Her book explores everyday influencing among humans and where we fall down when trying to change the beliefs and behaviours of others. She said: ‘My work is interdisciplinary so I was especially delighted to see the book being selected among best book of the year in fields ranging from politics to neuroscience to business to marketing and being translated to multiple languages. It is an honour to receive the British Psychology Society Book Award.’

11/10/2018 11:23

5 minutes with…

Roseanna Brady Health psychologist Dr Roseanna Brady has led a project exploring the experiences of people with the potentially fatal iron-overload condition genetic haemochromatosis – which is not well understood outside of medical circles. Brady, who has the condition herself and is a Trustee of Haemochromatosis UK (HUK), spoke to us about how the skills and knowledge of health psychologists can be used in helping people with such conditions.

What led to your involvement with Haemochromatosis UK? It was a coincidence of three events.

I was looking for a part-time pro bono role where I could positively influence the health experience of people with a long-term health condition. At that time, I saw an advert for a trustee position at Haemochromatosis UK and I had recently been diagnosed with the condition myself. That sent me a strong message to get involved so I applied and was accepted.

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Can you tell me how the research and subsequent report came about?

When I joined HUK, they were considering how to approach reporting on a large survey they had conducted the previous year. They had gathered 2000 responses to a survey about patient experiences of symptoms, diagnosis and treatment of genetic haemochromatosis (GH), a metabolic disorder that causes excess absorption of iron from the diet. It’s easy to treat but poorly recognised, and late diagnosis can lead to debilitating symptoms and illnesses, including liver cancer.

Most of the research to date is medical, and less is known about the impact of the condition on people who live with it. I explained to the board how professional researchers in health psychology would have particular expertise in survey analysis, and we put the work out to tender. A health psychology team from the University of Surrey won the bid. My role from then on was to

liaise with the team at Surrey and to lead the HUK editorial board.

What were the key findings?

The findings confirmed what was already believed – that joint pain and fatigue are the most common symptoms experienced by people with GH. For 63 per cent of respondents, fatigue and joint pain or arthritis are persistent and often painful problems. Other common symptoms include psychological and cognitive problems, and we need more research to understand whether this is a result of excess iron or as a result of the debilitating symptoms. It’s very likely that for every person diagnosed, there are between eight and 10 people who are not. Because the symptoms are shared with many other conditions, it makes GH difficult to detect without tests. If we could identify particular symptoms or clusters of symptoms, that would prompt investigation for GH, which might contribute to earlier detection of the condition.

Treatment for GH usually involves drawing blood at regular intervals to reduce the amount of iron stored in soft tissues and joints, and for some, but not all, this is an effective treatment. However, it cannot reverse organ or joint damage already experienced, so early diagnosis is vital. Not all respondents reported the same experience of testing and treatment, which supports the case for implementation of guidelines, which HUK will call for very strongly.

Finally, respondents indicated a lack of confidence in GP knowledge of GH. Why is health psychology important in areas such as this, and where is your work with HUK heading?

As a health psychologist, I can make an important contribution to the research agenda through designing member surveys, defining research questions for qualitative research and longitudinal studies, and encouraging health psychology researchers to focus on GH in patient research.

I’m also interested in how people attribute symptoms to their diagnoses. Misattribution could lead to masking other health conditions that require a different treatment, or it might cause unnecessary distress if people become hypervigilant and anxious about developing serious disease. I will be looking at how HUK communications with patients may help in these areas.

I’ve started working with the HUK helpline team to help them to understand the psychological impact of GH, and treatments for it. For February 2019 I’m planning a creative workshop with GH patients in Newcastle, where we’ll focus on effective communication with GPs. I’m also working with a multidisciplinary team on developing best practice guidelines for venesection (removal of blood to reduce iron levels in the body), where I hope to improve the patient experience of treatment, which can be demanding, especially in the early stages when venesection is performed weekly or fortnightly.

There will be many more opportunities in my three-year term to make a positive contribution from a health psychology perspective.

The report Living with the Impact of Iron Overload will be launched on 31 October at the House of Commons.

See haemochromatosis.org.uk

11/10/2018 11:23

the psychologist november 2018 news

Beyond the invisible gorilla It’s well known that we can miss apparently obvious objects in our visual field if other events are hogging our limited attention. The same has been shown for sounds: in a nod to Daniel Simons’ and Christopher Chabris’ famous gorilla/basketball study that demonstrated ‘inattentional blindness’, distracted participants in the first ‘inattentional deafness’ study failed to hear a man walking through an auditory scene for 19 seconds saying repeatedly ‘I am a gorilla’. Now, two new studies separately show that a very similar effect occurs in relation to touch (inattentional numbness) and to smell (inattentional anosmia).

Sandra Murphy and Polly Dalton (a co-author on the inattentional deafness paper) at Royal Holloway, University of London report in the journal Cognition on inattentional numbness. They wanted to go beyond the way we rapidly tune out ongoing tactile stimulation, like the sensation of our clothes, and explore what happens when we’re touched more than once out of the blue. (‘If someone taps us on the shoulder, are we less likely to notice their other hand going into our pocket?’ they write.)

To investigate, they recruited 37 women and 45 men aged 18–47. The participants sat with their hands in front of them, palms up. Bone-conduction hearing aids, which would deliver vibration stimulations, were taped to their palms, and a black cloth was placed over the top, so they couldn’t see any movement. The participants also listened to white noise, to mask any sounds.

On each trial, the participants were instructed to count the number of vibrations presented to their hands (until the end of each block of trials, the sensations were always to just one of their hands – either the left, or right, counterbalanced across participants). Half the participants were given a relatively easy, low attentionalload version of this task: to count all the vibrations applied to their palms. The others had to keep separate counts of the number of constant vibrations and the number of pulsed vibrations – a task that placed a bigger demand on their attentional resources.

Each experimental block consisted of 16 trials. On the 16th, an unexpected extra stimulus was applied to the other hand at the same time as the target sequence on the usual hand. Ninety-two per cent of participants in the low-load condition noticed this extra stimulus, whereas 69 per cent of those in the high-load group completely missed it – suggesting they had experienced ‘inattentional numbness’.

‘The present study provides the first robust demonstration of inattentional numbness to a one-off tactile event that is completely unexpected and therefore genuinely unattended,’ Murphy and Dalton write.

This study investigated touch awareness when the brain was already focusing on a touch task. But there’s evidence from earlier work that, for inattentional effects to occur, the two stimuli do not have to involve the same senses, and the new paper in Psychological Science on inattentional anosmia also finds this.

Sophie Forster, at the University of Sussex, and Charles Spence, head of the Crossmodal Research

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Laboratory at the University of Oxford, looked at the effects of performing a high vs. low attentional-load visual task on scent awareness.

Across a series of experiments, groups of participants had to repeatedly search for a target letter – X or N – arranged in a circle together with either five small letter ‘o’s (the easy, low attentional-load version of the task) or five similarly-sized angular non-target letters, such as W and Z (the high-load version), while exposed to the background scent of coffee (open bags of coffee beans were concealed in the room).

Forster and Spence found that those in the high-load groups were much less likely to afterwards report having detected that scent, suggesting that the attention they’d used up on the visual task had left them with a temporary lack of smell, or anosmia. (In two of the experiments, 42.5 per cent fewer participants in the high visual load condition, compared to the low-load condition, reported noticing the smell.)

‘The results of the present study establish the phenomenon of inattentional anosmia for the first time,’ Forster and Spence write. ‘In real-world terms, our study implies that people are significantly less likely to notice ambient smells in their surroundings when they are engaged in a visually demanding task.’

One of the experiments revealed a further intriguing detail: participants could become habituated to the coffee scent even while their attention was absorbed elsewhere, suggesting that the scent had been processed at some level even though it had not reached conscious awareness. This habituation to the scent meant that even after the task was over, and they had plenty of attention to spare, they were less likely to detect the aroma.

‘The present study reveals that olfactory attention shares a key common characteristic with visual and auditory attention, in terms of the effect of perceptual capacity limits on irrelevant processing,’ the researchers write (my italics).

It’s worth noting that in these new studies, neither the smell of coffee nor the gentle, brief secondary touch stimulus was in any way threatening. Not only were they irrelevant to the task at hand, they were also irrelevant to survival.

It remains to be confirmed whether inattentional effects on our multi-sensory awareness are the same for more important or threatening incoming stimuli.

There’s reason to think they will be – for instance, there’s evidence that pain perception is reduced when other activities or events are hogging our attention (when playing a VR game, for example). It would be interesting to see work exploring whether we can fail even to notice potentially dangerous smells – such as burning – and potentially damaging touch stimuli while we’re concentrating on something else.

Emma Young for www.bps.org.uk/digest Read the articles: tinyurl.com/y9mup7fv and tinyurl.com/yb3q6s2v

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Research digest The first study to investigate the prevalence of specific learning disorder in mathematics (SLDM or dyscalculia) since the recent introduction of revised diagnostic criteria has estimated that around 6 per cent of children have the disorder. Conducted in Northern Ireland, the research also found that children with SLDM were far less likely than their peers with dyslexia to have received a formal diagnosis. (British Journal of Psychology) Members of subculture groups including goths, emos and metalheads are at increased risk of self-harm and suicide, according to a new review, but the researchers cautioned that there is not adequate evidence to suggest that the subcultures themselves are harmful. It’s possible that vulnerable people are attracted to the groups, that members are stigmatised or bullied, or that the groups encourage or normalise self-harm, but more research is needed to test these explanations. (British Journal of Clinical Psychology) Who most likes to be alone? Not introverts, according to a new pre-print that examined how people’s motivations and experiences of solitude varied according to their personality.

There was no evidence that introverts enjoyed solitude more than extraverts, rather the most important trait related to liking one’s own company was ‘dispositional autonomy’ – having alignment between one’s behaviour and values, and being interested in one’s own emotions (PsyArXiv) Trash talk between sporting opponents can swing crucial games – yet the phenomenon has barely been studied by psychologists.

A new study of trash talking among elite college athletes in America took an evolutionary perspective and found that the behaviour was more common in men, and that after mentions of sporting prowess, the next most common trash talk topics were physical appearance, relationships and sexual behaviour, consistent with the idea that trash talk is a form of verbal aggression (Human Nature).

By Dr Christian Jarrett. These studies were covered, along with many more, by him, Dr Alex Fradera and Emma Young on our Research Digest at www.bps.org.uk/digest 14

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Don’t let me be lonely tonight A survey of more than 55,000 people run by BBC Radio 4’s All in the Mind in collaboration with the Wellcome Trust has offered some new insights into loneliness. The Loneliness Experiment, led by developmental psychologist Professor Pamela Qualter, was the largest survey of its kind and revealed 16- to 24-year-olds experience loneliness more often and more intensely than other age groups.

Claudia Hammond, presenter of All in the Mind, said: ‘The topic of loneliness is now receiving a great deal of attention and political prominence as demonstrated by its inclusion in Tracey Crouch’s ministerial portfolio and the recommendations from The Jo Cox Loneliness Commission. We were staggered by the huge numbers of people taking part in our survey.

This research shows we need to take loneliness seriously in all age groups.

We know that most loneliness is temporary, but we need to find ways to prevent it from becoming chronic.’

Qualter (University of Manchester) worked alongside Professor of Social and Organisational Psychology Manuela Barreto (University of Exeter) and Professor of Gerontology and Public Health Christina Victor (Brunel University London) in developing the survey, which has shone a light on under-studied aspects of loneliness.

Qualter said: ‘We all had a feeling something was missing from the research to date. Within the literature we talk about measuring loneliness purely in terms of frequency – while that’s really useful, we haven’t looked at the intensity of loneliness or how people experience it. While loneliness might be short-lived and might happen infrequently, if it’s of high intensity that could be equally or more problematic than when it is felt at a low level all of the time.

In the BBC Loneliness Experiment we attempted to fill that gap in our understanding.’

The survey revealed that 40 per cent of 16- to 24-year-olds reported feeling lonely often or very often while 29 per cent of those aged 65

to 74 and 27 per cent of people aged over 75 reported the same.

Qualter was particularly interested in the stigma that is associated with loneliness – people were asked to name attributes they associated with a lonely person.

‘People didn’t assign negative attributes to a lonely person – they’re not being viewed negatively by people at large. But what was fascinating was in another experiment that asked people to think about whether they would conceal or be open about

The Loneliness Experiment was led

by Professor Pamela Qualter. You can find an interview with her alongside the online version of this piece. feeling lonely, lonely people reported being very ashamed of feeling lonely, which suggests there’s a stigma attached to that. So, we have a strange situation where people aren’t assigning negative attributes to other lonely people, but lonely individuals themselves are very ashamed to talk about it.’

Claudia Hammond has also recorded a three-part series about the results called the Anatomy of Loneliness which you can listen to via tinyurl.com/y8vpzcp4. A series of seven All In The Mind podcasts titled ‘How You Can Feel Less Lonely’ were released earlier in October, in which Hammond and Qualter discussed the top seven solutions to loneliness that emerged from the survey. er

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Attached to an eating disorder A new paper in Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice argues that the relationship a person has with their eating disorder is shaped by that person’s understanding of what meaningful relationships should look like – and, in turn, this can have important consequences for the severity of their disorder.

In particular, Emma Forsén Mantilla and her team from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden wanted to better understand eating disorders through ‘attachment theory’. This is the idea that relationships with primary caregivers become scripts that we lean on to tell us how relationships ‘work’.

A parent perceived as being protecting will lead a child to feel trust, according to this theory, and to expect a protection–trust dynamic in future relationships.

A more troubled caregiver–child relationship, in contrast, leads to a different form of attachment, and downstream consequences – including believing that it’s normal that people who care about you attack you. In addition, attachment tells us how it’s appropriate to treat ourselves – such as by attacking or judging ourselves. Once these dynamics have formed, we gravitate towards them, especially when we’re distressed (and being prevented from following these learned dynamics can trigger yet more upset).

Eating disorders are more common in people with less secure attachment styles, and on the surface there are certain parallels in how people experience eating disorders and the attachment dynamics described above. For instance, it is when distressed that people with eating disorders are most likely to seek consolation in comforting, but ultimately counterproductive, eating behaviours; and people with eating disorders can become even more agitated when they are prevented from performing these behaviours.

However, there’s a deeper connection between attachment theory and the experience of eating disorders in what some researchers and service users have previously labelled the ‘anorexic voice’ – when symptoms are maintained through harsh and forceful judgements about oneself and instructions to the self that are attributed to the anorexia condition. Despite its negative, attacking nature, the voice is often still considered an ally rather than an enemy, again resembling certain insecurely attached relationships. So it seems a plausible to see eating disorders in these terms, especially as attachment patterns can be established in how people relate to non-humans – pets and even God. Mantilla’s team tried to establish a coherent pathway between eating-disorder clients’ attachment styles and their symptoms. They ran a correlational study involving 148 women with eating disorders aged 16–25 recruited from outpatient units in Sweden. The researchers measured eating-disorder behaviours with questions like ‘Over the past 28 days, on how many days have you made yourself sick (vomit) as a means of controlling your shape or weight?’ and found, consistent with previous findings, that these behaviours were more pronounced

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in people with a less secure attachment style (assessed by agreement with statements like ‘I feel confident about relating to others’).

Mantilla also asked participants to complete a survey normally used to look at specific attachment dynamics with a significant other, but in this case rephrased to focus on the eating disorder – e.g. ‘It punishes and tortures me, takes revenge’ – as well as whether they turned these patterns inward.

As the researchers predicted, less securely attached individuals in general tended to see their eating disorders as more controlling, and themselves as less autonomous. These individuals were also more likely to treat themselves in a blaming way, and this self-blaming and the sense of a controlling quality to their eating disorder entirely explained the association between overall attachment and their eating-disorder symptoms and behaviours.

In other words, a plausible story can be made from the data that insecure attachment produces a tendency to internalise blame and an expectation of a controlling relationship that then takes shape in an eating disorder, producing eating-disordered symptoms accordingly.

In a correlational design, of course, this is not proof but has a sense of plausibility to it.

In helping people to work past eating disorders, psychologists using narrative therapy already characterise the disorder as an external entity in a relationship. This research may be useful in homing in on the aspects of this relationship most strongly associated with actual eating-disorder behaviours – the controlling nature of the disorder and how it may prop up and reinforce self-blame. It also suggests the likely obstacles faced by these clients in forming other relationships, which may prevent them developing emotional support and regulation that in itself can prevent relapse. And the results shed light on why people can be appear to be so wholly in the grasp of an eating disorder – because losing it can almost feel like losing someone who ‘gets’ you. Anorexia and similar conditions can be like a tight embrace that goes both ways.

Dr Alex Fradera for the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest blog www.bps.org.uk/digest Read the article: tinyurl.com/y6w977qk

News online: Find much more news at www.thepsychologist.org.uk/reports, including: reports from the Annual Conferences of the British Psychological Society’s Division of Health Psychology and Psychobiology Section; celebrating the history of psychology at the University of East London; feeling energised at New Scientist Live; Mind/Body Matters at Anglia Ruskin; the Cambridge Festival of Ideas; and more.

For much more of the latest peer-reviewed research, digested – plus our podcast PsychCrunch and special features – see www.bps.org.uk/digest Do you have a potential news story? Email us on psychologist@bps.org.uk or tweet @psychmag.

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Silly, surreal and serious

Gig economy expert appointed by HSE

The Health and Safety Executive has appointed two new experts to its independent Workplace Health Expert Committee. Psychologist Dr Joanna Wilde (see our June issue), who researches the gig economy, is one of the experts brought in to help the executive understand and assess new and emerging issues in the workplace.

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First AHRC medals awarded

The Arts and Humanities Research Council has named the first ever winners of the Health Humanities Medal Awards. Among them was psychoneuroimmunology researcher Dr Daisy Fancourt (UCL), who won ‘Best doctoral or early career research’ for explorations of the effects of music on different patient groups.

Dr Ross White (University of Liverpool) won an International Research award for his research on trauma in post-conflict situations.

Leicester team head to Kerala

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Raghu Raghavan, Professor of Mental Health (De Montfort University, Leicester), is leading a significant international project to increase the mental health literacy of millions of people in India. Working with mental health users and their families, Raghavan and his colleagues will gather real experiences relating to the level of awareness of mental illness in Kerala.

Researchers have been honoured for their enquiries into the effects of rollercoasters on kidney stones, the nutritional benefit of Palaeolithic cannibalism and selfcolonoscopy. This can only mean one thing – the winners of this year’s Ig Nobel Prizes have been announced. The 10 awards, handed out in a deeply silly ceremony at Harvard University, aim to highlight research that first makes you laugh, then makes you think.

