The Psychologist July/August 2021 by The Psychologist

From poverty to flourishing

www.thepsychologist.org.uk

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From poverty to flourishing

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, Shaoni Bhattacharya (job share) Production Mike Thompson Journalist Ella Rhodes Editorial Assistant Debbie Gordon Research Digest Matthew Warren (Editor), Emily Reynolds, Emma Young

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

the

psychologist july/august 2021

Eliza Southwood - www.elizasouthwood.com

Letters Power posing; A-level psychology; driving; and more

Obituaries Tony Black

News Including chats with Paul Taylor and Clifford Stott MBE

The landscape of poverty Rhiannon Cobner, Jen Dafﬁn and Sarah Brown with a psychosocial ecological approach to ﬂourishing

‘You can improve the policy by attending to people’s dignity’ David Robson meets psychologists considering the importance of how poverty is framed

Fair’s fair? What should psychologists understand about austerity, and ways to broaden their role to combat its effects?

‘I’m one of them’ Our editor meets Greta Defeyter to talk food poverty

Forging brighter futures with young care leavers Duncan Gillard, Louise Hayes, Aoife McNally and Kate Willis on giving people skills to reboot their lives

Digest Money and more

Taking context seriously Jennifer Sheehy-Skefﬁngton

The stranger A chapter from Darren McGarvey’s book Poverty Safari

‘Out of poverty I felt like an alien’ Karina Webb reﬂects on the complexity of ﬂourishing

Four approaches to ﬂourishing Experiences from the Psychologists for Social Change network

How can we ﬂourish? Winning entries from our latest Voices In Psychology competition, from Guan Mao, Elizabeth Otterburn and Tara Lepore

‘The pandemic has highlighted the huge social divide that exists in the UK’ Vivian Hill talks attainment gaps, education and resilience

Jobs in psychology Latest vacancies

Books The hope and tragedy of poverty; how poverty shapes conﬁdence; and more

From poverty to poetry Stuart Larner, Jo Kirk, Georgina Rooney and Jamie Wallace with their winning entries; plus Sanah Ahsan

Culture SICK!; Nomadland; White Tiger; On Happiness; and more

How can Psychology ﬂourish?

The British Psychological Society’s ‘From Poverty to Flourishing’ campaign, voted for by the Senate in 2019, has aimed to put psychological evidence at the heart of action to tackle poverty and improve outcomes for children, families and communities. In this bumper edition we have pulled together articles and interviews featuring members of the expert reference group and more. Particularly in the more creative contributions, we have interpreted the ‘…to flourishing’ aspect more broadly. Next issue, the focus turns to class. One place we try to flourish is online… you can find lots more content at thepsychologist.bps.org.uk Dr Jon Sutton Managing Editor @psychmag

As a Clinical Psychologist with a disability, who is involved in course selection for the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, I write to express my disgust that most of the clearing house entries specify that prospective clinical psychologists must drive a car to be accepted onto the Doctorate. I believe this is ridiculous, of dubious legality and a massive obstacle to diversity in my profession. It is very hard to justify in practical terms. Other career routes which require more travel (e.g. Social Work) do not use ability to drive a car as part of their selection due to diversity implications. This year’s trainee cohort have spent the bulk of their time working online, and some form of ‘blended’ learning is very likely for future cohorts, so the need for travel has greatly reduced. In any case, how someone travels should not be part of selection for a role as a Psychologist as it is not a key skill of our profession. Some courses state there will be exceptions for candidates who can prove they don’t drive due to a diagnosed disability, but I don’t feel this is satisfactory. Diagnosis is a privilege that a lot of disabled people don’t have. It also forces someone to disclose a disability during a competitive selection process that may have no relevance whatsoever to the skills of a Psychologist and can expose the candidate to unconscious bias. Moreover, disability is not the only valid reason to not be a driver. There are also environmental and economic reasons someone may choose not to drive, and these are valid too. Surely we need all sorts of people in our profession, rather than the narrow identikit workforce we are often accused of having? A candidate who doesn’t drive due to disability should not have to declare this at the selection stage. It is invasive and fraught with potential for discrimination. Once on the course, if there are issues with placement location, individuals can apply to Access to Work who will fund transport arrangements. My experience of this has been very straightforward. There are obviously courses which will be easier for non-drivers than others due to location constraints. Courses need to be much more transparent and describe where placements are likely to be – it’s very hard to ﬁnd out in advance which geographical areas are covered, even when accepted onto the course (due to an assumption everyone drives). People who choose not to drive could decide for themselves whether they can travel in a timely fashion across that area. This strategy, I feel, would be in line with the Mental Capacity Act (2005), which protects people’s right to make their own decisions (even if others may regard that decision as unwise). If someone wants to do a remote rural course whilst choosing not to drive, but they are prepared to fund a stay overnight or get up at early and cycle, that is surely their choice, and they

should not be pre-emptively excluded. To get a place on clinical training you have to be bright, resilient and a good problem solver. Realistically, no one is going to get that far if they can’t sort out their own travel arrangements when needed. What happens at present is the worst of all possibilities. Non-drivers (even those with a disability) wishing to train to be Clinical Psychologists often ﬁnd themselves excluded. Because of the prejudice and barriers around this issue, someone may well be the only non-driver in their cohort, on a course that doesn’t know how to deal with this and struggles to accommodate it. My own experience as a disabled Trainee was that there was a complete lack of clarity from courses about where the placements were likely to be, which compromised my ability to pick the right course for me. On the course I was pathologised and given excessively long commutes which affected my ability to qualify on time. We really need to modernise our attitude to this. The BPS, DCP and ACP-UK should take a ﬁrm line on this issue and have driving removed as a ‘requirement’ from all courses. It’s not a required skill of a Psychologist and its antithetical to diversity in our profession to insist that it is. Dr Ilona Singer Clinical Psychologist (writing in a personal capacity) Editor’s note: We have sought comments from interested and informed parties, and hope to return to this topic. Send your comments on psychologist@bps.org.uk

Tim Sanders

Time to modernise our attitude towards driving?

