The Psychologist November 2020

the psychologist

the

psychologist november 2020

november 2020

Marie Jahoda – the ultimate example Michael Billig turns to historical studies of writing psychology to argue for ‘more examples, less theory’

www.thepsychologist.org.uk

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02/10/2020 11:05

the psychologist

the

psychologist november 2020

november 2020

contact The British Psychological Society 48 Princess Road East Leicester LE1 7DR 0116 254 9568 info@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 advertising Reach 50,000+ psychologists at very reasonable rates.

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Marie Jahoda – the ultimate example Michael Billig turns to historical studies of writing psychology to argue for ‘more examples, less theory’

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’

The Psychologist needs you!

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.

Contact the editor Dr Jon Sutton on jon.sutton@bps.org.uk, or tweet us on @psychmag.

Managing Editor Jon Sutton Deputy Editor Annie Brookman-Byrne Production Mike Thompson Journalist Ella Rhodes Editorial Assistant Debbie Gordon Research Digest Matthew Warren (Editor), Emily Reynolds, Emma Young

Associate Editors Articles Paul Curran, Harriet Gross, Michelle Hunter, Rebecca Knibb, Adrian Needs, Paul Redford, Sophie Scott, Mark Wetherell, Jill Wilkinson History of Psychology Alison Torn Interviews Gail Kinman Culture Kate Johnstone Books Emily Hutchinson Voices in Psychology Madeleine Pownall Psychologist and Digest Editorial Advisory Committee Catherine Loveday (Chair), Emma Beard, Harriet Gross, Kimberley Hill, Deborah Husbands, Peter Olusoga, Richard Stephens, Miles Thomas

01/10/2020 20:34

the

psychologist november 2020

02 Letters Gender, racism, what do we look and sound like, and more 08 Obituaries

12 News

Lived

experience, awards,

UK Trauma

Council

and more 18 Digest

Self- insight,

and more

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24 Understanding self-harm Ella Rhodes hears from researchers in the field

30 You are more than your productivity

Maria Kordowicz on creating

meaning post Covid-19

50 Careers We meet Christian van Nieuwerburgh; and hear from Ruth Corkett about her placement in a young offenders’ institution

54 Jobs in psychology Featured job, latest vacancies

40 ‘Our diversity is our strength’

We meet Shelley McKeown

Jones to talk social psychology

56 Books Anxiety; dance; humour and class

42 Marie Jahoda: the ultimate example

Michael Billig argues for

‘more examples, less theory’

in an adapted and extended

extract from his book

62 Culture #ALittleBitOfGood in the world

68 Looking back Jennifer O’Mahoney on narrative psychology and historical institutional abuse

72 One on one Richard Skelton

34 #bropenscience is broken science

Kirstie Whitaker and Olivia

Guest ask how open ‘open

science’ really is

This month’s cover feature is a ‘long read’, an edited and adapted extract from a recent book by a psychologist, thinker and writer I have long admired – Michael Billig.

The message of Mick’s article is important, including what he has to say on writing in psychology. As a magazine, constantly seeking to engage as well as inform, through a mix of the personal and professional, we often echo his advice to ‘populate’ your writing.

‘May you overspill your examples with your own distinctive character, broad vision and humane understanding’, Billig urges.

This doesn’t mean abandoning the scientific.

We just think the people behind the science, and the science behind people, are our best shot at reaching our increasingly large and wide audience (in print and online).

If you could tell a story around your work – with our help – then we want to hear from you. The Psychologist is your magazine, and this is your chance to shape it.

Dr Jon Sutton Managing Editor Twitter: @psychmag Email: jon.sutton@bps.org.uk

01/10/2020 20:35

Déjà vu in diversity discussions?

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Tim Sanders/www.timonline.info

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I was surprised to see the letter ‘Freedom of expression around diversity guidelines’ in the October issue of The Psychologist. In that letter Alcock et al. argue for the withdrawal of guidance for psychologists working with gender, sexual and relationship diversity (GSRD). I was surprised because I simply do not recognise the version of the document described.

Contrary to what is claimed, nowhere in the actual document do I see a rejection of useful models, not unless they refer to the statement that ‘modalities which do not accept GSRD identities and practices as being entirely as valid and legitimate as other identities and practices must not be used’ (p.7) – but that doesn’t stop us using helpful models of practice, and on what grounds would psychologists want to use any approach that pathologises sexuality and gender?

Similarly, nowhere do I see a definition of affirmative, let alone one that suggests a rigid, static understanding of gender that is not open to evolution, updating and development in light of deepening understanding. Nor do I read a call to eschew research – neither the use of existing work nor work that would further strengthen the field. To the contrary the guidelines explain that ‘psychological practice should be evidence-based and include established best practice’ (p.7). It is for this reason that I have used these guidelines in my teaching for many years and students have never voiced the concerns outlined by these colleagues. To the contrary, what has happened on several occasions is trainees have fed back that these guidelines are unusually clear and useful and help them think their way through the complexities of practice. Of course, this doesn’t mean that these guidelines cannot be further developed but nowhere does the document claim to be the final word. It is clearly open to ongoing development as evidenced by this being the second iteration and I was pleased that the Society noted some potentially useful areas of development already on the horizon.

These colleagues feel ‘the current guidelines effectively prohibit psychologists from taking a questioning approach and applying ethical practice in these situations’. How on earth does one come to this understanding? I am perturbed as there is a ‘déjà vu’ quality to this argument. In years gone by, multiple discussions/arguments occurred to the effect that we should not offer lesbian and gay clients an affirmative therapy. Amongst the range of concerns (some scarily problematic) seemed to be a concern that ‘affirmative’ might have to mean the privileging of a static identity marker over and above an attuned understanding of lived experience. I hear echoes of that here. Yet, it seems to me that, as in the past, these concerns can be ameliorated with the recognition that ‘affirmation’ does not imply anything static. To affirm as valid, the experience being described, means that one has to recognise what a client tells us is valid. We should still be aware that that

may become more alive and nuanced as time goes on – experience is dynamic and in flux. Affirmation does not require a premature assumption of one singular experience, not if one is truly aiming to be attuned to the client’s experience. Initial understandings are always open to evolve, contrary to what seems to be floated in this letter this document supports formulation. Although I would be concerned if a psychologist was found waiting to pounce and somehow doubt an expression of sexual or gendered identity.

Contrary to the authors’ claim, these guidelines do not imply that GSRD folk should be understood as not having ‘multiple contributory factors to psychological distress’. In fact, the guidelines explicitly remind us that ‘many of the principles and guidelines discussed below apply equally well to heterosexual, monogamous and cisgender people, as well as people with forms of diversity other than sexuality, gender or relationships’ (p.4). This is an explicit suggestion that we should bring our most contextualised understanding to all clients. If it were the case that a client’s experience led a clinician to have to somehow doubt the gendered or sexual identity aspect of a client’s experience, this can still be assisted by these guidelines, they simply remind us that good practice requires that ‘robust clinical reasoning should be presented on those occasions when an identity or practice is not supported’ (p.6). How is that not best practice?

So rather than see a need to withdraw these guidelines, I would think there is a need for them to take greater prominence in psychological training and policy in order to ensure that a richer, more nuanced understanding of them is available to more psychologists, and that in turn, we as a Society would be more able to respond usefully when the time comes to update them.

That is where the real value of freedom of expression would come to the fore, potentially resulting in a vital and enriching engagement rather than simply more of the ‘cancel culture’ that is so prevalent today.

Professor Martin Milton Regents School of Psychotherapy and Psychology Regents University London miltonm@regents.ac.uk

02/10/2020 14:44

the psychologist november 2020 letters

What does evidence look like?

Despite its inflammatory appearance, I approached the September issue of The Psychologist with an open mind.

Like others, I believe The Psychologist has been dabbling in left-wing dogma for some time. Of course, this is arguably a reflection of the general readership – perhaps such inclinations are what members wish to read each month. Regardless, the September issue saw this previously simmering partiality come to a boil, at the expense of scientific rigour.

What I find most disconcerting is not the left-leaning stance in general, but rather the blind admission of guilt in statements such as ‘we are institutionally racist’ that result from it, based on evidence that is tenuous at best. For tenuous it is, since there was not even an attempt at building a comprehensive, research-based account of the issue – surely that is a bare necessity?

In the editor’s introduction we are rhetorically asked what ‘standing against racism’ means to The Psychologist. One of the suggestions is to provide a space for ‘constructive, evidence-based, psychological conversation’. Yet nothing about the September issue seems to align with this. In fact, it palpably contradicts it. Racism is abhorrent and is not an accusation that should be thrown around loosely; to do so is anything but constructive. Moreover, to do so without a sound evidence-base violates the scientific method and the principles the BPS claims to uphold.

It is inconceivable that, in the era of ’open science’, such strong claims in any other domain would be accepted without first establishing a sound body of evidence – why is racism an exception? We cannot expect to adequately tackle such an issue, if it is indeed an issue, without first being able to study and understand it.

This begs the question, what does a sound body of evidence look like?

Perhaps that is something we can have a ‘psychological conversation’ about. Some exploratory, multivariate analyses would make a good start

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(such work may already exist; if it does, I would question why it was not cited). Some members have pointed to data in other areas, perhaps this could be used as a model for our own field. What we can establish now is what a sound body of evidence does not look like: ‘If it feels like we’re institutionally racist, then we probably are’. To replace ‘institutionally racist’ with any given phenomenon reveals how flawed such a statement is.

It is important to note that I write this not from a place of disagreement. During my time as a member I have read many pieces in The Psychologist that I vehemently disagree with, and long may it continue. What differs in this instance is that I cannot conclusively disagree, nor for that matter agree, with the notion that the BPS is institutionally racist. In absence of evidence, conclusions are being drawn based on nothing more than surmise, jumping the proverbial gun.

I have read many of the responses to the publication and I hope this will not be perceived as belittling the experiences of some members. However, it is important to note that the BPS is not only the representative body for psychologists in the UK, but also of psychology.

When an overt deviation from best practice occurs, as it has in this instance, it is our duty to highlight and to scrutinise. For the BPS, neglecting the scientific method is to neglect its role at the frontier of psychology in the UK. Lewis Mitchell Graduate Member Essex

Editor’s reply: I received a number of emails along these lines in response to our September issue. I have sought to engage with them all, strongly disagreeing with the idea that the approach was ‘inflammatory’, and questioning when a discussion around racism became ‘left-wing dogma’.

All contributors to that edition were clear that this was just one more step in ‘mainstreaming the agenda’ around diversity and inclusion, and we have always been very open about our desire to see constructive, evidence-based, psychological conversation on these topics. Of course we want scientific rigour. But at the same time, we are not seeking a debate over whether or not racism exists in our society. The evidence for that is all around us, as Jermaine Ravalier outlines in the next letter. And we will never invalidate personal experience by demanding ‘where’s your scientific evidence?’

We are a magazine, where psychologists share their opinions and life stories.

There are undeniably many inequalities and barriers within our profession.

We will be hearing more about them in future editions. But, for now, the reaction to our September issue has only further convinced me that we were right to once again seek to spark a new conversation around such areas.

02/10/2020 14:44

Racism permeates society Black Lives Matter is one of the most significant movements of the last 30 years. Starting in America following the death of George Floyd, it has been fuelled by deaths of the likes of Breonna Taylor and Botham Jean, and the most recent shooting of Jacob Blake.

However, while these (and other) events have opened the door to protests in over 150 towns and cities in the UK, and thousands across the world involving millions of people, many today argue that racism is not as significant or severe as it used to be.

The racism that is faced by Black people in the UK today is often (but not always…) subtle. It doesn’t involve calling us the ‘N’ word and shouting monkey chants at us, but it takes a more subtle and insidious approach.

It involves using poor science to substantiate arguments because there is no good science which supports these arguments. It is the denouncing of Black Lives and ignoring the lived experience of countless Black people in the UK. This form of racism is subtle, because those espousing it don’t express overt racist views, and so claim that they’re being persecuted due to ‘political correctness’, or that they are entitled to their own opinion.

Letters online: Find more letters at www.thepsychologist.org.uk/debates, including: Degree(s?), experience, skills and training… but still ‘unqualified’?

Katie Voss and Alice McNamara reflect on the unrelenting standards for Assistant Psychologists.

‘We hurt. We suffer. We can sometimes cause harm.’

Dr Anna Chiara Sicilia on the DCP lived experience position statement.

Adoption and trauma Dominic McSherry on a debate and a journal special issue.

Can we adapt to this new reality?

Dr Stephen Blumenthal considers the behavioural immune system – cross cultural differences in behaviours adapted over millennia to reduce contagion.

Is this a moment when we change the way we think and interact?

Is reflective practice a good use of time in a medically-minded CMHT? Catherine Lye and Simone Stedmon write.

Time to ‘go big’ on the curriculum …now with follow up from Lucy Cooper.

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Deadline for letters for the December print edition is Friday 23 October 2020.

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’.

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So, in the era of fake news and being able to either deny or actively ignore evidence, I want to outline just a few areas of systematic oppression and overrepresentation that affects Black people in the UK. Over 20 years ago, the MacPherson Report found systematic, institutional racism in the Met Police (and it has since been highlighted that this is the case in most of our police Constabularies). More recently Black people have been disproportionately fined for Covid lockdown breaches. The Lammy Review identified systematic injustices in both Youth and Adult justice systems.

While we’ve all heard about Black people being hugely disproportionately stop and searched across the country, we don’t often hear that the arrest rate from these searches is only 5 per cent higher, despite a greater proportion of the (mostly young, male) Black population being searched. If more young, white men were stopped and searched would the arrest rate not be higher too?

Young Black people tend to do worse in secondary and higher education despite coming from an otherwise equal starting point. Black children are three times more likely to be expelled than their white counterparts, often for the same offence, and ten times more likely to be placed in care (social workers, a sector that I work with and research for, openly admit that this is often due to cultural misunderstandings).

Black people are over-represented in health with poorer mental and physical health outcomes. We are six times more likely to be sectioned due to mental ill health.

Black women are five times more likely to die during childbirth, Black families have an infant mortality rate twice as high as white families, and Black adults have a lower life expectancy.

These are just a few examples. Classic studies from social and cognitive psychology have demonstrated unconscious and conscious bias, socioeconomic status, self-fulfilling prophecies against Black people, and needing to change names and ethnicities on job applications just to get an interview.

Consistent evidence shows systemic racism permeates all levels of our society. To suggest that this is not the case is not only erroneous, it is masking a significant issue with cherry-picked evidence under the guise of science. As Dr Nasreen Fazal-Short discusses in the September issue of The Psychologist, we do need to broaden the conversation around racism in the industry.

If anyone genuinely believes that racism in psychology is not an issue then they are clearly mistaken, but we need to have a plan to tackle and address the institutional racism inherent within not only psychology, but as demonstrated above in so many of our institutions.

Dr Jermaine M. Ravalier Reader in Work & Wellbeing (Psychology) Bath Spa University Find links to sources etc in the online version

02/10/2020 14:44

the psychologist november 2020 letters

Grandparents at home In the Research Digest, Emma Young describes a study which suggests that grandparents moving into a family home may have ‘undesirable outcomes’ (September issue). She does point out that the participants were all ‘American’ (sic) but still implies that there is something unusual about children growing up with older relatives. This may be the case in post-industrial countries in Northern Europe and North America but the most cursory look at the rest of the world (see for example the UN report Household Size and Composition Around the World 2017) shows that multi-generational family life is the norm for the majority of people on our planet.

The study does report that participants growing up with an elderly person were ‘less anxious about their own aging’.

The convoluted explanation using cognitive dissonance suggests that those participants are reducing their

Family in front of their hut, Transkei, South Africa ‘discomfort at the idea of becoming older’ by telling themselves ‘that their aging outcomes will be different’. Again, in many cultures of the world, aging is not automatically a concern for anxiety and older people are considered repositories of wisdom as well as valued citizens (as powerfully described in the popular text ‘The Warmth of the Heart Prevents Your Body from Rusting’ by

French clinical psychologist Marie de Hennezel).

Perhaps there are ‘undesirable outcomes’ to living in a society that automatically resists the fact that people age and would rather they did it away from home.

Victoria Field Writer and Poetry Therapist Canterbury victoria@thepoetrypractice.co.uk

What Very identifying and nurturing new writing talent, we asked ‘What are the barriers to our profession, and how can we remove them?’

Important thing We received dozens of entries, and expect to publish the best in early 2021. have you lost or found Rather than wait a year before setting the next question, we thought we would crack on with a bit of an ‘interim’ on your psychology scheme. For this one we’re putting less emphasis on new writers. And given ‘these unprecedented times’ we’re still journey ? giving thought to what it is practical for us to do in terms For our 2020 Voices In Psychology programme, aimed at

We want to hear from you for a special ‘Voices In Psychology’

of supporting winning entrants and providing them with opportunities to expand their repertoire. Also, we’re open to more varied and creative entries than a 1000-word essay. But the ethos remains the same – we’re looking for psychologists who can engage and inform across the discipline.

The question we’re setting is ‘What Very Important thing have you lost or found on your Psychology journey?’

For full details visit our website: https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/what-very-important-thinghave-you-lost-or-found-your-psychology-journey Deadline: Friday 20 November 2020

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02/10/2020 14:46

Criticising Tajfel Stephen Munt defends the sexual harassment claims against Henri Tajfel by suggesting his behaviour fell within the bounds of normality for the times (September issue).

Munt states that ‘When I was an undergraduate in a social psychology department in the late 60s, many staff routinely socialised and had sexual relationships with students’.

This is, at best, tone deaf in relation to the #MeToo movement, as he ignores the structural inequalities that undoubtedly existed between

(male) academics having sexual relationships with their (female) students.

However this is not my main objection. The two articles which discuss Tajfel’s behaviour refer to his harassment of women (June issue), with Brown pointing out that ‘On at least one occasion, (Tajfel) was summoned to the university’s vice-chancellor, following a complaint from a student’. So, even in an era when sexual relations between staff and students were

considered ‘acceptable’ by many, Tajfel’s behaviour warranted official intervention.

For me, the take away point is not that times were different: it’s that even against this background, Tajfel’s behaviour was much worse than his peers. On that basis we are justified in singling him out for criticism.

Kate Johnstone Mental Health Researcher Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust

from the president I was recently asked to write a short piece for our colleagues in the Global Psychology Alliance, looking at the challenges psychologists face as mental health professionals, which are especially acute during this pandemic. We know that there has been a sharp rise in mental health issues including stress, depression and anxiety.

Whilst we are rightly proud of the BPS’s response to Covid-19, including the 70 pieces of timely guidance, our role is going to become more important as mental health concerns rise. The restrictions and measures brought in to prevent the spread of Covid-19 have hit the nation’s mental health hard, and for people from all walks of life. The situation is particularly acute for our health workers who have been on the frontline of this crisis.

As psychologists we have a significant role, both in the short term during Covid-19, and in supporting long-term mental health in our society. In some ways we could argue that the current pandemic can be seen as a turning point for UK mental health provision. As part of our response to the release of the NHS Interim People Plan in July, we highlighted the multi-level approach that psychology brings, and which can make a difference for patients, staff and organisations.

With government and decision makers, we continue to highlight the significant role of psychology and how to make a difference for the mental health of the nation. Psychology touches people’s lives in different ways. Particularly pertinent today is the role of leaders and organisations who have responsibility for ensuring that workplaces are psychologically healthy as well as physically safe.

With the rise in mental health issues, there is a need for different styles of leadership and different ways of working.

Compassionate leadership is becoming a core theme in the NHS, and it also has a place in other work environments. There has been significant research into the benefits of compassionate leadership, and for anyone looking to find out more, I suggest Professor Michael West’s work for the King’s Fund (tinyurl.com/ y5mj38xf and from The Psychologist tinyurl.com/westaug19).

Our recent response to the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee’s call for evidence on workforce burnout and resilience in the NHS highlighted that Covid-19 has exacerbated existing problems for NHS staff, many of whom were already under significant pressure.