Among the offerings from psychologists (or similar) were a study that found that zoo-chimpanzees imitate humans about as often, and as well, as humans imitate them. Their observations showed that human– chimp imitation interactions lasted significantly longer than normal interactions with zoo visitors, with some chimpanzees even playing imitative games. The study, by cognitive scientists at the University of Lund Tomas Persson, Gabriela-Alina Sauciuc and Elainie Madsen, won the Anthropology prize.

Each Ig Nobel winner was given a cash prize of 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars and handed their award by a real Nobel laureate. Winners are allowed 60 seconds to deliver an acceptance speech which, should they exceed, is interrupted by eight-year-old Miss Sweetie Poo repeating ‘Please stop. I’m bored. Please stop. I’m bored.

Please stop. I’m bored.’

The 2018 Ig Nobel for economics went to a team including Lindie Hanyu Liang, an Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Human Resource Management (Wilfrid Laurier University) and Douglas Brown, an industrial psychologist at the University of Waterloo. Their experiment used voodoo dolls for employees to ‘retaliate’ against abusive supervisors, finding a benefit among staff in their perceptions of injustice.

Marc Abrahams, master of ceremonies and Editor of the magazine Annals of Improbable Research, closed the ceremony with the traditional, ‘If you didn’t win an Ig Nobel Prize tonight – and especially if you did – better luck next year.’ er The ceremony was webcast live, for the 24th consecutive year and a recording is available at: tinyurl.com/ydymncpb

Antidepressant withdrawal

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A systematic review published in the Journal of Addictive Behaviors has found that antidepressant withdrawal is more widespread than suggested. Undertaken on behalf of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Prescribed Drug Dependence the review indicates an average of 56 per cent of patients who stop or reduce their antidepressants experience withdrawal symptoms, with 46 per cent of these reporting their symptoms as severe.

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Talking about PTSD Traumatic events were once thought to be rare in most people’s lives. However, since the 1980s, research has revealed not only how common they are but also the deepseated effects trauma can have. Professor Anke Ehlers (University of Oxford) gave a joint British Academy and British Psychological Society lecture at the Royal Society on her work on post-traumatic stress disorder, its invasive symptoms and promising results of treatments.

Ehlers, who is also co-director of the Oxford Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma, outlined a World Health Organization survey of 70,000 people, which showed 70 per cent reporting a traumatic event at some point in their lives. The average was three traumatic events across the lifespan. The most common events were found to be the unexpected death of a loved one, seeing harm done to others and road accidents.

Interpersonal violence, particularly sexual violence, posed the greatest risk for development of PTSD. Perhaps the most characteristic symptom of PTSD is vivid ‘flashback’ memories. People may develop avoidance behaviours in an attempt to escape reminders of the event, hyperarousal and problems with concentration.

However, not all people will develop PTSD after trauma, and people can be resilient even in the face of PTSD symptoms. The WHO study also found that a significant group of people with PTSD will recover within a year with no professional help.

Ehlers said all of this has raised many questions.

Why, after experiencing the same event, do some people develop PTSD and some don’t? Why do some people not recover? And, from a psychological perspective, anxiety is seen as fear about the future – so why do people have anxiety around an event in the past? In work with David Clark, Ehlers suggests that people with PTSD experience a feeling of threat in the present and this comes from two sources – the qualities of memories of the trauma and negative appraisals after a traumatic event.

The recurrent, intrusive memories experienced after trauma often involve very fleeting moments of an event, and people experience the same emotions they did at that time. Ehlers said these memories maintain their ‘here and now’ quality. The memory for the worst moments of a traumatic event have not been joined up with the factors a person has learned since, and this lack of context maintains the threatening emotional reaction.

For example, someone may have been threatened and felt weak for not fighting back, but they fail to take into account the fact their attacker had a knife.

People take many meanings from such events, but some will feel it reflects on them as a person – as if they attract disaster, or that they can trust no one. Indeed, research has shown that those with PTSD are more likely to endorse those kinds of beliefs compared to those who have experienced trauma without having PTSD. There can also be confusion over the order of events or gaps in the memory, and people may conclude that the event was their fault.

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In work that examined the narratives people give when asked to tell the story of their trauma, those with PTSD were found to have more disorganised narratives with missing pieces of information and gaps. Interestingly, those disorganised parts of the narrative are often specific to the parts of a memory that later become flashbacks. Those who have trauma but not PTSD do not tend to have those disjointed memories.

These findings have all fed into a treatment programme developed by Ehlers and her colleagues – cognitive therapy for PTSD. In part of this treatment people with PTSD are asked to hold the worst moments of their trauma in mind and link those with new information. For example, if someone felt they were going to die, a therapist will help them to link that to updated information – in this case ‘you did not die’. In a study using sleep diaries, people with PTSD received this part of the therapy on a daily basis and there was an increase of 40 minutes in their length of sleep from one day to the next.

People with PTSD will often experience these intrusive memories when faced with an external trigger.

This can be a good place to intervene with cognitive therapy. However, it is not always obvious what these triggers may be; they may not be directly linked to the trauma itself. Certain body movements, smells, a sensation or even colour could be enough of a trigger.

Ehlers said some established concepts within psychology can help explain this. For example, perceptual priming makes us more likely to recognise certain cues after having experienced them before; and generalisation (the linking of emotional responses to cues in the memory) can lead to poor discrimination between reminders of a traumatic event and the original trauma cues.

Ehlers used a ‘blurred picture task’, showing people with PTSD (and those with trauma but no PTSD) photographs of trauma-related scenes such as car accidents, generally threatening pictures and neutral pictures. People with PTSD were better at identifying trauma-related blurred photos than those with trauma alone, and neutral photos were more easily identified by people who did not have PTSD. These findings have also fed into therapy, to help a client identify their triggers and challenge them. If, for example, someone associates the smell of a candle burning with a house fire the therapist will bring in a match and ask a patient to talk about everything that is different between the candle and a real house fire. This helps patients understand they are responding to a memory, rather than anything in the present.

In a randomised control trial Ehlers and colleagues compared weekly cognitive therapy for PTSD with other therapies and found good results with cognitive therapy at follow-up. Intensive, daily cognitive therapy shows even faster recovery times. An online version of cognitive therapy for PTSD, which still includes input from a therapist, has shown promise in a pilot and is currently being tested in a randomised control trial. er

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Making a difference in the zombie apocalypse Ella Rhodes talks to psychologists in our end of days

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On the third Halloween since The Wretchedness, we bring you this special report from one of the last remaining strongholds – the surprisingly sturdy offices of the British Psychological Society in Leicester. For this likely final issue of The Psychologist roving reporter Ella Rhodes travelled the UK at great personal risk in search of the few remaining psychologists. Finding but a handful, she asked them whether psychology can shed light in dark times.

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fter a three-day hike swerving the growing masses of undead in Northampton, I found Dr Andrew Clements in what is left of his office in the University of Bedfordshire – a workaholic even as the end is nigh. Before The Wretchedness, Clements was a lecturer in organisational psychology.

He has now turned his hand to advising the myriad ad-hoc gangs that have sprung up. In the postapocalyptic era, selecting a merry gang of nomads is a world away from the adverts and search engines of the before times.

Getting selected to join a group of survivors is life or death – unsuccessful applicants are literally cast out into the hordes. And if you’re low on recruits, how can you recruit the ‘right stuff’ to join you?

Clements first suggests traditional ‘We need you’ posters displayed around small pockets of surviving civilisation. The only downside, of course, is these may need to be updated with new information or locations at potential cost to the existing troop. But Clements feels we can’t afford to

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be choosy. ‘While organisations pre-apocalypse often said they were looking for creative thinkers, people who could be managers or those who had the potential to grow within an organisation, a community now has quite different needs. You will want to recruit people who can perform maintenance work, people who can grow food and mend facilities. Long-term it’s worth thinking about who will educate the next generation, who might be good for law enforcement. A community needs a wide range of job skills but has a smaller pool of recruits who may not have obvious skills. There will need to be a focus on development of new community members.’ This may involve a shift in our focus from skills to more general personality characteristics: ‘with the long-term stress bracing just outside the walls, you need people who can maintain composure during stressful situations, get on with others and be fairly agreeable and altruistic. The apocalypse has thrown together people who may not have previously associated with each other, so the ability to manage conflict and difference is going to be crucial. But it’s not exactly a time for a lengthy process and psychometric testing… you’ll probably hire the majority of candidates as long as they’re reasonably competent and haven’t been bitten.’

It’s hard to believe that in the old times people watched zombie films for entertainment, but Clements said we can learn leadership lessons from them.

The leaders of communities in these films are often egomaniacs: bad idea, says Clements. ‘Your community leader will need to be someone who appreciates the need for managing people. The kind of person who says “pull yourself together, get over it” won’t perform well. They need to be someone who wants to develop people, looks out for opportunities to draw on the strengths of community and help them get better at what they do. They also need to be sensitive to the group’s dynamics – inevitably there’ll be politics, and your leader should be able to navigate conflicts and resolve them, but they will need to be sensitive to the way things get done. And of course a leader doesn’t need to be an individual… there could be a distribution of leadership across multiple people in your community.’

How to train your zombie Pre-apocalypse Dr John Hyland worked at Dublin Business School as a psychology lecturer. I eventually located him holed up in an old stable block throwing scraps of brain matter to a chained-up zombie while

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scribbling frantic notes. Since The Wretchedness Hyland has revisited a previous love of behaviourism in an attempt to figure out whether, and how, we can train the undead.

From his early observations Hyland realised zombies don’t feel pain, so training them via punishment seems impossible. However, Hyland has been attempting some basic operant conditioning with his own pet zombie – Gary. ‘From the before times I recalled episodes of The Walking Dead where people exploited zombies for their own means – for example by removing their teeth and arms and using them as a shield to get through large gangs of zombies. I began to wonder… what if we could actually train them to follow basic commands? Having read The Zombie Autopsies I knew they had an intact optic nerve, a heightened sense of smell, hearing and a functional brainstem. Given that in the before times there were some successes in training honey bees, I wondered if it was possible to teach a zombie to distinguish between two environments – acting more aggressive in one and less so in another.’

Hyland’s experiments so far have involved extensive work with Gary, who can now successfully remain relatively calm in familiar environments but becomes very aggressive in novel environments – particularly when presented with a morsel of brain.

‘There’s been very little research in this area, so I’ve been doing some quite novel experiments. I’ve also been considering Bandura’s work on observational learning – I wonder if by training one zombie in isolation then introducing him into a group whether he may affect the other horde-members’ behaviour vicariously. They’re driven by what other members of the pack are doing, responding to external, measurable, environmental cues. Could zombies actually be our saviours? Our last hope may be to divert hordes to lesspopulated areas using a single trained zombie.’

One big question that Hyland hopes to answer in his research is just how zombies learn. ‘There have been some controversial accounts from doctors who have performed autopsies, suggesting that zombies may have some kind of memory or homing instinct.

We don’t know whether that’s the case; we think zombie memory is pretty limited. The big problem we have is being able to tell whether a zombie’s behaviour is controlled through forming new associations, or just by sensory associations and stimulation, or basic reflexes. The experimental research is out on that one, and so far I’ve had no response to my grant application.’

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I asked Hyland for a few tips for any wannabe zombie-trainers who have survived long enough to read this. It goes without saying that you must approach with extreme caution, and Hyland also cautioned that ethics committees would take a dim view of anyone who began training before transformation was complete. ‘Once the groans and sighs of “brains” begin you can rest assured you are dealing with a full zombie. Try to get one with an intact head. Both eyes would also be ideal, along with ears and nose. We know from animal research that training in groups is far more difficult, so wait until you have an isolated zombie. Then it’s a case of having a good, rigorous procedure for training. Start by teaching them to distinguish between night and day – let them know, as if you were training a dog not to bark at night, that making noise during the day is fine but noise at night isn’t as it will attract other zombies.’

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Developmental zombies Child zombies have become an accepted part of everyday life – yet a heightened sense of wariness still surrounds them. Quicker, able to squeeze through smaller spaces and with a seemingly insatiable appetite for human viscera, this reaction is understandable.

However, developmental psychologist Dr Candace Lapan’s curiosity got the better of her. Since the outbreak she has been exploring the effects of zombie transformation on the still-developing brain.

I anxiously await her research updates via satellite call, the line fading with each conversation, from the remains of Wingate University in the USA. So far Lapan has established that zombie children remain children in some ways – their cognitive and motor skills are less developed in comparison to adult zombies. Sightings of child zombies carrying around the heads of spookily similar-looking adults led Lapan to wonder whether they maintain attachments. ‘Young children are particularly reliant on their caregivers to meet their needs, and children therefore form an attachment with said caregiver which can be secure or insecure. These attachments are so salient, so ingrained, that zombie children appear to continue to be close with their caregivers after being turned – but this can vary depending on their previous attachment style.’ While securely attached zombie children will seek out their zombie or human parents – to join their horde or consume them – those with insecure attachments may have a more complex relationship with those who served as caregivers in the before times.

Lapan also wondered whether the optimism of youth would be maintained in zombiehood, and amazingly it seems it is… to a degree. ‘I wondered if pre-existing social cognition biases present in childhood would buffer the effects of being turned into a zombie. In early childhood, children’s world views are particularly positive (described by Boseovski, 2010). These pre-existing social world views seem

to have an influence on individuals once turned, and optimistic children seem less vicious in our experiments.’ This is all relative though. A zombie of any age remains exceedingly violent – we cannot stress this enough.

Teenage zombies are another clear area of interest for our post-apocalyptic research community. As in the pre-Wretchedness days adolescent zombies have received rather a bad press with their extreme lethargy (even by zombie standards) and backward circadian rhythms. Another direction for research could be in examining teen zombie behaviour and whether, as with human teens, their behaviour becomes more risky in the presence of a horde who were a similar age at time of turning.

Gangs of human teens have also faced criticism since the first zombies emerged – actively seeking out hordes for the sole purpose of killing as many as possible for ‘points’. Some have pointed to pre-Wretchedness video games as a potential cause for this undoubtedly violent and compulsive behaviour.

Others argue that ‘behavioural addiction’ is a shaky concept, and that we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that such individuals are fundamentally trying to save the world.

Building resilience My trek took me next to the wastes of Wales where I met Dr Luke Jefferies, formerly a clinical and abnormal psychology lecturer at Swansea University.

He has found himself helping survivors process the events, focusing on ways to build resilience in the postapocalyptic population.

In the before times much was written on resilience and how to encourage it. Jefferies pointed in particular to a 10-point guide released by the American Psychological Association. It suggests that we attempt to maintain our relationships with any remaining family members and friends and to avoid seeing stressful events as insurmountable problems – we have made it this far, after all. It is also useful, Jefferies said, to develop goals, move towards those and take decisive action where possible.

Jefferies said post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – an understandable psychological reaction to the apocalypse – can often result in so-called safety behaviours. ‘Avoiding places and people after the risk has gone can reinforce the risk of the trauma memory.

According to the Ehlers and Clark model of PTSD, fear is central to memories being processed poorly, leaving the memory emotionally raw and likely to be triggered.

When we are in survival mode, just trying to cope with a situation, our brains are not processing information in the usual fashion. It is like stuffing everything in a cupboard in a disorganised fashion. The disorganised collection of items in the cupboard can become unbalanced and force the cupboard door open, pouring all the contents back out.’

Following trauma there is also a risk that people

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the psychologist november 2018 zombies Getty Images

as easy as knocking down bowling may retreat from life in general. pins. But in reality taking the life This again may lead to the of a humanoid is not so easy, even worsening of symptoms and when they are already sort of dead. increase the risk of developing Dr Llian Alys, who pre-apocalypse depression and anxiety. ‘If worked as a research psychologist people are able to re-establish and behavioural science consultant a meaningful and pleasurable within law enforcement, told me routine they will help their from the remains of her central recovery. Using mindfulness and London office that those in imagery techniques may also help countries where guns are more people manage and deal with their readily available may be having thoughts.’ an easier time with zombie Jefferies offered some final tips elimination. on the best way to protect yourself, ‘UK apocalypse survivors from a mental health perspective, are at a disadvantage to their in our new society (if you can counterparts in countries where call it society). ‘Promote a sense firearms are more accessible – we of safety, calm, connectedness, are having to use more “hands-on” hope, self-efficacy and communitySome amazing results were reported methods like knives and blunt efficacy. It is important to accept for training Bub (Romero, 1985), instruments. Such weapons are that the circumstances we’re now but replication studies have so far psychologically more difficult in can’t be changed, so we must all suggested methodological flaws to wield given how “messy” and take care of our own minds and physical the act is and how close bodies, exercising regularly and paying attention to one’s own needs and feelings. Try to you must be to your opponent.’ Alys suggested we act with compassion to yourself and those around you.’ look to Albert Bandura’s model of moral disengagement for guidance. ‘Using dehumanising language to On my journey back to England I skirted Cardiff, describe the zombies, such as using “it” not him or avoiding the infamous (and growing) gang of aquatic her; referring to them by their behaviour rather than zombies who have made their home in the bay. personal characteristics, for example calling them Sheltering in a dilapidated barn, I was surprised by biters; or referring to them using terms which convey Professor Chris Chambers, formerly of the University disgust, for example vermin or scum; and using of Cardiff, who had somehow received word of my euphemistic language to describe what you do to them, (likely final) quest for The Psychologist. He wanted for example wasting, cleaning or sanitising; all these to impart a vital message for the zombie research strategies will help justify your actions and avoid guilt community. Chambers was recently named winner of or self-censure.’ the inaugural British Psychological Society Award for The zombie outbreak has brought out the worst Outstanding Contributions through Zombie Research in some people – step forward Declan Donnelly – but – conferring such honours being one of the many Alys admits that in a toss up between being predator services the remnants of the Society have miraculously or prey, it’s understandable to choose predator. managed to maintain. He told me: ‘Society as we ‘Some have found themselves behaving in ways that knew it is on its knees, I understand that… but they would never have contemplated prior to the that’s absolutely no excuse to let the move toward apocalypse, but their actions are often precipitated by open science stumble. Your research methods and one or a combination of factors, such as the trauma hypotheses should be registered, or at least scribbled of the death of a loved one, lack of sleep and other on a piece of paper, prior to beginning your data hardships, and the total break-down of societal norms. collection. The potential for poor, or even fraudulent, Terror management theory suggests that the nearstatistics is at an all-time high but we must have high constant threat to life will make people aware of their standards – even now.’ own mortality. They may then be more likely to adopt Of course, the very nature of scientific publishing punitive approaches to deal with those they perceive has changed, but Chambers continued. ‘Don’t keep as transgressing their world view and beliefs. The your research to yourself, or try to charge members of necessity for weapons and therefore their increased your community food or other resources to see it. Post presence may also instigate a weapons effect, making it in plain sight somewhere central. Tell people you people more likely to behave aggressively.’ know, and hope they can pass on key messages before Alys suggests we need to set some moral ‘red lines’. they succumb.’