the psychologist july/august 2021 letters

The power of a big TED talk Tom Loncar’s article on power posing research (June edition) gave a useful overview of the work in this area. However, I feel that some important points were neglected. We really ought to question the role that TED talks play in giving global exposure to new ideas that have received little peer appraisal and which may not have been the subject of replication attempts. In early 2017 I had just moved from academia to a not-for-profit organisation, where my line manager was advising his staff to adopt power poses. As the only psychologist present, I was the only person aware that this work had just become controversial. Loncar does not refer to the content of Cuddy’s 2012 TED talk, in which she told her audience that a minor ‘tweak’ to their posture could ‘significantly change the way your life unfolds’ – an overblown claim even by the terms of the research that she had published by that point. Furthermore, the only dependent variables mentioned in Cuddy’s TED talk were risk tolerance, testosterone and cortisol. In the other research cited by Loncar, no support was found for the impact of power posing on any of these variables. The subjective feeling of power, although included in Cuddy’s published work, was apparently not of sufficient importance to be included in her talk. Cuddy’s talk also referred to research on ‘facial feedback’, which had found that people’s affective responses became more positive after they had inserted a pencil between their teeth to create an artificial smile. Unfortunately, a 17lab registered replication study in 2016 failed to reproduce this finding. Whilst some subsequent work suggests that the inclusion of camera recording had obliterated the facial feedback effect, if true, that merely shows how fragile the effect is. Loncar notes that Cuddy’s

really of any benefit unless you are actually deficient in a particular vitamin or vitamins (and possibly a better diet would be more helpful anyway). The power pose isn’t the only recent heavily hyped idea which has turned out to be controversial. Carol Dweck’s (2006) theory of growth mindset – also a TED talk subject – has run into the same problem of mixed results from other researchers, and with a similar apparent resolution: recent work indicates that it is ‘at-risk’ children and low-SES children who may get some benefit from a growth mindset intervention, not all the children. And it’s not even psychologist clear if adults can benefit at all. A somewhat lowerprofile idea, workplace resilience training, is plagued by a particular lack of clarity, with a range of different interventions and dependent variables reported in the literature, many of A decade which return non-significant of ‘power results. This hasn’t stopped posing’ some researchers talking Tom Loncar asks, enthusiastically about such where do we stand? training. Unfortunately, in a highly competitive market for jobs and promotions, where one’s prospects may be boosted by prominent media exposure, many academics have learned that they may benefit from the slick presentation of even the most tentative early Loncar reports that Cuddy feels research findings. But so long ‘vindicated’ by more recent work as academics are afflicted by the which shows that self-reported perverse incentives that encourage feelings of power can be impacted such behaviour, they also cannot be by postural manipulations. But this too shocked if they find themselves is surely clutching at straws, given under a critical spotlight by that it is the avoidance of contractive flagging up their work in this way. postures that appears to have the If the discipline wants to get itself impact rather than the use of the out of the mess it is currently in, expansive postures that Cuddy then it needs to fully embrace the promoted in her TED talk. This is, of rigours of pre-registration, power course, useful knowledge but barely analysis, data-sharing, adversarial on the same scale as the original collaboration, and so on. claims. It’s akin to the finding – as David Hardman reflected in NHS guidance – that London taking vitamin supplements isn’t former co-researcher Dana Carney has distanced herself from their power posing work. What he doesn’t mention is that Carney also described the various ways in which the original work with Cuddy was p-hacked (this happened before the discipline as a whole began to fully realise the problem of ‘questionable research practices’). Carney also states that risk-taking was the primary dependent variable, whereas ‘The self-report DV was p-hacked in that many different power questions were asked and those chosen were the ones that “worked.”’

june 2021

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Unexplained infertility Louise Goddard-Crawley cites a paper in the Journal of Neuroscience which she suggests provides ‘the missing link between stress and infertility’ (June issue). She then suggests that working through psychological issues will impact unexplained infertility. The research Goddard-Crawley refers to is derived from experimental studies with mice, and to make the inferential leap from this to counselling as the answer to unexplained infertility is concerning.

Whilst stress may well play a role in reproductive failure (as we discussed over 30 years ago – Edelmann & Golombok, 1989 in the Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology) there is very clearly not a one-to-one link between stress and reproductive failure (where there is no evident medical reason for that failure) given, for example, that conception can occur under very traumatic circumstances. The biopsychosocial model is as relevant in the context of unexplained

infertility as with other ‘medical’ conditions. However, suggesting that helping patients with stress ‘can clear a mental pathway to fertility’ is not evidence based, and if such a message were provided without very clear caveats to couples with unexplained infertility it could further increase their emotional upset in the absence of conception. Robert J Edelmann Emeritus Professor, Department of Psychology, Roehampton University r.edelmann@roehampton.ac.uk

Sharing knowledge about the climate emergency It has been encouraging to see an increasing focus on the climate emergency in the pages of The Psychologist. We have noticed that the general media sometimes reference psychological factors such as self-protective denial, but with little coherent argument or guidance as to how to address it. Our contribution has been to give talks to various local campaigning groups on the psychological basis of apathy or inaction regarding climate change. As psychologists, we sometimes forget that concepts very familiar to us may not be obvious to the average non-psychologist. Sharing some of that knowledge and understanding in an accessible way can be powerful. We were inspired to do this by the September 2018 article in The Psychologist by Brick and van der Linden, ‘Yawning at the apocalypse’. This presented an evidencebased psychological understanding of some of the

Letters online: Find more letters at www.thepsychologist.org.uk/debates: We need change to make Psychology a fairer science – Allan Laville as part of the University of Reading Department of Psychology centenary celebrations Let’s keep talking – Steve Flatt and Suzi Curtis on how Covid disrupted mental health service delivery, but in a positive way Eat well – Andrea Rymer on how psychologists and dieticians can support vegans to eat in line with their beliefs and values Seafarers’ wellbeing – Maria Carrera on taking care of seafarers Supporting individuals with learning disabilities – Harriet Evans on welcoming those with learning disabilities back into the community after lockdown

Deadline for letters for the September print edition is Friday 30 July, but letters are also considered for online publication at any point. Email letters to psychologist@bps.org.uk with the subject ‘Letter to the editor’.

processes leading to inaction, as well as suggestions for how to address them. A key point was the need to address the context and values of the individual. We delivered an interactive presentation to two local groups face to face, before the onset of Covid restrictions. Since then we adapted to a Zoom delivery, ﬁnding that it is still possible to actively engage the participants using breakout rooms. Feedback from participants has been very positive. Recently, one asked if she could use our material to present to another group, which was very encouraging. Linda and Stewart Shuttleworth Retired Clinical Psychologists Editor’s reply: That’s good to hear, and not the ﬁrst example of the impact of Cameron and Sander’s article. Recently Danielle Goldwert contacted us on Twitter to say that she reached out to Sander after reading the piece, and spent a summer working in his lab. ‘Since then I’ve completed an honors thesis on climate change messaging strategies, joined the Behavioral Science for Policy lab at Princeton as a research specialist, and I will be pursuing a PhD in environmental psychology for Fall 2022.’