Compassionate leadership focuses on improving staff wellbeing, loyalty, engagement and productivity. This is relevant for all organisations and particularly in the NHS where the eventual outcome is an improved experience for patients.

A leadership compact is being developed by the NHS to drive the behaviour and values of its senior managers and, we would argue, with compassion at the centre of NHS management initiatives.

For employers, the coming months will involve careful management of the blended approach to work, and we urge organisations to take this opportunity to address wellbeing and mental health. Psychologists work with employers to make longlasting changes to workplaces that not only make them Covidsecure, but healthy and sustainable for all staff.

Covid-19 has been an unprecedented crisis, but let’s work together to create positive long-term changes from it. Together we can build the ‘new normal’ where mental health in the workplace is at the top of the agenda. I know that many BPS members already have responsibilities for staff wellbeing, whether in the NHS or elsewhere. What are your experiences of best practice in embedding compassionate leadership and enhancing wellbeing for psychologically healthy workplaces?

Dr Hazel McLaughlin is President of the British Psychological Society. Contact her at PresidentsOffice@bps.org.uk

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02/10/2020 14:47

the psychologist november 2020 letters

Who looks and sounds like a psychologist?

I am moved to write in response to the new and important Division of Clinical Psychology Statement on lived experience [p.12]. In support, I want to share my own experience of coming into the world of Psychology.

In the 32 years since I started my Psychology degree, some things are improved, but there is still a problem with who ‘fits’ into the profession. It has got to change.

I am now a consultant clinical psychologist.

I am also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse.

These two aspects of my identity have collided throughout most of my career. There are experiences which I have weathered all through my career, but particularly when I was training and newly qualified. I’ve been privileged to work with many hugely talented colleagues and made many friends, some of whom know my history and have been so supportive. The difference that kindness has made cannot be overstated.

But for periods, the journey has taken huge amounts of emotional labour to survive. All along my path in Psychology, I have variously encountered classism, casual racism, sexism, but also something which concerned prejudice about mental health and survivorhood. I was very open that I was a survivor when I applied for training; at the time, it didn’t appear to be a barrier. Yet, I had some of the most corrosive experiences during training, and I seriously considered dropping out. Compared to fellow trainees, I was subject to an unhealthy and invasive level of scrutiny, and placement experiences which I requested were blocked, because of assumptions made about my past. This was silencing and shaming. I was effectively being told not to speak up or show interest in any areas which might personally resonate with my past. Just grateful to be training, I didn’t have the confidence or power to challenge it. It also rendered me vulnerable, as I felt I had to be very guarded. Thematically, some of this continued in my early career, with some colleagues (both psychologists and non-psychologists) questioning my professional judgment because of my survivor status.

They never appeared to question whether they knew enough about victim and survivor experiences – and it is difficult for me to separate these experiences out from other, intersecting aspects of my identity.

It’s a strange kind of binary, where a profession built on understanding the human psyche, cannot cope with a person who happens to be both a survivor and a clinician.

It led to me being very closed down about my history for many years, despite trying to write and think about it over my life. It wasn’t until I was co-presenting at conferences about the BPS Guidelines on disclosures of non-recent abuse that I felt able to be authentic again, in speaking up about my survivor identity. It was really striking how

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several audience members approached me after those events to thank me for speaking up; some also said that they were survivor practitioners or aspiring clinical psychologists.

I think my experience – and I assume others – highlights that there is a real, and as yet, unnamed form of prejudice and discrimination against people who are survivors. It is a kind of prejudice which can lead to harm upon harm, and it is part of a wider, societal constellation of injustices which can happen to those who have suffered trauma. I think this is evident in Psychology and who is considered to ‘fit’ into the profession. The profession needs to do better at being trauma informed, and to adopt practices which do not cause some sort of ‘iatrogenic’ harm to survivor practitioners.

We must hold that people have identities which are multitudinous and intersecting; the impacts of speaking safely will be mediated by factors such as classism, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and religious discrimination. This is not ‘woke’, it is just reality. Psychology is a discipline which needs to recognise internal and external worlds, and also understand that it has historically underserved people whose voices have been systemically ignored or silenced in the field of science and practice.

It is important to change the shape of social spaces, and to ensure that the template of ‘who looks and sounds like a psychologist’ radically expands. Psychologist allies in leadership positions really need to step up in numbers, and to listen to clinicians with lived experience and work in true partnerships with survivors and the organisations who are speaking with and for them. And for everyone, it’s really important to know your legal rights, to seek allies, advocates and to belong to a trade union, who can offer support and advice if needed.

Some of the conversations in Psychology at the moment are painful and difficult. I’ve been in my career long enough to feel sceptical, to see that we have been here before. Despite that, I am also hopeful. In this time of grief and masks and silence and a rising tide of knowing and speaking, there is a change in tone and momentum.

We simply must not lose the opportunity to all play a part in making Psychology a place where all people can be welcomed and claim rightful spaces as who they really are.

Dr Khadija Rouf Consultant Clinical Psychologist For the full version of this letter, please see https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/who-looks-andsounds-psychologist – where you will also find references and sources of support.

02/10/2020 14:47

Accessing events I was attracted by the advertisement of a recent BPS webinar ‘Talking about diversity among LGBT+ people’, and noted the focus on ethnicity and religion in LGBT+ communities. The advertisement outlined that ‘… the panel will look at how ethnicity and religion impacts people in our LBGT communities and how intersectionality must be a strong consideration in today’s psychological practices’. I saw that the webinar was to be held during Yom Kippur (28 September), effectively barring observant Jews from participation in the webinar.

While I hope that the webinar will be available to members after the event (this is not stated), I

did acknowledge the irony of the situation. Whilst Judaism is followed by only 0.5 per cent of UK citizens (2011 UK Census) compared to 5.5 per cent who follow Islam, 1.5 per cent who follow Hinduism, and a relatively whopping 59.4 per cent who identify as Christian, the field of psychology has enjoyed significant contributions from eminent Jewish scholars and psychologists – the major theorists of the Gestalt school were almost exclusively Jewish, as were many of the early proponents of psychoanalysis.

This episode made me wonder how many public (or departmental) events I had previously scheduled, unaware of the people

I had inadvertently prevented from participating. I have committed to becoming more aware of the dates for future scheduling and found that Interfaith Network (UK) provide an easily accessible online resource of important dates for major religious groups. I would wish for the BPS to do similar and to consider hosting member events on fully accessible dates where this is possible – particularly ones aiming to address issues of ethnicity and religion.

Sarah Verity Department of Paediatric Psychology Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Professor Margot Ruth Prior 1937-2020

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In loving memory of Margot Prior, researcher, clinician and pioneer in the study of autism and neurodevelopment, who died from Covid-19 on 25 August 2020.

Margot Prior’s first career was as a professional classical musician. Following the tragic loss of her first husband who drowned while saving two friends, Margot, the mother of three young children, began her second career, in psychology. In 1973 she published the first scientific article from Australia on autism and in the following 40 years the breadth and depth of her work was enormous. Her expertise spanned clinical, cognitive and developmental psychology and she brought these approaches together in a vast body of work including pioneering studies of autism, language impairment, dyslexia and ADHD, longitudinal work on temperament and experiments on children’s attention, reading and memory. It is therefore no surprise that her work had a wide-ranging impact internationally across the disciplines of developmental neuropsychology, psychiatry and psychology.

With her exceptional clarity of vision combined with a broad horizon of expertise, Margot was never constrained by prevailing paradigms or doctrines of the time. She bravely generated and tested new ideas, debunked unscientific and questionable interventions, pushed forward new knowledge and was always guided by the clear need to serve the families with whom she worked.

She wrote, researched, taught, mentored and, indeed, lived her life by directing energy and wisdom towards where it would make the most difference.

While opening new horizons in academic psychology, her purpose was in parallel to champion for the needs

of children and families, advocating at all levels for their welfare. Examples can be seen in her work in a clinic providing parenting advice for Aboriginal women, her advisor role in autism clinical services in Vietnam and India, her position as a founding member of La Trobe Institute for Peace Research, her book with colleagues showing us the societal changes necessary for children to achieve their potential, her UNESCO work and her advisory role to many governments and research centres internationally.

Her professional achievements reflect exceptional leadership. She was awarded the Order of Australia in 2004, Chair of the Social and Human Sciences Network for UNESCO (2005-2007), Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, the award of Doctor of Science (honoris causa), Melbourne University, for her contribution to developmental psychology in 2016 and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Autism Research in 2018.

The greatest prize though was the one she gave away.

She shared generously all that she knew, and all that she loved. She shared her curiosity, her enthusiasm and wisdom. In her life she knew tragedy, she knew suffering and she knew courage. She showed us also how to strive for positive change whatever the cost, to hold a vision and remain hopeful. We will deeply miss a very dear friend who never stopped giving to us and guiding us; but her mentorship, scholarship and compassion leaves a legacy of great riches for the years and generations ahead.

Sue Leekam Read a tribute for Reverend Dr Sidney Bindemann 1933-2020 from his sons Karl, Neil and Martin online

02/10/2020 14:47

We need you our members to submit proposals to deliver CPD and contribute to the Society’s professional development programme across all domains of psychology.

Visit www.bps.org.uk/delivercpd for more information including our submission guide and how to submit your proposal.

Deadline: 29 November 2020.

Reviewers wanted We need Chartered psychologists from across all domains of psychology to review professional development proposals aimed at delivering CPD for our members.

This is a voluntary role for those willing to contribute their time to the peer review process to help maintain the high-quality assurance of our CPD programme. We cannot do this without your support! To register your interest visit:

www.bps.org.uk/become-reviewer

WORKSHOP DEVELOPMENT

Can you deliver excellent professional training?

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02/10/2020 13:57

‘Knowing when to ask for help and doing so is a sign of professional competence’ Ella Rhodes on a new statement and guidance on lived experience

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he British Psychological Society’s Division of Clinical Psychology (DCP) has publicly recognised the ‘unique and valued contribution’ of clinical psychologists and trainees with experience of mental health difficulties in a recent position statement. It has also released guidance for supporting, and valuing, lived experience in clinical psychology training.

Co-lead author of the statement and CEO of in2gr8mentalhealth, Dr Natalie Kemp, experienced a breakdown around four years after qualifying as a clinical psychologist while working in mental health services.

She said while her own supervisor and manager had been supportive, clinical psychology and the wider mental health scene had much still to learn about embracing the common humanity of its workforce.

‘You were, and still are, idiosyncratically dependent on having a decent person supervising you or a good manager. Some people did have that, some didn’t, and those who didn’t have that had really poor experiences of being punitively met by the services they were in when they had difficulties.’

Second-year trainee clinical psychologist Camilla Hogg (University of Liverpool), became co-lead author through her role as Mental Health lead for the DCP Minorities Sub-Committee. ‘I think it’s great the position statement is out there and the professional body is acknowledging it. I think it’s really important that we can stand clear and say “people do have lived experience within the profession”.’

The paper points out that mental health difficulties are common and diverse – and may or may not be the reason people enter psychology as a profession.

It also highlights the complexity of whether to share lived experience with colleagues. It suggests that those who do share such experiences should be supported, with destigmatising lived experience a ‘whole-systems responsibility’ across professional bodies, organisations, training institutions and services.

The authors also state in the paper that lived experience is viewed as an asset. ‘… lived experience of mental health difficulties does not have to be a barrier to training or practising as a clinical psychologist.

On the contrary, people with lived experience are an asset to the profession and make a significant contribution to it.’

Dr Kemp is clear that engaging with lived experience can deepen professional practice and help improve the staff systems we work in.

Hogg has previously worked as a peer-support worker and in lived experience roles – consequently revealing her own mental health difficulties when applying for jobs.

She said that having always disclosed these difficulties to potential employers, she was unaware whether they held stigmatising views towards her or not. ‘However, I am in many ways privileged… I am white, middle class etc. and thus I face less systemic discrimination than other individuals do. It’s really important when considering this area that we don’t just consider stigma on its own due to the importance of understanding and recognising intersectionality.’

While Kemp said that many people may have had more positive experiences, she truly felt the stigma of being a mental healthcare provider with lived experience.

‘The only reason I came back [to work in the area] was to challenge the stigma of being a provider with lived

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the psychologist november 2020 news experience of mental health problems. That’s not only about the stigma that can still exist for anyone around mental health problems but something extra about being a provider with lived experience, because of the pervasiveness of us / them divides in mental health services and unwritten rules that providers must not break down, as if they were overly identified with the services they work in. But it is humans who work in services.’

Once Kemp had recovered following her breakdown she started feeling angry not only about the stigma and lack of support surrounding mental health professionals with lived experience but also ‘the paradox of what we say compassionately to those who come to us for help, not seeming to apply to those of us who work in the profession’. She approached thenDCP chair Richard Pemberton to share her story and a sense of social injustice, and later began building a network on Twitter of others with similar experiences.

Kemp created the in2gr8mentalhealth Forum, which eventually drew in around 300 members connecting about their lived experience and providing peer support. She began lobbying the DCP to consider releasing a statement on valuing lived experience in mental health professionals, after which the Division brought together a working group to write one.

Kemp also worked as a Research Fellow at UCL on the DCP-commissioned guide for trainees with lived experience of mental health difficulties. The guidance, Supporting and valuing lived experience of mental health difficulties in clinical psychology, was written

by Kemp, Dr Katrina Scior, Dr Henry Clements and Dr Kathy Mackenzie-White.

It covers ways of creating a culture of openness and compassion around lived experience in workplaces and training institutions, confidentiality, and deciding whether, and if so how and with whom, to share lived experience. The authors wrote: ‘Central to this guidance is a belief that where mental health professionals are concerned, knowing when to ask for help and doing so is a sign of professional competence in action and not of failure.’

Kemp said there was a certain expectation in some areas that providers of mental health care of all sorts should be able to hold it together at all times – and there was stigma associated with not living up to such ideals. ‘Stigma says that you’re not allowed to have difficulties as a mental health professional, that you’re not allowed to break down – that it’s taboo because you’re a provider. Stigma says that you are not a part of any common humanity, it stops people from asking for help when they need it. Support is good and important, but we don’t have enough of a sense of flourishing.

Lived experience doesn’t make you any better or worse than anyone else, but engaging with it can deepen and enhance your personal wisdom, how well you know yourself and ultimately your practice.’

Statement: https://tinyurl.com/bpslivedexp Guidance: https://tinyurl.com/supportle

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William Inman Prize A psychologist working to improve the experience of patients with eye conditions has won the British Psychological Society’s 2020 William Inman Prize.

Dr Lee Jones, a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at both Moorfields Eye Hospital and the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, was nominated for his work as part of the UK Glaucoma Treatment Study.

The Prize was set up thanks to a bequest from Dr William S. Inman, an ophthalmic surgeon and psychoanalyst, who died in 1968. The award is given every five years by the Research Board to research in the fields of psychosomatic ophthalmology or concerning psychological factors in physical conditions, particularly psychodynamic or psychotherapeutic factors in eye conditions.

Jones’ paper, published in Opthalmology, looked into patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) in a randomised control trial with glaucoma patients. PROMs are important in assessing whether a person’s glaucoma has worsened – and Jones’ research found that some of the outcome measures commonly used with glaucoma patients were not sensitive to changes in their vision.

Jones completed a PhD in Optometry and Visual Science at City, University of London, and said he was drawn into the field by a desire to conduct research that had potential to translate into better patient care. ‘In glaucoma, like many other chronic health conditions, the traditional clinical assessments don’t always give the full picture about how patients are affected in their day-to-day lives. That’s why tools such as patient-reported outcome measures can provide valuable additional information to supplement data collected through clinical examinations.’

Jones is currently working on a series of research projects related to Health Psychology and vision, including an exploration of the psychological effects of inherited eye diseases in children and young adults. He is also raising awareness of problems associated with such conditions, including vivid visual hallucinations known as Charles Bonnet Syndrome. He is also investigating whether new methods of glaucoma eyecare, such as home monitoring, are acceptable to those living with the condition. ‘In addition, I’ve been collaborating with ophthalmologists at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham and we’re at the exciting stage of publishing a number of qualitative studies looking into patient and clinician experiences of high-stakes eye surgery, wherein we highlight key areas for service improvements. Having only recently received my PhD, I still consider myself to be at a relatively early stage in my academic career. After winning the William Inman Prize I’m feeling very inspired about what opportunities might arise in the future. I’m very familiar with the work of some of the previous recipients of the William Inman Prize, so it’s a huge honour to have my work associated with these other fantastic studies. It’s wonderful that the BPS are able to make this award, which recognises the important role of psychological factors affecting people living with physical conditions.’ er

Dr Lee Jones Twitter: @jones_lee1

02/10/2020 07:58

Plomin and Freeman honoured

Professor Robert Plomin

Professor Daniel Freeman

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Two pioneers in psychology have been named winners of the 2020 BPS Research Board awards. Professor Robert Plomin is the winner of this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award and Professor Daniel Freeman has received The Presidents’ Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychological Knowledge.

Plomin (King’s College London) has spent the past 45 years of his research bringing genetics and genomics to our understanding of psychology and development. After a PhD at the University of Texas at Austin, and posts at the University of Colorado in Boulder and Pennsylvania State University, Plomin moved to the UK in 1994 as the first Medical Research Council (MRC) Research Professor.

In the same year he and Professor Sir Michael Rutter launched the SGDP (Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre) at King’s College London – the first MRC interdisciplinary research centre – which he directed between 2007 and 2010. The SGDP is probably best known for its longitudinal twin study of learning abilities and disabilities in 10,000 pairs of twins, the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS), launched by Plomin in 1995 which currently includes collaborations with 40 researchers and around 12 large-scale collaborations in genome-wide association studies.

Plomin’s research has led to breakthroughs in a number of areas including the genetic and environmental origins of individual differences in cognitive development and their impact on education, the interaction between the environment and genetics in development, and applying advances in DNA techniques to developmental psychology. He has published more than 800 papers, was the youngest ever president elected by the International Behavior Genetics Association in 1994, and has received lifetime achievement awards for his research from the American Psychological Association, Association of Psychological Science, Behavior Genetics Association and is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Academy of Political and Social Science, Academy of Medical Sciences (UK), and the British Academy.

He said he was especially pleased to receive the award as it signalled an acceptance of the role of nature, as well as nurture, in psychological development after ‘several turbulent decades’ of the nature vs nurture debate. ‘The most exciting research lies ahead, as we

News online: Find more news at www.thepsychologist.org.uk/reports including new research into gambling in prisons.

For much more of the latest peer-reviewed research, digested, 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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begin to use inherited DNA differences (polygenic scores) to predict from birth adult personality, mental health and illness and cognitive abilities and disabilities, as described in my book, Blueprint (Penguin, 2019). I just need another lifetime!’

Freeman (University of Oxford) is an expert in paranoia and his research has involved uncovering ways to support people who have experienced psychosis with a particular focus on those suffering from persecutory delusions, as well as innovative approaches such as virtual reality in treating mental health conditions. Freeman is Professor of Clinical Psychology and a National Institute for Health Research Professor and has worked clinically as a Consultant Clinical Psychologist in South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust.

Persecutory delusions occur in more than 70 per cent of people with schizophrenia and, given their impact on patients, have become a key target for treatment in psychosis. Across 15 years Freeman developed a psychological treatment for persecutory delusions which had not responded to treatment, called the Feeling Safe Programme which involves 20 sessions and has led to a recovery rate of 50 per cent.

Freeman has also used virtual reality as a psychological treatment for mental health conditions and in a randomised control trial of a VR treatment for a fear of heights found that 78 per cent of people in the treatment condition experienced at least a halving of their fear. He has also developed a virtual reality treatment for persecutory delusions which is currently being tested in another randomised control trial and another treatment for people with psychosis who also have agoraphobia.

‘The award has led to warm reflection on the collective: those clinical authors from the past whose words have resonated, the mentors I’ve been fortunate to observe and gain counsel, the patients who have shared so much, peers who push the boundaries, the team members – and the administrative support – who make it happen. All linked by a common thread of the desire to move things forward for the better. I would like to thank all those people.’