‘If we can just buy some time, rudimentary societies will be built and a “new normal” will establish itself.

When living becomes about more than staying alive Fighting back – i.e. raising a family, finding self-fulfilment through Before the apocalypse hit, many of us would have work and pleasure – you need to be able to live with imagined that dispatching zombies would have been

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some vital strategies on how to outsmart, or outrun, a zombie. Their first tip, which may surprise you, is don’t fight the zombies. ‘Zombies lack the necessary neural circuitry to process emotional reactions to pain.

They just don’t care. So engagement is not advised unless you’ve got a clear head-shot lined up.’

Second, we should take advantage of the zombies’ short memory. ‘Due to damage to the neural systems that encode long-term memories – i.e. the medial temporal lobe – zombies can’t remember things for more than a few minutes at a time. Since they’re also very distractible, find a quiet place to hide until Do zombies dream… of anything? something else grabs their attention and they’ll soon Timothy Verstynen (Associate Professor of Psychology forget about you altogether.’ Thanks to damage to at the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition at the regions of the neocortex that control attention, Carnegie Mellon University) and his collaborator zombies are also at the mercy of whatever grabs their Bradley Voytek theorised about the zombie brain long attention at a given moment. The researchers suggest before brain-noshers became a reality. They used this using fireworks, flash grenades or indeed anything knowledge to inform those of us who are left how best to survive a zombie horde encounter. Their theories are loud and bright as a distraction device.

Finally, although zombies are remarkably on the nose. slow, their endless stamina leads According to their “You can’t argue with Verstynen to warn that a race pre-apocalypse theories and with a zombie could be like the post-apocalypse analysis the a zombie – plain and tortoise and the hare if you aren’t zombie’s wide stance, lumbering simple. They can’t process careful. He suggests mimicking walk with arms held out, and complex language. And zombies if we find ourselves in a slurring speech indicate a strong particularly tricky encounter. ‘You cerebellar deficiency, part of a they don’t appear to rely can’t argue with a zombie – plain larger neurological syndrome on facial recognition. They and simple. They can’t process they have dubbed ‘consciousness rely on using other senses complex language. And they don’t deficit hypoactivity disorder’. ‘The appear to rely on facial recognition. way that these zombies move is to distinguish between They rely on using other senses to much different than disorders to themselves and prey. distinguish between themselves other motor pathways in the brain You can leverage this…” and prey. You can leverage this to like the basal ganglia, which is your advantage. If you have no impacted by Parkinson’s disease, other options, cover yourself in or cortical motor areas, which are viscera, let your face droop, and typically affected by strokes. The lumber around moaning “brains” until you’ve quietly only patients in the neurological literature that we’ve wandered away from the rest of the horde.’ seen with similar symptoms are those suffering from Speaking of which, the horde draws closer now. damage to the cerebellum, a cauliflower-shaped lobe Our deadline approaches (hollow laugh). Unless… that sits at the underside of the brain, in the back of my notes from zombie-training Dr Hyland… have the head. While it is much smaller than the larger I missed something… ‘In our post-study debrief, we neocortex, the cerebellum contains half of all neurons unfortunately experienced a 100 per cent fatality rate in the brain so it is a tightly packed computational due to spontaneous cranial expulsion. As this effect machine that is very sensitive to damage.’ was specific to scientific information in verbal form, But don’t be fooled. Despite this damage many further research will need to include due ethical areas of the zombie brain remain fully functional. ‘It consideration of the amount and complexity of seems that the primary sensory and motor regions of methodological information imparted to the zombie the neocortex are intact, as well as brain stem regions. hordes.’

Many of the evolutionary older parts of the brain seem All this time and we psychologists could have to remain intact, thus they can still be very efficient talked them to death?! Alas, it’s too late. They scratch hunters.’ (As we all know too well.) at the door. Goodbye dear readers, keep up the good In their pre-apocalypse book Do Zombies Dream fight. Use your braaaains… of Undead Sheep? Verstynen and Voytek developed a set of clear neurological deficits that zombies have.

‘These include deficits in the encoding of long-term Ella Rhodes was The Psychologist’s Journalist declarative memories, the inability to react to pain, Ella.Rhodes@bps.org.uk deficits in impulse control and emotion regulation, deficits in the ability to control attention, and, of Find more in the online version, including ‘Are they course, motor problems.’ From these deficits came communicating?’ and ‘Further research is needed’. yourself and what you have done. In the meantime, consider Robert Cialdini’s principle of commitment and consistency – people will try to behave consistently with their previous behaviour, and when they have made small commitments they will likely follow them through for the sake of consistency…

Being aware of this slippery slope to possible immorality may help you live within the moral red lines you have set yourself.’

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HARROGATE 2019

The British Psychological Society’s Annual Conference Harrogate International Centre, 1–2 May

The Psychological Impact of Inequality We welcome submissions relating to: • • • • •

Stigma Health Inequality Gender Inequality Educational Inequality General

Closing date – 5 November.

Follow us @BPSConferences using #bpsconf.

Credit: Catherine Aldred, www.catherinealdred.co.uk Watermark Gallery, www.watermarkgallery.co.uk

www.bps.org.uk/ac2019

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Careers in Psychology The perfect event for anyone looking to discover where psychology can take them in their chosen career.

Newcastle – 17 November 2018

London – 4 December 2018

For full details and book your tickets see: www.bps.org.uk/cip2018

For full details and book your tickets see: www.bps.org.uk/ciplnd2018

#psychcareer

Our speakers:

Dr Vicki Elsey

Dr Gemima Fitzgerald

Dr Emma Norris

Vicki teaches MSc Occupational Psychology and BSc Psychology students, specialising in careers, employability, and learning and development. Vicki has previously worked in consultancy as an occupational psychologist.

Gemima has founded her own company and works freelance in a diverse range of settings; from private practice, to working with hospices, carers of people with dementia, and homelessness.

Emma is a Research Associate in the Centre for Behaviour Change at University College London. She is currently involved in developing an Early Career Network at the BPS, to support postdoctoral lecturers, researchers and practitioners.

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Our headline sponsor: SLV.Global SLV.Global is a mental health organisation running voluntary placements in Sri Lanka and Bali, Indonesia. Their focus is on global mental health and aim is to benefit communities in need of extra support within the mental health sector at the same time as providing skilled volunteers the chance to gain much-desired psychology work experience in various communities abroad.

They are on the lookout for passionate, motivated individuals who have a keen interest and knowledge of psychology and mental health to join their teams, and continue to provide valuable resources to the communities they work with. SLV.Global was founded by a group of psychology graduates, so they are well aware of the importance of gaining valuable, relevant experience to progress into a career in the field and they have developed the placements with that in mind.

Find out more by visiting their website: https://slv.global

Fraser Smith Counselling psychologist in training, studying and living in Glasgow.

Fraser also works as a psychology undergraduate seminar tutor and psychological researcher for Glasgow Caledonian University, where he also studies.

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Ana Louis - destroymodernart.com/index.html

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the psychologist november 2018 genealogy

Family trees, selfies and our search for identity Paula Nicolson looks at developing identities in the 21st century Discovering family roots, or genealogy, has become a favourite pastime for many. The sheer volume of TV programmes, magazines and ‘how to’ books bears witness to this. Genealogy fascinates because knowledge of family history provides some understanding of our ancestors’ day-to-day experiences, life chances and expectations. But why do we care? Why has the exploration of family origins become so engaging in recent years? And what are the psychological dimensions to this enterprise?

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ome time ago, I became interested in why long-dead family members appear to spark emotional responses in so many people. Would the same information have that effect on me? I had the opportunity to find an answer to this when I eventually left my full-time university post. This process of exploring my family history deepened my fascination and I began to understand the emotional triggers apparent on those popular television shows. I wanted to know more.

True to habit I turned the methods used to explore aspects of the lives of others towards generating data about myself and my origins – a scary undertaking.

So, using a range of documents, conversations, photographs, family myths or stories, memories and texts, I planned to expand my knowledge and understanding of the psychosocial and historical/ temporal experiences of my own ancestors.

This look to the past informs our sense of identity and our place in contemporary culture, geographical and historical space, in several ways. Firstly, we can interconnect in a reflective way with material from archival databases, word-of-mouth family stories, photographs and other sources. Secondly, family histories can link with our ongoing psychological ‘project of the self’, including the relationship between the ‘selfie’ and family photos of old. Thirdly and perhaps most crucially, it is worth considering that these family history narratives might have a therapeutic benefit with potential to influence our wellbeing.

Of course, for social scientists, and psychologists in particular, focusing on our self, or our identity, is neither new nor exclusive to those exploring their roots. It is integral to how we all live our lives in the present. Consider the 21st century enthusiasm for the selfie and personal status on sites such as FaceBook or Instagram. Posting our status to the outside world reflects varying degrees of confidence in our own narrative of selfhood. Who hasn’t wanted friends to

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know you are out enjoying a particular nightspot, have grown orchids in your hothouse or are on a walking tour of the Scottish Highlands? Who hasn’t sneaked a glance at a photo self-portrait? Attention to how often others ‘like’ what you are doing, how you look, where you are doing it and who is doing it with you, is apparently integral to personal satisfaction as well as the ongoing story we construct about who we really are. And in this way our ancestors are similarly integral – whoever they turn out to be. As we construct ourselves in order to make sense of our lives, we may also construct our family histories to make sense of our identities. We make sense of ourselves by what is around us and how it responds to us. But does discovering more about our backgrounds and family networks actually develop the narrative? Does this add substantively to our self-awareness and understanding?

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Expanding knowledge The pursuit of family history has become relatively easy (which partly explains its popularity). We can become involved in our past simply sitting at our computers and checking public records. We begin to appreciate that ancestors had names, addresses, employment, husbands, wives, children, lodgers… these people were real, whether or not we had ever heard them featured in family stories. Each one of them is part of how, and perhaps why, we are here today. Their lives shaped ours. These poignant, emotional connections lie behind the tears that flow when ancestors’ lives are revealed on celebrity genealogy television shows. But does the identity of our Key sources dead predecessors – who they were, where they lived and died and what Bifulco, A. (2017). Identity, attachment they did with their lives – really and resilience: Exploring three influence our own sense of who generations of a Polish family. London: we are? That is where psychology Routledge. comes in, and some answers are Erikson, E.H. (1994). Identity: Youth and crisis. New York: Norton. already available within social and Light, A. (2014). Common people: developmental research and theory.

The history of an English family.

I had a relatively sparse and Harmondsworth: Penguin. partial understanding of my own Reavey, P. & Brown, S.D. (2006). family until I began to put some of Transforming past agency and action the fragments I discovered during in the present. Theory and Psychology, 16(2), 179–202. my formal search together in my Warfield, K. (2014). Making selfies/ mind. My parents were each aged making self: Digital subjectivities in the 40 when I was born; my father, selfie. KORA: Kwantlen Open Resource being the youngest of five children Access. Retrieved 24 January 2018 from and my mother the tenth child http://kora.kpu.ca/islandora/object/ of eleven others. This limited kora%3A39/datastream/PDF/download/ citation.pdf my personal experience of older Young, M. & Wilmott, P. (2013). Family generations because they had and kinship in East London. London: mostly died by the time I was able Routledge. to interact meaningfully with adults.

Zerubavel, E. (2011). Ancestors and So, for instance, the youngest of my relatives: Genealogy, identity, and first cousins is 13 years older than community. Oxford: Oxford University me and another first cousin died Press. in 2017 when she was almost 101.

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This distance in age, and to an extent status, denied me first-hand awareness of my origins.

When I read the social historian Alison Light’s book (Common People: The History of an English Family), where she gives an account of seeking her own family origins, I felt a rush of jealousy. Light had been able to talk to people with key knowledge of her family’s past, and she herself had been immersed in the geographical places where they had lived and worked. What was particularly interesting for me was that she was able to draw a link between her ancestors and English working-class culture and history through developing her understanding of their lives.

Subsequently Antonia Bifulco’s analysis of three generations of a Polish family teases out the psychological consequences of war, hostile occupation and peace across history and cultural change upon individuals’ identity, attachment and resilience. These works both demonstrated to me how family history enables all of us to learn from the past, realising greater emotional depth in that project than we might imagine possible. We can learn about ourselves in an intimate and emotional way, but we are also able to learn about the socio-historical-political conditions of our ancestors that draw links to a wider understanding of history and our own psychology.

Erikson and Bowlby The psychological histories of two well-known psychologists reinforces these points. Erik Erikson, the psychoanalyst, provided an overarching explanation of how the complex relationships between culture, geography and biology all contribute towards the development of our identity. Erik Erikson’s life, and resulting model of psychosocial development, exemplifies the same multidisciplinary content that saturates all of our lives and influences our interests as psychologists. Erikson studied and practised in Europe before moving to the United States. His life and interest in identity was a product of his own family background. His mother was a Jewish woman from Denmark estranged from her Jewish husband some months before Erik had been conceived, so that the only information Erik had ever had about the identity of his biological father was that he was Danish but not Jewish. On confirmation of her pregnancy, Erikson’s mother moved to Germany and later married a Jewish paediatrician, Theodor Homburger. Homburger adopted Erik, who always used Homburger as his middle name. Much later when Erikson moved to the United States, he married and converted to Christianity. His interests in identity, culture and biology are unsurprising.

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This mission occurs because the self is not simply a passive or a fixed entity but continues to be shaped by our interactions and interpretations of the environment, the influence of other people and institutions. Does this indicate that knowledge of our ancestors might One of the drivers of my also be part of this interaction? family history quest came Paula Nicolson is Emeritus As individuals, we act to through attending a seminar at Professor at Royal Holloway, promote our self, developing a the Tavistock Clinic in London to University of London, and author story, or narrative, of who we are, celebrate the life of John Bowlby. of Genealogy, Psychology and who we have been and who we What lingered in my mind was Identity: Tales from a Family plan to become. The psychological how the young John Bowlby’s Tree (2017, Routledge) mechanism that enables this is interest in attachment must have paula.nicolson@rhul.ac.uk reflexivity – thinking specifically come directly from his personal and, as we might see it, objectively experience. Bowlby’s family about our self in such a way as to ‘hold conversations’ history contained many examples of separation and with ourselves while working out our place in a variety loss. His parents had led largely independent lives, of everyday and longer-term contexts. This ongoing reflecting their own expectations based on their own conversation potentially reaches into our genetic and family backgrounds. Bowlby’s mother and siblings social family pasts to identify our place within our lived mostly in Scotland. His mother left the childcare psychosocial, historical, cultural and political worlds. to nursery staff and nannies. When his first loving Our self, or identity, forms the basis of how we nursemaid left his parents’ employ, and his care was interact with our social and physical environments, taken over by a nanny, in line with the predominant and psychological development is the consequence. upper-class culture, there was concern not to ‘spoil’ We, as active and responsive social agents, continue him. He later wrote that this apparent withdrawal to make sense of who we are of affection had left a lifelong over time. This means that as emotional scar. His father, a “…knowledge and we process and reflect upon surgeon, lived and worked in ongoing information about our London, so that when his mother understanding of biological, psychosocial and visited her husband she was away our ancestors may wider life contexts, we manage from the children and the nannies become integrated into the story we tell ourselves of who for months at a time. Bowlby’s we are, and attempt to project it paternal grandfather had been and contribute to our to those around us. This reflexive killed in action when Bowlby’s own conscious, or unconscious, project of the self then consists of father was five. This must have sense of self-identity” actively sustaining coherent, albeit influenced his father’s maintenance continuously revised, biographical of an emotional distance from narratives. Thus, as we gain his children and possibly from more experience and understanding of our social, his wife. While Bowlby’s father may not have focused intellectual and physical/embodied capacities, our overtly on his own early loss, it was something that discursive consciousness of self-identity evolves. intrigued Bowlby himself. Bowlby also believed that As a result, knowledge and understanding of our intergenerational behavioural and emotional patterns might have significance beyond immediate face-to-face ancestors may become integrated into and contribute to our conscious, or unconscious, sense of self-identity. relationships.

In our digital era, the selfie is one way in which In my view, both Erikson and Bowlby identified people sustain and revise these biographical narratives. connections between disturbed family backgrounds The selfie might sometimes (perhaps unconsciously) and how these are translated psychologically and be self-abusive, and there is evidence that some emotionally across generations that had never young women in particular use it as a means of physically known each other. Would they have settled gaining approval for their physical self. Much of on their research and clinical concerns without this in the contemporary research literature on the selfie their family tree? focuses upon this aspect. There is also evidence that genealogical searches might also be employed to enhance social status, claiming descent from royalty The project of the ‘self’ A strong motive for our absorption in genealogy is that or other famous or infamous individuals (witness discoveries are part of the ongoing project of the ‘self’ – how delighted Danny Dyer was on Who Do You Think You Are? to discover he is related to two kings of gaining, developing and understanding a sense of who England). However, the family search might equally we are.

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be disappointing or even disruptive for those of us who discover humdrum or even unpleasant family roots. Each of us will bestow a value judgement on the genealogical and the social media data we discover and the responses we obtain. While the selfie and other the Nazi invasion and occupation of her country forms of social media that document our lives, bodies only to learn many years later that the people she had and behaviours provide self-generated narratives to believed were her parents had actually rescued her, add to the quest for an authentic self, genealogical a Jewish child, following the murder of her biological information does not, although we may also edit the parents. Anya never really recovered from this shock data to fit our desired model of who we are.