the psychologist july/august 2021 letters

The value of Psychology A-level Naomi Fisher rightly castigates the government for championing a single model of learning in schools which discourages critical thinking about the curriculum (May issue). I argue, in addition, that we, as teachers of Psychology, provide an important counterbalance to this model that Fisher argues values ‘the culture of (dead) white males over any other’. The very nature of our subject lends itself to this. When called to interview for a Head of Psychology post a few years ago, I was asked to prepare a lesson on epistemology, to lead a debate on the question, ‘How do we know that what we know, is right?’ This was designed to test the candidates’ cognitive ﬂexibility and critical thinking, as these qualities were particularly valued in the school. My contribution to the lesson was to argue various points from a psychological perspective and to manage the dynamic of the students’ differing arguments. Since that interview, I have found myself introducing more and more questions into my teaching of Psychology, designed to foster precisely the critical thinking which Fisher laments as so lacking in the government’s approach to learning. Psychology has too often been the butt of colleagues’ jokes or dismissed as a ‘soft’ subject. I have lost count of the number of new acquaintances who, on hearing that I am a teacher and researcher in Psychology, immediately ask ‘Are you going to be analysing everything I say?’ Despite bold attempts to defend the status of Psychology A-level, the Russell Group did not include it in its list of ‘facilitating’ subjects, destroying the conﬁdence of students and parents alike in choosing it for sixth form study. Moves such as this, by those in the academic community who should know better, simply perpetuate the misunderstanding that surrounds the subject. In

my experience, many of those who take pleasure in portraying Psychology as inferior to the pure sciences have never actually studied it. My retort has generally been to point out that pure science has told us everything we can know about the carcinogenic properties of cigarettes, but it takes Psychology to tackle the more difficult question of how to change attitudes toward smoking. What other A-level subject requires that blend of scientific and non-scientific skills? What other subject requires the student to understand the intricacies of advanced statistical analysis and produce an extended piece of evaluative writing on the philosophical underpinnings of major paradigms? Critical thinking and evaluative analysis are at the heart of the subject. Far from only studying the work of (dead) white males, the A-level and IB specifications ensure students identify sources of gender and/or cultural bias and understand how it impacts what we accept as valid theories and arguments. Instead of adopting the government’s ‘one size fits all’ mentality, teachers of Psychology are well versed in the Piagetian principles of ‘discovery learning’ and Gopnik’s ‘child as scientist’ approach. We are fully aware that students learn best when they question accepted wisdom and solve problems for themselves. The A-level and IB specifications have been designed to foster precisely this high level of thinking. Why should Psychology have to constantly defend itself against being seen as a ‘soft’ subject? This is a myth which we should fight harder to dispel. Dr Sheila Thomas Obidos, Portugal

‘The metrics are clearly weaponised against psychology’ Luna Centifanti, Andrea Flood, Beth Greenhill and Laura Golding on the situation at the University of Liverpool. ‘Given that all psychology colleagues continue to be listed for redundancy, the metrics are clearly weaponised against psychology. … The threatened redundancies have serious implications for undergraduate and postgraduate psychology programmes in the Faculty. The reduction in staff on the undergraduate psychology programme will mean that minimum staff-student ratios will not be met which in turn risks losing BPS accreditation. In addition, at a time when Health Education England is funding an increased number of clinical psychology

training places nationally to meet the growing need for the clinical psychology workforce within the NHS, the University of Liverpool has declined the offer of additional places for September 2021 in the context of these threatened redundancies. Contrary to the goals to tackle health inequalities with Project Shape, the university will be training fewer clinical psychologists and failing the local health economy. Fewer service users and carers will get the psychological support they need. In the market-driven context of Higher Education as it currently exists, other

universities will be urgently considering how to mitigate against the loss of income associated with Covid-19. The experiences of both the University of Liverpool Department of Psychology and Doctorate in Clinical Psychology programmes suggests that psychological research and training is particularly vulnerable…’ Find their full piece at thepsychologist.bps. org.uk/metrics-are-clearly-weaponisedagainst-psychology

Tony Black 1931-2021 Tony Black, former Chief Psychologist at Broadmoor Hospital, has died at the age of 89. Tony was born between the wars in Sanderstead Surrey and attended Whitgift School in Croydon. During national service in Malta, he displayed a talent for counselling members of his battalion, setting him on the pathway for life as a Psychologist. Tony completed his psychology degree at Cambridge University in 1954 under Professor Oliver Zangwill. It was there that he met his wife Anne, marrying in 1955, and going on to have three children and eight grandchildren. After a short period working at Pilkington’s glass factory, Tony trained as a clinical psychologist in Liverpool. He was supervised under the old probationer system by Don Walton, a charismatic Maudsley-trained psychologist, and with him developed the Walton-Black memory test, which was widely used up to the 1970s. He also worked with John Graham White at Alder Hey Childrens’ Hospital. Tony was a significant example of those early clinical psychologists who did not train at the Maudsley Hospital, but who went on to be key players in the professionalisation of clinical psychology in Britain. In 1959, Tony was appointed as the first Clinical Psychologist in Broadmoor Hospital, Berkshire, working closely with Dr Patrick McGrath, the then Physician Superintendent. He established a vibrant Psychology Department, pioneering the development of clinical psychology and research at Broadmoor and more widely within the national high secure psychiatric services. Strong links were also established with the Surrey and Oxford clinical psychology training courses and many of the trainees on placement went on to establish careers in forensic clinical psychology, including at Broadmoor Hospital. Former colleague, clinical psychologist Penny Spinks recalls that Tony was universally liked and respected within the hospital, a significant achievement when introducing the discipline of psychology to a custodial setting. Within the Psychology Department Tony was supportive of staff, encouraging the development of a wide range of assessment, therapeutic and research projects, and providing flexible posts to enable joint appointments and part time working. He made a point of keeping in touch with former staff. Tony was concerned that clinical psychology at Broadmoor should not be isolated from the mainstream of clinical psychology. He was involved in the Committee of Professional Psychologists (Mental Health) and more actively from 1960 in the succeeding English Division of Professional Psychologists in the run-up to the formation of the Division of Clinical Psychology in 1966, where he