Looking to the future Freeman said his desire to make real improvements for people burned brighter than ever, and recent events had brought his attention to the excessive mistrust in society and how to counter this unchecked mistrust – particularly in relation to vaccine hesitancy.

‘In clinical settings my new face-to-face psychological therapy for persistent persecutory delusions leads to recovery for half of patients, which is a substantial improvement in treatment outcomes, but that means new thinking is required for the other half of patients. Then there is a programme of work developing automated VR treatments for each mental health condition and testing whether they can be made even more efficacious than face-to-face therapies.’ er

02/10/2020 07:58

the psychologist november 2020 news

Social psychology in changing times Deputy Editor Annie Brookman-Byrne reports from ‘Connecting individuals, families and communities in changing and challenging times’, an online event in place of the BPS Social Psychology Section annual conference.

Professor Sonia Livingstone’s co-authored book, Parenting for a Digital Future, was researched and written before the pandemic, when the digital future was ‘the stuff of science fiction’. Now, of course, much of family life has moved online. ‘Our lives have become digital by default.’

According to Livingstone, giving this year’s Distinguished Contribution to Social Psychology Award Winner Address, the task of parenting for a digital future is an impossible one. Parents have to prepare their children today for an unknown world in 2030 or 2040. What’s more, this is in the context of contradictory messages from the media that ‘position technology as both the cause and the solution’ of parental anxieties.

When parents express anxieties around technology, Livingstone thinks they may really be talking about more than technology – perhaps marital breakdown or economic insecurity. ‘The digital is salient because it symbolises parents’ hopes and fears for their child and it acts as a lightning rod for those deeper and broader problems.’

Collective and political action

Selin Tekin Guven spoke about her research to understand campaigners supporting families and survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire. Each month, those who have been affected by the fire come together to walk silently in the community for 90 minutes. These walks, Tekin Guven concluded, were a way for campaigners to project their political power, to build solidarity, and to respect the community’s loss – to take action collectively to overcome injustice and pressure authorities.

Is it likely that those who take part in active participation will have children who go on to do the same? Dr Hector Carvacho shared his research on the intergenerational transmission of collective action in Chile, showing a link between parental political participation in the 1980s and recent participation in social movements in their children who are now adults.

This transmission between generations occurred through conversations, Carvacho said, as well as parents taking children to political events during childhood, and cultural consumption – for example listening to left-wing musicians that convey the parents’ values.

Dr Laura K. Taylor presented the Developmental Peacebuilding Model, and its implications for growing up in divided societies. The model brings together the peace building literature, a developmental intergroup framework, and a social ecological perspective. Taylor’s research with adolescents has shown that greater quality contact across groups is associated with more support for peace building, which in turn is associated to more political participation and volunteering. The Developmental Peacebuilding Model recognises that

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children and adolescents have peace building potential, and that outgroup prosocial behaviours are a form of peace building.

Promoting prosocial behaviour

In the Early Career Award Winner Address, Dr Julie van de Vyver discussed the role of the arts for promoting prosociality. van de Vyver presented a series of studies demonstrating that attending arts events and participating in arts activities both contribute to prosociality within and across groups. For example, in an experimental study, local artists worked with pupils over a week, documenting and celebrating good news stories.

By the end, prosocial intentions had increased. van der Vyver linked this research to an evolving Arts and Kindness Model. Within this model, creation and consumption of the arts can promote kindness through four different mediators: emotion, learning, values and connection. Key attitudes and behaviours affected fall into two categories: generic kindness (such as volunteering, donating, caring), and inclusive kindness (respecting and helping outgroup members). Engagement with the arts seems to have a persistent effect, offering what van der Vyver described a ‘realistic, engaging and sustainable’ approach for fostering prosociality and cohesion.

Read more from the Social conference on our website, plus a report from the Division of Forensic Psychology conference.

Eyebrow raising research Have you ever wondered what we can tell about someone’s personality from their eyebrows? What might happen to an earthworm if it is vibrated at a high frequency? Or whether knives made from frozen human faeces are of any use?

Thanks to this year’s Ig Nobel prize winners we can now answer those burning questions.

This year marks the 30th Ig Nobel Prize which is awarded to achievements that first make you laugh, then make you think. Marc Abrahams, Editor of prize organiser the Annals of Improbable Research, acted as (remote) Master of Ceremonies.

Miranda Giacomin and Nicholas Rule won this year’s psychology prize for discovering that narcissists could be identified by looking at their eyebrows.

They explored the different facial features that could indicate someone is a grandiose narcissist and found that eyebrow distinctiveness, for example thickness and density, was the primary feature leading to accurate judgements of narcissism. er Read more at https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/eyebrow-raising-research

02/10/2020 07:58

‘Recovery is possible…’

Professor Eamon McCrory

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Events which expose children and young people to trauma, including Covid-19 and disasters such as the Grenfell Tower fire, can have a lasting impact, leading to a greater risk of mental health problems in the future. A group of 22 experts in research, practice, and policy have recently launched the UK Trauma Council (uktraumacouncil.org) to help address a lack of both knowledge on childhood trauma and trauma-informed treatment.

The UKTC is chaired and co-directed by David Trickey, Consultant Clinical Psychologist in the Specialist Trauma and Maltreatment Service at the Anna Freud Centre, and Eamon McCrory, Professor of Developmental Neuroscience and Psychopathology, Co-Director of the Developmental Risk and Resilience Unit (UCL), and a Director at the Anna Freud Centre. As well as psychologists, its council members include experts from all four nations of the UK in fields such as global health, child and adolescent psychiatry and public health.

Hosted and supported by the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, the council’s overall aim is to help improve the care received by children and young people exposed to trauma – including abuse and neglect.

It hopes to become a hub for learning about childhood trauma, creating and disseminating accessible resources on the latest evidence for non-experts, informing policy in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and increase collaboration among trauma experts in the UK. Given the complexity of the impact of trauma, and the role of social, psychological, developmental and biological factors in shaping that impact, McCrory said it was vital that the Council took a truly multidisciplinary approach.

‘It is not hard to imagine how childhood maltreatment, a terrorist attack or a traumatic bereavement could have common but also distinct effects depending on a wide range of factors. To understand the impact of such events, and how best to help children and young people exposed to them, we need psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, those involved in policy, service delivery, education and community health.’

McCrory, whose research uses brain imaging and psychological approaches, investigates the impact of maltreatment on children’s future mental health and more broadly explores the mechanisms associated with developmental adversity and resilience. He tells me that decades of longitudinal research has shown that childhood trauma is the largest modifiable risk factor for later mental health problems. ‘My own research uses neuroscience to help shed light on how early adverse experiences such as maltreatment can increase the risk of poor outcomes later in life. However, despite important advances in research and clinical practice I saw first-hand how difficult and frustrating it can be for these to find their way to the frontline.’

This frustration was shared by David Trickey, an expert in the field of childhood trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire and Manchester Arena bombings, McCrory and

Trickey realised there was no national platform to bring together advice and guidance about trauma despite a great deal of expertise being dotted around the UK. ‘For some reason trauma as a concept had not organised clinicians, services or research in the same way as specific diagnostic categories such as Autism or ADHD.’ McCrory and Trickey, with the help of the Anna Freud Centre and early seed money, conducted a national and international survey to better understand what could fill this gap. ‘The results from this consultation were compelling and clear. A national platform was needed to share experience and expertise and disseminate best practice as well as research in the field of trauma.’

Thanks to funding from the National Lottery Community Fund and St. James’ Place Charitable Foundation, the UK Trauma Council was set up. One of its first publications was a policy statement on the Covid-19 pandemic – which McCrory said has had a significant impact on children and young people’s mental health.

‘It has increased the experience of trauma for many, and compromised the support which children and young people receive from friends, family and public services.

The UK Trauma Council want to actively support and help those shaping policy and funding decisions in this time of upheaval and uncertainty, so that in the months and years ahead children and young people are supported and effectively helped following trauma.’

There can be a tendency, McCrory added, for mental health interventions to be focused on more common difficulties such as depression and anxiety. ‘This we believe misses an important opportunity. Trauma is a key factor that can increase the risk of these outcomes in the first place. We need an increased focus on prevention (that is reducing the likelihood of mental health problems following trauma), as well as increased provision of the resources, skills and evidence-based forms of help that communities need to help themselves. The policy document sets out key priorities to guide policy makers so they can help turn this into a reality.’

McCrory said recent reviews had found a gap between the emerging evidence base and frontline practice.

‘This gap relates to a lack of training, knowledge and confidence in the implementation of evidence-based interventions for children and young people who are presenting with traumatic reactions. In some areas, services are struggling to provide basic levels of support – and some children and young people will not gain access to the specialist interventions needed to mitigate the effects of their trauma. There is a need to invest in training, and supervision, in evidence-based interventions for professionals within children and young people’s mental health services. There is also a need to establish clear pathways for referral and models of care, so that this capacity is effectively targeted and is accessible to all children, young people and families who need it.’

As well as its Covid-19 briefing the council has also released a set of free resources on the neuroscience

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the psychologist november 2020 news

from the chief executive of trauma, written for non-experts. McCrory said, as a neuroscientist and clinician, he had seen first-hand how difficult it could be for frontline carers and professionals to access accurate and current information from neuroscience on abuse and neglect.

The UKTC is also set to release resources to help identify children and young people who have experienced a traumatic bereavement, and later next year will publish guidance on responding to critical incidents in schools. McCrory said schools often have to respond when individual children and young people, or the school collectively, experience trauma.

‘There is a need to help schools prepare in advance for such incidents – much can be done in terms of thinking, planning and training so that systems and responses are in place that can be activated at short notice. At times of stress following trauma, adults can make poor decisions as they themselves become anxious and stressed, making it less likely that they respond in an effective way.’

McCrory ended on a positive note. ‘A child’s behaviour that can otherwise seem challenging or confusing can begin to make sense in the context of early brain adaptation, giving us a new lens through which to understand – and help – the children in our care. While the brain changes triggered by trauma can make it harder for a child to navigate and cope with everyday challenges, increasing the risk of mental health problems in the future, recovery is possible. We now know their brains adapt to help them cope. Relationships play a key role in that recovery, as they directly influence how the brain grows and develops. So parents, carers and professionals have a crucial role to play in promoting resilience. These relationships are at the heart of what drives positive change.’ er

In the zone I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here – an event which allows primary and secondary school students to ask scientists questions about their research, or anything else – is back this autumn. Scientists are spread out over themed zones, including psychology, health, physics, and medical research, with a vote for the pupils’ favourite scientist in each. The top-voted scientist in this year’s BPS-supported psychology zone, which runs from 2-27 November, will win £500 to spend on public engagement.

Dr Daniel Jolley (Northumbria University) who won one of the 2018 psychology zones, said given the age range of students who take part in I’m a Scientist, the experience had helped him to hone his ability to talk about his research in varied ways. ‘It provided the opportunity to invest in developing a cartoon on my research programme – the psychology of conspiracy theories. This cartoon [see tinyurl.com/yxpwd9ru] is timeless and I regularly use it as part of science communication.’ er

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First oara text TheBody impact of Covid-19 on our members has been stark, and I think it’s Christian importantJarrett to keep highlighting Dr thethe range of resources that we have for Research produced, covering the breadth of the Digest www.bps.org. discipline and showing just what a uk/digest wide-reaching crisis this has been.

Read the article: While the effect on anyone tinyurl.com/gpnpnal working in the NHS or health care is immediately apparent, there have also been huge challenges for our members working in academia, and psychology students – the future of our organisation.

To assess this and find out what help we can provide, we’ve been running a survey which received almost 2000 responses and has uncovered some extremely concerning trends that need to be addressed quickly.

Of the academic staff who responded to the survey, almost all (97 per cent) felt that the pandemic has led to a negative impact on their workloads, and a similar number see this as their greatest challenge going forward.

Equally worrying are the responses on wellbeing, with three quarters of the academic staff surveyed feeling that this had been negatively affected since the beginning of lockdown.

There is also a knock-on impact on research, with around 70 per cent of both academic staff and PhD students who responded suggesting that their ability to undertake, write up, submit and present their research has been compromised.

With the effects of the pandemic and routes back to some degree of normality only just being understood, it’s more important than ever that academic psychologists and students are able to carry out high-quality and impactful research.

Our Research Board, led by Professor Daryl O’Connor, will consider how best we can support and facilitate researchers during the pandemic and beyond.

The board is already developing a hub for online research resources that we hope will prove helpful, and which respondents saw as the top priority for BPS support.

We also asked psychology students what support we could be providing to help them through this difficult period. Advice and guidance on careers came out on top there, with more than 80 per cent deeming it a top priority.

This chimes with the messages that we’ve been getting from student members during our member journey project, and I’m delighted to be able to say that we’ll be announcing more careers initiatives for our students during the rest of this year.

If you’re a psychology lecturer, researcher or student and didn’t have the opportunity to respond to this survey, I’d love to hear your ideas on what the BPS can do to support you during Covid-19 and beyond – please get in touch.

Sarb Bajwa is Chief Executive of the British Psychological Society.

Contact him at Sarb.Bajwa@bps.org.uk

02/10/2020 07:58

Getty Images

Do you know yourself?

Emma Young digests the research on self-knowledge

Find our Research Digest at www.bps. org.uk/ digest Editor: Dr Matthew Warren Writers: Emily Reynolds and Emma Young Reports, links and more on the Digest website

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‘There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.’

Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac, 1750.

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ranklin was writing over 250 years ago. Surely we humans have learned strategies since then to aid selfinsight – and avoid well-known pitfalls? Most of us are familiar, for example, with the better-than-average effect, the finding that most of us rank ourselves above average at everything from driving ability to desirable personality traits (even though of course we can’t all be right). So armed with this kind of knowledge, are we better placed now to view ourselves accurately? And if not, how can we get better at this – and what benefits can we expect?

The following studies provide some illuminating answers…

I feel like I’m smarter than other people

The better-than-average effect may be old news, but results from a systematic survey of Americans’ beliefs about their own intelligence (the first to be conducted in 50 years) which we reported in 2018 (tinyurl.com/ y9csafnz) found that about 70 per cent of men and 60 per cent of women agreed with the statement: ‘I am more intelligent than the average person’. The team was forced to conclude that Americans’ ‘self-flattering beliefs about intelligence are alive and well several decades after their discovery was first reported’. Other work has found that

our over-estimates of our intelligence can be staggeringly huge – around 30 IQ points, on average, according to a study by Gilles Gignac and Marcin Zajenkowski published last year (which also found that we tend to over-estimate our romantic partner’s intelligence even more than our own). The sobering lesson is that you’re probably a lot less smart than you think are.

OK, but I at least know the limits of my knowledge

The ‘Dunning-Kruger effect’ relates specifically to the tendency of people who are poor at a task to overestimate their ability at it. As David Dunning has written: ‘The scope of people’s ignorance is often invisible to them’. (Although see Gignac and Zajenkowski again, with a paper from this year arguing that the effect is (mostly) a statistical artefact: tinyurl.com/y52m6ddb).

This over-confidence can be dangerous both to the individual, and to others. For example, a US study of student pilots led by Samuel Pavel found that those who’d scored lower on a pilot knowledge test ‘grossly overestimated their ability’ while higher-scoring students tended in fact to under-estimate theirs. The same effect has been noted among other groups, for example among chemistry students. In the 2018 study by Jeffrey Webb and Andrew Karatjas, students who’d scored less than 50 per cent on one exam had predicted that they’d get an

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the psychologist november 2020 digest

average of 69 per cent, while their actual average mark was just under 37 per cent. That’s a massive discrepancy.

If you don’t know that you’re under-prepared for a test, this is clearly a problem.

Fine. But you can’t deny that I know who I am!

How well do you know your own personality as it fluctuates from moment to moment? This was explored in a recent study, which found that participants had self-insight into their momentary levels of extraversion and conscientiousness, but weren’t great at rating how agreeable they were being at any given time. As Jessie Sun and Samine Vazire write: ‘This apparent selfignorance may be partly responsible for interpersonal problems’.

However, when it comes to personality in general – your fairly stable, trait levels of extraversion, agreeableness, and so on – there’s some rare good news in the field of self-insight. According to a large-scale review of data on self-reports of personality vs personality ratings from others, published by Hyunji Kim and others in Psychological Science in 2018, we’re actually pretty good at judging ourselves in this way. In fact, the work revealed that if anything, we’re harsher judges of our personality than other people are. This was a surprise to the researchers, who’d assumed, based on other work in this field, to find a positive self-bias.

But I know what I like, right?

If you love salt and vinegar crisps, say, but hate cheese and onion, then fair enough. No one’s going to argue that you’re mistaken. But if you tell me you love coffee, I might be less accepting. It turns out that it’s not that easy for us to tell the difference between liking something and wanting it. A clear example of this comes from a study I reported on earlier this year (tinyurl.com/y45c63wa), which found that ‘heavy’ coffee drinkers (people who drank three or more cups a day) actually want coffee a lot more than they like it. The implication is that they drink it mostly or entirely to feed their addiction, rather than for pleasure.

How can I get better at knowing myself?

Well, the people around you could be more honest…

In general, other people don’t help us to correct our biases. Too often, feedback from employers, family and friends is vague, and overly positive, according to research led by Zlatan Krizan at Iowa State University. ‘As a society, we make the wrong trade-off by thinking that boosting self-esteem is going to boost performance, and that rarely happens,’ Krizan says. ‘That empty praise of telling someone they’re great, or pretending there are not skill differences when there are, can really become a problem.’

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As well as seeking honest feedback, and bearing in mind the better-than-average effect, it could also be worth practising humility. Research published in the journal Self and Identity suggests that people who are more modest about their degree of self-knowledge actually know themselves better (see tinyurl.com/y2m3kyl3).

But is it important to have accurate self-knowledge?

No-one likes a narcissist. But there could be some benefits to thinking you’re better than you are.

They relate to the optimism bias – the fact that we tend to over-estimate the likelihood of positive events in our lives, like getting a top promotion, and under-estimate our chances of suffering everything from a divorce to a car crash. Optimism is important for mental and physical health. So perhaps having inflated self-views is important for our wellbeing, too. In fact, according to the results of a study by Joyce He and Stéphane Côté published last year in Nature Human Behaviour, this may well be the case. The participants completed various tests of cognitive and emotional abilities and then reported how well they thought they’d done on all these tests. They then spent a week completing daily diaries, in which they reflected on their levels of satisfaction with their career, relationships and life in general.

The researchers found that having accurate selfinsight was not related to higher levels of satisfaction in any of these areas. The data even suggested that people who most over-estimated their abilities had the highest levels of life satisfaction. Still, it’s worth noting that feeling great about your life and performing to your highest level are two different things. People with accurate self-knowledge may be more driven to improve, and achieve more.

A word of caution

Our understanding of the potential pluses or minuses of erroneous vs accurate self-insight is, according to a recent review in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, ‘clouded’ by all kinds of issues, including differences between studies in the way self-insight is measured, and also fundamental differences in types of self-deception. (Self-deception may sometimes stem from an individual’s desire to defend their self-esteem, but other times exist simply because a person hasn’t really engaged in close self-assessment.) Jennifer Beer and Michelle Harris write that the currently available research ‘does not allow us to confidently conclude that self-insight has advantages over some types of selfinsight failure (or vice versa)’. They conclude by calling for ‘more systematic investigation of why, when, where and for whom self-insight is costly or beneficial’.

02/10/2020 08:04

People love winning streaks by individuals more than those by teams When Usain Bolt or Serena Williams step out for their latest race or match, the world waits with bated breath. As some of the best athletes in the world, their unbelievable winning streaks have been met by almost universal acclaim – and plenty of people hoping that streak isn’t broken.

But according to Jesse Walker from Ohio State University and Thomas Gilovich from Cornell University, that investment and goodwill just isn’t the same when it comes to teams: we’re far less impressed by consecutive wins by groups of people than those by individuals.