– it challenged everything she had So the selfie and the family believed herself to be. Anya’s case tree are arguably different “We can become angry is an extreme example invoking pathways to similar ends. Just symptoms of post-traumatic stress. as the selfie provides a selfon our family’s behalf However, for all of us, investigating portrait, possibly airbrushed, in if we learn of their who we are is a delicate, difficult the context of a person’s temporal disadvantaged hard lives, and potentially problematic and geographical spaces, social practice. Awareness of political networks and physical appearance, discover the death of a and culturally sensitive issues the genealogical project equally young person during war frequently falls away in the face of locates us in time, space, social or through disease caused what we see of ourselves when we status and physicality. They are both contemporary projects of the through poverty and infant focus on our family histories. self – who we really think we are, deaths through epidemics aspire to be and construct ourselves and poor health care” Conclusions through the prism of how others Psychologically, family history act, exist and have existed around research offers the reflective space us. Through looking at our family to think about our own behaviour, personality and origins we can now extend the project of the self and expectations based upon those who went before. take in historical, cultural and biological evidence to Physically we often attribute our appearance and enhance the narrative. personality to specific family members; but more than that, our health status and potential risks bear some relation to our family’s past. On occasion, what we Some reasons to be careful learn about some forbears can be upsetting or uplifting As a social and critical psychologist, I am deeply – all families have some secrets and it takes no time aware of pernicious uses of family origins in eugenics, at all to trace Victorian ancestors, where so much explicit in the views of Francis Galton (Charles about normal human life had to be concealed but Darwin’s cousin): that genius is passed on through much was also recorded. So, for example, I discovered family and the ‘genetic stock’ of a society can be that my paternal grandparents had not been able to improved by only letting the better-looking, intelligent marry. My grandmother previously had been in an or generally ‘fit’ people breed. In the 1930s the Nazis put this into practice through forced marriage between abusive relationship that had taken several years to dissolve. The divorce papers were available to read but ‘typical’ Aryans, and the murder of those who did no subsequent marriage to my grandfather had been not fit this model. Investigation of our ancestors registered. will include inquiry into ethnic and racial origins as We can become angry on our family’s behalf if we central to our identities, and most commercial online learn of their disadvantaged hard lives, discover the genealogical databases provide opportunities for death of a young person during war or through disease DNA analysis, particularly focusing upon ethnic and caused through poverty and infant deaths through geographical origins. epidemics and poor health care. We might learn of Ethnicity and race do seem to be of interest for enduring unhappy and violent marriages or crimes most of us concerned with identity. There have been committed against or by one of our predecessors. examples in the popular press of people who believed These often provoke tears on popular television shows. they were from one ethnic group who then discovered There are of course tales of happiness and success in that they were not, with further instances of those most family trees too. But is the same true for selfies? who knowingly claimed false ethnic origins, which How far do we achieve a sense of who we really are have caused resentment and confusion. One of the when we examine the airbrushed images? Looking first people I worked with clinically, many years ago back over previous selfies, what do we discover about now, was a Polish devout Catholic woman who was those we are holding close? Have they remained part depressed, experiencing psychotic episodes that left of our lives? I’ve little doubt that some of these pictures her unable to cope. Anya (as I shall call her) was make us draw breath too. educated in a convent, where she had lived through

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the psychologist november 2018 genealogy

what to seek out on

the

psychologist website this month

See our website for online exclusives, extras and extracts…

From mothers to matriarchs – Sergio A. Silverio with a personal take on modern constructions of ancient family values

The Psychologist Guide to…

We collect together our five guides so far

Surviving the zombie apocalypse – A forensic psychology perspective from Llian Alys First steps with parkrun – Samantha Blackburn on her role as a volunteer parkrun mental health ambassador

Is isolation or networking the pathway to genius?

– Exclusive chapter from Dean Keith Simonton’s new book

Find all this and so much more via

http://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk

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‘Half the world away’ – family identity and emotional geography Antonia Bifulco on her own adventures in family history Most of us are interested in our origins and family histories. Can psychology aid us in discovering identity through such research? Can sharing our family stories lead to uncovering common or even universal psychological themes, crossing place and time to reveal who we are?

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Family gathering with officers preparing to fight for Polish independence 1920 against the Red Army (Tadeusz, centre, grandmother Maria, in white, and Jurek age six sitting in haystack)

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And the cold stars say: ‘Warsaw in Poland Is half the world away.’

– American poet Sara Teasdale (1884–1933)

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s I get older, I feel increasingly drawn to exploring and researching my family history. This is in part to pass it to the next generation, but also as a retrospective, looking back at my own life in the context of those who came before. It’s a longer view historically, and a wider one geographically.

It generates greater connection and empathy with parents, grandparents, and their parents, and their lives, particularly in the turbulent times of the 20th century.

Many of my peers are similarly attracted to family history, but most do not publish their accounts, instead keeping materials at home to share with their families.

So why publish on family history if the family in question are not famous and not naturally the topic of biographic interest? Is there something to be gained from exploring qualitative method, reflexivity and people in context, applied to one’s own family? Can it add to psychological knowledge?

I have spent my career investigating other people’s life stories, in relation to adversity and resilience, so it seemed a natural step to view my family as a case study amenable to systematic analysis. The difference, of course, is that I have emotional involvement with the content, so the biographic method and reflexivity is tested to see if any unexpected themes of interest emerge. Are these universal, or at least of wider common interest to others? Such questions have led me to research and publish on my father’s family and their origins over three generations in Poland, going back to 1887 (Bifulco, 2017).

My friend Paula Nicolson and I both started writing about our individual family trees at the same time, unbeknownst to each other. Both of us are academic psychologists, she an acknowledged expert of critical psychology, providing a touchstone for me

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the psychologist november 2018 family identity

about what can be achieved that is novel. The topic of family history arose at one of our regular lunches in Richmond. She was further along in her task, having already collected her family material and agreed a publishing contract. I was diligently collecting information, without having decided how I would collate my efforts. She encouraged me to publish it as a psychological text: a challenge, but the same publishers proved interested.

Paula and I had approached the topic differently.

She used online resources, such as Ancestry, to find out about her maternal, paternal and in-law family to create a broad and diverse family tree (Nicolson, 2017).

The places and locations ranged from the Scottish Highlands to the Lithuanian capital, and midwest America. The varied individuals threw up numerous social contexts, stories, dilemmas and issues. She wrote an elegant and engaging exploration of these, including loss, domestic violence, alcoholism and anti-Semitism.

She targeted her work to psychotherapists, those working with family narrative, who could benefit from novel ways of analysing a family tree in relation to an individual’s identity.

My approach was in some ways narrower (I took only a handful of family characters to describe and follow) but also broader in terms of the disciplines encompassed (history, emotional geography and

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sociology). My quest was different – I already knew the basic story and chronology based on family narrative going back two generations. For example, I had a large supply of letters dating from the early 1900s, documents, photographs and unpublished biographies and diaries. Many of my family were writers, some professionally so, but others able to express themselves well in writing and with a persistent need to document experience. I found little online that added to family knowledge, but much that added to the context of others witnessing common events covered. I needed to consider how to understand all this in depth, to make an interesting and meaningful narrative analysis.

Paula and I asked similar questions – how did our families end up in the UK? How did researching our families change our sense of identity and behaviour?

At the time of Brexit and divorce from Europe it became emotively charged with renewed attention to cultural roots. Curiously, with her Scottish married name, and my Italian one, we soon learned that both of our great-grandfathers came from places in East Europe less than 200 miles apart, at the time both areas under Russian domination – modern-day Lithuania (Vilnius) and Belarus (Pinsk).

The academic questions were: What was appropriate psychological method for systematic investigation of a single-case family study? What

Above: Family reunion, Warsaw 1965, 25 years after Jurek left.

Below: Jurek (my father) worked covertly for the French Resistance 1940–42 before escaping to England to join SOE, again covert fighting.

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psychological theories would be invoked? Could the interpretation of such highly personalised information be of interest to others? Could this have practical application for psychotherapy or exploring sense of self, or indeed for method?

36

Psychological referents Our theoretical referents turned out to be highly similar. I used Erik Erikson’s lifestages to structure the book chapters and outline the development and movement of the family over generations, as well as mirror the emergence of the Polish state historically.

This dated from Partition in the late 1800s, where it was dominated by its neighbours, through a drive for autonomy in 1920, to independence and flourishing, and then to the confusion and isolation of further conflict in 1939. I followed in detail my grandparents, my father and his first wife, and his cousin in Poland.

Each has a dramatic story shaped by historical events. John Bowlby’s observations on attachment and resilience were used to show how a family could survive adversity – the First World War, the Russian Revolution, the Second World War and the Cold War – through loving and enduring relationships.

Members were often separated but always close, as the many letters attest. My task was to make a coherent narrative, based on information I had and that I could infer from historical events and other witness accounts.

A similar technique is used in narrative therapy where the coherence and depth of account is enhanced through therapeutic process (Fivush et al., 2008). This leads to a sense of a more complete identity in relation to our forebears and thus aids self-development. The social and historical context as a backdrop provides a richness of Key sources cultural material (Zerubavel, 2011) for an interdisciplinary, qualitative investigation of a very specific set Becker, S.W. & Eagly, A.H. (2004). The of related individuals. heroism of women and men. American I looked for further Psychologist, 59(3), 163–178.

Bifulco, A. (2017). Identity, attachment interdisciplinary influences. and resilience: Exploring three This included Polish immigration generations of a Polish family. London: studies; emotional geography and Routledge. oral history. On meeting Anne Fivush, R., Bohanek, J. G. & Duke, White, a sociologist and expert M. (2008). The intergenerational self: on Polish immigration studies, Subjective perspective and family history. In F. Sani (Ed.) Individual and I became only too aware of my collective self-continuity (pp.131–143). own ignorance of the literature and Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. demography of Polish politics and Nicolson, P. (2017). Genealogy, immigration. But she was intrigued psychology and identity: Tales from a by my novel method of family case family tree. London: Routledge. analysis and appreciated the rare White, A. (2016). Polish migration to the UK compared with migration elsewhere involvement of a psychologist in in Europe: A review of the literature. this arena. One of my emergent Social Identities, 22, 10–25. themes, ‘hidden identity’, arose Zerubavel, E. (2011). Ancestors and in my narrative on a number of relatives: Genealogy, identity, and occasions, and this resonated with community. Oxford: Oxford University her topic of ‘invisible Poles’ – the Press. generation of post Second World

psy 1118 p34_37 bifulco.indd 36

Myszka (my father’s first wife) worked covertly for the Polish Resistance in Warsaw 1939–42 before being captured and sent to Auschwitz

War Poles in England (White, 2016). That community had been in camouflage in the UK, due to Cold War fears about reprisal in Poland.

Emergent themes I looked to handwritten documents to form a family narrative, and my choices of individuals to follow and stories to relate were in some ways down to the ‘data’ I had. My understanding deepened as I had letters and diaries translated to English, and I read modern history more closely to understand the context in which these were written. This induced an emotional response and great empathy – I asked myself, how would I have fared? Would I have coped so well? Which of the characters did I admire or like most? Or not like?

Would this show in the narrative?

I was interested in the local events in history.

Reading about either of the world wars was just too vast for my more modest task, so I chose events in which family members were involved, or that took place where they lived or worked. I also wanted to write about pieces of history that are less well known or less well publicised. So, whilst First World War personal experiences are highly topical in the UK, few relate to the Eastern Front. The complex political alliances in East Europe are less well known. Poland was partitioned between Russia, Germany and Austria, their identity, language and culture hidden, and Polish soldiers conscripted into three different armies and both sides of the conflict. My grandfather Tadeusz was

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the psychologist november 2018 family identity

members had lived. Warsaw had an an officer and engineer in a Polish extraordinary feat of resurrection division of the Russian army, allied post war, with the central part with Britain. He spent much of his of the city totally destroyed and time rushing from place to place rebuilt – as an exact replica. I providing working mechanised was aided in understanding this vehicles – and in one notable renovation by my Polish aunt, a heroic incident, himself driving a writer, who has published on the steam train taking thousands of rebuilding of the city with before wounded soldiers away from the Antonia Bifulco is Professor of and after images, using archive battle sites. In another, he drove Lifespan Psychology, Middlesex pictures and those taken by her a rare armoured car (an Austin University photographer husband. When my from Coventry) behind enemy A.Bifulco@mdx.ac.uk aunt died last year, it was revealed lines. We learn this from a carefully she had written an autobiography penned biography of the young and family account, which no one of us has yet read! man written by his father, giving us a unique account Another layer to the unfolding analysis. of such catastrophic war events and their impact on the family. Contemporary published accounts show the horror, equal to that in the trenches, with Polish Reflexivity territory a killing field for the three armies meeting, How did it affect me? Paula talks and scorched earth policy enacted when the Russians of reflexivity, feeling emotion in revolution withdrew in 1917. on others’ behalf, of having an Another theme to emerge was of heroism: not only military, but also civilian, now recognised as a topic for ongoing conversation with the self, and an unconscious sense study in psychology (Becker & Eagly, 2004). Tadeusz’s of identity. For me, I refound traditional male military heroism was well recognised an identity that had become by his many medals, including the Virtuti Militari (Victoria Cross equivalent) awarded posthumously. But strained when at the age of seven my Polish grandmother another character emerging as heroic in the following died and at 16 when my Polish generation was a young woman of only 25, Myszka, father died. This revisiting married to my father before the Second World War. involved recapturing childhood She remained behind in Warsaw when he left to join and understanding it through a the Allied armies in 1939, and during the occupation clearer prism of family members’ was secretly active in the Polish Resistance, later lives. The voices from my past captured by the Nazis, dying at Auschwitz. Heroic and came through strongly and hidden, her brave actions secret. Additional secrecy warmly. I sensed the personalities arose from my mother’s insistence that as children we of individuals only known by knew nothing of her. Yet it was my mother who kept their family roles. all Myszka’s wartime letters carefully preserved, for me Did it change my behaviour? to later research.

It caused me to start relearning Polish: this conjured unexpected flavours, feelings and thoughts from a childish self.

Places – emotional geography I made new Polish friends in London and I refound Emotional geography fascinates me. Like most people my family in Warsaw. I was lucky in many respects.

I have attachment to places. So, when considering Not only because of the positives I learned of family family history in terms of places, cities, streets and members – that they were admirable, upright, brave houses become a very personal way of embodying and loving – but also because the new family members the past lives of others. Warsaw is one such place.

I met were similarly appealing.

I visited first in 1965 aged 10, and then in 1970, both I am a psychologist who studies life history and its times on family holidays with my father. I have visited impact. I have never been a therapist or in therapy. So a few times since, but only started regular trips there this evocation of the personal past was new for me, but in the last two years since writing the book. I love it as not accompanied by the angst often associated with a city, and it feels very personal to me and my family. such reflection, even though painful experiences for I visited streets, houses and apartments where family close others were certainly involved. It was a lighter and more freeing thing; it made me want to express ideas in different ways. I wonder now how well I will approach quantitative articles with their myriad constraints when continuing to analyse others’ life histories? For me, this has been an object lesson in living what we study.

psy 1118 p34_37 bifulco.indd 37

Tadeusz (my grandfather) received military honours for bravery in the First World War and PolishBolshevik war 1920

11/10/2018 11:32

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11/10/2018 11:36

When did you last tell someone about a dream you had?

Do you have a friend who regularly shares their step count, as measured by their latest fitness tracker?

Sharing both types of intimate information with others allows us to tell specific stories about ourselves: to construct a self-image.

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the psychologist november 2018 our dream self

Reporting your ‘dream self’ Christine Parsons and Melanie Rosen on how we construct an image by sharing activity data and dream reports

O

n the surface, dreams and activity tracking seem to have little in common. We see dream reports as subjective and memory-dependent, whereas activity data is objective and measured using technology.

However, as a psychologist interested in wearable technology and activity tracking, and a philosopher interested in dreams, we noticed a striking parallel in our work. We like to be seen as hardworking and healthy, which can be conveyed by sharing our activity data. We also want to be seen as interesting, creative or funny, which motivates dream reporting. Through sharing this information with each other we attempt to subtly display our positive characteristics, even if it can mean making things up.

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Using technology to report our data An abundance of smartphone apps, wearable sensors and other devices now allow us to quantify our ordinary activities. These devices track our lives and bodies, awake or asleep. The accompanying software allows us to share our data online with friends and the general public. Just a few years ago, it would have been hard to imagine that we would choose to measure our every movement and generate a digital record of our steps, running efforts, and other personal information.

These devices are quite remarkable: small enough to wear comfortably at all times, while picking up minute movements and even blood volume changes. They can discern with reasonable accuracy if we are sleeping, awake or even out kayaking.

Dream logging and sharing can also be assisted by technology (Ko et al., 2015). One prominent example is the app Dreamon, designed by the psychologist Richard Wiseman to influence the types of dreams you have and to share their content. Of course, lab-based technologies such as electroencephalogram (EEG) have been used to track sleep since 1951. More recently, functional magnetic resonance imaging and machine-learning techniques have even reconstructed simple dream narratives directly from brain activity (Horikawa et al., 2013). Currently, this can only be achieved under very specific conditions using expensive machinery and an extensive library of an individual’s dream reports. But one day we may be able

to use such techniques to record our forgotten dreams and then, inevitably, to share them with others.

For now, we just report what we remember informally with friends and family. Consider your last vivid dream. Did you share it with someone? Why? Constructing our best selves Sharing different types of personal information is important for constructing our self-image. Lifespan research suggests that how we view ourselves and our self-esteem impacts our most important life experiences, from mental health outcomes to job satisfaction (Orth et al., 2012). Classical psychological theories present self-esteem as an internal measure of actual and imagined assessments from others that you are close to (called the ‘sociometer hypothesis’ by Mark Leary and colleagues). Our self-esteem can change when we hear what other people think about us (Will et al., 2017). Group participation, interpersonal and intergroup comparisons and a sense of belonging all contribute to this. The need to believe in your self-worth or importance is a strong motivator of behaviour, and impacts how people view themselves, others and life events (e.g. Leary & Baumeister, 2000; Ross, 2002). We strive to improve our social standing and feel good about ourselves by putting forward a positive self-image. You want people to know the ‘real you’, but you also want to be liked and admired.

In the self-tracking world, the mantra is ‘You Can’t Improve What You Can’t Measure’. You quantify selected aspects of your life – sleep, step counts and heart rate – in order to improve them. New tools allow you to share your data with others, adding another motivation for self-tracking. What was once a means to ‘know thyself’ through numbers and metrics has shifted towards ‘telling others about thyself’. Every major activity-tracking device company, such as Fitbit, Garmin and Jawbone, has a ‘social network’ feature.

Strava, established in 2009 and known as ‘the social network for athletes’, is perhaps the best-known example of an activity-sharing platform. In the one location it ranks a variety of activities such as running, biking and swimming, allowing you to compare your performance with others. Using specialised platforms like Strava helps you to avoid irritating your ‘uninitiated’ non-tracking, (non-improving) friends on Facebook.

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Child’s play Many parents in Western cultures associate creative dreams with creativity and intelligence in their children (Foulkes, 1999), or they hope dreams will tell them something important about their children. Parents often motivate and help their children to form elaborate dream stories: I used to regularly ask my daughter about her dreams when she was young (about 3–4 years old). I had the sense that she was making stuff up on the spot. This seemed especially plausible on one occasion when at breakfast one morning I asked her what she had dreamed. She looked around the table and her eyes landed on the salt shaker. ‘Salt,’ she said. ‘I dreamed about salt!’