‘A man’s a man for a’ that…’ Read Aicha Reid’s tribute to Charles Gibb at thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/mans-man-memory-charles-gibb

became the Assistant Secretary of the Division, one of the first three officers of the Division. Tony was actively involved in many aspects of the early work of the DCP and worked closely with the pioneers of the Division, not only with May Davidson and Grace Rawlings, but also with other now little-known figures such as Mahesh Desai and Pat Robertson. There is no doubt that in the late 1960s and in the 1970s the DCP committee created many of the structures and processes that enabled the steady growth of the numbers of clinical psychologists working in the NHS, and the expansion of their role. Tony retired in 1986 on the eve of the hospital’s rebuilding programme. Moving to Herefordshire, retired life included Tony working as a Mental Health Act Commissioner up until 1990, finishing a ground-breaking British Psychological Society Working Party Report on improving services for mentally disordered offenders and, in 2003 publishing the book Broadmoor Interacts on the history of Broadmoor between the Mental Health Acts of 1959 and 1983. It was a great pleasure that at the launch of the DCP History of Clinical Psychology book (for which John Hall was the lead editor) in December 2015, Tony spoke as the last surviving member of the original 1966 DCP committee. Tony was always unassuming, he always valued the contribution of others, and he showed a shrewd understanding of how the profession had developed. He was one of the unsung pioneers of the creation of a coherent and distinct profession of clinical psychology in Britain. John Hall, Penny Spinks, Kevin Howells and Derek Perkins Read more, including extra information from Society Archivist Claire Jackson, at thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/ tony-black-1931-2021

the psychologist july/august 2021 letters

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‘From poverty to ﬂourishing’ theme draws to a close, and next proposals due A

British Psychological Society campaign which explored psychologically-informed ways of reducing poverty and its causes is drawing to a close. After almost two years the From Poverty to Flourishing campaign will mark its end with a collection of essays exploring the topic from experts and organisations in the field. The campaign, which also forms the basis of this edition, became a policy priority for the society after the senate – made up of representatives of BPS member networks – voted for it in 2019. Initially intended to run for one year it was extended until the end of 2021. In the last two years BPS policy team staff, along with an expert reference group of psychologists, have held meetings with politicians and other stakeholders and produced briefing documents and reports exploring the psychological impacts of poverty and psychology’s role in reducing it. One of those documents was a briefing paper, Foundations for the Best Start in Life, which looked at the importance of both supporting children and families and taking a systemic and psychologically-informed approach to tackling poverty. Two papers from the campaign exploring the roles of agency and empowerment, and community resilience, will also be published soon. During the course of the campaign members of the expert reference group also represented the BPS on the Scottish government’s Social Renewal Board while another

member contributed to the Child Poverty Action Group’s End the Need for Foodbanks working group. BPS Policy Advisor Nigel Atter said the campaign had generated a great deal of external engagement. ‘This ranged from a full written response from Will Quince, Minister for Welfare Delivery, to meeting with a wide range of parliamentarians and ofﬁcials from the Conservatives, Labour, Social Democratic Labour Party, Liberal Democrats and Sinn Féin, who were all interested in the Society’s stance and recommendations on poverty.’ To mark the end of the campaign the BPS has reached out to individuals and organisations, in government and beyond, to share their ideas on what can help to move people from poverty to ﬂourishing in post-Covid Britain in a short essay. These are set to be published as an e-book this autumn. The Children and Young People’s Coalition, Child Poverty Action Group and Joseph Rowntree Foundation (Scotland) are among the contributors to the collection so far. The policy priority area for 2022 is now open for proposals from BPS member networks with a deadline of Friday 30 July. All members can vote on these proposals between Monday 2 August and Friday 13 August. The three proposals with the most votes will be debated and voted on by the Senate in November. More information can be found at bps.org.uk/senate ER

the psychologist july/august 2021 news

NHS visions The NHS has recently released a vision statement for psychological professions in England, building on the Long Term Plan and People Plan, which sets out a framework to maximise the impact of psychological professions. The British Psychological Society, which responded to the consultation on this vision, has welcomed the statement. In its response the BPS suggested that the vision could extend its focus beyond the individual and encompass the whole of healthcare. ‘The Society is very pleased to see the recognition of wider social factors such as poverty, discrimination, inequality and trauma, as these can have

a signiﬁcant negative impact on psychological health and wellbeing. We must quickly address inequalities in access to psychological support, particularly amongst BAME communities.’ The Society has also joined forces with a number of other organisations on the One Voice statement on health and care staff wellbeing. An extract reads: ‘The safe, effective, efﬁcient, and compassionate care that we all look to the NHS to provide is only possible if staff, both clinical and non-clinical, are physically and emotionally healthy. However, although the NHS is one of the world’s largest direct or indirect employers, it lags behind other

organisations in terms of care for staff. This must change. Health and care staff need to feel that their wellbeing and psychological health are valued by their employing organisations not solely during the height of extraordinary situations, such as the pandemic, but each and every day. This cannot be achieved by words alone; but must be achieved by actions.’ ER Psychological Professions Vision Statement: tinyurl.com/zzvh5ca9 BPS submission to the consultation on the Psychological Professions Vision: tinyurl.com/w5azyx85 One Voice statement: tinyurl.com/ onevoicecall

Human rights A British Psychological Society group has been exploring ways to bring human rights into psychological practice, education and public policy. Ella Rhodes spoke to Dr Derek Indoe, chair of the Ethics Committee Human Rights Steering Group, about some of this work and the group’s plans for the future. Working in Brazil in the early 70s when the country was under a dictatorship, ﬁnding particular inspiration in the work of Paulo Freire, in part led to Indoe’s commitment to human rights and psychology’s role in protecting them. A consultant clinical forensic psychologist, educational and counselling psychologist, Indoe said he looks back on his time in Brazil as one which taught him a great deal about individual human rights and how the local community and state can nourish and protect, or destroy, those rights. ‘I’ve also worked with learning disabilities across the full age range for a period of time and, both in the courts and in daily psychological practice, there have been times when I have had to speak and act for those undergoing discrimination because of their race, their religion, their learning difﬁculties, or their mental health. ‘I have a special interest in the psychology of trauma and have worked with traumatised people in Brazil. I still work with friends in Brazil who work with landless and indigenous people. I work with refugees in Jordan, and I was invited to attend the Pathways to Recovery for Torture Victims in Flight conference in Athens in June 2019. Wherever there’s trauma, you can guarantee there’s been a breach of someone’s human rights.’ Given psychology is the study of human beings, Indoe feels psychology’s Dr Derek Indoe role in human rights is both general and