They call this phenomenon the ‘Streaking Star Effect’ in their new paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

In the first study, 207 participants read about the history and rules of Calcio Fiorentino, an obscure amateur Italian sport combining aspects of football, rugby and martial arts. Participants in the ‘team’ condition were told the Milan team were the best in the world, winning six championships in a row; those in the ‘individual’ condition read about Robert Moretti, the best player in the world, on the same streak. They then rated how much they would be rooting for either Milan or Moretti to win the championship and how much they would want the streak to come to an end.

Participants wanted to see Roberto Moretti continue his winning streak significantly more than they wanted the Milan team to do the same. Given that participants were American, they likely were not familiar with either the game or Moretti, suggesting that the results couldn’t be explained by a desire to see a beloved figure succeed.

The same results held in a second study using the similarly obscure example of a British quizzing competition. A third, in which the pool of competitors was exactly the same size for individuals and teams, showed that the Streaking Star Effect couldn’t be explained by the fact individual participants were likely to have beaten more competitors than teams would have.

The fourth study looked more closely at the underlying causes of the Streaking Star Effect. A total of 205 participants read about the National Association of

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Police Organizations, which gives awards each year to both individual police officers and departments. In the individual condition, participants read about an award given to the best homicide detective in the USA, and were told that Edwin Sorenson had won the award four years in a row. Participants in the group condition read about an award for the best homicide department in the country, learning that either the Kansas City or Los Angeles Police Department had, again, won four years in a row.

As well as answering the questions from the first three studies, participants also indicated how much they would feel awe, amazement and wonder if either Sorenson’s or the police department’s streak were to continue. To distinguish awe from other positive emotions, participants also stated how happy, amused and compassionate they would feel.

Again, participants were significantly more keen to see the individual (Detective Sorenson) extend his winning streak than the team (the police department).

Furthermore, participants felt more wonder at the prospect of Detective Sorenson’s continued success and more positive emotion overall, suggesting that feelings of awe can lead to a greater desire to see an individual winning streak continue.

In a later study, participants were asked to explain why they felt either an individual or a team was on a winning streak. Success was more often chalked up to disposition or personal characteristics (rather than circumstances) for individuals than it was for teams.

Greater dispositional attributions were also linked to increased feelings of awe. In other words, credit was given to an individual and their talents more than their situation, creating far more emotional attachment and investment than for team achievements, which tended to be attributed to circumstances.

A final study confirmed that the Streaking Star Effect holds even outside of sports: when a company’s success was attributed to an individual CEO, participants felt that the company deserved a greater market share than when it had been guided by a group of executives. This makes sense: companies like Microsoft and Apple have famously benefited from charismatic founders and CEOs, while those without a focus on an individual leader often hold less emotional resonance for the general public.

This final study hints at wider repercussions too, and in a follow-up survey the team found participants far less tolerant of wealth inequality when those at the top were described in group rather than individual terms: when individuals were perceived to be at the top, participants were more likely to believe they deserved it. Stretching beyond sport, the Streaking Star Effect may even, as Walker and Gilovich put it, change the way we think about ‘the rich and poor, the powerful and powerless’.

Emily Reynolds

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the psychologist november 2020 digest

Causing more harm for more benefit Imagine that you’re an official faced with an unenviable decision: you must choose whether to establish a farm on existing land which can produce enough to feed 100 hungry families, or cut down an acre of rainforest to create a larger farm able to feed 500 hungry families. What choice would you make?

If you chose not to cut down the rainforest, you’re in the majority. In a new paper in Psychological Science, participants tended to avoid choosing to harm the rainforest, despite the benefits it would bring.

But now imagine that your choice is made harder. There’s no free land left; you have to cut down some of the rainforest. Would you cut down one acre to feed 100 families, or two acres to feed 500?

It’s an interesting question, because although researchers believe we’re generally averse to causing harm, they hadn’t really studied how we make decisions when some amount of harm is unavoidable.

And, perhaps surprisingly, in this second scenario almost 80 per cent of people chose to do more damage, cutting down two acres of forest rather than one.

Jonathan Berma from London Business School and Daniella Kupor from Boston University found similar results across a range of scenarios

looking at not only environmental dilemmas but also those involving medical or political decisions. In each case, when harm was avoidable participants’ decisions seemed to be guided by a desire to reduce harm – but when it was unavoidable, people consistently tried to maximise the social benefit instead.

This is particularly interesting as the benefit of committing harm was similar in both the ‘avoidable’ and ‘unavoidable’ conditions.

Consider the rainforest dilemma: in both cases, adding an extra acre of

destruction (from zero to one acre in the first scenario or from one to two acres in the second) would help feed 400 more families.

The paper suggests that we’re less harm-averse than previous studies have implied, at least when it comes to decisions where there is no possibility of avoiding harm altogether. And that’s important, the authors conclude, as every day we are faced with small decisions that force us to choose between options that have both harms and benefits.

Matthew Warren

Digest digested…

Adults underestimate the age at which children can understand race, according to a recent study. This leads them to delay crucial conversations about race until the kids are about 5 years old. When they were given more accurate information about kids’ capacities to process race, however, they believed that those discussions should start at a younger age. (Journal of Experimental Psychology) Many courtrooms don’t allow expert testimony on the psychology of confessions, instead relying on juries to use common sense when determining whether a confession is truthful. But a new study has shown that lay people’s beliefs about interrogations and confessions don’t always match reality: for instance, many incorrectly believe that experts can judge the truth of a statement through facial microexpressions. The team suggests that confession experts should be permitted to give testimony to juries.

(Applied Cognitive Psychology).

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What can we do to stay connected in the middle of a pandemic? We’ve all played our part in fighting Covid-19, and for many of us that has meant staying away from our friends and families.

In the latest episode of our PsychCrunch podcast, presenter Ginny Smith explores how this unprecedented period of separation has reinforced the importance of connection. Ginny looks at how video chats compare to in-person interaction, and how psychology could help improve virtual communication in the future. She also examines the importance of touch for reducing stress – and asks whether interactions with our furry friends could make up for a lack of human contact.

Check it out, with 20 other episodes, at https://digest.bps.org.uk/podcast/ - with many thanks to our sponsors Routledge Psychology.

02/10/2020 08:05

Understanding self-harm

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James Hayes www.theliminalpage.com

Ella Rhodes hears from researchers in the field.

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the psychologist november 2020 self-harm

‘A vital, unmissable opportunity for suicide prevention’ Professor Ellen Townsend (University of Nottingham) Self-harm is a global public health problem which is increasing in young people, especially in young girls. Repeated cross-sectional surveys of the general population from 2000-2014, considered by Sally McManus and colleagues in Lancet Psychiatry last year, found that as many as 1 in 5 young women selfharmed in England in 2014 – the highest prevalence rate ever recorded. In mid-to-late adolescence selfharm and suicide increase at an unprecedented pace: there is no other time across the lifespan that they increase so sharply.

Self-harm is the strongest known predictor of death by suicide, with half of young people who die by suicide having previously self-harmed. Furthermore, self-harm is associated with significantly reduced life expectancy, with an average of up to 40 years of life lost to external causes. A recent longitudinal study led

by Becky Mars, using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, demonstrated that selfharm without suicide intent significantly predicts the transition from suicidal thoughts to suicidal attempts.

You can see why understanding and responding effectively to self-harm is a vital and unmissable opportunity for suicide prevention.

But how do we allow young people to ‘tell the story of their self-harm’ over time? How can we capture the complexity of self-harm, and the key transitions in the sequence leading to self-harm and beyond? We created the Card Sort Task for Self-Harm (CaTS), a novel attempt to do just this.

Much research in our field does not take time into account, so we examined the key thoughts, feelings, events and behaviours that young people say are important steps leading to self-harm. Across two studies – with more in the pipeline – we have shown that ‘feeling depressed and sad’ looms large for young people who self-harm. This was the most frequently chosen card by young people who completed the CaTS. Sequence analysis revealed important transitions in the pathway to first ever and most recent self-harm.

Importantly, whilst first ever self-harm revealed a significant transition to ‘feeling better’ after self-harm, this transition disappeared for most recent self-harm.

We saw a pattern of deterioration over time, with most recent self-harm being associated with hopelessness, burdensomeness and wanting to die.

Many of the factors that young people who selfharm identified as important through the CaTS are modifiable through existing interventions such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Mentalisation Based Therapy, and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

Unfortunately, these treatments involve trusting an adult enough to talk about very difficult experiences and emotions which young people who self-harm struggle with. Indeed, the second most frequently chosen card in our first CaTS study was ‘I could not

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tell anyone how I was feeling’. To help overcome this problem, we are developing the CaTS as a new assessment framework for use in clinical settings in collaboration with international experts on assessment development, young people with lived experience, and a range of frontline staff working with young people who self-harm.

Crucially, the CaTS can help young people and the adults working with them to start potentially very difficult conversations. The CaTS also affords mentalisation and non-verbal communication: young people can place cards down describing experiences,

thoughts or feelings they have had, without having to make eye contact or to speak. Thus, we feel – and our Public Patient Involvement supports this – the CaTS could be especially helpful for autistic people who struggle with eye contact and face-to-face communication.

Ultimately, the CaTS encourages collaboration in assessment, which has been shown in David Jobes’ work to reduce suicide ideation. If I had one take home message for those supporting young people who selfharm, it would be to listen to them carefully and take them seriously. We can all do that.

‘A one size fits all approach will not get us far’ Dr Olivia Kirtley (Center for Contextual Psychiatry, KU Leuven, Belgium)

There is never only one reason why a person selfharms. It is always a complex array of factors. The majority of people who self-harm report that it brings them some relief from intense emotional pain. People experience distress for many different reasons, sometimes due to trauma, bullying or victimisation, perfectionism, socioeconomic deprivation, or commonly, several life problems occurring together.

Laboratory and questionnaire studies are, for the most part, snapshots of thoughts and behaviours that

we are interested in. The overwhelming psychological pain reported by people who self-harm occurs not in the lab, but in people’s everyday lives. So as psychologists wanting to find out what we can do about self-harm, that is exactly where we need to be: in everyday life.

The Experience Sampling Method (ESM; from Joel Hektner, Jennifer Schmidt and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi), sometimes also known as Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) or

Developing cultural understandings of self-harm Doctoral Researcher Margaret Hardiman (University of Birmingham) is completing a PhD via the university’s Global Challenges Funding Scheme exploring self-harm and suicide in low to middle income countries, specifically young Pakistani women living in the UK and Pakistan.

Currently relatively few studies consider cultural and geographic differences in self-harm. We know that self-harm rates are increasing across the globe, but we don’t really have a good picture of what’s happening in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs) and countries like Pakistan. There are various reasons for why we don’t have this information; self-harm and suicide are illegal in Pakistan which makes it difficult for people to access support or openly speak about it. In Islam it’s seen as haram to harm one’s self because you’re going against God’s will, and in Pakistan religion is intertwined with society. This makes it really difficult for people to come and speak about any kind of mental health issue, self-harm or suicide.

Cultural understandings of selfharm can also differ where there might be no translations for western clinical

terms such as depression or self-harm.

So, mental health may be understood through other mechanisms such as spiritual possession or be described through physical symptomology. The criminalisation of self-harm with an undertone of cultural taboos, a lack of mental health care and ability to physically access the support and the agency to do so (particularly amongst women) make it challenging to get a full picture of self-harm in LMICs and hinder our ability to support those in need.

To gain an insight into understandings and experiences of self-harm we’re interviewing young Pakistani women (age 16-25) with experiences of self-harm, family members of young Pakistani women who have self-harmed and community stakeholders (i.e. people who work with or have an understanding of self-harm in young Pakistani women)

in the UK and Pakistan. We also want to explore the impact of migration, and whether conceptualisations differ between Pakistani populations in the UK and Pakistan. Ultimately, we really need to work together across borders and disciplines to foster the exchange of expertise.

However, we also need to make sure that the voices of individuals are heard and that the research community makes a greater effort to co-produce, collaborate and listen. I think there’s a danger with global mental health research of going in with a neo-colonial approach, taking the information, leaving, and not giving anything back, based on an arrogant assumption that we know more which isn’t the case. It’s so important to work with people who often have an abundance of knowledge and insight but who might not have the same level of funding, support or ability to share that.

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02/10/2020 08:13

James Hayes www.theliminalpage.com

the psychologist november 2020 self-harm

Ambulatory Assessment (AA), is a technique that takes research out of the lab and into daily life. People complete brief questionnaires, several times a day for multiple days. In our research, for example, we often ask participants to complete measures ten times per day for six days, with each questionnaire taking only a couple of minutes to complete. This enables us to investigate dynamic fluctuations in thoughts and feelings, as they are occurring in the moment. We can capture a wealth of information about individuals’ social context that we would otherwise miss with conventional assessments, because these experiences occur between lab visits or clinical appointments.

ESM research on self-harm and suicide is still at an early stage and ESM is an underused methodology in the field. In 2009 Matthew Nock and colleagues from Harvard University conducted a seminal study of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) in adolescents using

EMA and found that thoughts of Resources NSSI most commonly emerged when adolescents were feeling sad/ worthless, overwhelmed, or afraid/ More about the CaTS can be found here: anxious. Engagement in NSSI https://sites.google.com/view/selfharm-research-group/resources/thebehaviour, however, occurred more cats-card-sort-task-for-self-harm when they felt rejected, self-hatred, numb, or angry with themselves or Further details on the ‘Listen-up!’ others. In another EMA study with project can be found at college students, led by Michael www.listen-up.ac.uk Armey, negative affect rose rapidly To speak to Samaritans call: 116 123 immediately before individuals selfharmed, then gradually fell after Find references by author in the online self-harm. version of this article.

Recently Evan Kleiman and colleagues used EMA to investigate short-term fluctuations in suicidal ideation among people in the general population who had recently attempted suicide, and individuals who were currently receiving inpatient care for suicide risk. Across both studies, they found a high degree of moment-to-moment variability in suicidal ideation and also in key risk factors, including perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness; however, these risk factors were not predictive of suicidal ideation at subsequent time-points. This highlights the importance of investigating how wellknown risk factors translate to the context of everyday life. Other researchers have emphasised the importance of examining within-person variability in suicidal ideation, with different ‘phenotypes’ characterised by differing levels of variability in suicidal ideation.

These studies tell us that a ‘one size fits all’ approach to self-harm will not get us far. We must take into account differences within as well as between individuals, and begin to pay more attention to the psychosocial context that surrounds self-harm. By taking a dynamic and contextually-based approach to investigating self-harm, we can identity factors that lead to distress and develop interventions to target these – before distress escalates to the point where someone self-harms.

Listen carefully, respond kindly’ Dr Ruth Wadman (University of York)

There is an emerging body of qualitative interview research with young people who self-harm. It has the potential to offer unique insights into this complex phenomenon, and suggest better ways to support young people who self-harm. Here I will focus on a qualitative interview study from the ‘Listen-up!’ project (led by Professor Ellen Townsend at the University of Nottingham). The findings, taken from three papers, relate to the experiences of young people aged between 13 and 21 years with a history of repeated self-harm (some of whom had experience of being ‘looked-after’ in social care).

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We used in-depth interviews, and interpretative phenomenological analysis.

Our findings emphasise the affective and relational nature of self-harm. Difficulties in relationships with parents (both arguments and broader worries about family breakdown) and peers (particularly longterm peer victimisation/bullying) play a key role in precipitating self-harm. For young people lookedafter in care, a change in residential placement (and the social and emotional upheaval that goes along with this) is often reported to lead to self-harm. Young people described self-harm as a purposeful coping

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behaviour (providing relief or self-punishment in the face of serious distress), but it could at times also be reactive (in response to strong feelings of anger for instance). Our understanding of self-harm needs to be situated in this context of interpersonal struggles and intense emotions.

Self-harm is deeply personal; young people prefer to keep it private and hidden. They find self-harm and the associated mental distress difficult to talk about.

Young people can also experience shame and regret following self-harm. Clearly this has implications for help-seeking. Should a young person’s self-harm be disclosed or discovered by parents, an unhelpful parental response or feelings of shame could deter further help-seeking.

There are challenges even when a young person does reach out for support. Often young people do not believe they can stop self-harm completely, which may

be linked to their perception that it is an ingrained, almost addictive, behaviour. Reports of experiences with clinical services are, at best, mixed. Some young people report feeling personally let down by mental health services at an organisational level – ‘…just empty promises really’. Looked-after young people report being patronised or not listened to, and a sense that ‘nothing can be done’.

We found that young people welcomed the opportunity to talk about their self-harm for research purposes, and they were pleased that their experiences could help other young people in the future. Reflecting upon the interviews and our findings as a whole, there is an overwhelming sense that young people who selfharm need the adults around them to listen carefully and respond kindly. Such an intervention, whilst not ‘state-of-the-art’, needs reinforcement as a good starting point for any self-harm support strategy.

When you talk with kids who have engaged in non-suicidal self injury (NSSI) and attempted suicide and ask them why they’ve done so, they very frequently tell you it was stress from their peer relationships that compelled them. There are few things that don’t seem to be affected by peers – we also see effects on substance use, risky sexual behaviour, a lot of externalising behaviours, illegal activity and so on. So we’re doing a lot of research which seeks to understand how it is kids experience stress amongst their peers and the role that might play in NSSI and suicidality.

Children who have best friends who have engaged in self-injury are at much greater risk.

‘Do not use risk assessment tools and scales to predict future suicide or repetition of self-harm’ Dr Leah Quinlivan (NIHR Greater Manchester Patient Safety Translational Centre; Centre for Mental Health and Safety, University of Manchester) Risk scales are widely used as part of assessments despite limited evidence of their predictive power. We have found poor predictive accuracy across a range of diagnostic performance indicators for risk scales following self-harm, and these findings are supported elsewhere. In our prospective cohort study of risk scales following self-harm, tested scales performed no better than simply asking the clinician or the patient for their estimation of risk for repeat selfharm. Some scales, such as the widely used ‘SAD PERSONS scale’, performed significantly worse. Consistent with 2011 guidelines from the National Institute of Clinical Excellence, risk scales should not be used to determine patient management or predict future risk of suicidal behaviour.

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James Hayes www.theliminalpage.com

‘Online friendships are a double-edged sword’ Mitch Prinstein (University of North Carolina)

Yet some peers provide really important friendships and support during times of stress – perhaps especially for vulnerable teens who don’t have the opportunity to feel connected to others with similar attitudes or backgrounds as themselves in their offline lives. We recently submitted a paper that showed how kids at risk for self-injurious thoughts and behaviour were protected by close friendships with folks online. Of course it’s a double-edged sword… kids online are also more likely to get victimised as well.

But even controlling for other factors that may play a role – stress the community’s experiencing, depression or difficulties at home, for example – peer relationships tend to be a predictive factor above and beyond all that. It’s something quite specific and unique. That’s inevitable perhaps, given the way adolescents’ brains change in a way that makes them crave more peer interaction. Teens are looking for any opportunity to feel noticed, or valued, or visible among their peers. Those kinds of experiences have way more meaning and importance to kids.

Social rejection even has effects at the level of the expression of our DNA. If you look at a child before and after social rejection you can see in their blood changes in the ways their DNA has responded to that stress. I find it fascinating that the effects can get under the skin so completely.

02/10/2020 08:15

the psychologist november 2020 self-harm

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13. How to study and learn more effectively 14. Psychological tricks to make your cooking taste better 15. Is mindfulness a panacea or overhyped and potentially problematic?

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02/10/2020 08:15

#bropenscience is broken science Kirstie Whitaker and Olivia Guest ask how open ‘open science’ really is

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ver the last decade, a vocal and hardworking group of psychological scientists have set about reforming the ways we carry out analyses, share data and code, pass around manuscripts, and select which findings to report (e.g. Altmejd et al., 2019; Frank et al., 2017; Shanks et al., 2013).