– Professor Eric Schwitzgebel, dream researcher [My three-year-old daughter] told me her dream this morning, there was a black and red monster that sometimes turned grey, and a white owl that protected her. When I got enthusiastic about her dream, I got the feeling she made up another white owl. – Dr Anke Snoek Unintentionally, both parents seem to motivate their children to make up dreams or add details when none come to mind.

In comparison, children’s reports collected in the lab by researchers are relatively simple, with little or no complex narrative structure. These include far fewer bizarre and creative elements than home-reported dreams (Foulkes, 1999).

Isn’t it boring?

Are we over-sharing? For some, reading a friend’s continuous updates about their workouts and listening to long dream tales are incredibly tedious. Audiences may react negatively to shared dreams or activity data: the annoyance of seeing posts perceived as ‘boring’ or attention-seeking can lead to ignoring or outright unfollowing (Epstein et al., 2015). Yet there is also evidence that exercise-related Facebook status updates receive a high number of likes (Marshall et al., 2015) and that running activities posted on social media have a contagion effect (Aral & Nicolaides, 2017). Listening to your child’s dream report or discovering that your best friend just completed her first marathon may be genuinely interesting.

Also, remember that posting to a dedicated exercise site may be quite different from sharing on a broad platform, such as Facebook. Similarly, telling a close friend about your wacky dream is different from telling an elaborate dream story to your work colleagues. Even if you find dream stories boring, you may be intrigued if someone has a dream about you. Do you know someone who can’t stand it when you report dreams? Tell them you had a dream about them last night and see if they push for details.

Context and chosen audience can make all the difference as to whether a report piques somebody’s interest. And, as we have argued, getting a positive response is a motivator for reporting both types of information.

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By 2016, 350 million sporting activities were uploaded to Strava and 30 per cent of users are active daily. Sharing activities typically elicits support via ‘kudos’, a mechanism similar to Facebook’s ‘likes’.

Arguably, the main reason for its popularity is this emphasis on social competition (West, 2015). You can also show off the ‘highlight reel’ of your best performances. There is a wide array of metrics and scoring systems, such as Strava ‘suffer scores’ which track your efforts on a given activity.

Why share this data? Posting online may act as a personal motivator, but there is certainly a strong element of image-construction as well. People often keep some activities ‘private’ and away from view, while highlighting other activities with amusing captions or notes. Sharing allows you to tell a story about yourself, such as ‘I’ve just started running. I’m not the fastest, but I’m really getting out there’, or ‘I am chewing up these cycle routes because I am a serious weekend warrior’.

Your story is backed up by numbers, and we all know that data and numbers are compelling: it’s ‘objective’.

One study on Facebook and Twitter use suggested that ‘letting others know what you’re up to’, was the most important motivator of sharing behaviour (Stragier et al., 2015). In fact, when the authors directly compared motivations for sharing, showing your peers that you are actively engaged in healthy activities emerged as even more important than receiving support from others. Another interview-based study reported similar motivations among Strava users, with one cyclist stating ‘there’s an element of vanity to it, look at me, look how fit I am’ (Smith & Treem, 2017). A second interviewee who was initially reluctant began sharing because ‘I was like now I’m ready to show off my skills [laughs]’. Part of our willingness to share our stories stems from the picture they portray of us.

A mish-mash Similar motivations are at play when you choose to report your dream experiences. There is a socialising aspect to dream reporting, just as there is for activity sharing. Friends enjoy telling dream stories, and families are often looking for a topic of discussion around the breakfast table. Dreamt something nice about your close friend? Telling them might make them feel special. But dream reports, just like race times, don’t go unfiltered.

We are selective about who we report to and what we choose to share.

Reporting dreams is a common practice, yet unlike activity data, there is little agreement about what dreams mean, or if they mean anything at all. A mish-mash of recollections, thoughts and randomness bind together as a vivid hallucination (Revonsuo & Tarkko, 2002). Our dream-self may even have a different personality, abilities and memories from our waking-self (Rosen & Sutton, 2013), yet many believe that dreams can tell us hidden truths about ourselves (Colace & Boag, 2015), and the self-help aisles of bookstores are filled with books on what dreams may symbolise.

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the psychologist november 2018 our dream self

Even if we think that dreams are meaningless cognitive garbage, we often hesitate to report the embarrassing ones.

Those who think that dreams are profound, symbolic or indicative of personality traits have even more motivation to report them, or to be selective in which ones they share.

And although we all have a mixture of boring and exciting dreams, many believe that having complex, interesting dream narratives reflects a complex, interesting personality – by sharing these we can show such valued personality traits indirectly without appearing to outright boast. This is akin to the indirect demonstrations of positive traits that sharing activity data affords.

Since typical dream memory is so bad, as J. Allan Hobson and others have pointed out, reporting a dream often requires more than simply recollecting it: we have to construct a story. Others cannot ‘validate’ dreams in the way we can validate physical activity data. Image construction in both senses is important to our social standing, and like anything that can benefit us, there is always temptation to filter and to fabricate.

cyclists (Henning & Dimeo, 2015). The risk of being found out is lower and punishments are less harsh than for professionals: an amateur cyclist’s career is not on the line.

Still, they do risk public shaming and exclusion from valued social circles.

At the other end of the spectrum, dreams are easier to invent and harder to disprove, but carry less social benefit. However, we have found that many people will admit to fibbing about their dreams when questioned.

These informal interviews also revealed that we often suspect another’s reports of being exaggerated or made up – even their own children’s dreams. Why do this? We’re back to creating a positive self-image by ‘showing’ rather than ‘telling’. Those who think dreams indicate creativity might think that if you want people to know you are good at painting, paint something good; in the same way, reporting a creative dream shows I am a creative person.

There’s also an interpersonal relationships angle.

A 2014 study by Dylan Selterman’s lab found that dreams of infidelity correlated with lower feelings of intimacy over the following days. While irrational, it may be that the emotional content of the dreams has a ‘priming’ impact on subsequent behaviour. And even though saucy dreams are most likely a random concoction of emotion, context, sensation and characters, rather than Freud’s idea of ‘wish fulfilment’, perhaps we just err on the side of caution instead of sharing them!

Christine Parsons and Melanie Gillespie Rosen are both in the Interacting Minds Centre at Aarhus University, Denmark christine. parsons@ cas.au.dk and melanie.rosen@ cas.au.dk

Fibbing about our dreams and our data A message pings from ‘Your friends at Strava’: ‘Hey Christine, You just lost your Queen of the Mountain on Mt Rael Climb to Melanie by 2 Key sources seconds. Better get out there and show them who’s boss!’ How do you respond?

Strava is commonly criticised for Aral, S. & Nicolaides, C. (2017). Exercise encouraging bad behaviour such as contagion in a global social network.

Nature Communications, 8, 14753. overtraining, dangerous cycling and, most Leary, M.R., Tambor, E.S., Terdal, S.K. & loathsome of all, cheating. There are many Downs, D.L. (1995). Self-esteem as an ways to cheat, even including websites interpersonal monitor: The sociometer specifically developed for this purpose such hypothesis. Journal of Personality and as the (now defunct) Digital Epo website and Social Psychology, 68(3), 518–530.

GPXspeed Up. You can ‘miss’ the hills, press Rosen, M.G. (2013). What I make up when I wake up: Anti-experience views pause and not record during the slow parts, and narrative fabrication of dreams. deliberately use tailwinds… you could even Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 00514. try holding on to a vehicle, although this is Selterman, D.F., Apetroaia, A.I., Riela, not advised! It’s a well-recognised problem, S. & Aron, A. (2014). Dreaming of you: and there’s a system to catch both accidental Behavior and emotion in dreams of and non-accidental cheating. Other users flag significant others predict subsequent relational behavior. Social Psychological suspicious activity, temporarily removing it and Personality Science 5(1), 111–118. from community view until it is reviewed by Smith, W.R. & Treem, J. (2017). Striving the original poster. to be King of Mobile Mountains: If much of this tech has emerged from Communication and organizing the ‘self-improvement’ movement, why through digital fitness technology. cheat? Motivation for professional cheating Communication Studies, 68(2), 135–151.

Stragier, J., Evens, T. & Mechant, amongst elite athletes is obvious, despite the P. (2015). Broadcast yourself: An harsh punishments if caught. In contrast, exploratory study of sharing physical there is little material reward for the amateur activity on social networking sites. Media athlete… beyond image construction. Indeed, International Australia, 155(1), 120–129. it has been argued that desire for recognition within local sporting communities has been Full list available in online/app version. a driver towards doping even in amateur

psy 1118 p40_43 parsons.indd 43

An illusion of objectivity Creating an image of oneself to present to others is a common reason for sharing personal information. Many believe that our data says something important about ourselves: who we are as a person, and our abilities. Despite their apparent differences, in both dreams and activity reporting we choose and construct what we share. We do so for a multitude of related reasons: to ‘fit in’ to a social group, to entertain through storytelling, and to present an image of ourselves.

Yet there are differences in the types of stories we want to tell using activity data or dream reports. We may share activity data to construct an image of a hard-working self-improver, whereas we share dreams to emphasise creativity or intelligence. We all construct our self-image in different ways.

With technology becoming relevant to every aspect of our lives, self-tracking activity and data sharing – along with its illusion of objectivity – are on the rise. Perhaps our reasons for sharing, and how we do it, will continue to tell us as much about who we are as the stories themselves.

11/10/2018 11:46

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Lost and found… in translation Rebecca Poinot on discovering a voice as a French person living and working in psychology in the UK How do roots, and practice as a psychologist, become entwined by a move to a new country and language?

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L

anguage has always fascinated me.

As a child, I was intrigued and eager to learn about grammatical rules and syntax, and I gradually developed an interest in foreign languages.

I was captivated by the idioms and stresses, the sounds and rhythms.

Later, I started studying psychology, specialising in psychoanalysis. As it aims to bring the unconscious to the conscious by the means of free association, a great importance is attributed to language – words are considered the prime tool of the therapeutic process. It’s no surprise it’s known as the ‘talking cure’.

I was soon introduced to the works of Lacan, who famously said that ‘the unconscious is structured like a language’. I found myself facing the complexities, rules and subtle imbrications of language in a whole new way.

Primacy of language I soon acquired a better understanding of the role of language, grasping how it was constitutive of our sense of identity. Lacan based his theory on words, stating that language pre-exists us. He believed that we are immersed in language before our births as we are ‘spoken by the Other’. We would first and foremost acquire an existence by others, through their discourse, which would make us subject of a statement. We are then inserted into a world of words, thrown into a world of speaking beings where the mother (figure) becomes a spokesperson projecting a spoken shadow on us (Troisier, 1998). This inaugurates, anticipates our ‘I’.

We do not have the capacity to voice our feelings ourselves straight away. Yet we cry, express our frustration and rawest needs, and it is down to our carers to interpret these cries. We are subject of need, alienated, enslaved. People around us name our feelings – they put the words in our mouth. Our language gradually emerges: we babble, refer to ourselves through the use of the third person (‘Rebecca is happy’), and eventually resort to the use of ‘I’.

We become subject of our experience, our first person.

We engage in a process of individuation: when talking, we separate and distinguish ourselves from the others.

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the psychologist november 2018 languages

Photo, text and drawing: Rebecca Poinot

Lacan also considered language as an intermediate between the unconscious and the conscious, meaning that it would be possible to decipher, translate the rules of our unconscious in order to reach our subjective experience and truth (Conolly, 2002). I started to comprehend why the unconscious could be thought of as structured like a language. Plus, we regularly use linguistics processes that reveal fragments of our most unconscious thoughts and repressed desires: metaphors, sarcasm, denegation and of course, slips of the tongue (parapraxis). In fact, Lacan wrote ‘ça parle’ (id speaks), meaning that through our symptoms or parapraxis, our unconscious speaks and reveals truths about ourselves. He was also well known for giving crucial importance not only to the word but also to its sound. He gave specific attention to puns and wordplays – which he thought were highly significant and revealing. For example, it could be suggested that in the word secrétaire (secretary), we can both hear secret (secret) and taire (to not tell) –

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which might be why he thought of a psychoanalyst as being a secrétaire. Similarly, Brunaud (2008) wrote about discussing the word quarantaine with a client – which either means being in your forties, or being in quarantine. It is important to note that these double meanings cannot be generalised as they would not make sense for everybody and aren’t systematically relevant. They should always be heard and considered within the subjective story and experience of the client who is speaking. I, for example, used to suffer from IBS and have used the idiom ça me gonfle countless times to describe my feelings. In that specific context, it was significant, as the idiom (which means ‘this is annoying me’) literally translates as ‘this is bloating me up’.

I was fascinated… but also very sceptical.

Studying Lacan in French, the English-enthusiast in me kept wondering how this could work in English.

Idioms differ, the sonorous implications of words too. I realised that language is more than words and

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grammatical rules. It has its specific sounds and melody, is rhythmically connoted and structured.

It is strongly linked to a culture through idioms and cultural references. And of course, some of its ramifications lie in our deepest emotional experiences, as language is our primary tool to converse with our love objects. Language is meaningless if deprived of its cultural/emotional/familial context.

The mother tongue has been named the ‘language of the id’ (Rosenblum, 2001), but is the ‘id’ international or tied to the culture we grow up in? Is our unconscious bound to one language? Can a psychotherapeutic work be initiated in a second language? Moving to England would provide me with some answers…

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Bilingual therapies Through the emergence and acquisition of language, we separate ourselves from our primary love object (often considered to be the mother) as we engage in an individuation process. It cannot be a coincidence that our native language is referred to as our mother tongue.

Speaking a second language implies a separation from this mother. A sense of belonging and authenticity is associated with Key sources a first language; therefore, its ‘loss’ could induce a distance from the internal representation of our Allan, J. (1988). Inscapes of the child’s mother (Burck, 2004). Bilinguals world: Jungian counseling in schools and may consequently feel ‘alienated in clinics. Dallas: Spring Publications.

Bowker, P. & Richards, B. (2004). their adopted country’ (Bowker & Speaking the same language?

Richards, 2004).

A qualitative study of therapists’ This is how I felt. After the experiences of working in English excitement of speaking a different with proficient bilingual clients. language came something that felt Psychodynamic Practice: Individuals, very much like a grief: I was in a Groups and Organisations, 10, 459–478.

Brunaud, P. (2008). Clinique du foreign land, far from my mother jeu de mots. Libres Cahiers pour la land, separated from my family.

Psychoanalyse 17: Rire de soi, 113–120.

I struggled to communicate, often Burck, C. (2004). Living in several felt lonely and misunderstood. I felt languages, implications for therapy. confused, trapped in a tongue, a life Journal of Family Therapy, 26(4), 313–339. that wasn’t mine. The unfamiliarity Connolly, A. (2002). To speak in tongues: Language, diversity and psychoanalysis. was disconcerting and Journal of Analytical Psychology, 47, depersonalising. I had to rebuild 359–382. a sense of identity and ‘create an Marcos, L.R. (1976). Bilinguals in English me’. How to make all the psychotherapy: Language as an elements of my identity coincide? emotional barrier. American Journal of What about the ‘psychologist me’?

Psychotherapy, 30(4), 552–560.

Rosenblum, S. (2001). The role of How could I practise therapeutically language in therapy: how bilingual/ in English? What if I don’t understand multilingual therapists experience their what is being said? What if I don’t work with bilingual/multilingual clients. have the words to answer? I knew Master’s thesis, available at https:// that speaking English would not be scholarworks.smith.edu/theses/1013 enough – an appropriation of the Stevens, A. (1994). Jung: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University culture would be indispensable, and Press.

I was aware I would have to engage Troisier, H. (1998). Piera Aulagnier. Paris: in a work reaching far beyond the PUF. acquisition of vocabulary.

My first step was to undergo

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therapy in English. Undertaking therapy in a second language induces an emotional distance, a ‘detachment effect’, which can have both negative and positive effects. It can hinder the cathartic effect and restrict the insight process as the process become intellectually oriented – the focus is on how things are said rather than on the emotional content. This leaves less room for emotional engagement and leads to a diminution of the affective tone (Marcos, 1976). This was very much true for me at first. I felt like I couldn’t truly engage in a psychotherapeutic work: all I thought of was ‘finding the accurate word’ that would match the French one.

I was lost in translation.

However, this detachment can potentially be protective as it provides with enough emotional distance to process some feelings and experiences.

These might therefore become available as opposed to ‘trapped’ in the mother tongue. Burck (2004) considers a second language a tool for expressiveness. Her research showed that speaking in a different language was allowing clients to finally be someone they had been longing to be, or to address feelings they had been repressing. The second language seemed to have the potential to lift barriers and inhibitions, which constituted a relief ‘from the constraint embedded in the first language’.

This was also true for me. I often found that, in English, I could speak about painful experiences without feeling overwhelmed. I was often surprised about how ‘cold’ and detached I sounded, as if someone else was voicing them for me. I almost felt disembodied, but in a way, it felt freeing. Not only could a second language endorse a protective role, but it could also be synonym of new possibilities and potentially facilitate expression and experiences.

I felt released and relieved after a session. I found myself puzzled by my slips of tongue, struck with surprise when hearing my choice of words (I repeatedly talked about eating leeks during a session, whilst previously talking about how my symptoms were leaking). I was also working therapeutically with a girl, who, in her final session, entitled a drawing ‘Famly’. Realising her mistake, she said, ‘Oops, there is an “I” in family.’ The Lacanian in me was satisfied.

However, I often felt very frustrated by a lack of words, and by the impression that I was not being clear. I would feel annoyed and vexed if my psychotherapist asked me to repeat. I sometimes felt like I was not being ‘me’: I did not sound like me.

With time, I can hear my accent becoming more…

English, which feels conflicting. I am proud of my improvements and language enrichment, but the gain comes with a loss. I am getting richer yet poorer as the English emergence of sounds and intonations is putting a part of my heritage at bay. I can now even hear myself speaking differently in French, and it feels like what is fundamentally a part of my identity is being washed away by the English flow. Paradoxically, I also feel I can ‘dig deeper’, express myself clearer and engage in ‘proper’ psychotherapeutic work. I can

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the psychologist november 2018 languages

find the English equivalent to my French. My psychotherapist sometimes feeds back to me that I am ‘suddenly sounding very French’ when recalling an intense event, or when feeling agitated. So the French (in) me is still there…

Beyond words Language is key, but is it enough? I do believe that mastering the (semantic, cultural and social) language is key, especially with the perspective to engage in a ‘talking cure’. The concept of a talking cure imposed itself as evidence and the sole option after my studies, but triggered doubts regarding its feasibility for the ‘me-in-England’. Other opportunities arose as I started working in a school, which led me to Jung.