specific – in supporting individuals whose human rights may have been breached, as well as raising awareness of human rights concerns – whether that be the ethics of AI or misinformation in the media and from politicians. Indoe said that human rights should also be embedded in the training and education of psychologists. The Human Rights steering group – which began its work last year – also includes Dr Tony Wainwright (University of Exeter), Professor Peter Kinderman (University of Liverpool), Professor Nimisha Patel and Professor Rachel Tribe (both of the University of East London). They have already evaluated the current evidence base on the effectiveness of psychological theory and evidence on human rights, identified gaps in the evidence, and identified ways to address some of those gaps. Indoe said he and his colleagues had identified four areas to focus on – professional practice, education and curriculum development, advocacy and public policy, and connections with human rights systems. Working alongside the strategy boards, the human rights steering group aims to establish task and finish groups to produce recommendations and guidance on how human rights can be embedded in each of those four areas. ER The human rights workstream will be recruiting members for its four task and finish groups in the near future. For more information see: tinyurl.com/5cjt5v7r

Crime as a joined up problem A psychologist has become the first ever Chief Scientific Advisor to the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC). In this new role Professor Paul Taylor, a forensic psychologist and academic by background, will focus on crime reduction as well as setting up the National Crime and Justice Laboratory. Taylor said it was particularly exciting to take up the role having worked with the police for much of his career. ‘I owe my career to working with the police in particular. My PhD was on hostage negotiation and the kindness they showed in allowing me to work with them really set me up in terms of what I did later on.’ Taylor later became a Professor at Lancaster University and the University of Twente, carrying out research on extremism, profiling, deception and offenders. In 2015 he became Director of the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST). Taylor said the science and technology, including psychology, being used within the world of policing was very innovative – and that as a psychologist it was particularly exciting to be working so closely with the police and bringing together some of the excellent research and initiatives that are already ongoing. ‘So much of policing is psychology-related – violence against women and girls, which is a key issue at the moment, and how we make our streets safer, are psychology questions; how we intervene to stop drugs destroying families, that’s in part a psychology question; how we manage the changing nature of crowd policing, how we support the wellbeing of our officers, particularly after what’s been a challenging 12 months under Covid-19, they are psychology questions.’

On his retirement recently, Chief Constable of Merseyside Police Andy Cooke said in an interview that increased opportunity and reduced poverty were the best approaches to crime reduction. Taylor said these comments were backed up by science. ‘That’s one of the wonderful aspects about policing having a Chief Scientific Advisor – I’m a member of a network of Chief Scientific Advisors across government which allows us to bring a whole systems approach to that question. Andy Cooke is right – crime prevention needs to be met with a coordinated effort with the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions, and many other departments who have arole to play. There’s not only a role for science, of course – government, local police, schools, the NHS, job centres and community support groups… it’s a joined up problem and crime is part of that problem. I think Andy is correct and it is something that the Chief Scientific Advisor network can really support – it’s great to be part of that.’ One of Taylor’s first tasks will involve developing a science and technology strategy for policing. ‘That wouldn’t have necessarily happened before the Chief Scientific Advisor role came about, because those parts are working together bilaterally, but there’s no one necessarily to bring it all together.’ Taylor said he hoped to be able to bring together knowledge, expertise and research from many different sources, including bodies such as the BPS, UKRI, those working in industry, and from the international community. Taylor said he wanted to avoid being reactive when it comes to crime, and pointed to many of the good crime and violence prevention efforts which are already going on. He said these included community psychology approaches, as well as data-driven approaches which help the police spot areas and individuals who may be at risk of experiencing, or committing, crime. ‘These are innovative techniques and are deeply, deeply respectful of ethics and privacy, despite what some newspapers might suggest. As is the case for a psychologist in a consulting room, if we have information that suggests somebody is at risk we have a duty of care to react – and that’s effectively what policing is doing in the preventative space, finding new, sensitive, privacy conscious ways of reacting to those warning signs that are proportionate and fair.’ The establishment of a new National Crime and Justice Laboratory will be another of Taylor’s responsibilities. He said that while plans were still in the early stages, he hoped to be able to bring together many different disciplines under one roof to form a picture of what is going on in the UK in terms of crime. ‘This will help us to drive efficiencies so that we can think about what problem areas might be, so we can think about where different services might need to be joined up better so that we can support one another as a community. Its goal will be to show the complex tapestry of the reality of what’s occurring on the ground so that we can respond effectively.’ ER

the psychologist july/august 2021 news

‘This MBE is going to be an important tool’ Our editor Jon Sutton meets Professor Clifford Stott, awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List

If you got on your time-travelling motorbike and set the dials for when you returned to college to do A-level psychology, and you told young Clifford ‘one day you’ll get an MBE for your work’, what do you think he would say? I probably would have thought that would be a terrible thing. My early years were very anti-establishment. This was back in the day of Thatcher, and I was quite radical in my political views. So I would have seen it as a marker of being somebody in ‘the state’, and the troublesome political dimensions of this thing having the word ‘Empire’ in it… that would have been salient, and I would have rejected it. What's changed over the years: a general softening, or a feeling that the way to be ‘anti-establishment’ is from within? I see it as a more sophisticated understanding of the underlying challenges… My interest in crowds was provoked in part by going on demonstrations when I was a teenager, which left me feeling antagonistic toward the police. But when I started to interact with the police once I had completed my PhD, I began to see my understanding was wrong. I also reflected that if I wanted to deliver change, it was a question of building a network of relationships with progressive police officers through which the work that we were producing could flow meaningfully into changes in guidance, policy, and practice. Your work has had a major impact on policing and our understanding of crowd behaviour. What still needs to change? In part, everything. The issue is not simply about the psychology of public disorder, but how we can use our understanding of human and social psychology to protect democracy and help us to navigate through the kinds of challenges that we are going to see to our security as the climate disaster begins to bite. An area we're beginning to develop work in now is on the agenda of disproportionality. Prior to the pandemic

we already had a serious problem of disproportionality in policing, with ethnic minorities over-represented in policing and the criminal justice system – communities that are over policed and under protected. As we move beyond the pandemic, with that inequality amplified, with the negative impact on school education, with the decline in the economy and the lack of opportunity for employment, the issue of disproportionality is likely to get worse. We're thinking about the problem from an interactional or process-based perspective and trying to develop methodologies and work that helps us to analyse those complex interactions between structural, microsociological and psychological factors. But to achieve this we need to draw on our external partnerships. That's one of the things we've achieved – great partnerships with the police and other stakeholders where there's trust and confidence in the research process. This MBE is going to be an important tool in helping us to secure that trust and confidence moving forward. Then we can start to engineer evidence-based solutions within which social psychology plays a pivotal role. It’s always about thinking ahead, building on these platforms. It’s no longer just about crowds, it's more general than that. For the full interview, with much more on Professor Stott’s work and his views on its place within Psychology, see https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/us-its-aboutgetting-out-laboratory-field

News online: Find more news at www.thepsychologist.org.uk/reports, including: languageless health messaging, ‘CAMHS around the Campﬁre’ virtual journal club on ‘ADHD in children and young people with autism, and pharmacological treatment’, and a University of Reading centenary. 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.