This group has been spurred into action by a variety of disappointing stories about irreplicable research (Open Science Collaboration, 2015) – due to both purposeful misconduct and variable guidance for transparent reporting standards – as well as inspired by the pre-existing ideals of ‘open science’.

It might not come as a surprise to psychologists, however, that it is a very narrow demographic of researchers who have the institutional support to spend time on such projects as well as the fortune to be publicly acknowledged for their hard work. Open (psychological) science often seems to have even fewer diverse voices than psychology as a whole (Murphy et al., 2020) – a phenomenon replicated in the tech world

with ‘open source’ being even less diverse than tech overall (Finley, 2017) – and sometimes it can become a toxic feedback loop, disincentivising minorities from taking part.

As a jocular retort to one of a few cases of strange and aggressive behaviour from some open science people towards others online, one of us (Olivia) coined the expression #bropenscience in a June 2017 tweet. This was after a discussion with other women within the open science movement, who had noticed this phenomenon, but were looking for a concise description. #bropenscience is a tongue-incheek expression but also has a serious side, shedding light on the narrow demographics and off-putting behavioural patterns seen in open science. The phrase is a necessary rhetorical device to draw attention to an issue that has been systematically underappreciated.

It evokes a visceral reaction. By design. Labelling broblems allows us to tackle them. As a field, psychology is well-equipped to self-reflect on patterns of behaviours and rhetorical devices – most of us are used to analysing complex social dynamics. However, #bropenscience has also been misunderstood and

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the psychologist november 2020 #bropenscience

misrepresented, not least because Twitter has a tricky interface and people love drama!

Here we will clarify the important points for those who might not have been following these discussions. We will explain why having a hashtag like #bropenscience, or at least having this dialogue, is useful as part of the process of achieving openness in scholarship. Along the way we will explain what open science and open scholarship are, why we care about them, and finally, we will describe specific actions that readers can take to help promote equity and inclusion, the fundamentals for openness.

We offer our opinions as open science advocates, albeit with different priorities and expertise. Just as it is important for scientists to criticise the scientific process, so too must open science advocates critically engage with the suggested reforms.

monolithic, inflexible rhetoric that ignores or even builds on structural power imbalances. It offers brittle and even hostile solutions and chastises those who do not follow them to the letter. As we shall discuss, open science and scholarship are more than that.

As early career open scientists, neither of us fit neatly into many of the broposed solutions – most researchers don’t, and science is not a monolith. We have both dealt with published findings that cannot be reproduced. We are driven by frustration at the inefficiency of current research practices. Our work and philosophies are different and that’s a feature, not a bug. A diverse and inclusive definition of open science is necessary to truly reform academic practice.

Open and inclusive scholarship Open science – and open scholarship in general – is not new, and has always had many definitions (Leonelli et al., 2015; Open science, 2006). The open How to spot a bro scholarship umbrella (overpage) articulates some of Let’s get the clichés out of the way: not all men are these dimensions. bros, and not all bros are men. Bro does not refer Open access, beginning with the creation of arXiv to half of the world’s population. There are similar in 1991 and formally defined in neologisms with the same prefix: 2002 by the Budapest Open Access brocialism, socialism that ignores gendered oppression; broscience, “not all men are bros, and Initiative, is probably the most well-known to academics, although unfounded fitness advice; and not all bros are men. Bro open source (defined in 1998 and the prevalence of brogrammers in does not refer to half of built heavily from the free software the technology industry (Chang, movement started in 1983) has 2018). In all contexts, bros are the world’s population” been around longer (Haider, 2018; identified by their behaviour and Moore, 2018). Open educational attitude, not their gender. materials can also trace their Within the open science origins to the free software movement, again in 1998. movement a bro will often be condescending, Open data was defined in 2007 to promote transparent forthright, aggressive, overpowering, and lacking government, and the two origins of citizen science kindness and self-awareness (Reagle, 2013). Although (also known as community science) in 1995 and 1996 they solicit debate on important issues, they tend define broad participation in research. Preregistration to resist descriptions of the complexities, nuances, and open notebooks are intended to build more and multiple perspectives on their argument. They transparency into research projects, and they stem from often veer into antisocial patterns of dialogue, such as the Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act sealioning, the act of intruding on and trying to derail a conversation with disingenuous questions (Kirkham, of 1997 and Kerr’s definition of hypothesising after results are known (HARK-ing) in 1998.

2017). You’ve interacted with a bro if you’ve ever It’s likely infeasible to include all the possible open had the feeling that what they’re saying makes sense scholarship elements mentioned above in your work. superficially, but would be hard to implement in your Therefore, and to change metaphors, we encourage you own research practices. In general, bros find it hard – the reader – to take a healthy and balanced portion to understand – or accept – that others will have a from the open science buffet. When she proposed the different lived experience. buffet in a 2019 talk, Christina Bergmann was warning At its worst, #bropenscience is the same closed new members of the community not to bite off more system as before. There may be a little more sharing than they could chew. Binging from the many different within a select in-group who have the skills and topics that fall under open scholarship will leave you resources to engage with new initiatives but it feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. Her message: doesn’t reach out and open science up to those who take what you can and what benefits you now, and historically have had little or no access to it (cf. Finley, then come back for more when you have the time and 2017). It creates new breaks within science such as mental space to develop a new skill. excluding people from participating in open science Each visit to the buffet will be different from the generally due to the behaviour of a vocal, powerful last, but everyone who participates will be working and privileged minority. It’s a type of exclusionary,

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towards improving scholarship for our global community. At its core, open scholarship reminds many of us why we wanted to conduct research in the first place: to learn and to educate. But the recommendations that work in one context may not be applicable in another. They will need to be adapted according to local needs in a framework that is sensitive to community specific power structures (D’Ignazio & Klein, 2020). In other words, equality, diversity and inclusion are necessary for the success of any, and every, aspect of open scholarship to create the justice it set out to accomplish (Østergaard et al., 2011; Rice, 2011). There is no open science if science is not open to all.

The true revolution, then, lies in empowering the historically disempowered. Let’s return to the buffet of actions. Reconsider that meal as a pot-luck. Everyone could bring a dish – a skill, a technique, a question – something that they want to share. Rather than ordering off a pre-set menu, we will all benefit from a greater diversity of options. There will be challenges that open scholarship advocates have never considered, and pathways that have never been trod. The foundational point of open access, open data, and free and open source software, was to facilitate transparent and equitable research and technology. It follows precisely that diversity and inclusion are fundamental to those goals.

Sadly, current leaders in academia and technology are homogeneous (Blickenstaff, 2005; Henrich et al., 2010; The Royal Society, 2014). What we call bropen science replicates this dynamic (Bahlai et al., 2019).

Homogeneous groups of people preferentially hiring and promoting others like themselves are a result of laissez-faire attitudes, resulting in what Jo Freeman (1970) calls the Tyranny of structurelessness: ‘As long as the structure of the group is informal, the rules of how decisions are made are known only to a few and awareness of power is limited to those who know the rules’. That is, regardless of individual intentions, groups can easily develop and perpetuate elitist, yet informal social structures, recreating the same biases inherent in society at large. Bro-y culture dominates at the leadership level in science and technology because it always has and there aren’t enough explicit processes to deconstruct these biases.

We said earlier that not all bros are men. And that’s true, but they are more likely to be from one or more of the following dominant social groups: male, white, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied, neurotypical, high socioeconomic status, English-speaking. That’s because structural privileges exist that benefit certain groups of people. It is not sufficient to look only at the actions of one individual person interacting with another. All systems are built in cultural and historic contexts that contain power systems that perpetuate structural racism, ableism, sexism, cissexism, heterosexism, classism and linguicism. #bropenscience draws attention to these biases within the context of open science, and it rightfully makes people feel uncomfortable. But that feeling can be harnessed as a reminder that to meet the goals of open scholarship we must dismantle all the systemic biases faced by our colleagues, not just brolleagues, around the world.

Everyone’s a little bro-y sometimes! Almost no one wakes up in the morning with a goal to exclude people and oversimplify complex problems. Online, we call such folks trolls and the mute or block button is the best way to deal with them. An uncomfortable truth is that intent is rather beside the point in many cases (McEwan, 2011). The social consequences of ‘bro culture’ are severe, and necessitate collective action.

Actions you can take So what can you do? There are relatively few opportunities to learn best practice for leadership in open scholarship. We recommend the Mozilla Open Leadership Framework as a good place to start. They define open as following three core principles: • Understanding: You make the work accessible and clear.

• Sharing: You make the work easy to adapt, reproduce, and spread.

• Participation & inclusion: You build shared ownership and agency with contributors through accountability, equity, and transparency to make the work inviting, relevant, safe, and sustainable for all.

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The open scholarship umbrella showing some of the many facets of open academic work, based on a figure by Danielle Robinson and Robin Champieux (Robinson, 2018). https://osaos.codeforscience.org/what-is-open/

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These principles are deliberately broad (for the first time, no pun intended). Any initiative, technical or otherwise, can benefit from reflection on how

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the psychologist november 2020 #bropenscience

If you have benefited from open scholarship practices you are already in a privileged group.

See what you can do to lift up others around you. Question why understandable, reusable and open scholarship centres some inclusive their project is. Leaders issues more than others. Why is in any community can reflect on reproducibility framed as a core whether their work is open by issue while sexual assault that default, or open by design.

Olivia Guest is closes off academia to too many Inclusive actions that you can at the Donders women is not (see: Haider, 2018; take to make science more open Centre for Mirowski, 2018; Henk, 2020)? to underrepresented minorities Cognitive Question why the Global South is include using a microphone at in Neuroimaging, dramatically underrepresented and person events or providing live Radboud why class and geography explain transcription and sign language University, so much of the variance in who translation for online events so Nijmegen, NL. gets into and remains in academia that hard of hearing and autistic @o_guest (Albornoz, 2018; Chan, 2018; colleagues (among others) can De Los Arcos & Weller, 2018; engage more effectively. As we Kuchma, 2018; Piron, 2018). What are the actions you have all experienced during 2020, it is necessary – and can take that will improve scholarship for all? will be for a long time to come – to support effective Ultimately, the only way to dismantle structural remote participation in a meeting or conference. and systemic biases is to listen to those who We recommend – when applicable – that in person experience them. If you practice lots of aspects of open events are held where members of traditionally scholarship, our call to action is to listen to those who underrepresented groups are likely to be awarded a visa and are more able to afford the travel. Even remote do not or cannot. Read what they write, hear what they say, and digest their reasoning. This is how to help events require careful consideration regarding time zones or political relationships between countries such them become truly open. Work towards accepting that they may have different priorities as the US sanctions on Iran. Use appropriate pronouns and constraints to you. If they ask and inclusive language and provide flexible working Key sources for educational materials, send them schedules or funds for childcare (Alex Chan has an one of the many specific guides that exceptional list of ideas for inclusive and accessible address their needs. But also, if you events). We also recommend having a code of conduct Albornoz, D. (2018). Reimagining open have power in a certain context, for online and offline events (Favaro et al., 2016). science through a feminist lens. tinyurl. practice saying, ‘Is there anything I Pay attention to how much you speak and who is com/y6evvwca Bahlai, C., Bartlett, L.J., Burgio, K.R. can do to help?’ and letting, ‘No, I’m making decisions within a group. Decision-making by et al. (2019). Open science isn’t always happy being different to you’ be an majority vote from within a biased community treats open to all scientists. American Scientist, acceptable answer. everyone as equal, but is not an equitable process.

107(2), 78.

To those of you who are Familiarise yourself with the processes through Cooper, R.P. & Guest, O. (2014). confident that you already support which the abbreviation for the conference on Neural Implementations are not specifications: people with less institutional Information Processing Systems (formerly NIPS, now Specification, replication and experimentation in computational power we have a different message.

NeurIPS) was altered in 2018 (Else, 2018). Years cognitive modeling. Cognitive Systems Keep on keeping on. Research is of misogynistic jokes by attendees – ‘nips’ being a Research, 27, 42-49. tough, even in the most supportive contraction of the word ‘nipples’ – contributed to a Finley, K. (2017). Diversity in open environments. Take care of yourself. toxic and unpleasant event for women. source is even worse than in tech Maintain a healthy work-life overall. WIRED. tinyurl.com/y5kdqhad balance. Rest and have fun when Freeman, J. (1970). The tyranny of structurelessness. https:// www. you need to. Whether you consider Listen to the people who are not usually heard jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm yourself to be a member or not, Try to reflect on the power you have within a given Henk, M. (2020). Open is cancelled. there is nothing that you have system. If you’d like to increase the number of Black https://medium.com/@beewithablog/ to change about yourself to join people who code, you could offer to answer questions open-is-cancelled-da7dd6f2aaaf. the open science movement and (an individual action), donate to organisations Henrich, J., Heine, S.J. & Norenzayan, working to train traditionally underrepresented groups community. It is our responsibility A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, to become more inclusive of your in computer programming (a financial action), or 33(2-3), 61-83. needs, to make you feel welcome implement changes in how your organisation hires, Mirowski, P. (2018). The future(s) of open and supported in conducting and rewards, incentivises and retains its staff members to science. Social Studies of Science, 48(2), disseminating your best quality maintain a diverse community (a structural action).

171-203. work. There is no conflict. We are Editors and tenured faculty members can and should all working together to build a do the most to improve equity and inclusion in Full list in online/app version better world. academia.

Kirstie Whitaker is at the Alan Turing Institute, London. @kirstie_j

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the psychologist november 2020 marie jahoda

Marie Jahoda – the ultimate example Michael Billig turns to historical studies of writing psychology to argue for ‘more examples, less theory’ in this extended and adapted extract from his new book.

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here were three books which I read as a young man and knew, as I was reading them, that they were irrevocably changing my outlook on the world. The first was Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations (1968), which I read as an undergraduate and which ruined my chances of becoming a ‘proper’ psychologist.

Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem (1965/1977), for all its faults and provocative asides, shook me deeply. Then, there was C.L.R. James’ Beyond a Boundary (1964). I can still remember the excitement of reading that book and never wanting it to end.

None of these three books which so changed me was written by a psychologist, or even by a professional academic. And in my 2013 book Learn to Write Badly: How to Succeed in the Social Sciences, I griped and grumbled about the way that social scientists tend to write these days: lots of dry jargon and big theories, producing page upon page devoid of people. Yet constant criticism can become tiresome, and so in my latest book, More Examples, Less Theory: Historical Studies of Writing Psychology, I came to praise.

I turned to some of my favourite writers of psychology from the past. What is it about their writing that makes them so appealing? Good psychological writers use well-chosen examples. Their books come alive because readers can grasp lives being lived, including the lives of the authors. Yet the standard experimental report in psychology is empty of humans. The authors discuss the effects of variables on other variables, for example the effects of ‘priming’ on the judgement of shapes. The researchers get groups of participants who have been ‘primed’ differently to judge shapes. Then, they combine the scores of participants in the different priming conditions and statistically compare aggregates of reactions. No actual participant is introduced to the reader; rather, the aggregate scores representing the tested variables are what seem to be real. In consequence, experimental reports can be example-free, human-free zones.

There is nothing natural or inevitable about this sort of writing. Psychologists, especially if they know

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the history of their discipline, have choices in the ways they write. As I considered those authors I admire, one such choice began to loom large: the inclusion of examples emerged as crucial when writing about the mind. Examples can be a synonym for a concrete individual case; an instance which exemplifies an idea or theoretical point; someone who should be followed; and sometimes all three, and possibly more, of these senses together.

Championing the rhetorical role of examples in psychological writing means pushing against the dominance of theory. It means reassessing what Thomas Scheff, in his brilliant analyses of the social sciences, has called the relations between parts and wholes. The parts may have privileged status in some areas of the social sciences, for instance in ethnography, conversation analysis and history, where analysts directly examine specific examples of life rather than trying to construct general, overall theories. In psychology, it is the wholes of theory that currently have the upper hand, squeezing examples to the margins.

Working through my historical examples of psychological writers, I became persuaded that examples were often rhetorically in tension with theory. The more a theory was valued, the more examples were devalued or restricted. On the other hand, the more that examples were treasured, as in the writing of Abraham Tucker and William James, the more the role of theory qua theory was diminished.

This tension between theory and example is clear in the work of my ‘ultimate example’. Marie Jahoda, who died in 2001 at the age of 94, was a great user of examples in her work, and she believed that psychologists constantly over-valued theory. She sets standards of writing and of intellectual humanity that psychologists today would do well to follow. Jahoda had a wider moral and political vision which she maintained throughout her life; she wrote directly with minimum jargon and maximum clarity; and she felt that the pressures to publish were corrupting academic values. Psychologists, in her opinion, were constantly publishing trivialities that were not worth the paper on which they were printed.

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In short, Jahoda’s use of examples and her suspicion of theory in psychology were just two aspects of a humane, courageous vision. She showed readers how to look at the sharp points of the social world. Jahoda’s early political commitments had pulled her towards psychology, and then towards a very particular way of doing psychology – immersed in the lives of those she studied.

The rootless refugee Readers working their way through my book might be puzzled that chapters on some of the ‘big names’ in psychology – including William James, Freud, Lacan, Tajfel – led up to Marie Jahoda. They might consider her to be something of an anti-climax. Jahoda

Heroes among the victims Each family is unique in Jahoda’s descriptions, and it is the detail that conveys the book’s sense of humanity. Some villagers have lost all hope for the future and yearn for the imagined stability of the past; but there is also the wife who is pleased that her husband can no longer go out drinking with his friends. Some husbands sit around doing little, while others, such as the father on the stool with his children’s shoes, help with the home; some fathers grow vegetables in their allotments to supplement the family’s diet, and some grow flowers to brighten the home. There are heroes among the victims.

Jahoda and her colleagues were well aware that the Marienthal, which they were looking at in 1931, was itself in a state of change with the outcome unclear. All conclusions and predictions for the future had to be provisional. As Jahoda wrote in the final chapter, ‘how things will continue, we cannot foresee’. It was possible that as conditions deteriorated, the community might rebel in concerted social action; equally it was possible that the bonds of community that were already weakening would dissolve entirely, leaving ‘each individual to scramble’ after their own salvation.

There was another possibility, which the authors only hinted at. Lazarsfeld in his new introduction wrote that the researchers worried that the Nazi movement might provide renewed focus and activity for the fading community. Jahoda wrote that it was impossible to predict how traditional political allegiances would be affected by the newly established branch of the National Socialists in the village. Yet even if many members of a despairing, declining community might turn politically towards the extreme Right with its easy targets and its disciplined communal marching, there would be others who would not. There would still be different individual reactions to the shared circumstances. That was why it was important for Jahoda to point out that Tajfel and his fellow researchers had ignored the participants who did not discriminate against members of the other group in the minimal group situation: not all Germans, including those in Austria after the Nazi annexation of 1938, were swept along by the culture of antiSemitism. Some resisted the force of history’s movement, aware that, in time, that too would change. Perhaps some of them lived in Marienthal.

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hardly troubles the writers of social psychology’s major textbooks, but that is precisely the point. If the standard ways of writing psychology are flawed, then a good example is more likely to found on the margins of the discipline than in its central positions.

Marie Jahoda was a multiple outsider – by ethnicity, politics, culture, nationality, intellectual values and, of course, gender. David Fryer, in the fascinating interview which he conducted with her when she was in her early eighties, asked her, In which community did she feel ‘totally at home’? She replied, ‘Oh, I’m just a rootless refugee’ (Fryer, 1986, p.118). Younger than Kurt Lewin and 12 years older than Henri Tajfel, Jahoda, like them, was a European Jew who had fled from aggressive anti-Semitism.

In the book, I outline Marie Jahoda’s long life, beginning with growing up in a liberal-minded, middle-class Jewish family in Vienna, through socialist politics after the First World War, then studying psychology in the genuine belief that one day she would be the country’s socialist minister of education.