Jung attributes lesser importance to words and translation – his primary focus lies in the production of images and symbols. He grants primary importance to the creative process/impulse, thinking of art as a way to understand the unconscious through the use of symbols and archetypes, believing that ‘symbols mean more than they say’. Imagination is encouraged and associated with individuation and healing – symbols are seen as an attempt from the psyche to grow and heal and are therefore propitious to the development of the personality. All creative work would be the key to therapeutic practice (Stevens, 1994).

Some children are unable to name their experience of debilitating and overwhelming anxiety. Anxiety, especially when at its highest peak, is not tangible or nameable. It is like a floating, shapeless, nameless entity invading our bodies, invalidating our minds and leaving us with feelings of great unease, uncertainty and fear. All that is left to experience is chaos, nonsense. Not being able to precisely name the incomprehensible is the greatest frustration. It is highly common for children experiencing trauma to be unable to explain their feelings with words.

Most of the time, children don’t even know what is wrong, therefore, questions such as What? Why? could potentially trigger further distress as they are not able to respond, leaving them with feelings of powerlessness and guilt.

Facing these children, I realised I could relate. It echoed with the English-speaker me. How many times had I found myself frustrated and anxious due to the lack of words to describe my feelings? I could explain in French. How to help them address this unbearable, unfathomable feeling? How could I help them?

And so I came across drawing and talking therapy, based on Jung’s theoretical approach. By drawing, children are able to express feelings that are impairing their daily life. Drawing not only allows them to explore and make sense of their emotions, but it also teaches them to cope with them and find a symbolic resolution to internal conflicts. I have been using the

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serial drawing technique and have been amazed by its effects. I witness how worries find a new language as drawing replaces wording. I notice how, by reaching and letting their imagination unfold, children create a new sense of self that replaces feelings of powerlessness. The page becomes a safe place, and the spontaneous expression equals the free association. I have seen children evolve through the different stages: from drawings reflecting their internal turmoil, to the struggle between opposite emotions, to finally reaching a sense of mastery and self-growth. This creative work enables them to address preoccupations without the need to systematically resort to words. ‘When a child draws in the presence of the therapist on a regular basis, then the healing potential is activated, conflicts expressed and resolved, and the therapist can gain a clearer and more accurate view of the unconscious at work’ (Allan, 1988). Drawing becomes their second language, and it seems like a ‘detachment effect’ is at work: the emotional distance induced by their stories allows them to process their feelings safely.

Rebecca Poinot is a member of the British Psychological Society rebeccapoinot@ wanadoo.fr

An encounter Language plays a critical role in our lives. It is linked to our most primary experiences and is intimately connected to our sense of self. It allows us to address worries and painful experiences in therapy. Sometimes, however, maybe it isn’t all about the words, but about an encounter. About someone noticing. Where verbalisation reaches its limits, creativity can be the substitute that allows us to represent and make sense of our inner conflicts. This simple encounter of subjectivities could already be good enough.

Life in England has been an incredibly enriching journey. It helped me realise that, even when sharing the same mother tongue, we are not immune from the pitfalls of confusion or misunderstanding. (Don’t we all sometimes say ‘we’re not speaking the same language’?) It taught me that a second language creates possibilities as it is synonymous with new connections and opportunities to relate to more people. Most importantly, it offered me a chance to work therapeutically with children, to know what I want to do and to thrive in my work. J’ai trouvé ma voie, et ma voix – I found my way, and my voice.

My horizons have broadened, which led me to discover a different side of myself. I have found resources and strengths I never suspected I had. Or maybe I have created them and ‘expanded’ my identity.

I suppose I found some comfort and reassurance in the Jungian theory through discovering a new definition of creativity, which probably helped me come to terms with the difficulties associated with the language barrier. I have lost and found myself in translation.

Or: lost myself in translation, found myself in creation?

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11/10/2018 11:56

‘When the Manchester Arena attack happened we developed our plans on the way to work’ Ian Florance meets Dr Alistair Teager from Salford Royal Hospital

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Dr Alistair Teager (left) is a Consultant Clinical Neuropsychologist at Salford Royal Hospital, working in one of the UK’s largest neuropsychology departments. We talked over the phone, and I could hear colleagues, in what sounded like a busy office, chipping in with agreement and clarification as Alistair described their work.

During our discussion he raised an event that obviously affected the department hugely and raises an important issue for many psychologists.

Most people will remember the Manchester Arena bombing on 22 May 2017 when 23 people were killed and 139 injured at an Ariana Grande concert.

‘The neuropsychology department were involved from first thing on the Tuesday, offering advice and information on trauma and providing ‘psychological first aid’. We had to improvise and move quickly.

Our response had to be ad hoc, but the British Psychological Society’s Crisis, Disaster and Trauma Section had some really useful guidance on early interventions for trauma.’

Most commercial organisations prepare major incident and emergency plans. Do you? ‘Yes, most hospitals have them, but the role of psychologists in those plans is rarely integrated. So, when the Manchester Arena attack happened we developed our plans on the way to work. What we did was not rocket science but, in the moment, it can be hard to think.

Having a plan is vital and having the flexibility to deliver it even more so. We’re in the process of writing up what we did, so hopefully others can inform their approach should something like this happen again.’

Initially, I’d wanted to be clear about one basic distinction – could Alistair help me discriminate between neuroscience and neuropsychology?

‘A neuroscience centre might offer a range of clinical

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the psychologist november 2018 careers Getty Images

services specialising in work relating to the brain: neurophysiology, neurosurgery and neuropsychology are examples. Clinical neuropsychology involves understanding how difficulties or damage in certain areas of the brain influence someone’s cognition, behaviours, and emotions, and how this might be affecting individuals and those around them. Clinical neuropsychologists will have completed clinical psychology training, followed by additional training via the Qualification in Clinical Neuropsychology – the QiCN.’ What sorts of areas does the Salford department work in? ‘A huge range. We do tertiary outpatient work and feed into multidisciplinary inpatient and community neurorehabilitation teams, as well as surgical teams and diagnostic services. For example, we might see someone for a pre-surgical cognitive assessment, and during the surgery itself in the case of awake craniotomies – a technique in which a surgeon removes a brain tumour while the patient is awake – and then provide post-surgical assessments and psychological therapy.’

Alistair says he does a lot of work in inpatient services, helping service users to return to a

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meaningful life after acquired brain injury. ‘Here, we also develop an understanding of a patient’s needs given their neuropsychological presentation; provide input around complex formulations; support staff and patients who present with behaviour that challenges; undertake mental capacity assessments; and support with cognitive rehabilitation. Specialist neuropsychological assessments do form a part of our toolkit, but we also provide therapy, often drawing on cognitive-behavioural, ACT, and schema approaches.

We offer several specialist services for traumatic brain injury, brain tumours and epilepsy. We also run a service for people who suffer from non-epileptic attack disorder, an often-misunderstood condition which causes debilitating attacks but doesn’t involve a change in the electrical activity in the brain like epilepsy does.’

In addition to all of this, Alistair and his team provide training for staff across the hospital and have a number of research interests. ‘At the moment – for obvious reasons – I’m particularly interested in looking at psychological responses to major incidents and the role of clinical psychologists in major trauma centres, but we also have people working on studies around epilepsy surgery, care mapping and neuro-oncology.’

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How did the department get so big? ‘Our previous Head of Service, Elisabeth Berry, is the main reason.

She is a nurse who retrained as a neuropsychologist in the 1990s. Initially it was just her, now there are nearly 30. I think that Elisabeth knew that we needed to embed ourselves into other neuroscience teams to show our worth, both in terms of bringing pure neuropsychology skills to the table, but also the core clinical psychology skills we gained during training.’

What issues are going to be important for the department in the future? ‘At the moment, we’re doing more and more work with clinical psychology courses to develop “neuro” teaching, and we also hope to support the Division of Neuropsychology in increasing opportunities for people to do the QiCN. As hinted earlier, I’m also keen for the BPS to try and inform and influence government organisations at a strategic level to integrate psychological preparedness into major incident plans to dovetail with emergency medical care.’

What sort of person will be able to master what seems like a full and growing agenda – what qualities will future neuropsychologists have? ‘You obviously need an interest in the brain and how it functions.

Feeling comfortable with numbers to interpret test results is a component of the job, but it’s not the be-all and end-all of what we do, despite how we’re sometimes portrayed. I’d say that care and compassion are central. A lot of people have experience of dementia, stroke, multiple sclerosis or traumatic brain injury, through lived experience, or via family and friends. This often motivates people to work in the area and can inform what they want to achieve and how they want to go about it.’

Alistair also says that to be a good clinical neuropsychologist you need to be a good clinical psychologist first. ‘You don’t need to specialise too soon; I really benefited from having a broad range of experience pre-qualification.’

Alistair’s own career and training was influenced by a family with a tradition of working in nursing, and then a gap-year job at SureStart ‘which really opened my eyes to the difficulties children and families face in underprivileged, disadvantaged communities’.

He certainly didn’t start out as a neuropsychology specialist.

‘I did my psychology degree at Liverpool, and really enjoyed the stuff on forensic and investigative psychology, crowd behaviour and cognition, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my degree at that point. I thought about going into teaching, into

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Might you have an interesting story to tell about your career path, the highs and lows of your current role or the professional challenges you are facing?

If you would like to be considered for a ‘Careers’ interview in The Psychologist, get in touch with the editor Dr Jon Sutton (jon.sutton@bps.org.uk). Of course there are many other ways to contribute to The Psychologist, but this is one that many find to be particularly quick, easy and enjoyable.

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sport psychology, into advertising and into clinical psychology, but I couldn’t make my mind up. After a fair bit of thinking and looking, I found out about the Master’s in Performance Psychology at Edinburgh, and so moved to Scotland for a year. I had a sporting background and it was a great course, which helped me think about topics like attention, peak performance and resilience.’ [The course is featured in an interview with Alan MacPherson in the June 2018 issue of The Psychologist.] The course had people from a variety of interests and backgrounds on it – sport, dance, music, military and business, but it also got me thinking about clinical psychology more as I talked about it with a friend of mine up there, and it felt more and more like the route I wanted to take. I subsequently moved back home to Derbyshire and eventually managed to get an assistant psychologist post in a child psychology team in Stoke, before doing some service evaluation work with a homelessness team in Derby, and then moving on to a neuropsychology service in Oxford. It was there that I felt I was best matched, at the intersection of psychology and medicine. This got my foot in the door, so to speak, and I went on to do my clinical psychology training in Manchester, which led me to a specialist placement at Salford Royal, and that’s where I’ve worked ever since.’

Alistair has been a consultant for the last couple of years and stresses that his experience has reinforced the idea that ‘You need to learn as well as advise.

Your job is to understand by listening to other professionals as well as your service users, their families and friends. Trainees on placement and new people joining the department has really helped with this, and everyone has something to contribute.

It’s great to hear what people do elsewhere, or what’s being taught on the DClin.’

Alistair closes with one piece of invaluable advice about working in the NHS. ‘It might seem less than glamorous, but we’ve been looking at how we work as well as what we do. We’ve found having yearly workstreams has helped us to push our service forward. We’ve overtly aligned these streams with Trust goals – for instance, those around paperlite working, engaging in research, or thinking creatively about waiting list initiatives or the psychological wellbeing of staff. This seems to have made us more visible in the hospital and has highlighted the efforts we’re making to be both productive and efficient so that we can provide the best possible care for our service users.

That can only be good.’

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the psychologist november 2018 careers

What we are looking for For an updated summary of how you can contribute to The Psychologist, see https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/what-we-are-looking the

the psychologist

psychologist anymonth 2019

any month 2019

Your work here Have an idea? We can help you engage and inform our large and diverse audience of psychologists and beyond, in print and online

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Current areas of interest include: • ‘My lost finding’ • The night • Scientific collaborations

11/10/2018 12:00

Ganesh Iyer

‘The arts use a lot of psychology in designing the artistic experience’ Sangeetha Rajan on her journey and her work with The Arts Quotient

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I have always enjoyed observing people, thinking about why they do certain things or about how they will behave. But my interest crystallised as an undergraduate. I studied at St Xavier’s College in Mumbai, which had a world-class psychology department. My teachers were inspiring and I did a lot of extra reading as part of an honours programme.

I particularly enjoyed rounding up unwilling ‘subjects’ (mostly my friends) for experiments that we ran in our lab where they taught us about research methods. We watched as magical things like the Stroop effect unfolded and we learnt to do ANOVA calculations manually (this was the ’90s).

It was like having a little secret window into people’s heads… who wouldn’t want to have a closer look!

So I enrolled in a master’s programme. Eventually I decided to move towards occupational psychology, by studying personnel management at XLRI – one of

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India’s best business schools.

In my early career I worked in the manufacturing industry (Maruti Udyog) and then shifted to banking (ICICI Bank) in the learning and development function. It was a great experience for a young professional. Long hours, lots of freedom to experiment, supportive bosses and an extremely meritocratic culture. I learnt about instructional design and the basics of facilitating learning, among other things.

During all of this, and in fact for as long as I can remember, I also had a life in the arts. I had been on stage as a dancer since the age of four. My family is full of artists and teachers. My mother is a theatre person with her childhood spent as a dancer as part of a professional theatre group. My brother is a percussionist; my cousins are all variously involved in the arts. My grandfather on my father’s side was a

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the psychologist november 2018 careers

headmaster of a school, and many aunts and cousins are teachers and educationists even today.

Coming from such a family, the world of dance, music, theatre and visual arts was just as real for me as the one I had chosen to explore as an adult.

Along with my job, I continued to perform on stage.

Naturally, I started wondering about how I could bridge the two worlds. The arts use a lot of psychology in designing the artistic experience, even if the principles are not articulated. My quest was about how these principles could be articulated, and how they could be of use to people who have not had the benefit of training in the arts.

Through my doctorate, I kept thinking about how this might work and was lucky to find a collaborator – my business partner Swati Apte, who had just returned to India. She had her own journey through business school at Harvard, working with McKinsey as a strategy consultant in New York, and through it all, also being a dancer.

We started running these workshops about six years back, and it was really like an experiment for us: to see how best we could craft the experience to ensure transfer of learning. There were many groups that ran theatre workshops as a way to raise money. Likewise, consultants used theatre and other arts as ways to make training experience more fun. But having worked in the learning space for over a decade and a half, I knew that the real challenge was transfer of learning to the real-life context. We didn’t just want people to see the point; we wanted them motivated to change their behavioural habits.

At the time we started both of us were doing other things – I was studying law, and Swati was working in the microfinance domain. It was only when a client asked us what name to put on the contract, because they wanted to give us ongoing work, that we got our act together and registered our company – The Arts Quotient Learning Experience Pvt Ltd. At The Arts Quotient, we use the performing arts (theatre, puppetry, music, dance, etc.) as a source of content and method to create learning for business leaders. One of the themes we often address is enabling our participants to use non-verbal behaviour in a way that helps them influence conversational outcomes.

We do this by using techniques from theatre and the movement arts, creating a lot of practice opportunity during the sessions.

One of the practice scenarios we had given the participants in such a workshop was that of engaging with a young child (played by an actor). As the child’s tantrums grew, the group struggled with taking non-confrontational postures. So we talked about how body language and proxemics can be used to diffuse the tense energy in confrontational situations.

The next day, one of our participants reported how she tried the suggested strategies with her toddler daughter, and how it made for a much more positive interaction! Other participants of similar workshops have reported successfully using these strategies in

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negotiations with government officials, in performance review conversations with their supervisors, and other difficult situations.

Over the years, we have gathered a lot of anecdotal evidence for the transfer of learning from our workshops. Psychologically, what makes this possible, I believe, is the way we design the experience. The focus is at least as much on the learning process as on content. By thinking about the meta-learning aspects, we are able to help people access the behavioural skills when they need it. Making learning fun increases retention, no doubt, but enabling people to be observers of their own behaviour helps them course correct while performing. So we teach skills (all drawn from the arts), work with the participants to create markers so they know how they are doing on those skills, and share tools that they can use to apply these in everyday life.

Our challenge is building more awareness around the work that we do. In the early days, people would ask, ‘Are you going to make our managers dance in the workshop?’, ‘Are they going to have to act?’, and so on.

Many have told us point blank that they don’t really see a link between the arts and leadership, and it has sometimes been an uphill task explaining our work to people. I’m glad to say we have not had many such conversations lately. Now the questions are around transfer of learning, what the process will involve, how much time the learning process will take, can it be done individually or in groups – all very welcome questions for us!

I think there could be more research on the psychology of the arts. I know psychology has been applied to artists to help them overcome stage fear, for example, or be better performers. There has also been a lot of research on the instrumental benefits of the arts – music leading to better reasoning, dance to confidence, and drama to interpersonal skills. But I am talking about the psychology woven into the arts and the artistic experience itself. Research in this vein could beautifully inform our work and enrich it. For instance, what ingredients of the artistic experience are called upon to get the audience to feel wonderment (adhbuta; one of the nine rasas or experiential states per Indian performing arts theory)? Does training in emotional expression also help in emotional awareness and regulation? How does ‘self-role distance’ manifest for actors, and where does authenticity come into it? By what mechanisms can dance lead to increased confidence?

Where next? Well, a few months back, a colleague of mine recommended our work to a potential client with the caveat ‘They are a little bit out there, but they are very good!’. After a lot of cross-examination by this client, we finally landed a short engagement. My dream is to establish our methodology so very prominently that nobody feels the need to say we are ‘out there’ or ‘different’ or ‘alternative’. A multidisciplinary approach to creating learning needs to become the way people do things.

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Getty Images

‘We like spaces that flirt with us’ Lily Bernheimer is an environmental psychology consultant, researcher and author of The Shaping of Us (Little, Brown). Our editor Jon Sutton asks the questions.

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Tell me about Space Works Consulting.

Space Works is an environmental psychology consultancy, so we work with architects, designers and organisations to make everyday spaces truly work for the people and purposes they serve. I started out my career in New York City, thinking I wanted to be an urban planner, but was ultimately drawn to researching how to design our cities, homes and workplaces better for human wellbeing through environmental psychology. Unfortunately, much of this evidence remains locked away in journal articles that designers and policy makers can’t access or make use of. After coming to the UK to do my MSc at the University of Surrey, I co-founded Space Works to bridge this gap between academic research and practical application.

We have worked with co-working spaces like Impact HUB Kings Cross and housing developers like Grainger plc on projects ranging from design strategy to applied research. Most recently, we collaborated with Matter Architecture to evaluate Britain’s newest prison, HMP Berwyn, and advise the Ministry of Justice on how to better design prisons with wellbeing and rehabilitation in mind.