Virtual strain? Zoe Sanderson (University of Bristol) reports from the EAWOP online conference In June, around 2000 delegates were supposed to be in Glasgow for the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology’s (EAWOP) biennial conference. Of course, the pandemic forced the postponement of the full in-person event to 11-14 January 2022, so to keep us connected until then EAWOP and the British Psychological Society created a one-day online conference. Entitled Virtual Strain: Working Life During the Covid Pandemic, the event covered three topical themes: how the pandemic has affected the organisation of work, the mental health of people at work, and work-life balance. In his opening remarks, EAWOP President Professor Frederik Anseel suggested that the last year has been ‘the worst of times and the best of times’. Covid-19 has caused illness and loss, isolation, disruption in our personal and professional spheres, and unparalleled challenges for relationally-based organisations like EAWOP. But the pandemic has also prompted a surge of new ideas ,\YVWLHU (ZZVJPH[PVU VM >VYR about work-life balance, leadership, HUK 6YNHUPaH[PVUHS 7Z`JOVSVN` teamwork, work centrality and change: ‘it’s a great time to be a work and organizational psychologist because our insights have never been more relevant’. In the first keynote speech, Professor Sharon Parker (Curtin University, Australia) explored how the organisation of work – tasks, activities, relationships, responsibilities etc. – has shifted as remote work has become more common. Parker argued that well-designed work is characterised by being stimulating, having clarity about tasks and feedback, allowing autonomy, enabling relationships, and making tolerable demands of the worker. The great benefit of working remotely for most workers is greater autonomy or agency, but this can be offset by the feeling that they should be available at all times or the over-zealous monitoring of managers. Conversely, shared workspaces nurture relationships. Figuring out how to preserve the autonomy-relationship balance will be a key part of designing work well in the post-pandemic world. Within this theme, practitioner and researcher Dr Lisette Engelen (Engelen2 Workplace Strategy, Radboud University, and Karolinska University Hospital, Sweden) shared lessons from supporting hospitals to deliver hybrid face-to-face and online treatment. She described the importance of bringing together IT, facilities, and HR functions to prepare a good working environment for healthcare staff and the challenges and benefits of ‘swarming’: temporarily convening multidisciplinary and multi-level teams to meet new high-priority needs, such as delivering Covid treatment. Later, Professor Hannes Zacher (Leipzig University, Germany) highlighted some of the evidence-based guidance psychologists have generated to support the

eawop

health and wellbeing of employees during the pandemic. These contributions ranged from the immediately practical, such as helping organisations to promote health and safety through adapting working environments, training, and support for those experiencing stress, to more macro-scale engagements with organisational and governmental policy-makers to address precarious work. In the ﬁnal keynote, Professor Tammy Allen (University of Florida, USA) tackled the much-vexed question of balancing work and non-work life while working remotely. Individuals vary in how integrated or separated they prefer these domains to be and how to maintain boundaries between them. When working from home, we might assert boundaries by establishing working hours and spaces – and telling housemates or family about them – or behaving in ways that mimic ofﬁce routines. Noting the particular impact of the pandemic on working women, Allen suggested that distractions, noise, interruptions, frequent task switching, and the expectation of constant availability from both family and co-workers were common and challenging experiences during this time. Organisations can support employees’ work-life balance by fostering social connection, providing resources to set up good quality home-working environments, and supporting their autonomy, boundarysetting, and detachment from work. In the concluding panel discussion, Janine Berg (International Labour Organization) pondered who was responsible for helping people successfully work from home. At the individual level, we have some personal agency, other household members can promote gender equality, and small managerial interventions can make a big difference. At a larger scale, unions can hold companies accountable for poor practice and collectively agree protective frameworks, and governments must set appropriate standards, for example by setting laws on dismissal protection or workers’ ability to disconnect. However, most workers across the globe don’t work from home, despite the pandemic. Judith KirtonDarling (industriAll Europe) highlighted that the working conditions of those who must be on site have deteriorated rapidly as a result of the increased digitalisation and automation that is necessary to maintain social distancing, creating a growing disparity with the conditions of remote workers. This points to the need for collective framing of agreements and standards to protect all workers, within which individual agreements can be negotiated. She concluded that this is ‘a policy moment at which your research is arriving at the right time to steer and nourish a political debate’ on managing psycho-social risks at work. When we convene in Glasgow in January for the physical EAWOP conference, hopefully we will contribute to these debates even more. See www.eawop2022.org for information.

the psychologist july/august 2021 news

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Don’t care too much for money? Emma Young digests research on money

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 16

overty can have long-lasting psychological effects, as I outlined in the January 2020 issue. But for people who live above the poverty line, expectations about how much money we should have or need, as well as decisions about what to spend our money on, and what to save for the future, can all affect psychological wellbeing, too. However, some well-worn ideas about this are being challenged, as we explore here…

Is it true that money can’t buy you happiness? Received wisdom is that it can’t – at least, so long as your income already covers your basic needs plus a few conveniences, such as a car, perhaps. But according to a recent paper in PNAS, this is not correct. Matthew A. Killingsworth at the University of Pennsylvania, US, analysed data from more than 33,000 employed adults in the US, who had been asked to report on their own wellbeing at random timepoints via a smart phone app. Contrary to the ﬁndings of some highly inﬂuential earlier work, the analysis of over 1.7 million reports found no evidence for a ‘wellbeing plateau’ above an income level of $75,000 a year. Instead, Killingsworth found that wellbeing rose with income, with incomes in this study

ranging from $15,000 a year to over $480,000. ‘This suggests that higher incomes may still have potential to improve people’s day-to-day wellbeing,’ even in wealthy countries, he writes. However, it’s worth stressing that the data shows that wellbeing increases by a similar amount every time income is doubled – so an increase of $30,000 to $60,000, for example, is associated with a much bigger rise in happiness than an increase of $120,000 to $150,000.