At a summer camp of the socialist youth movement in 1919, Jahoda met the young Paul Lazarsfeld, who also combined an involvement in Austro-Marxism with an interest in psychology. Paul and Marie married in 1927, and co-operated with Hans Zeisel, a lawyer and childhood friend of Lazarsfeld, on the study of Marienthal, an industrial village 20 miles from Vienna with almost 100 per cent unemployment. It was a brilliant, pioneering piece of work which represented for Marie Jahoda the perfect balance between intellectual inquiry and political significance.

Jahoda went on to spend eight months in prison, mostly in solitary confinement, on the charge of assisting the underground organisation of the banned Social Democrats; to begin that life as a ‘rootless refugee’ by leaving for Britain, holding a fellowship at Cambridge University and working with the British Ministry of Information during the Second World War; and to work in the United States before returning to England in 1958, to Brunel College of Advanced Technology and later the new University of Sussex. But it’s the story and significance of that classic publication, Marienthal, that interests me here.

‘To make visible in its complexity…’

As the director of the Psychological Institute’s new research centre, Paul Lazarsfeld wanted a politically motivated project to balance the market research that he had been directing. He went to see Otto Bauer, the leader of the Austrian Socialists, with the idea of conducting a survey to help the recently unemployed make use of their enforced leisure time.

Bauer responded in no uncertain terms. According to the statistician and sociologist Paul Neurath (1995), Bauer exploded: Had they all gone out of their minds?

Did they really want to study leisure activities when what the unemployed most needed was work? Bauer suggested the researchers examine the consequences of

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almost total unemployment on the life of a community.

He recommended them to look at Marienthal, a strongly Social Democratic village where the main employer had closed down the flax mill, leaving most of the households without a wage earner.

The project began in 1930, and in the words of Christian Fleck in his introduction to the latest English edition of Marienthal, its ‘matching of politics and scholarship has seldom been replicated’. Yet political censorship was to damage its fortunes, and the book remained unpublicized for years. The report was originally published in Germany as a short book in the spring of 1933, just weeks after Hitler had taken power. The publisher, based in Leipzig, kept the Jewish-sounding names of the three authors – Jahoda, Lazarsfeld and Zeisel – from the front cover.

The book was merely described as being edited by the Austrian Research Unit for Economic Psychology, and it bore the title (in German) ‘The Unemployed of Marienthal: a Sociographic Essay on the Consequences of Long-Term Unemployment, with an Appendix on the History of Sociography’. When it was finally translated into English almost 40 years later, Fleck wrote that the book’s history showed that in the social sciences, ‘outstanding work can live at the very margins of the scholarly world’.

In between Lazarsfeld’s introduction and Zeisel’s afterword came the main body of the text, which Jahoda wrote. She did not present the findings as if they were testing a theory about the psychological consequences of unemployment. In fact, like Lazarsfeld in the introduction, she did not refer to other research.

Many years later, Jahoda (1982a) would describe the study as being radically atheoretical. In fact, as Jahoda (1982a, 1983) stressed, the study was not designed in advance: it ‘grew organically’, and ‘improvisation was a permanent feature of all our work’ (1983, p.348).

Today, researchers in the social sciences are taught to present their work in terms of a pre-planned theoretical approach or a hypothesis. The Marienthal authors were doing just what young social scientists are nowadays told not to do.

Jahoda would claim that the lack of theory was a substantial benefit because the researchers could look directly at the world to see what happens when a community is economically destroyed. Their task was not to test a hypothesis (as if they needed to test the hypothesis that collective poverty was not a collective benefit); nor was it to test a methodology (as if the most important thing was to use the unemployed to test the strengths and weaknesses of various techniques of measurement). The researchers were engaging in what Jahoda called ‘descriptive fieldwork’. Description, not theory, was to be the key as the researchers sought ‘to make visible in its complexity what is otherwise invisible’ – to show that the people of Marienthal were suffering in ways that outsiders might fail to notice.

If the Marienthal research project was to be descriptive fieldwork, then Jahoda, as the author of the main report, needed to pursue a rhetorical strategy for

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describing the life of the village. Her strategy can be briefly summed up by two significant absences and one significant presence. Specialist terminology, especially theoretical constructs, and references to academic publications are the absences. Jahoda described the community in terms of official statistics and in terms of what the researchers noticed about its members and their patterns of life. In these descriptions, there is a significant presence: at all times she offered specific examples to bring the general descriptions and the official numbers to life, showing individual families caught in desperate times.

Concrete examples can be found in all the chapters presenting results, even in chapters that seemingly concentrate on numerical summaries.

In chapter 4, Jahoda presented the findings about menus and budgets. She started with a summary of the number of meals eaten by those who participated in the survey. For example, 75 per cent had three meals a day. Just over half the families (54 per cent) had meat once a week. Forty-five per cent had coffee and bread for their evening meal, while 40 per cent ate left-overs from the lunchtime meal in the evening. The average figures are disturbing: this is not a community that is eating well and the health statistics supported this.

However, Jahoda did not leave the average numbers to speak for themselves. She presented the menus of two specific families for a week, as well as giving their average weekly spending on food. There, we can see the pattern of deprivation clearly. On Tuesday, the first family had coffee and bread for breakfast, cabbage and potato for lunch and cabbage for the evening meal. We can see how the mother of the family tried to spice up the monotony of the meals on the Thursday by adding paprika to the potatoes that formed both the family lunch and the evening meal. It is the particulars that bring the averages to life.

One of the most famous findings of the Marienthal research was that unemployment destroyed the structure of the men’s days. Most had nothing to do. Now unemployed, many of the men seemed psychologically lost. While their wives were looking after the home, many of the men wandered about aimlessly. With seemingly unlimited time they nevertheless dropped their former leisure pursuits, giving up activities such as football or reading library books. The researchers timed how long it took men and women to walk around the village. The women tended to walk briskly without stopping – they had tasks that needed to be done. The men dawdled, stopping frequently to talk as they filled time. Again, there were specific examples to illustrate the general point. The idea of measuring the speed of walking came from no methodology textbook: it came from the researchers noticing what was happening before their eyes.

The report demonstrated that description was not straightforward. Lazarsfeld, in his introduction, reported that the researchers came away from the

Marie Jahoda in Austria in 1930s.

Archiv für die Geschichte der Soziologie in Österreich (AGSÖ) http://agso.unigraz.at/

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village with boxes of material weighing more than 66 pounds. Only a tiny fraction of that material could be used as examples in the final report and Jahoda had to select the details to be used. If metonymy represents describing a whole in terms of a part, then metonymic selection is key to the vivid use of examples that enables a particular case to stand for a much greater whole.

One particular example shows the importance of metonymic selection. How could the author illustrate the communal spirit of Marienthal and the simultaneous threat that poverty makes to that spirit?

No amount of statistics could make the point as forcefully as a detail from the lives of villagers. In the second chapter, Jahoda reported: ‘When a cat or a dog disappears, the owner no longer bothers to report the loss; he knows that someone must have eaten the animal, and he does not want to find out who’.

The detail sticks in the mind long after percentage points are forgotten. We can imagine adults not wanting to discover which neighbours might have eaten the family’s pet – fearing that they too might soon be reduced to such desperate theft. We can also imagine them being relieved that they no longer have to feed a cat or a dog loved by One of Marie Jahoda’s their children, when they can barely provide more lessons derived than potatoes and poor quality bread for those from the Marienthal research is that people children. It takes skill for an author to find the telling detail among 66 pounds of documentation. do not react to the Selecting the detail is only half the task. The detail same circumstances then has to be described so that it appears to speak in identical ways. for itself without heavy-handed explanation. Small Image from Archiv für words can be decisive: ‘no longer’ conveys so much die Geschichte der Soziologie in Österreich without drawing attention to the changes wrought by unemployment. The skills of description, when (AGSÖ) http://agso.uni-graz.at/ exercised precisely, seem to disappear from sight.

From her experience of being involved in the Marienthal research, Marie Jahoda derived three lessons that would last the rest of her long, productive life: the importance of using qualitative material to understand the lives of individuals within a community; the importance of realising that people do not react to the same circumstances in identical ways; and if research is based on social problems, then there are reasons beyond theory and methodology for deciding whether or not to publish the findings.

Taken together, all three ensured that Jahoda would later remain outside the dominant trends of social psychology. It’s the second lesson I’d like to consider in more detail here.

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Describing different people In actual life, people are not replaceable, one for each other. They do not act in identical ways, as if they are nothing but a variable awaiting to be pushed in a single direction by another variable. The schoolboys participating in Henri Tajfel’s minimal group experiments, for example, were doing tasks that

had no significance for them but that is no reason to assume that they had all reacted in precisely the same way or that the differences in their reactions were unimportant. Jahoda felt that the experimentalists should have sought to discover and then describe the variety of their responses – even if only a small number had refused to discriminate against the members of the other group, it would have been a finding that would be significant in a non-statistical sense. Jahoda supported her point with a historical example that related to her and Tajfel’s lives: ‘There were, after all, some Germans who helped Jews to survive though fully aware that Jews had been made into an outgroup’ (1981b, p. 481).

Jahoda was making a criticism of experimental social psychology: namely that methodologically and theoretically it was a psychology of the majority.

She was claiming that experimentalists, in trying to isolate causal variables, were only interested in how the majority of subjects within an experimental situation behaved and that they treated the minority as ‘insubordinate subjects’ whose behaviour was a nuisance (Jahoda, 1959). They are deliberately separating the participants from their lives and then treating those participants as interchangeable.

This, in Jahoda’s view, was the mark of an impoverished psychology and explained why, against the intellectual trends of the social psychology, she retained her interest in Freud.

As she wrote in her Freud book, academic psychologists separate the different aspects of the person – they either study memory, or emotion, or cognition, etc. For methodological reasons they are very good at dividing up the person, but this routine practice raises the question ‘Where is the person in academic psychology?’ (Jahoda, 1977, p.40). In Jahoda’s view, Freud fully immersed himself in the lives of his patients, just as the Marienthal researchers had sought to immerse themselves in the lives of the unemployed. In consequence, Freud understood that the various parts of a person were interconnected, such as a person’s development, motivation, emotion, cognition and social background – in fact, as Jahoda commented, these are the very sub-disciplines into which ‘psychology has come to divide its unwieldy subject matter’ (1977, p.49).

Because people’s lives are so complex, they are uniquely different. This is one reason why descriptive examples were so important in Marienthal. The unemployed were not an aggregate lump. The same devastation of unemployment may have affected nearly all the families in the village, but it affected them in different ways: some families remained unbroken, some were resigned, some were in despair – and, saddest of all, were apathetic families who seemed to have given up all hope as their lives disintegrated.

Jahoda, as the report’s writer, needed to bring to life different people and different families. She described how some mothers coped resourcefully, managing their meagre budgets with unselfish skill; others did

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not manage. It took a woman researcher to realise just how pivotal was the role of the mother in maintaining families, once the men had lost their economic function.

The general trajectory of the families was to go from being unbroken to becoming increasingly broken.

The researchers categorised the families under some general headings, such as ‘unbroken’ or ‘resigned’.

These categories may suggest similarities between those falling under the heading. The examples were crucial for understanding what the authors meant by their categories. It was more an exercise in ostensive definition. The writer was pointing to a particular family as if saying ‘if you want to know what we’re calling “a resigned family” was like, then look how this one was just about managing to survive’. But there were always very different ways for families to be ‘unbroken’ or ‘resigned’. Therefore, there needed to be more than one example so that readers of this short book could note differences between the families that the writer might be placing in the same category. What mattered was always the reality of the families, not the categories.

In her final chapter, entitled appropriately ‘Fading Resilience’, Jahoda offered a series of examples. We see a family ‘in despair’. Their house and clothing were spotlessly clean, and the father is sitting on a low stool holding a hammer with a pile of worn-out children’s shoes in front of him. He is trying to mend them with roofing felt. He is wearing a faded shirt; he possesses few other clothes, having converted his jackets, spare trousers and overcoat into clothes for the children. He says that on Sundays it’s his job to mend the children’s shoes so that they can go to school on Monday: ‘I don’t have to go out but the children must go to school’.

A great artist could have painted the father on his stool in a way that conveys within one image the suffering, the despair and the unselfish spirit. The single scene would then suggest the whole life, not just of one family but of others too. As Ernst Cassirer argued in his Essay on Man, art, in contrast to scientific theories, intensifies rather than simplifies – it takes us deeper into the meaning of the particular instance.

Marie Jahoda’s description of the man sitting on his stool, telling the researcher what he was doing, depicts the specific scene to illustrate the wider pattern of the family’s shared life. She was intensifying the scene in ways that a numerical point on a scale could not.

Against the arrogance of theory In Jahoda’s work, as theory is ousted from its position of command, so examples fill the vacated space. We can see this in a statement that she made about Freud.

In her view, Freud was a genuine scientist, devoting great efforts to understanding the mind through observation. She argued that ‘this effort is inherent in his repeated emphases on observation and its dominance over theory’ (Jahoda, 1977, p.29).

Of course, psychologists must organise their

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observations, and then write them down. They become descriptions – and not ‘mere’ descriptions, for they are also interpretations. Jahoda was not ‘merely’ describing the father on his low stool; she was interpreting what he was doing, as well as reporting his own interpretation, and she was using his specific actions to illustrate and to understand the wider circumstances of his family’s life.

When Marie Jahoda wrote about the father on the stool in the main body of the report, she found no need to add words of theory. Nearly 50 years after the original collection of material, Jahoda wrote that ‘exclusively theory-oriented research can sometimes function as a straitjacket for thought and observation’ (1989, p.77). She added that ‘theories are high-level abstractions; explanations are more down to earth’; ‘theories tend to ignore deviants; explanations try to encompass them’; ‘theories generalize, explanations specify’ (1989, p.77).

The researchers’ own Austro-Marxism was, in the word of Jahoda (1983), ‘not so much a theory as a view on life’. They came to the village trying to give what practical help they could, offering things like secondhand clothes, guidance or classes. They knew that no theory, however good the theorist believed it to be, would put food on the plates of the poor or clothes on their children. If, instead of providing practical help in return for cooperation with the project, a theorist had told the villagers that ‘the researchers were hoping to construct a good theory of unemployment and the villagers should co-operate because there is nothing as practical as a good theory’, then you don’t need a good theory to guess how the villagers would have responded.

How might the villagers have responded to Marie Jahoda’s plain way of writing? The politics of bigotry had ensured that the inhabitants of Marienthal would not have had the opportunity to read the great book that she wrote about them. The book had been prevented from reaching academic circles, let alone somewhere as out of the way as Marienthal.

Yet, there was little in the main text that would have been inaccessible to those whom the book describes.

Her writing is concise and clear. She always preferred ordinary words to technical ones. She never packaged and promoted her views as a named theory that could be marketed in the academic world, nor did she line up words to create technical terminology or to impress readers.

Today, we can still have hopes for the future, just as the young Marie Jahoda and her colleagues did.

Because of her vivid descriptions in Marienthal, we can imagine the characters whom she wrote about. We can also fantasise, imagining them reading the book and recognising themselves in Jahoda’s descriptions. Had this been possible, they might have smiled, finding some hope in those printed descriptions which showed that they had not been completely forgotten. When all seems to be failing in practice, the power of description might be able to offer a little bit more than a theory.

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Towards a psychology of examples Marie Jahoda said that most psychological theories did not deserve to be called ‘theories’ because they were not predictive. They are better seen as ‘explanations’ because they seek to explain post hoc. Upgrading the status of examples will entail upgrading descriptions, because examples have to be described. Jahoda’s description of the man on his stool is not just a description of the position of the man’s body and the movement of the hammer. As she describes, and quotes, so she interprets what he is doing.

When we describe an event in all its particularity, using it to stand as a unique example for a class of events, we are, to use an ugly word that is not greatly used in cognitive psychology, ‘particularising’ it.

I have described Marie Jahoda’s use of examples as an example of ‘metonymic thinking’. The particular person, event or unhealthy diet is not absorbed into the general category but is rescued from it, to be described in its particularity, as it overspills the limitations of the general category. In this respect, particularising is rhetorically the opposite of categorising. Metonymy refers to the practice of letting the particular action stand for a whole class of actions.

We might make a prediction. If describing examples becomes more recognised within psychology, and ceases to be dismissed as ‘mere description’, then psychologists will begin to create the sort of psychology of examples that is at present lacking. In ordinary life we all engage in exemplifying. For example, we pick out an event and describe that event to a friend when we want to illustrate the strengths or weaknesses of a mutual acquaintance’s character.

The part is being used to illustrate the whole. When done skilfully, whether in ordinary life, formal rhetoric or in the writings of Tucker, James or Jahoda, this sort of thinking brings insight; it should not be dismissed as concrete thinking, existing on a lower cognitive level than conceptual thinking. When This article is an edited extract psychologists recognise themselves in from Chapters 1, 8 and 9 of More Examples, Less Theory: Historical their accounts of this type of thinking, then, on the basis of past form, they Studies of Writing Psychology, by will put particularising on a footing Michael Billig, published with kind permission of Cambridge University with categorising. Then we will begin to edge towards a psychology of using Press. examples.

See tinyurl.com/billigmoreeg Such is the pre-eminence of theory Keep an eye on Twitter @psychmag today that it is easy to assume that theories give power to a social scientist, for your chance to win a copy. and it is just as easy to accept Lewin’s For references and further reading, maxim that there is nothing so practical as a good theory. However, as James, see the version on our website.

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Tucker and Jahoda in their different ways recognised, there are advantages in undirected perception and untrained capacity. When psychologists, under the influence of theory, lose their intellectual innocence, they can lose much more besides. Like those participating in experiments designed to investigate the effects of prejudice on perception, they sometimes only notice what they expect to see. Looking at social life with a theory can be a bit like observing the world from a television monitor: you only see what the camera team has determined that you see. Reality then becomes, if not a reality show, then at least a theory show.

A few recommendations However interesting the past might be, it is always the next generation that really matters. It is unlikely that psychological ideas and practices in the future will simply reproduce those of today, just as those today have not entirely repeated yesterday’s. Therefore, I am ending with a few recommendations that are aimed primarily at postgraduates and young academics, especially those who are hoping to make a career in psychology but who find themselves questioning the prevailing myths and practices of the discipline.

Do not assume that the latest work is necessarily the best work or that it has the most to teach you.

Look back at thinkers from psychology’s past, but do not look only for the big ‘stars’. You might find insights and wisdom in writers who seem to have been forgotten.

Do not be overawed by theory or believe it is necessary to have a theory before you can start researching the world. If anyone senior says to you, ‘You must have a theory’, just reply, ‘Remember Marienthal’. And if anyone says to you, ‘There is nothing as practical as a good theory’, then ask them for their evidence, or better still, for an example.

For good measure, tell them that there was nothing as impractical as Lewin’s own supposedly good theory.

Be conscious of what William James called ‘the psychologist’s fallacy’. Do not imagine that a methodology will protect you from the dangers and temptations of the psychologist’s fallacy – the dangers of theory, directing and distorting what psychologists claim to see. Both quantitative and qualitative researchers can fall foul of the fallacy. Try to aim for a sophisticated naivety.

Make certain to populate your writing, ensuring that you write about people rather than theoretical things or aggregate scores. If you are writing about a general process, then give an extended, thickly described example to show how that process might operate in practice.

I hope that in your writing, and especially in your choice of examples, you will be doing more than making technical points. May you overspill your examples with your own distinctive character, broad vision and humane understanding!

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what to seek out on the

psychologist

website this month Jimmy Rogers https://booyeah.co.uk

Fair’s fair?

What should psychologists understand about austerity, and ways to broaden the role of psychologists in order to combat its effects? Insights from ‘Make My City Fair’ in Birmingham. https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/fairs-fair Plus a call for our special summer 2021 edition, around the theme ‘From poverty to flourishing’ Find all this and so much more via

thepsychologist.bps.org.uk

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02/10/2020 09:44

‘Anxiety frequently howls at shadows where there are no true threats’ Your Anxiety Beast and You: A Compassionate Guide to Living in an Increasingly Anxious World (Exisle Publishing) by Dr Eric Goodman is out now.