You begin the book with a Winston Churchill quote: ‘We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.’

Oddly enough, I wasn’t consciously thinking of the Churchill quote when I came up with the title for the book!

He was right, of course. But humans have been around far longer than buildings. And before buildings, the natural environments of our evolution played a foundational role in shaping us to be the creatures we still are today.

Building bigger, more ‘efficient’ skyscrapers and super-highways over the past century, we somehow seem to have lost sight of the critical role that built and natural environments play in shaping wellbeing, community and our very identities. Writing and researching this book, I came to believe that enabling people to take an active role in shaping the everyday spaces of their lives is critical to restoring a natural biophilic quality to our built environment.

What kinds of spaces do we like?

We like spaces that flirt with us – complex and mysterious settings – without threatening the achievement of our goals. While orderly layouts like American street grids or

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the psychologist november 2018 books a floor of cubicles are straightforward to navigate, they aren’t the environments we love most. We prefer streets that curve out of sight, leading us on with a tantalising hint of what lies beyond; spiral staircases and canopies of forest trees.

The spaces we love most balance legibility with mystery, order with complexity, and comfort with awe.

We are drawn to expansive mountain-top views and the ornate patterns of art-deco towers, but also crave the shelter of a simple protected courtyard and cosy nooks like window seats. The built environment supports our wellbeing best when it echoes the natural world in some way – through pattern, dimension, light, layout, noise – the scale and tone of the world that we were built for.

Isn’t that pretty obvious?

Well, yes and no! Our behaviour is often quite counterintuitive. We assume that traffic lights and curbs protect pedestrians, but actually drive more safely when we’re forced to pay attention to our surroundings.

Promising parks often become magnets for antisocial activity, and modern housing developments intended to be more hygienic and egalitarian have often failed to support community as effectively as the so-called ‘slums’ that were torn down to make way for them.

Take the distinction between the British roundabout and the American four-way intersection. As an American, British roundabouts intuitively felt less safe to me when I arrived in the UK because I wasn’t used to them. But our intuitions often deceive us. Statistically there are 32 possible vehicle crash points in the standard American intersection, compared to only 8 in a roundabout!

American streets literally set us up for collision.

What’s even more surprising is the story behind the British roundabout. Roundabouts were common in both the US and the UK as automobile use grew in the first half of 20th century, but were largely abandoned in the post-war US planning. Why did Britain persevere in perfecting the format abandoned by her American cousins? The British government paid for hospital bills as well as highway construction! So while we can’t say that roundabouts make the British more collectively minded or that the grid system makes Americans more individualistic and confrontational, there is a fascinating synergy between design and culture that isn’t immediately obvious.

When it comes to something like refuge and prospect – our seemingly evolutionary preference for hill-top houses with ocean views – research confirms what we anecdotally know. But you might be more surprised to learn that these environmental preferences deeply impact our health and productivity. Office workers sitting in what I call ‘ninjaproof seats’ – those where you have your back to the wall – actually demonstrate increased concentration and cognitive performance. [See the chapter accompanying the online version of this interview.]

You’ve got offices in the UK and US. Has it ever occurred to you that most of the examples of bad practice in urban planning, etc. seem to come from these countries, and a

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lot of the good is from the Netherlands, Scandinavia, etc?

Before coming to the UK, I thought the US must take the cake for bad urban planning practices. But I now feel that there must be a special place in ugly-building hell for badly designed British buildings. Because we share some faults, the UK and US have a lot to learn from each other.

Northern European countries certainly have many best practices to offer, but there is a real danger in saying, ‘Look how great things are in the Netherlands.

If we just graft these Dutch street design principals onto British streets, the culture as well as the form will follow.’

Architect and WikiHouse co-founder Alastair Parvin put it brilliantly when I interviewed him: ‘What most people call bad design isn’t bad design. It’s really good design for a totally different set of economic outcomes, which is producing real estate.’ To truly repair our dysfunctional streets and cities, we have to re-work the underlying economic and social structures that have created them as well. Our current system – relying on a small number of profit-driven developers to develop the majority of our housing – is rigged to prioritise profit rather than wellbeing, community or beauty, and that shows.

We also have much to learn from places in our own countries, like Detroit – where communities are taking urban development back into their own hands – and projects such as WikiHouse, which empower people to build their own housing. When people are involved in shaping their own streets, homes and workspaces, we find a variety of social and psychological benefits such as lower crime rates and higher levels of wellbeing, agency, and ‘collective efficacy’: the level of trust, cohesion and informal social control.

As I read the book I noticed that the work of an environmental psychologist is quite overarching, drawing in aspects of occupational, social, clinical, health…

Absolutely. Because environmental psychologists study all types of spaces, there is a lot of overlap with other areas of psychology. We often draw on research from occupational, health or social psychology, and are keen to collaborate with these disciplines. The tools we use can be applied to improve any kind of space: work, home, institutional and public outdoor spaces. And while the field is formally a subset of psychology, it is really an interdisciplinary domain, drawing people with backgrounds in architecture and urban planning.

We also share some things in common with the ‘design-thinking’ or human-centred design approach.

Products like websites and cars are never put into use without tweaking and testing to make sure they work for their users. This iterative design-thinking approach is now applied to improve everything from social services to rural African water collection systems, but is rarely employed to evaluate and improve buildings. Environmental psychologists essentially do this type of ‘user experience’ testing for buildings.

‘Ruin porn’ was a new one on me!

I’ve always been fascinated by the role of time in our

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environmental preferences. Why do we love old buildings and cities so much? And why do our attempts to mimic them today seem to fail so spectacularly? Did we once have better building techniques? Or is it something about the impact of time and wear that makes these places more lovable? Ruin porn technically refers to our fascination with buildings in states of decay, but these questions actually appear to share a common explanation.

Natural scenes are marked by fractal geometry, which involves a specific recipe of order and complexity. We see fractals most obviously in trees and coastlines, which repeat self-similar forms on smaller and smaller scales.

Because our visual perceptual system evolved to function in this fractal world, we find these environments calming and pleasing. Gazing at a tree can swiftly reduce blood pressure and the circulation of stress hormones, as Roger Ulrich famously demonstrated.

As it turns out, traditional building forms around the world also consistently embody fractal qualities – from the detailing of window frames to the cascading domes of Hindu temples and the configuration of London’s streets – explaining the enduring appeal of these structures.

Fractal geometry had not been formally identified in the times of John Ruskin, who famously for advocated the beauty or ruins. But parallels between his theories of compositional and architectural beauty and fractal geometry have more recently been identified, which may

Reclaiming the Curriculum Bill Laar & Jackie Holderness Crown House; Pb £16.99

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also help us understand aesthetic allure or ruin porn.

It’s an extremely well-written book, yet it’s your first.

Did you find it easy?

Thank you! No, I would say it’s probably the most difficult thing I’ve done. Summarising a vast body of research findings in terms that are faithful to the evidence but also fun and accessible is quite a task. I did really enjoy enlivening the research with anecdotes from my own life and work. My father is a poet and my mother is a librarian, so I come from a literary family and have kept a journal since I was 12. It was fun to bring a creative, personal voice into play with the material I consult on professionally.

How is this field changing?

Early environmental psychologists focused primarily on architectural issues, asking questions like ‘Do people prefer peaked roofs?’ and ‘Are we more irritable in crowded rooms?’. Today there is a much stronger emphasis on the natural environment and understanding behaviour in relation to sustainability. My interest has always been in aligning these two sides of environmental psychology. We will have a much easier time getting people to adopt sustainable innovations like energyefficient light bulbs if they also produce a warm light quality with positive mood and circadian impacts similar to sunlight.

For a transformational uplift SATs results and Ofsted judgements have been the cause for many schools, including nursery schools, of a narrowing curriculum focus.

Teaching has perhaps become less creative and innovative. For me, as someone who has always tried to swim against this tide and employ a wider and more imaginative approach to learning, it was so refreshing to read examples of a more creative whole-school teaching ethos, ones that will enthuse the reader and hopefully encourage them in their own practice.

Reclaiming the Curriculum shares 18 case studies where educational settings and teachers have challenged the temptation to teach to SATs and Ofsted, and have instead developed children’s curiosity by creating inventive and fun ways to discover and explore new concepts and ideas. Schools should be a place where children find learning exciting and enjoyable, promoting a desire to want to discover more. Each of these stories has been shared by contributors from the settings,

providing illustrations of how their approach has developed more stimulating ways to learn. Ten of the case studies are from educational settings in Oxfordshire, which is of no great surprise considering one of the authors, Bill Laar, was an inspector in Oxfordshire and the other, Jackie Holderness, was a senior lecturer in education at Oxford Brookes University.

This book is easy to read and provides clear examples of how you can engage children in learning in a more exciting way. Cases include: a nursery school that operates outdoors for 85 per cent of the day, regardless of the weather; a curriculum that promotes children’s understanding of the world by partnering with schools worldwide and offering international residential visits; building and driving Goblin cars; developing a topic by more than the requisite single annual school trip; encouraging the whole school to learn the skills of playing chess; maximising the use of stories, art, drama, dance and singing to enthuse children in their learning across the curriculum.

This book is a valuable resource to inspire schools and teachers who need a transformational uplift to a rigid and restricted attitude to the curriculum.

Reviewed by Dr Katy Smart, Senior Associate Teacher at the University of Bristol

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the psychologist november 2018 books

My shelfie… Dr George Sik (Consultant Psychologist at eras ltd and author of I Think I’ll Manage and, with Pat Nevin, In Ma Head, Son) The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin David Nobbs I first read this when I was 11, and it’s no exaggeration to say that my fascination with psychology and especially personality springs from this book. While comic (I read it before I watched the series and it’s darker and more nuanced), it is never that far from tragedy, and I enjoy books which present both as sides of the same coin. Although I now live in Surrey, part of me is still affected by this every time I take a train to London to meet a client! Years later, I met author David Nobbs and told him how much it had meant to me – a memorable moment.

Five Little Pigs Agatha Christie I’m a sucker for a detective novel, and Dame Agatha was the Queen of the Golden Age. Her plots have never been bettered, though it’s often said she was less good at characterisation. While perhaps a little dated and naive, her later books in particular did try to include liberal doses of psychology.

No Nonsense Joey Barton Many footballers’ autobiographies could have been written by a computer, but this is not one of them.

Barton’s career has been full of controversy, but he writes with honesty and thorough self-examination.

You feel that you’ve walked a mile in his shoes, and perhaps it will change your view of the man.

This Is Going to Hurt Adam Kay This recent bestseller is a stark, eye-opening but never less than hilarious account of what it’s really like to be a junior doctor in today’s NHS, the perfect antidote to those Carry On films and safe, droll Richard Gordon adaptations. It can be very sad, but the dark humour is always there, and it was so well received that it even got the author an audience with Jeremy Hunt.

Black Sheep: The Hidden Benefits of Being Bad Richard Stephens It’s not often that a psychology book makes genuinely enjoyable reading but this is one to relish. Stephens brings us fascinating research – much of which I had not previously encountered – on the naughtiest of human pursuits and finds that, at times, they might not be quite so bad for us after all. This is just the book to buy for a prudish relative as a present.

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Frankenstein Mary Shelley Everyone knows the basics of the story but the novel that started it all is a revelation (Shelley was a teenager when she wrote it!), full of musings on alienation, attempts at belonging and questions about our collective destinies. ‘Monster’ seems the wrong word for The Creature – in many ways, he is as much a misunderstood teen as Holden Caulfield. A recent stage production at the Royal Exchange in Manchester came closer to the spirit of the book than anything I’ve seen before (though I’ve always loved Mel Brooks’s take on the tale).

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets J.K. Rowling This was where I first ‘got’ Harry Potter: as funny as it is gripping, with oodles of psychology thrown in almost subliminally. The seasoned psychometrician might ponder Harry’s concern that he has been put into the wrong house (a critique of type theories, obviously) and Dumbledore’s comment that ‘it is our choices that make us what we are’ (a wholehearted endorsement of ipsative scaling).

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The results do the talking Kate Johnstone, Associate Editor for Culture, reviews Magic Medicine and interviews the director, Monty Wates

film Magic Medicine Monty Wates (Director)

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H

ave you ever taken magic mushrooms? Many people have, for fun. But the Psychedelic Research Group at Imperial College takes psychedelic drugs seriously.

The group studies the action of psychedelic drugs in the brain, and their clinical utility. And in particular, their relationship to depression.

This documentary by Monty Wates was filmed over two years and follows one such trial run by the research group. It starts with a brief run-through of why we are in the position we have today, with certain drugs being classified as illegal (Class A, B and C). Magic mushrooms are Class A, which means running even a small-scale feasibility trial requires an immense amount of time and effort to navigate the bureaucracy of the Home Office.

This drudgery has already happened before the cameras roll. The trial is to test the feasibility of psilocybin (the

‘magic’ element), combined with psychological support, for treatment-resistant depression.

The filmmaker obtained permission to follow three of the participants (see interview for details of how access to the trial was obtained). And whilst the film is interested in the clinical trial, and we hear from some of the researchers, it’s the stories of these three men that is the focus. As people who have had depression for many years, they are all desperate to escape their virtual prisons.

We are allowed in to observe the sessions when psilocybin is administered – first a safety dose, then a week later a treatment dose. We gain some insight into some of the issues that can be brought up by the psychedelic ‘journey’, and why that might facilitate a process of psychological transformation. For two of the men at least, the difference is almost immediate, and

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the psychologist november 2018 culture startling. It’s especially moving to hear John’s teenage children talk about seeing their father in a new light: both are too young to have much memory of him before depression took hold. The film quietly makes the point that how the family around the person behave, and react, is a crucial part of the treatment process. Everyone must be willing, and able, to change.

The film does not make any grand claims about psilocybin, but lets the results do the talking. I was left with the feeling at the end that, for two men at least, it is an absolute tragedy that they cannot be prescribed another dose of psilocybin in the future. It is, obviously, still illegal. Perhaps this film will help to show that the drugs do work.

Why did you decide to make this documentary?

I had a friend, Lizzie Gillett [the film’s executive producer], who had been looking to make a documentary about mental health for a while, but had just not found the right story. All the stories were just depressing and hard to watch, and so she couldn’t work out how to tell them in an interesting way. Then she saw an article in the Evening Standard [about the trial] and rang me and said we need to make this film, and make it together.

subject, and we basically said to him, we’re not going to make this film unless we have completely unfettered access to the trial and the people. We’re not sugarcoating this, we’re not doing a puff piece for your trial, we will film what happens, and that’s the story that Why did the study team agree to filming? we’re going to tell… if you can’t agree to that then this We went and met with Robin Carhart-Harris (Head of one’s not for us.

Psychedelic Research Group, Imperial College), and he And he did agree to that, and it turned out that he said no initially. He was approached by lots of people completely stood by that. Whenever I wanted to speak to actually. Then Robin contacted us again out of the blue him, I was able to; whenever I wanted to speak to David and said do you want to come in and meet Professor Nutt, I was able to. I could ask any David Nutt this time as well? After question I wanted, there was never the first 12 participants had been an issue… because I was genuinely through their process, Robin realised “…we’re not doing a puff inquisitive about what was going they were happy with the way it was going, and they thought there was piece for your trial, we will wrong and what was going right. an interesting story about that. He film what happens, and Did the participants have concerns liked the idea of there being a film that’s the story that we’re about your presence? around the trial– it’s a very different Yes they did. That was their call. way of talking to an audience than going to tell…”

In hindsight, I think that me being an academic journal. I think that there may have helped, not hindered. he believed in the possibility and I was trusted. I was there to be able thought it would make an interesting to reflect back to participants a lot of stuff they had seen documentary. in their trips, and thought about, and also some things I was amazed that Robin and David said yes. that they hadn’t thought about.

First medicinal psychedelic trial in the UK ever, and they By the point we started filming, there were only five let a cameraman come in and film it. But David Nutt patients left who hadn’t taken the drugs. Three said yes to believes in the power of these drugs, and the possibility filming. During the trial [when taking psilocybin] I wasn’t of changing the perception of them. If this film gets on in the room, it was a fixed camera. I was in the room TV, which it hopefully will do, that’s a million people plus during the re-integration sessions. With people who are seeing something about their trial. clearly struggling with mental health problems, to just Robin liked the way that we were approaching the be able to put anything out was just wrong. I said to them you can pull out at any time during filming, but no one did. They go to some deep places with me in the film. It The premiere of Magic Medicine is at the Curzon Soho, London on 8 November, seemed to me there was nothing off and includes a Q&A with Monty Wates; and a screening at the Regent Street limits… I never heard ‘I’m not going Cinema, London on 19 December features a Q&A with Professor David Nutt. to answer that question’, and they Details of these and more screenings can be found at magicmedicine.net. would go wherever I asked them to go.

Magic Medicine is available for organisations and individuals to license, or to My relationship continued with organise public or private screenings. Email matt@dartmouthfilms.com for them way after the trial finished with further information or call the distributors directly on 020 7845 5857.

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them. Just having that person there that they could talk to, and I’d ring them every few weeks or months, and just see how there were, and to have that was helpful.

At the point (of the final cut) we had agreed together they were going to be in the film. We agreed that they couldn’t at that point pull out as I had invested so much time and energy in the film, over the last two years.

But if there was something in the film that was factually incorrect, or they felt it completely misrepresented their story, then we would have talked about that, and if they wanted it out, then it would have come out. But actually at the end of the viewing John was crying, and I cried with him. He said, ‘I’ll never forget you for that, Monty, I haven’t trusted people for a very long time, I’ve only trusted a few people. It’s reignited my faith in human beings.’

He did ask me if it was me being a clever director and being friendly to get what I wanted from him, and I assured him that’s not who I am!

How much of the science did you feel you had to understand or explain?

I don’t really understand the details of the science… part of me thinks the scientists don’t really understand some of the science either! For me it was a human story all the way, but we would drop in bits of science when it was relevant. This is a film for a general audience. I didn’t set out to do this, but now that it’s done I realise it’s a film which is there to educate people as to the possibilities of this drug, not just being a hedonistic and dangerous drug, but one that in the right circumstances can be used to treat.

What did the trial show?

At three weeks half of the group were off antidepressants, completely depression-free, living a completely functional life. At six months there were six people. The trial stopped collecting data after that. If that doesn’t show promise, I don’t know how you define promise.

For a number of people it had a completely transformative effect. With John for a month, maybe two months after, it was quite meaningful. He felt fixed, he felt like he’d been cured. But then the problem he was facing was, how do I now integrate my cure into my family life?