What should you buy to maximise happiness? Not more things, according to most research – but there’s a caveat to this, which we’ll get to shortly. Certainly, there’s plenty of evidence that buying experiences rather than possessions makes for greater wellbeing. For example, in 2020, a team that included Killingsworth but which was led by Amit Kumar at the University of Texas, Austin reported a study of 2635 USbased adults, who received regular texts during the day asking about their current emotions and any purchases. The researchers found that people were happier when spending on experiences, such as attending a sporting event or eating at a restaurant, than when buying goods

the psychologist july/august 2021 digest that cost the same amount, such as jewellery or clothing. Another study, led by Hal Hershﬁeld and published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, reported that although most people say they would choose to have more money over more time, participants who chose money reported being happier (the participants’ household income and free time were taken into account in this analysis). The team did also ﬁnd that happier people are more likely to choose more time vs. more money. But their analysis suggests that the effect does work in both directions, with a prioritization of time vs. money and greater happiness boosting each other. (The participants in this study were thousands of Americans representing a range of ages, income levels and occupations.) However, there is also evidence that buying experiences and time really only makes you happier than buying objects if you’re already reasonably well-off, compared with those around you. As we reported on the Digest in 2018, research (yet again in the US) has shown that less well-off people get just the same – if not more – happiness from buying objects.

How does income disparity affect happiness? People living in areas where incomes are more similar tend to report greater wellbeing – and this holds not just for overall high-income regions, such as Scandinavian countries, but regions where money isn’t used much at all, such as the Solomon Islands. There’s plenty of research ﬁnding that it’s not so much how much we earn (above a basic level) but how much we earn compared with those around us that affects wellbeing. In one recent study of this, Zonghuo Yu and Fei Wang analysed decades worth of data from the US and also several western European countries, including the UK. They found that, in Europe especially, rising levels of income inequality were associated with higher levels of happiness – up to a critical point. Beyond that point, happiness dropped. The researchers think that limited inequality is encouraging – people see that some social mobility is possible and expect that they might achieve it themselves. However, when income inequality becomes too high, ‘more aspiring individuals may replace their upward mobility dream with despair and feel jealous of the rich’. ‘Too high’ was notably higher for the US than for Europe. The researchers think this could be because even though there is lower social mobility and also greater income inequality in the US compared with western Europe, Americans are greater believers in the possibility of social mobility. One last note on income inequality: highlighting it can of course be important. Certainly, there’s work ﬁnding that visible reminders of inequality can make disadvantaged people more likely to want to do something about it.

What about giving money away… Throughout human history and across cultures, humans have helped one another in times of need – that, at least,

is the message from the influential Human Generosity Project. Anthropological studies of a wide range of communities suggest that we are generous by nature. Though this research has focused on generosity within communities, we are of course also motivated to give anonymously, in the form of charitable donations. Studies in this field have found that giving boosts happiness, and also that happier people give more, creating a virtuous spiral of increasing benefits. Other studies have investigated the factors that influence our decisions to give to charities. A 2019 paper from Matthew Sisco and Elke Weber in Nature Communications, which analysed millions of dollars of donations given via the GoFundMe Platform, found that donors gave significantly more to people who shared their surname. Also, men and women donated more at times when donors of the opposite sex were visible on the screen. That same year, we reported on a study led by Valerio Capraro finding that simple ‘moral nudges’ encourage people to donate much more to charity. Nudging people to reflect on what was the morally ‘right thing’ to do increased actual donations by close to half.

…And keeping hold of it? You really want to save for a deposit on a flat, or for your retirement – but that ridiculously expensive dress, or shirt, or holiday is just so appealing. Most of us have experienced feelings like this. It is much harder to put money away for the future than it is to spend it now. Finding ways to close the gap that we feel between our present and future selves should help, in theory. And a questionnaire that got participants in Portugal to think more about their own future ageing did prompt them to invest more in retirement funds, reports a 2018 study from Sibila Marques and colleagues in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology. Other groups have looked at different practical ways to encourage people to save. In 2020, a team led by Hal Hershfield at UCLA reported a study of thousands of new users of a financial technology app. They found that suggesting smaller, more regular deposits vs. larger, less regular ones encouraged less well-off people to save. In this US study, three times as many people in the highest, compared with the lowest, income bracket signed up to make a $150 deposit each month. When this was framed as $5 per day instead, the difference in participation was eliminated (even though the total savings for each individual were, of course, the same). There’s also evidence that some personality traits put you at greater risk of financial hardship and even bankruptcy. Perhaps surprisingly, one of these traits is agreeableness. The reason, according to a 2018 report in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, is that agreeable people value money less, and so are more likely to mismanage their own. ‘The relationship was much stronger for lower-income individuals, who don’t have the financial means to compensate for the detrimental impact of their agreeable personality,’ commented co-author Joe Gladstone at UCL.

Digest digested… A study of new mothers in London has found that rates of postnatal depression rose sharply during lockdown. A total of 47.5 per cent of the group reported symptoms that met the threshold of diagnosis for postnatal depression, twice the preCovid European average. Those who had had less social contact in the preceding weeks were more likely to report symptoms. (Frontiers in Psychology). Vegetarians may be particularly likely to ﬁnd meat gross – but even meateaters are sometimes disgusted by meat. Researchers found that omnivores and ﬂexitarians who felt more ‘meat disgust’ also had lower meat intake, suggesting that encouraging those feelings could be a way of getting people to cut

down on their meat consumption. (Appetite). If we believe that a country’s leader is good and popular at home, we feel more empathy towards their struggling citizens. When the (ﬁctional) prime minister of Belgium was described in glowing terms, participants in a recent study reported more empathy towards victims of a terrorist attack, and were more willing to donate towards a Belgian teenager struggling with medical costs. (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin). A recent study has found that cats, like humans, are tricked by ‘Kanizsa squares’, an illusion in which four Pacman-type cut-outs are arranged to suggest the lines of a square

that doesn’t really exist. The citizen science project found that cats liked to sit in these illusory squares almost as much as in actual squares. The study gives further insight into cat cognition, which has received little attention compared to that of dogs. (Applied Animal Behaviour Science). People with worse self-control tend to report more feelings of loneliness, according to new research. And it’s not just about our ‘trait’ levels of selfcontrol: those who reported failures of self-control on one day were also more likely to experience loneliness on the subsequent day. Such failures can make people seem selﬁsh or potentially harmful, leading to social ostracism and eventually loneliness. (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin).