Deputy Editor Dr Annie Brookman-Byrne asked him about the book.

What is an anxiety beast? Do we all have one?

The anxiety beast is a metaphorical and compassionate way of looking at our experience of anxiety. Like the beast in the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, our anxiety superficially feels like a monster, but upon closer inspection it turns out to be a misunderstood hero.

Anxiety evolved over millions of years to vigorously protect us from prehistoric threats. In the (relative) blink of an eye we have gone from prehistoric to modern life. Our anxiety is still stuck in prehistoric time so it is utterly baffled by today’s very different circumstances. It is always trying to help – it means well – but it most often misperceives threats.

Anxiety frequently howls at shadows where there are no true threats.

For example, being the centre of attention surrounded by strangers, was a very dangerous situation for our prehistoric ancestors. Giving a speech in front of strangers today is objectively safe in most cases, but anxiety often floods people with the adrenalin needed to fight or flee prior to and during the presentation. It is a glitch in the system. Anxiety is jumping in to help when it is not needed in the modern world.

Almost all of us can relate to the ‘false alarms’ of a howling anxiety beast. That is not pathology, in itself. It is normal for our species.

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How do messages from society influence our thoughts and feelings about anxiety?

Despite the fact that humans are natural born worriers, anxiety is often presented by experts as an enemy. There

are countless articles, books, and blogs with titles that include: How to be worry-free Cure your anxiety Overcome your anxiety Beat your anxiety Clinicians often describe anxiety antagonistically, as a: bully demon monster disease competitor There is no treatment that will lead to zero anxiety. You can’t and shouldn’t eradicate a normal and protective emotion. However, we can teach our anxiety beasts to quiet down in some situations and we can provide a soothing nervous system for it to live in.

Additionally, we humans are now massive consumers of media (social and otherwise). We start our day with images of other people streamed to our phones, we feast on these images throughout the day, and typically end our day with more of them. The images we see of people on TV, commercials, and social media are most often carefully staged images showing people looking happy, calm, and content. From that perspective, the natural feelings of doubt and fear that dance in and out of your consciousness feels like something about you is defective.

At the same time, even pre-Covid, anxiety levels have been on the rise.

You take a compassionate approach to anxiety, with a chapter called ‘learning to love your anxiety beast’. What does a compassionate approach entail, and why is it better than other approaches?

The reality is that no matter how well we manage our anxiety, we will remain anxious creatures. We, then, have a choice. We can hate, fight, and struggle against our anxiety or we can take a more accepting and compassionate approach.

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When we treat our anxiety like an enemy and a threat what happens? Our anxiety, whose job is to vigorously protect us from threats by activating our fight-or-flight bodily response will flood us with adrenalin when we notice anxious feelings. We become anxious about our anxiety. The harder you fight, the more you suffer.

Alternatively, as much as we are designed to be anxious, we are also designed to have that anxiety soothed through compassion. Early human life involved extreme fight-or-flight reactions to the dangerous world when out hunting and gathering. However, returning to the relative safety of our small tribes meant soothing through compassionate connection.

Increasing our compassion towards ourselves is related to quieter anxiety, less depression, and an enhanced sense of well-being. Given that anxiety will remain part of our lives, it makes more sense to hold it gently with compassion, rather than living with an enemy to fight within your own nervous system.

Do you think psychologists need to change how they think about anxiety, or how they work with people who are anxious?

Psychologists have a lot to offer people who are suffering with their anxiety. Good treatment can and does lead to symptom reduction (not anxiety elimination) and increased functionality in an anxious world. People who are struggling and suffering from anxiety benefit greatly from getting good mental health treatment.

But, the language used to describe anxiety matters.

When anxiety is described as an antagonist to be vanquished it reinforces the notion that anxiety is a threat.

Given that anxiety will continue to howl, it sets people up for more anxiety about anxiety in the future. And for some, the presence of anxiety leads to feelings of shame.

Helping people see that their anxiety cares about them – it only wants to help – can bring the soothing power of compassion to override the exacerbating effect of struggle and resistance.

Psychologists can then help people learn to soothe their anxiety rather than fight with it. They can show them that teaching their anxiety through exposure therapy can make anxiety a better lifelong inner companion.

Have you learnt to love your own anxiety beast?

I love my anxiety the way I love the health benefits of eating a healthy salad rather than the short-term gratification of deep-fried everything. By eating healthy I can live a longer, more energetic life. I can be around

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to see my children grow up. Embracing anxiety with compassion, in the long term leads to a better inner companion than the short-term relief of running from anxiety.

I love that anxiety motivated me to leave my parents’ basement and venture out into the big wide world of education, career, love and parenthood. Feeling anxious can be a sign of pushing beyond one’s comfort zone – which is where a meaningful life can be found.

I love that anxiety adds spice to my life by giving me a thrill on a rollercoaster or heart-pounding excitement of watching an action movie.

I love that anxiety gives me the focus and energy I need when I teach evening classes.

I love that anxiety keeps me from falling asleep while driving on the highway at night.

I love that anxiety kept me vigilant and protective when my daughter had a 105 degree temperature and I needed to stay up half the night fighting her fever.

I love my anxiety because after spending most of my life hating it, I see that gently embracing it has led to less suffering and more willingness to step outside of my comfort zone.

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Not in with the in-crowd Psychology, Humour and Class: A Critique of Contemporary Psychology Babak Fozooni Routledge, £38.99

Dr Babak Fozooni takes the reader on an interesting journey in his three-part book. Firstly, he writes about what he describes as Mainstream Psychology, that of the upper-class with their stock-in-trade of psychoanalysis, behaviourism and humanistic psychologies. Devoting a chapter each to Freud, Hirschfield, Watson, Maslow and Rogers, he argues that there are more similarities than differences between these paradigms, and that the protagonists of these psychologies are largely agents (often inadvertently) of capitalism and the state, seeking to control and subdue the working class.

Taking a similar approach to Critical Psychology, which he downgrades to middle class musings, he is much kinder to the quintet he selects – Frankl, Laing, Foucault, Billig and Parker – describing them as smart and original. He derides the new wave of critical psychologists who follow this quintet as lacking innovation yet he proclaims that his omission of a chapter on social identity theory (SIT) featuring Tajfel and Drury as a weakness, claiming simply to have run out of time and patience. He seems to separate out John Drury from the other followers of Tajfel yet argues that SIT is too mired within cognitive psychology to be worthy

of liberation. Perhaps he is guiding readers towards Drury’s innovative work regarding class?

The first two sections are but a scene setter for the main thrust of the work, the final section introducing Postpsychology, laying the foundations across what could be loosely termed the social sciences.

Fozooni discards the socially constructed boundaries between the disciplines and casts Postpsychology not as interdisciplinary but rather as trans-disciplinary. We are then taken on a whirlwind tour across the disciplines starting somewhat before the birth of what we currently term Psychology in the latter part of the 19th century. Citing ‘thinkers’ from the 17th century to modern day neuro-psychologists Fozooni cleverly weaves the disciplines together to create the holistic Postpsychology.

Contributions are made from such seemingly diverse characters as The Earl of Shaftesbury, Vygotsky, Luria and Fromm. This holistic Postpsychology, Fozooni argues, attempts to salvage the best from what he terms the upper- and middle-class psychologies, adding in the adjacent social science disciplines e.g. philosophy and economics. To complete the mix, he seeks to involve the class struggle against capitalism to create Postpsychology with the holistic attributes required ‘for a global

‘…when we’re making our minds up – about masks, schools, race, the police, any of the items that are currently in the news – we need to be extremely careful, especially in situations when others are attempting to influence us. Deliver a message that garners support and interest, that motivates recipients to fight for it rather than run from it; construct an argument so that it appeals to notions of partisan attachment or salient in-group identity; formulate a position so that it invokes a code of values, a sense of right or wrong – or, better still, do all three – and irrespective of whether you really are right or wrong people will sit up and take notice.

You will become a supersuader.’

remaking of humanity’.

Fozooni, however, surely errs in positioning Postpsychology as working class. I’m minded of the classic class TV sketch with Barker, Corbett and Cleese, I can imagine Fozooni (who describes himself as an ‘oompa loompa’) perhaps associating more with Corbett than the others.

The delight in the sketch of course is that it is Corbett who comes out on top! If the argument is that Postpsychology is trans-disciplinary should it be trans-class too? Or maybe Fozooni you’re arguing we are mostly working class now anyway?

Nonetheless you’re not currently with the ‘in-crowd’, instead seeming more at ease with the common people ‘who dance and drink and screw’.

In society we tend to learn more and more about less and less, becoming expert on the minutiae, but incapable as experts to consider the whole. Perhaps that is a lesson that will be learned from the Covid-19 crisis. The lesson from this tome is that the ‘technicolour’ Postpsychology as constructed

by Fozooni is somewhat more than the sum of its component parts. In addition, it is a valuable reference book guiding the ‘student’ of psychology well outside the conventional boxes.

Read more at: thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/when-grey-matter-and-grey-matters-collide

Reviewed by Barry Morgan BA BSc MBPsS me@bjmorgan.me

More online: …including ‘When grey matter and grey matters collide’: Kevin Dutton on his new book Black and White Thinking – The Burden of a Binary Brain in a Complex World (Bantam Press).

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We are built to groove dances as wide as the Haka and lap dancing! In some As I was reading The Dance Cure, I hoped that dancers places I was left wanting more research evidence than would come across this book while unable to move in is presented, as the work favoured extended stories their studios and theatres this summer. The book will about few research projects, rather than jam remind professional dancers, who are very packing with citations. With that in mind, the likely experiencing frustration or declines in motivation, why we should all be dancing for fun The Dance Cure: author has clearly simplified some of the more as much as we should be dancing to ‘become a The surprising mind-boggling aspects of research methods and neuroscience while retaining the scientific dancer’. It’s also a highly relevant read for those secret to who simply love to move, providing a compelling being smarter, integrity, and has an engaging, often humorous way of doing so. Diagrams and dance steps narrative of the wide reaching cognitive and stronger, offer the perfect solution to helping the reader emotional benefits of dance. happier understand the scientific concepts and get up The book starts with Lovatt’s personal Peter Lovatt moving mid-read. inspirational story of struggling in school, and Short Books, One question floated around my mind for despite being one of very few boys in the dance £9.99 much of the book – what about those people who class, finding himself moving as an outlet. The simply hate dancing, because they are crippled rest of the book focuses on understanding by embarrassment or anxiety? Why is it that some people The Dance Cure: a simple but effective and important would rather leave a party than be dragged onto the manifesto; that dance is good for our mental and physical dancefloor? The chapter ‘What stops people dancing?’ wellbeing. The book takes the reader through a whistledoes flirt with this idea, introducing the phenomenon stop tour of feel-good ideas, from understanding the known as chorophobia, or the fear of dancing, but I still science of synchronisation and social cohesion to the didn’t get my answers – although I did get a fun story efficacy of dance for Parkinson’s and depression. about Simon Cowell! Maybe the depth I was looking for The work is largely based around Lovatt’s own just doesn’t work in this feel-good book, but I craved experiences of dancing and doing dance research in his some advice for chorophobics, or a clearer synthesis lab, supplemented by insights from others in the field. of how the evidence presented in the previous chapters I’ve followed the author’s work for some time, and this applies for those individuals. The research shows that book embodies all that he is – fun but a rigorous scientist younger women tend to have lower self-confidence who has a way with words and movement. He discusses in their dancing, but I do still have some remaining how we are built to groove, be creative and feel through questions as to other individual differences that exist in moving, drawing broadly on stories and research from disliking dancing.

Nonetheless, this is a book that is needed and will engage many people, and very few are better placed to write about dance psychology than Lovatt.

The book reminds those of us who don’t dance as much as we used to that we need to get up and get moving to prolong our lives, to become more empathetic and to destress. It’s a feel good, upbeat read and will encourage every reader to keep dancing.

Reviewed by Lucie Clements, Senior Lecturer and dance researcher, University of Chichester Find an extract of The Dance Cure – a chapter called ‘Emotions in motion’ – on our website at: thepsychologist. bps.org.uk/emotions-motion

The residents of Springbourne in Frodsham, Cheshire, take part in their daily social distance dancing and fitness event, led by resident Janet Woodcock during the pandemic lockdown on 4 April 2020 in Frodsham, England

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Reviews: If you are a publisher or author, please hold off from sending copies of books to our Leicester office – we are all still working remotely. Instead, send us details on psychologist@bps.org.uk. We consider reviews, online extracts, author Q&As and more.

02/10/2020 10:32

#ALittleBitOfGood in the world Claire Murphy-Morgan is Artistic Director of Newcastle-based arts charity Monkfish Productions, and a Northumbria University MSc Psychology Postgraduate. Here, she talks about an arts project helping to unlock the creative potential of us all as active citizens, by sharing good news for a change…

arts project #ALittleBit OfGood www.monkfish productions.org facebook.com/ littlebitofgood intheworld Twitter: @Monkfish_Good

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D

esmond Tutu says: ‘Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.’ As an arts organisation working with communities in the North East of England, Monkfish feels the urgency of these words of wisdom now more than ever.

We are a small charity with big ideas on co-making work with artists and communities in empty shops, village halls and community centres across Tyne and Wear. Over the last four years in particular, a bleak picture has been emerging: one of disproportionate poverty and socio-economic disadvantage, exacerbated by the current political climate of polarisation, inequality and indifference. A diet of constant bad news on social media and mainstream news has compounded a sense of powerlessness for both individuals and communities we work with.

As artists and creative practitioners, we began

to realise we were also feeling the same sense of powerlessness ourselves. But amongst all of this despair there are shining examples of hope, kindness, and positivity from these same communities and neighbourhoods: the volunteers making soup for the elderly people up the street, the lady who brought in a whole new sewing kit for another lady at one of our craft sessions in Gateshead, volunteers organising family lunch clubs in a former pit village and even simply sharing a smile or a cheery good morning.

We felt it was time to share the good news as a force for positive change, and to be creative about it!

Good deeds in the context of positive psychology is well founded, with previous studies finding correlations between sharing good news and positive experiences with an enhanced sense of wellbeing, happiness and life satisfaction (Lambert et al., 2012) and research findings demonstrating that acts of kindness have wellbeing

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the psychologist november 2020 culture benefits to both the person doing the good deed as well as the recipient (Pressman et al., 2014; Nelson et al., 2016). Kindness and sharing good news need not be time consuming or expensive and, most importantly, a positive act can be force for enabling agency for both parties. Sharing little bits of good also normalises acts of positivity, encouraging others to share their stories of kindness and compassion.

The story so far: hope and collaboration At the very beginning of this year, Monkfish hosted A Little Bit of Good in The World as a group workshop free and open to all as part of Newcastle City Council’s Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) programme for January 2020. Using this year’s HMD theme of Standing Together as the focus, the workshop used some drama-based activities and creative discussions to explore what we mean by ‘good’. Most of the ideas that workshop participants came with were: acts of kindness, practising compassion in thinking about our place in the world, confronting discrimination and living more in tune with the environment.

With the support of Arts Council England, Monkfish is currently collaborating with Projects4Change: a young people’s organisation in Newcastle upon Tyne to run an artists’ residency in Cowgate and Blakelaw in the Outer West of the city. Young people are working with local textile artist Melanie Kyles to make a collective quilt of all that is good about their local community, and creative sessions with illustrator Josie Brookes have given the young people the opportunity to reflect on what good they can continue to focus on, including what good they can take forward in learning from lockdown, positive lessons going forward and how to share their journey online.

The project has a strong social media focus and the plan is to continue to take this forward: how in the mire of negativity and misinformation we can at least provide a platform for people to hear good news stories and to share creative ideas to generate discussions in our communities. Following on from Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January 2020, we have subsequently been using the 27th of each month as our #LittleBitOfGood thunderclap day, where we share the good across a number of social media platforms and invite people to share their examples of good news, hope and kindness.

The 4 C’s framework A Little Bit of Good in The World uses the following 4 C’s as a project framework: #Creativity – How can creativity help us to express how we feel about ourselves, our world and our place in it? Arts and cultural activities, apart from the obvious benefits of self-expression, give us the opportunity to reimagine our world in new and different ways – be that through painting, dance, music, creative writing etc. #Connection – How can we use one or more of the above creative methodologies to connect with each other, perhaps in ways that we did not know were possible? How can this process allow us to become more empathic, and to understand or even just hear each other better? #CriticalThinking – How can the creative and artistic processes allow us to think deeply and more objectively about the world? In a world of 24-hour feeds populated by ‘fake news’ and conspiracy theories, how can we interrogate the information we are given: is it accurate and fair? How does it help us to create a world based on social justice, equality and inclusion? #Citizenship – How can all of the above 3 C’s processes support us to be active citizens: individual moral agents with a sense of being able to make a difference and to share that positive difference with each other? Returning to the creative process, in what imaginative ways can we work together to make the world we live in just that little bit better, and how can we do this together?

A little bit in the future…

The project is in its very early stages, but we are looking forward to continuing to spread the good in order to build a bigger picture of positivity, and to make a creative space where individuals and communities can retain or reclaim a sense of positive agency over their lives. We can all make a difference, however small.

A Little Bit of Good in The World is the opportunity to bring a positive psychology approach to creative practice.

What makes life worth living? Gratitude, joy, resilience, compassion, hope, self-esteem: these are just as important to communities and to neighbourhoods as they are to individuals. As Desmond Tutu says: ‘We are each made for goodness, love and compassion. Our lives are transformed as much as the world is when we live with these truths.’

Key sources The illustrations are by A Little Bit of Good in The World artist in residence Josie Brookes, who is a visual artist and illustrator based in the North East of England The first illustration ‘Kindness’ speaks for itself; the second celebrates the 4 C’s of the project #Creativity #Connection #CriticalThinking #Citizenship

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Lambert, N.M., Gwinn, A.M., Baumeister, R.F. et al. (2012). A boost of positive affect: The perks of sharing positive experiences.

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 30(1), 24-43.

Nelson, S.K., Layous, K., Cole, S.W. & Lyubomirsky, S. (2016). Do unto others or treat yourself? Emotion, 16(6), 850–861.

Pressman, S.D., Kraft, T.L. & Cross, M.P. (2014). It’s good to do good and receive good: The impact of a ‘pay it forward’ style kindness intervention on giver and receiver well-being. Journal of Positive Psychology, 10(4), 293-302.

03/10/2020 09:43

Interesting ethical conversations podcast Bad People Dr Julia Shaw and Sofie Hagen BBC Sounds

Criminal psychologist Dr Julia Shaw and stand-up comedian Sofie Hagen take a humorous look at true crime stories of the past with the aim of dissecting the psychology around the ‘bad people’ that commit evil doings.

There is long history of curious fascination with crime, criminals, and the driving factors behind what, for example, motivates one human to kill another. Each episode of Bad People uses a real-life crime to discuss a combination of the non-professional’s assumptions on the why of each case, balanced with the expert’s analysis and scientific rationale using the evidence available. Using dark humour from Hagen, a selfconfessed amateur sleuth, and the evidence base provided by Shaw, the

What on earth is going on?

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pair discuss and try to determine the reasons behind why crimes occur and when investigations go wrong. Bad People seeks to answer the question of ‘Who marries a serial killer?’, uncover the seemingly less socially acceptable murders undertaken by women and children, and delve into the problem of false memories.

Shaw, a psychological scientist specialising in false memories, brings an empirical approach of appraising and evaluating the evidence to support hypotheses meaning that, reassuringly, the episodes do not descend into rumour, gossip and hunches on the cases being considered. Shaw is the sensible foil to Hagen’s offbeat stance of reading more into the

Kate Johnstone (Associate Editor for Culture) watches Tenet and I’m Thinking of Ending Things. https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/what-earth-going-0

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things that are not said rather than referring to the actual evidence.

Shaw challenges Hagen’s point of view which is amusing but also important as it enables the series to retain the scientific edge.