We could have finished the edit at six months, John would have been OK, Andy would have been OK. This would have been amazing, wonderful. But that’s not a good way to present this information. The message is, there is a promise here, there are still two people, maybe

Find more reviews online at thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/reviews, including Joanna Semlyen on The Miseducation of Cameron Post.

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If you would like to contribute a psychologically-informed review of a recent cultural offering – such as TV, radio, podcast, exhibition, film, play and more – contact our editor on jon.sutton@bps.org.uk or look out for opportunities by following us on Twitter @psychmag.

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three who are still depression-free three years later.

And these are people who have had depression for an average of 18 years, between the whole group.

The film’s not saying give everyone psychedelic medicine because it’s a winner, it’s saying make it easier to research so they can try and work out if it is or not.

What if these people were complete flukes? We just don’t know that.

Did the study team learn anything from you?

Maybe! The main thing that they may have learnt was that partners, and families, need to be looked after too, and that they should connect people in the trial with each other. They may have got there on their own, but the fact was that I was talking to the families so much, and then talking to them, it raised issues, e.g. Maggie feels she hasn’t got a clue what’s going on, she feels like she’s a bit stupid; John can’t talk to Maggie about it as she hasn’t been through it; Yvonne feels the same with her partner.

I think in the next trial they’re setting up WhatsApp groups for the people who have been through the trial, and producing information for the families.

What advice would you give to others who are running trials and want to involve a filmmaker?

Choose very, very carefully the person you get to do it.

Make sure that you know their history and that you get lots of references as to the type of person that they are, and the type of films that they make. I would watch the films that they’d made before, insist on that. That will tell you the type of filmmaker that they are.

I really believe in the power of stories. I think films have a way into people that almost nothing else does.

I really do believe that a story well told is fascinating and interesting and really worth doing. The danger is that you get someone who is wanting to make a name for themselves, and they make a film that doesn’t represent reality. So the other thing is to get a contract which says you have the right to review.

If you want to do it, do your research with the filmmaker and then jump in with everything. Don’t try and sugar-coat the reality of what’s happening, because that will just reflect really badly both in the film and on you. So if you believe in your trial, and you believe in your filmmaker and have done your due diligence on that, then go in completely and just say what you want to say, try not to stop yourself. The more honest you are, the better you come across, and the better the film will be. Do all the due diligence up front and once you’re completely satisfied you’re in a safe place, then treat the filmmaker like a friend and there will be a much more interesting product at the end.

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the psychologist november 2018 culture AGAIN © Lawrence Epps

From gaming to gambling

This thought-provoking show is spread over two floors of a newly renovated space at King’s College London’s Guy’s Campus, exploring addiction through science and art.

The journey through the gallery begins with ‘Natural Born Thrillers’ and invites visitors to test the boundaries between pleasure and an all-consuming desire that could eventually lead to self-harm.

Focusing on consumer culture, art installations, including a sugar table that collapses under its own weight (Sugar Rush, Atelier 010), the uncomfortably ‘sweet’ marshmallow pants (Another Day on Earth, Olivia Locher) and the excitement that comes when coins finally come out of the slot machine in No Change by Kypros Kyrpianou, remind us how easy it is to sometimes lose control.

We’re left with the question: What else could we be addicted to?

The answer, perhaps for some of us, is hidden somewhere in the second part of the exhibition ‘Speed of Light’. Screens with images of batteries that incessantly charge and discharge create a feeling of security and unease respectively (Sisyphus, Esmeralda Kosmatopoulos). A movie telling the story of the love affair between a girl and her phone (Me. You. Limbo., Yole Quintero) invites us to question our own technology use or misuse.

In contrast to the more ‘intimate’ nature of the first two parts of the

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exhibition, which encourage the visitor to mostly self-reflect, the last two parts, ‘Free Will’ and ‘Safe from Harm’, deal with the impact of addiction on the individual as well as society. The Curtain of Broken Dreams, by Natasha Caruana, provides a powerful visual expression of how the strongest of relationships can be broken by addiction. The curtain was created using pawned gold wedding rings, and their number represents 1 per cent of divorces in the UK over a typical 12-month period. The impactful visual and tactile experience that this artwork offers is further enhanced by the dance film playing in the background, where the choreographed gestures represent unhelpful pressures on a relationship.

Throughout the exhibition the presence of science is constant but subtle. An eye-tracking device showing where our gaze focuses when matching motifs in a slot machine (Entering the Machine Zone II, Katriona Beales), along with the explanation of which parts of our brains are more susceptible to addictive cues offered by a recovering alcoholic (Twelve, Melanie Manchot), are perhaps among the most explicitly scientific moments of the show. On the ground floor of the gallery however, a real scientific experiment, in which anyone interested can take part, has been set up by Professor Mitul Mehta and

the neuropharmacology lab from the Department of Neuroimaging, King’s College London. In order to understand whether expectation of the effects of a substance could positively influence our mood and performance, the Science Gallery offers visitors a voucher for free coffee, but there is a catch… it may not be caffeinated, and on the back of the voucher is printed the probability of your drink being caffeinated or not. Participants then answer some lifestyle questionnaires and perform tasks of attention and social cognition on a tablet. The results of this experiment will be shared with the public in 2019.

From gaming and sugar to gambling and alcohol, ‘Hooked’ explores the many forms that addiction could take. The show encompasses the idea that harmful substances such as alcohol and drugs can be addictive but also highlights how things that we use daily but wouldn’t necessarily call harmful can begin with pleasure but can eventually become detrimental.

This exhibition offers a nonjudgemental environment where visitors have the opportunity to selfreflect on their own habits, better understand addiction and take part in research!

exhibition Hooked: When Want Becomes Need Science Gallery, London

Reviewed by Sonali Dave and Vasileia Kotoula, Research Students at King’s College London

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The lasting legacy of Dr Anonymous Cade Anderson-Smith looks back on the DSM, homosexuality and the 1972 American Psychiatric Association Convention

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n 1973 the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. In doing so, it rid those gay men and women living in America and the Western world (and wherever else the DSM found itself as the authority on mental health) from ‘illness’. Or as a headline from the Chicago Gay Crusader put it, ‘20,000,000 Gay People cured!’. The path to the de-medicalisation of homosexuality was a long and winding one, so this article will focus on one story in particular. The story of the 1972 APA convention, or the story of how a man in an oversized tuxedo can change the world.

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Psychiatry and homosexuality Before the formation of the DSM-I in 1952, homosexuality was already considered by many experts as an illness. In the 1940s psychoanalysts such as Sandor Rado argued that homosexuality was a phobic condition. By the time of the DSM-I homosexuality Key sources was sufficiently pathologised to be included as a ‘Sociopathic Personality Disorder’.

Bayer, R. (1981). Homosexuality and Despite what we might see American psychiatry: The politics of diagnosis. New York: Basic Books. as apparent hostility from the Clarke, V., Ellis, S.J., Peel, E. & Riggs, psychiatric community towards D.W. (2014). Lesbian, gay, bisexual homosexuals, many gay men trans and queer psychology (3rd edn). and women welcomed this Cambridge: Cambridge University diagnostic label. Psychiatry had Press. the ability to shift the perspective LGBT Issues Committee (n.d.). The history of psychiatry and homosexuality. of homosexuality from a criminal Retrieved from www.aglp.org/gap/1_ and unnatural perversion to a history genuine illness. Many reasoned it Soares, M. (1998). The purloined ladder. was better to be viewed as ill than Journal of Homosexuality, 34(3–4), 27–49. as a criminal, a position taken by Speech of Dr. Henry Anonymous many early ‘homophile’ groups.

(John Fryer). (n.d.). Retrieved from https://217boxes.com/speech Formed in 1950, the male-centric Spiegel, A. (Writer and Narrator). (2002, Mattachine Society hosted talks January). 81 Words [Radio programme]. from eminent psychiatrists such In I. Glass (Host) This American Life. as Albert Ellis, who supported the Chicago Public Radio. notion of homosexuality as a phobic condition. The Mattachines also

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frequently welcomed articles by those with such views in their journal The Mattachine Review. Additionally, the mission statement of The Daughters of Bilitis, a pro-lesbian group founded in 1955, stated the group’s commitment to sponsoring discussions with psychiatrists and other professionals.

For many gay men and women, the presence of a diagnostic label was important for reasons other than just the shift it brought to society’s perspective on homosexuality. If their orientation was an illness, then there could be a ‘cure’. Conversion therapies were popular among many psychiatrists and homosexuals distressed by their orientation. Psychiatrists such as Charles W. Socarides, an ardent critic of the removal of homosexuality from the DSM, claimed to have ‘cured’ homosexuality in numerous individuals. These ‘conversion’ therapies included aversion therapies and more traditional talking therapies.

‘We are the true authorities on homosexuality’ This congeniality began to change, however, as the 1950s wore on. For both the Daughters of Bilitis and The Mattachine Society the publication of psychoanalyst Edmund Bergler’s book Homosexuality: Disease or Way of Life? in 1956 proved a step too far.

Both organisations roundly criticised Bergler’s views on homosexuality as an illness. This was in part due to the more extreme slant of the views, but also due to the changing attitudes among many activists. By the time the DSM-II was published in 1968, recategorising homosexuality as a ‘paraphilia’, psychiatry had become a key target of many gay activists, such as Frank Kameny and Barbra Gittings.

Kameny began his career in activism after he was fired by the US Army Map Service for his sexuality in 1957. Kameny, unlike early homophile groups, was not content to gain equality through dialogue alone and instead encouraged protests, pickets and the leafleting of those organisations and institutions that worked to oppress the gay community. For Kameny, this meant psychiatry and the APA. In his mind the whole success of the gay rights movement rested upon removing the diagnostic label from homosexuality and wrestling the

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the psychologist november 2018 looking back

whilst Kinsey’s extensive interviews with American men and women suggested that homosexual acts were far more common than once believed. Gittings later recalled: ‘My thinking didn’t change until Frank Kameny came along and said plainly… homosexuality is no sickness.’ This represented an important ideological shift for an activist with strong influence within the gay rights movement.

Kameny and Gittings helped place psychiatry clearly within the crosshairs of the new, more active gay rights organisations. As the 1960s progressed, psychiatrists found themselves facing a more and more hostile environment. Psychiatrists now found the people who only years before were happy to listen to them discuss the pathology of same-sex attraction picketing outside their offices, disrupting their conferences and leafleting their lectures. The Stonewall riots in 1969 furthered this activism.

Then in 1970 the American Psychiatric Association made the decision to host its annual convention in San Francisco, a hub of gay rights activism.

Naturally, for gay activists, the opportunity could not be passed up, and the decision was made to protest at the convention. Activists picketed outside whilst others disrupted expert panels on homosexuality and confronted those psychiatrists who propagated the notion of homosexuality as an illness. Despite the APA allowing Kameny and Gittings to host a limited panel at the 1971 APA convention, protests still occurred, this time with activists storming the podium of its opening ceremony. By the time of the 1972 convention, the APA realised that the only way to avoid more disruptions would be to allow gay activists a more prominent voice within proceedings. The activists were given a booth in the convention’s scientific hall and another panel, one that was to include activists and psychiatrists.

Cade AndersonSmith is a second-year undergraduate at Goldsmiths, University of London, studying for a BSc in Psychology with Clinical Psychology C.Anderson-Smith@outlook.com

authority of homosexuality away from psychiatrists and placing it back within the gay community.

Kameny summed his opinion thus: ‘We are the true authorities on homosexuality whether we are accepted as it or not.’

Gittings, the editor of the Daughters of Bilitis journal The Ladder and founder of its New York branch, also believed that strong activism was needed.

Unlike Kameny, however, she was less oppositional to the psychiatric movement. Until, that was, she attended a convention hosted by the East Coast Homophile Organization in 1963. Dr Ellis was invited to speak, as he often was by such organisations, about his belief in curing homosexuality. After him, Kameny was set to speak. Kameny used this opportunity to deliver a rebuttal of Ellis’s views and instead suggested there was no valid evidence for homosexuality as an illness. In fact, research by Evelyn Hooker and Alfred Kinsey provided evidence for the opposite conclusion.

Hooker’s work suggested homosexual men were clinically indistinguishable from heterosexual men

Dr Henry Anonymous

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Psychiatry – friend or foe?

The task of organising the panel, named ‘Psychiatry: Friend or Foe to the Homosexual? A Dialogue’, was left to Gittings, who had no hesitation in inviting Kameny back once again to speak. Gittings also asked several psychiatrists who supported the removal of homosexuality from the DSM to speak. Once the panel was arranged and its members secured, Gittings’ partner noted one major flaw with the line-up: it did not contain a gay psychiatrist. After searching, Gittings happened upon Dr John Fryer.

Dr Fryer was a gifted psychiatrist with a keen interest in end-of-life care. Prior to Gittings’ call, he had been fired from two separate institutions because of to his sexuality. One boss who had discovered his sexuality had reasoned that whilst it might have been acceptable to employ someone who was camp (which

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they believed Fryer to be) and it might even have been acceptable to hire someone who was gay, it was not acceptable to hire someone who was both. Keen not to lose another position Fryer originally turned Gittings down. It was only after months of subsequent rejections that Gittings once again contacted Fryer, Finally, Dr Anonymous noted the loss to humanity begging for his help. Fryer agreed on the condition he that was being inflicted by forcing gay psychiatrists to could be disguised. hide their identity. ‘We are taking…a risk, however, in In crafting his disguise Fryer turned to a friend not living full our humanity, with all of the lessons it of his, a drama major. He recommended an oversized has to teach all other humans around us.’ He finished tuxedo to hide Fryer’s frame (Fryer, it has been noted, his speech by declaring that gay psychiatrists must ‘use was an imposing man). To disguise his face, it was our skills and wisdom to help them [heterosexuals] decided that a latex mask, disfigured beyond all and us grow to be comfortable with that little piece of recognition and topped with a curly wig, would be humanity called homosexuality’. used. For that honour, a mask of Richard Nixon was After his speech, Dr Anonymous received a chosen. On the day of the panel, Fryer used a voicestanding ovation. Later Fryer noted that just a few distorting microphone to deliver rows from the front, amongst his speech. All these precautions the psychiatrists applauding Dr ensured that it would not be Anonymous’s bravery and candid “Dr Anonymous noted the wisdom, was that official who had Fryer who addressed the filled hall, but ‘Dr Henry Anonymous’. loss to humanity that was fired him for being both gay and His disguise also served another being inflicted by forcing flamboyant. purpose – by hiding Fryer it gay psychiatrists to hide allowed him to speak on behalf of all gay psychiatrists not just The 1973 decision their identity. ‘We are himself.

Homosexuality was removed from taking…a risk, however, At the panel, each member the DSM in 1973 and replaced with in not living full our spoke about the need to remove ‘ego-dystonic homosexuality’. The homosexuality from the DSM. APA reasoned that whilst being gay humanity, with all of the The psychiatrists on the panel lessons it has to teach all was not inherently pathological, argued that the evidence for it did bring with it the possibility other humans around us.’” of unique mental health issues homosexuality as a pathology was limited and biased. Kameny asked caused by the distress of same-sex the psychiatrists to ally themselves attraction. with the gay activists, and Gittings, The actual practical process of foreshadowing Dr Anonymous, spoke of the its removal was aided heavily by an encounter between gay psychiatrists operating within the profession. gay activist Ron Gold and Charles Spitzer, a junior Then Dr Anonymous spoke. member of the APA’s nomenclature committee (the ‘I am homosexual, I am a psychiatrist,’ Dr committee tasked with determining what conditions Anonymous began. ‘I, like most of you in this room, made the DSM) in 1972. Whilst this is another story am a member of the APA and am proud of that for another time, Fryer’s speech is cited as a key factor membership.’ He explained how, for the hundreds of behind the momentum and attitude change within gay psychiatrists present at the convention (the selfthe APA that facilitated its removal of homosexuality styled ‘Gay PA’), only by ensuring that ‘no one in a from the DSM. All mentions of homosexuality were position of power is aware of our sexual preference eventually removed from the DSM in 1987. or gender identity’ could they hope to thrive in their The removal of the sickness label was a watershed profession. moment for the LGBTQ community and a key Dr Anonymous continued by highlighting the victory in their struggle against prejudice. Not only difficulties involved in trying to keep a coherent sense did it aid in the integration of gay individuals into of health when by being gay you were technically ill. healthy society it also shifted the psychological focus He pointed to the irony that many gay psychiatrists of homosexuality away from an exclusively clinical ‘work 20 hours daily to protect institutions who would setting and into the everyday – something that the literally chew us up and spit us out’. emergent field of LGBTQ psychology has built upon.

Then Dr Anonymous addressed the members of Fryer was officially recognised as Dr Anonymous the ‘Gay PA’. He tasked them with showing ‘creative at the 1994 APA Convention. Fryer died in 2003. In ingenuity’ in challenging the status quo and implored his honour the APA now grants the ‘Fryer Award‘ to them to ‘pull your courage up by your bootstraps…for individuals who significantly contribute to improving we all have something to lose’. the health of sexual minorities. The award doesn’t specify whether these individuals need to do so whilst wearing the distorted mask of a former US president.

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AZ the

psychologist to

Karla Novak

W ...is for Willpower

Suggested by Tamsyn Hawken @HealthPsychTam

In a study of social attitudes discussed by Claudia Hammond in her 2016 book extract, researchers noted that between 1994 and 2010 the percentage of respondents saying people were poor due to their laziness or lack of willpower had increased from 15 per cent to 23 per cent, while the proportion citing injustice in the system had declined from 29 to 21 per cent.

If you’re in need of tips for breaking bad habits, listen to episode 2 of PsychCrunch, the podcast from our Research Digest.

88

There are cognitive skills and strategies that can be learned in order to delay gratification, said the late Walter Mischel when we spoke to him in 2014. ‘This is very good news because it allows a much more

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coming soon… a special feature on how real people communicate; plus all our usual news, views, reviews, interviews, and much more...

optimistic view than the one that willpower is very much a trait that you can’t do much about.’

Roy Baumeister’s ego depletion account – the notion that willpower is a fuel that gets burned away with effort – has been the subject of highprofile failed replication attempts. And a study led by Mario Wenzel and covered on our Research Digest suggested that even if the effect is genuine it may not be relevant. They concluded that we should focus on the mechanisms that matter and less on laboratory-induced blips in performance.

Anorexia has been described as ‘an extreme manifestation of willpower’ – see the discussion in Nancy Tucker’s 2016 ‘New voices’.

A to Z Tweet your suggestions for any letter to @psychmag using the hashtag #PsychAtoZ or email the editor on jon.sutton@ bps.org.uk Entries so far are collated at https:// thepsychologist. bps.org.uk/ psychology-z

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Extract from The Charter

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