What strikes me with each episode, is the realisation of my own bias towards each case, and the ethics that sit behind these. Episode 2, When Women Kill, for example outlines the gender bias in favour of women (at last!) that results in them receiving lesser sentences.

Episode 4, Your Darkest Fantasy, meanwhile, covers the story of a police officer jailed after making his homicidal ideations known in online forums only to be discovered by his wife. All the cases debated beg many questions to be answered, and it is this aspect that I enjoy the most. Having listened to the podcast with my partner, it has provoked some further interesting ethical conversations and perspectives to be shared.

Important issues around bias are raised throughout the series, which is not a bad thing given the continuing battles against racism and misogyny that remain in society today. The overarching question addresses the age-old problem of fundamental attribution error – ‘Do people do bad things because they are bad people?’. This series is not supposed to be a serious psychological review of historical crimes and why they were committed though it is an entertaining and light-hearted discussion of some relatively dark topics. While some of the content can be gruesome and macabre, each episode ends on a high note with Hagen’s comedic side shining through. Overall, I have enjoyed listening to Bad People. It is a welcome distraction from the endless homeworking many of us find ourselves in, and I can almost hear Shaw’s eyeroll as Hagen tries to convince her against the evidence.

Reviewed by Joh Foster, an independent organisational psychologist and change specialist Twitter: @TheWiseFoster

03/10/2020 09:43

the psychologist november 2020 culture

The social diatribe Netflix describes The Social Dilemma as a documentarydrama hybrid which ‘explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations’. However, the vaunted urgency of ‘sounding an alarm’ is a probably a decade or so too late. The iPhone child is now 12, and Twitter, Facebook et al., almost 15 years old. In fact, my book The Cyber Effect covered much of the ground revisited in The Social Dilemma. When published some five years ago, a review in The Times stated ‘Aiken rings a social alarm bell’. Clearly alarm bells are not working.

Talking-head interviews with Silicon Valley technologists now converted on some Internet superhighway to Damascus are less than convincing. Maria Farrell, a writer and keynote speaker on technology, captures the tech whistle-blower zeitgeist with a pithy observation, describing the ‘prodigal tech bros’ who suddenly see the social tech industry as toxic, and are questionably duly rewarded ‘with invitations to write op-eds for major newspapers...think tank funding, book deals and TED talks’. Farrell goes on to question why have they been given a second chance, along with the ‘mantle of moral and expert authority.’ Many of the features driving the social media platforms under scrutiny were developed by well-meaning ‘script kiddies’ and are now somewhat paradoxically being critiqued by that very same cohort, albeit in a wellmeaning sort of way.

It’s hard to sit through a streamed lecture on the morality of persuasive design, by the very people who have profited from tapping into our collective psychological Achilles heel. The dramatised segments of the documentary border on cartoonish, and the family struggling ‘mockumentary style’ to get their (somewhat mature) kids to give up their smartphones, the wannabe Tik-Tok egirl and more are one dimensional film tropes.

The anti-tech monologue – different voices, same message – was relentlessly one-sided, more social diatribe than dilemma. Lose balance, lose the audience.

So here’s the real dilemma. Why did the filmmakers fail to include technologists that have designed applications that have worked for the greater good?

Why do the contributors seem unaware – potentially wilfully so – of a growing body of evidence that could have been included to thoroughly debate the topic? Why were scientists from a range of relevant disciplines not interviewed? I think I know the answer… theoretical, complex academic arguments do not make for good television. I spent a number of years working as a subject matter expert for CBS in Hollywood. Whenever I was asked a complicated question at a press conference or launch, the barked instruction in my ear was always the same: ‘Soundbite, Mary!’.

So the real dilemma for the Network was probably that they felt they had a choice between two alternatives

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film The Social Dilemma Jeff Orlowski Netflix

– cool tech bros and gals who look good, speak in five word sentences and utter unsupported opinions that make great clickbait headlines; or cranky, long-winded, argumentative Profs. Part of the solution is media training for academics, and for psychologists in particular… a topic previously covered by this magazine.

Notwithstanding the failings of this documentary, the impact of technology on all users of social media is a critical area of study and debate.

Perhaps the lack of academic consensus was confusing, or even off-putting, for the filmmakers? Policy makers are, however, less confused, recognising the need to investigate the full spectrum of Online Harms as outlined in the recent Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) and Home Office White Paper. For their new report on Online Safety Technologies, Professor Julia Davidson and I acted as academic advisors. Interestingly, our findings and recommendations actively seek to address many of the issues raised in The Social Dilemma. A new sector has just been created

by DCMS and is now designated as ‘SafetyTech’.

Industry is interested and investment is forthcoming.

For some of us this is just the beginning of a critical cyber societal conversation, arguably summed up in this quote from Edward Tufte in the documentary; ‘There are only two industries that call their customers ‘users’: illegal drugs and software’. Technology in itself is not good or bad – it is either designed, and then used, well, or poorly. Our challenge as a society is to help shape social technologies that are open and vibrant, but which also protect users from harm. The challenge for filmmakers is to avoid a myopic approach, understand the problem space, engage with academic experts and resist sensationalism, yet to be persuasive in order to actively inspire and effect change.

If we really want to tackle online harms, addiction by design, autonomous surveillance, dark AI, behavioural manipulation online, mis and disinformation along with ever evolving ‘weapons of mass distraction’, then we are going to have to raise our game. That will involve looking a little further than ‘the bros’ that helped to build these technologies in the first place.

Reviewed by Mary Aiken, Professor of Forensic Cyberpsychology at the University of East London For the full review, see: https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/social-diatribe

Listen to the ‘Age of Love’ podcast, part of the Festival of the Mind, via https:// festivalofthemind.sheffield.ac.uk/2020/spiegeltent/age-of-love-podcast/ It’s a collaboration involving psychologist Dr Sharron Hinchliff, who we talked to about an earlier art project version here https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/ volume-31/august-2018/age-love

03/10/2020 09:43

No passive tellers of their past Jennifer O’Mahoney on narrative psychology and historical institutional abuse Narrative psychology allows us to look back at historical abuses by focusing on the important role of personal stories for social change, grounding research in people’s experiences and how they construct and understand themselves and the world‌

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agdalene Asylums existed across the UK, Ireland, France, Australia, Canada and North America in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

By 1900 there were more than 300 asylums in England, at least 20 in Scotland, and at least 40 in Ireland (Finnegan, 2004), which were often run by lay philanthropists with the ethos of caring for vulnerable girls and women. However, the Irish Magdalene Laundries are notable for their comparative longevity, remaining in existence until 1996 while Laundries in other countries were closed in the early to mid-20th century (Smith, 2007). Girls were sent to the Magdalene Laundries for a range of reasons including

The former Magdalene Laundry and Industrial School Campus located in Waterford, Ireland (currently the College Street Campus of the Waterford Institute of Technology)

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the psychologist november 2020 looking back

giving birth outside of marriage; being considered ‘promiscuous’; being deemed a burden on the Irish State or their families; or experiencing abuse in their homes (O’Rourke, 2011).

The Waterford Memories Project (WMP) was established in 2013, initially to document personal accounts from women who worked in Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries. Survivor testimony has been documented by Justice for Magdalenes Research (http://jfmresearch.com) and the WMP (www.waterfordmemories.com), revealing daily life in the Laundries, which involved strenuous physical laundering work, silence and prayer. The girls and women were denied freedom of movement, and deprived of an education, privacy, and friendships. It is through these narratives that we can examine historical institutional abuse in Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries, via a psychological lens (O’Mahoney et al., 2019).

To understand historical events we need to access the social worlds of the survivors. After all, their experiences of human rights abuses in the Magdalene Laundries can only exist and be considered in the teller’s cultural context (Schiff, 2017). Narrative reorients psychology back into the context of a person’s physical body, social relationships, and cultural worlds, even when the story is about historical events.

Jennifer O’Mahoney is a Lecturer in Psychology at the Waterford Institute of Technology

These cultural narratives can be glimpsed in Maureen’s testimony, as she describes telling her teacher (a Nun) about the abuse she was experiencing at home:

Me bein’ the girl, I was kept off school a lot, I wasn’t important, don’t educate her, so our childhood at home wasn’t good… I was told not to tell anybody, not to talk about it and if I did, I wouldn’t see my grandmother again, that was the threat, he knew that we loved our granny, so that was to quiet, to keep quiet… And so I start explaining to [the Nun] a little bit of what it was and she was shocked and she was upset about it so she said, we’re going to call in the priest, and she said I have a little letter to take home to your mother… And my mother was very upset and she was crying, and the priest…suggested that I be taken out of the family home…I was to go home that night with my mother, but I was to stick with her, I was not to leave her side and she wasn’t to leave my side. And went home and nothing was to be said to my stepfather because it could cause trouble.

Removing Maureen from the family home to be placed in a Magdalene Laundry as a young girl simultaneously obscured the sexual abuse, while punishing Maureen, instead of the perpetrator, who remained at the family home. It is through actions like this that the Catholic Church and Irish State ‘fashioned a seamlessly homogeneous society… closed off internal challenges and contradictions even as they represented society as pure and “their experiences of untainted by external corruption’ (Gray & Ryan, 1998; Smith, 2007, human rights abuses in p.3).

Framed by sexual discourses Hearing and examining stories is paramount to the work of psychologists in both research and clinical practice. Analysis of narratives can tell us about the the Magdalene Laundries cultural, social and psychological can only exist and be contexts and functions of people’s stories, while simultaneously considered in the teller’s These women have agency recognising that we are shaped by While narrative provides a method cultural context” the collective narratives produced for perpetuating cultural discourse, by our specific cultures (Bruner, as depicted by Maureen’s quote, 1990; Mishler, 1995; Rice, 2002). it also affords the opportunity to In the stories of the Magdalene women, this analysis challenge historical oppression and discrimination. of narrative can aid us in understanding individual The women telling these stories have agency, and experiences as situated within the particular culture are not merely passive tellers of their past. Narrative which existed in Ireland at that time. psychology connects narrators’ pasts to their present, The Irish culture into which these Magdalene as storytellers ‘look back’ in order to tell a story about a women were born is filled with a ‘stock of canonical past experience. Narrative psychology balances a sense life narratives...from which its members can construct of human agency and freedom with the recognition their own life narratives: canonical stances and that past, present and future narratives are culturally, circumstances’ (Bruner, 2004, p.694). The cultural socially, and historically shaped (Murray & Sools, discourses around women’s sexuality in Ireland at the 2014). height of the Laundry System (1940s-1960s) were Returning to Maureen’s story, we can see how her characterised by themes of innocence, subservience, narrative moves between the past and present even in a and purity. Irish women were framed by these sexual brief example: discourses, so any transgression from this puritanical It took me years, and years, to get over all that, and moral narrative was met with social disapproval and work on myself, and get myself to where I am today, punishment. and to feel good about myself that I feel today, and

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I really do… And I do, I really do, cos I’ve been very lucky in life. I’ve met very good people. But you never get over it, one hundred percent, no you don’t, you never get over that.

Many of the survivor narratives can be examined as ‘narratives on the move… opening up new contexts and futures, new possibilities for how one might and should live’ (Squire, 2012, p.81). Importantly, narrative researchers have begun to examine the incoherence in people’s narratives, believed to reflect the complex and varied contexts (interpersonal, social and cultural), which shape meaning in the stories we tell (Freeman, 2006; Squire, 2012). In other words, narratives can be contradictory and fragmented, especially when the teller is interacting with a listener. Because narrative is foundational to how we structure our experiences and actions, fragmentation is what allows for challenging the existing cultural narrative and engaging with social change (O’Mahoney, 2018).

Key sources

From chaos to quest This journey through a fragmented story into coherence has been characterised by Arthur Frank (1995) as movement from a ‘chaos narrative’, where the ‘wounded storyteller’ is overwhelmed and cannot give their story narrative order into a ‘quest narrative’, where illness (or trauma) is seen as a spiritual journey.

Frank reminds us that the person must be willing to be helped out of chaos and become a witness to their own story. For Maureen this involved counselling:

Frank, A. (1995). The Wounded Storyteller. University of Chicago Press.

Lloyd-Roberts, S. (Producer) (2014).

Ireland’s Hidden Bodies, Hidden Secrets [Video file]. BBC News: Our World.

Retrieved from www.youtube.com/ watch?v=MyE4Nuw_U1k&t=74s O’Mahoney, J. (2018). Advocacy and the Magdalene Laundries: Towards a psychology of social change, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 15(4), 456-471. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2017 .1416803 O’Mahoney, J. (2020). The Waterford Memories Project. Waterford, Ireland. Retrieved from www. waterfordmemories.com.

O’Rourke, M. & Smith, J. (2016).

Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries: Confronting a History Not Yet in the Past. In A. Hayes & M. Meagher (Eds.) A Century of Progress? Irish Women Reflect. Arlen House.

Smith, J. (2007). Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment. Notre Dame Press.

Full list available in online/app version.

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The agreement you leave the hospital is, you go for counselling… So I met this lovely lady… And now things started to flow. And started to flow.

It was the first time I ever spoke to anyone besides my mother about it.

The first time… Well, I walked down Holloway Road in North London, like if somebody had just put something inside me, and took out this big load of rubbish. And I was after getting air inside for the first time, that’s what it felt like.

Counselling allows Maureen to manage the chaos of her story as she removed ‘this big load of rubbish’, replacing it with ‘air inside me for the first time’.

Maureen’s story demonstrates how temporal and experiential distance between the chaos of the institutional abuse was needed for her to move to the quest narrative where she accepts her historical trauma and uses it to bear witness and share wisdom:

And so I went over to her, got counselling, she’s introduced me to other people, to other stuff to do.

Ah my whole life just took off. Changed completely…

And I’ve had so much help from people. I’ve met wonderful people. There’s great people on this planet. And of course, you’re going to meet the down people. They’re there. They exist. Why, do they exist?

Maybe there’s a reason. And we just have to look at it, look at the bigger picture maybe and not judge.

Looking back to look forward The role of psychologists in honouring survivors’ chaos stories (from both a moral and clinical stance) is paramount, as ‘to deny a chaos story is to deny the person telling this story, and people who are being denied cannot be cared for’ (Frank, 1995, p.109).

Further, it is the psychological relevance of narratives of historical institutional abuse for current social justice issues, which is also of import for psychologists.

In the context of the Magdalene Laundries there is a strong power dynamic between the historical and collective memory constructed by the Irish State, which stands in opposition to that of the survivors.

In telling their stories, the survivors engage with both meaning-making of their own historical trauma as well as working towards social change by challenging the State’s silencing of these narratives.

The application of narrative psychology to examining survivor testimony of historical institutional abuse is even more essential for informing us about historical institutions when they are needed to compensate for the fact that the religious orders and Irish State will not release records relating to Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries, even in redacted form (O’Donnell, 2018), and when the history of the Magdalene Laundries remains fragmented and contested. Bearing witness to survivor testimony and promoting public awareness and education of historical abuses has a dual purpose. In addition to aiding the re-storying of the historical record, bearing witness honours survivors’ quest narratives by responding to what they have learned through their suffering and recognising the psychological impact of these abuses on the survivors and wider society.

These interdependent processes are essential for social change (O’Mahoney, 2018), which requires us to look back and acknowledge past abuse in order to move forward and better identify, respond to, and prevent institutional abuse in the modern day.

02/10/2020 10:54

the psychologist november 2020 looking back

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We dip into the Society member database and pick out…

Dr Richard Skelton Child and Educational Psychologist at ‘The Educational Psychologists’ One psychological superpower To have more time. There’s always so many more things we can be doing; and each is important in their own right. From research to intervention development, collaborating with cross-disciplinary colleagues to early intervention projects; we’re not short of good ideas, just the time to achieve them all.

One thing about the job The best bit is working with kids. It never really seems to matter what else is happening in work or life, having the opportunity to see the world through a child’s eyes keeps a certain element of hope and optimism alive.

It never ceases to inspire me how much children can bounce back from difficult events when they have the right support in place.

One thing that makes you smile Seeing my wife skip. When she does this, I know she’s super happy.

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One hero from psychology past or present I remember the first time I saw the late Sir Ken Robinson talk about the need and importance of an educational revolution. As a trainee psychologist, one simple question he posed changed my views of the context of my planned career: ‘What’s it for, public education?’ When we start to answer this, we realise that much of what education attempts to achieve doesn’t lead to the most successful outcomes for young people. And, in my experience, teachers, parents and children mostly long for a system which can evolve and update itself in the same way the rest of society has over the last century.

Affecting grand change isn’t easy though. If it were, our educational system would look very different; with a focus on developing

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one on one

key cognitive and metacognitive skills, alongside social, emotional and resilience development. Children might not leave school as knowledgeable, but they would hold many more skills leading to a more productive, satisfying and healthy life. While we have to work within systems to help individual children, it’s also important that we make time to work as a collective to affect positive longterm change of the system itself.

One thing psychologists could do better Recent events with the Black Lives Matter movement led to important and long overdue conversations within the profession. It made me realise that, just because we spend our days attempting to break down barriers for children and young people, it doesn’t mean there aren’t still many endemic issues within the contexts we find ourselves working in.

One treasured possession Small tokens of kindness from friends and family are scattered around the home. Even an out of date mulled wine mix from a friend sits proudly at the back of the cupboard.

One advice for aspiring psychologists Show that you care. Expressing empathy and genuine regard for those we’re working with is key for them to feel safe and trusted with us. Once we have this, the rest of the work can begin.

coming soon… mysteries; ‘You have to put your trust in the psychologist’; plus all our usual news, views, reviews, interviews, and much more... contribute… reach 50,000 colleagues, with something to suit all. See www.thepsychologist.org.uk/ contribute or talk to the editor, Dr Jon Sutton, jon.sutton@bps.org.uk, +44 116 252 9573 comment… email the editor, the Leicester office, or tweet @psychmag to advertise… reach a large and professional audience at bargain rates: see details on inside front cover maybe you missed… …November 2015, Edward Slingerland on ‘Wu-wei: Doing less and wanting more’ …Search it and so much more via www.bps.org.uk/thepsychologist

One big challenge Our remit is so vast that we can never achieve expertise within every area. With the breadth of children’s needs that we support and the contexts within which we work, I found it best to get comfortable with being ‘good enough’ and embrace continually learning as part of the day-to-day. I came to realise that to truly understand one particular area of need for a child, we need to know the whole child. This is also our greatest strength; integrating our knowledge of their educational, social and emotional functioning to prioritise where we can affect the greatest positive change.

Find more at thepsychologist.bps.org.uk

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Society Trustees

Find out more online at www.bps.org.uk

www.bps.org.uk/about-us/ who-we-are President Dr Hazel McLaughlin President Elect Dr Nigel MacLennan Vice President David Murphy Honorary General Secretary Dr Carole Allan Honorary Treasurer Dr Roxane Gervais Chair, Education and Training Board Vacant Chair, Practice Board Alison Clarke Chair, Membership Board Professor Carol McGuinness Chair, Research Board Professor Daryl O’Connor Trustees Chris Lynch, Dr Ester Cohen-Tovee, Christina Buxton, Dr Adam Jowett

Chief Executive Sarb Bajwa

society notices

society vacancies

Workshop development See p.10 BPS conferences and events See p.22 Undergraduate Research Assistantship Scheme See p.38 BPS/POST Postgraduate Award See p.66

Responsibility Holder for Animal Welfare in Psychology See p.38 Early Career Representative on the Research Board See p.38 Editor of the British Journal of Occupational and Organisational Psychology See p.61 Director of BPS Communications Ltd See p.67

Change Programme Director Diane Ashby Director of Communications and Engagement Rachel Dufton Director of Finance and Resources Harnish Hadani Director of IT Mike Laffan Director of Knowledge and Insight Dr Debra Malpass Director of Membership and Professional Development Karen Beamish Head of Legal and Governance Christine Attfield

The Society has offices in Belfast, Cardiff, Glasgow and London, as well as the main office in Leicester (St Andrews House, 48 Princess Road East, Leicester, LE1 7DR).

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