Drug researchers who admit to using psychedelics seen as having less integrity

Researchers studying the potential for psychedelics to treat mental health conditions need to be careful about how they communicate their findings – they don’t want to alienate a public who may be at best ambivalent about the use of currently illegal drugs in mental health settings. And a recent paper in Public Understanding of Science highlights one thing researchers shouldn’t do: admit to using psychedelic substances themselves. Those who make such a disclosure may be seen by the public as having less integrity. In the first study, Matthias Forstmann at the University of Zurich and Christina Sagioglou at the University of Innsbruck asked 185 participants to read a vignette about a (fictitious) scientist who had found promising results regarding the use of psilocybin to treat PTSD and depression. Half read that the professor has ‘extensive personal experience’ with the drugs himself, while the others read that he has no such experience. All participants then rated the professor’s scientific integrity and the quality of his research.

Participants who had read that the researcher took the drugs himself rated his integrity significantly lower than those who had read he didn’t use them, though this information didn’t influence people’s judgements about the quality of his research. A second study with a greater number of participants and more elaborate descriptions of the professor found similar results. A final experiment showed that the context in which the research is presented is also important. When participants read about a fictitious scientific conference that had various social events associated with psychedelic culture (e.g. a psychedelic art exhibition and a shamanic drum circle), they rated the research quality lower than when they read about social events that didn’t have these associations (e.g. a tour of a brewery and a postmodern art exhibition). There are a few possible explanations for these results, the team notes. A researcher who studies psychedelics but also uses them might be seen as having a hidden agenda. Or perhaps it is the illegal nature of his drug use that makes it seem as though the researcher has less integrity. And given that a close association with psychedelic culture negatively affects people’s perceptions of the research itself, the authors suggest researchers don’t use stereotypical imagery and language when discussing their work. MATTHEW WARREN

the psychologist july/august 2021 digest

Emma Young on a new study which aims to ‘capture the ground truth’ If it’s a little tricky to recall an answer to that question, what if I presented you with a map with four location flags to choose from, each about 3-4 km apart, with one marking your actual location on that time and date? Are you confident that you’d pick the right one? If you are confident, the good news from a new paper in Psychological Science is that you’re more likely to be right than if you’re not too sure. The bad news is that when a group of students in Melbourne, Australia was tested in this way, they picked the wrong location 36 per cent of the time. The study shows that this type of memory is pretty fallible – and yet it’s the type, of course, that’s needed for a criminal alibi. Failures in recalling where you were have no doubt contributed to serious miscarriages of justice, write Elizabeth Laliberte at the University of Melbourne and her colleagues. The 51 students all downloaded onto their phones an app that had been developed by two of the researchers. Over a four week period, this app continuously tracked their movement and orientation, and also took GPS location and audio snapshots every ten minutes. Software stripped any speech from these audio files, but preserved background noise, such as birdsong or building work. (The app was designed to keep raw participant data confidential from even the researchers, and the participants were able to pause data collection for periods.) After a week’s delay, the participants were tested, again via the app. For each of 72 trials, they had to pick where they were on a specific time and date from four markers on a Google map. (They were able to zoom in and out and pan as they pleased). One of these markers represented the correct location, and the other three represented places they’d been on other occasions. The team’s analysis revealed that, as a group, the students were correct only about two-thirds of the time. Accuracy did increase with confidence, a finding that supports the idea that (under certain circumstances) greater confidence is linked to better memory. But the far from perfect performance of these university students, with presumably fairly regular schedules, doesn’t bode well for the rest of us – especially people without regular office hours. The team highlights the case of American man Ronald Cotton, who in 1985 was convicted on charges of rape and burglary and sentenced to life plus 50 years in prison. Ten years after the conviction, DNA evidence exonerated him. Cotton’s initial defence had not been helped when his alibi had been shown to be false. ‘Rather than report where he’d been at the time of the crime, Cotton mistakenly recalled where he had been the week before. The error probably contributed significantly to his wrongful conviction,’ the researchers write. The team’s analysis suggests that this error is relatively common: choosing a ‘right-day, wrong-week’

location accounted for 19 per cent of their participants’ errors. Participants also frequently chose a location that matched the stipulated hour but got the day wrong – this error accounted for 8 per cent of the mistakes. (They also sometimes picked an incorrect location in which they had made similar patterns of movement or where the background sounds were similar to the correct location – though these errors were less common.) ‘Both of these ﬁgures are well above chance rates and suggest that the error that Ronald Cotton made might be quite common,’ the team writes. Clearly, the ﬁndings could have practical, legal applications. Knowing just how fallible this type of alibi memory is – and understanding the most common errors that people make – could help lawyers to ask the right questions of defendants and witnesses, to try to get closer to the truth of where someone really was at a certain time. But there are more general implications for understanding memory, and for the way that memory research is done. Experiments are often lab-based, raising questions about real-world applicability. Passive, unobtrusive, privacy-conscious monitoring technologies like this new app could be used to gather and analyse all kinds of real-world data. As the researchers write, ‘We are now able to capture the ground truth of people’s lives and to test their ability to retain those events.’ And this, they hope, could change how a good deal of memory research is done. EMMA YOUNG

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The landscape of poverty Rhiannon Cobner, Jen Dafﬁn and Sarah Brown with a psychosocial ecological approach to ﬂourishing The World Bank recently warned of a ‘truly unprecedented increase’ in the levels of poverty people will face as the result of the pandemic. This has the potential to roll back decades of progress made in places such the Welsh Valleys, pushing thousands of children back into destitution. If ever there was a time to rethink our approach to poverty, it is now.

he night before Christmas, Wales had the second worst Covid-19 rate in the world. As three psychologists based in Wales, we are acutely aware that many places across the Welsh Valleys have suffered more Covid deaths per capita than anywhere else in the UK. Behind the figures lie decades of socioeconomic deprivation that followed the closure of the coal, steel and iron industries. This left a legacy of long-term unemployment, high rates of poverty, a dilution of once tightly knit communities and a myriad of chronic ‘adversity associated’ health issues including diabetes, obesity, smoking and drug misuse. Even within this devastated landscape, traditional approaches to addressing poverty and mental health have been individualistic and treated each as independent entities. However, decades of research is now exposing this view as no longer fit for purpose. Psychologists are turning to place-based approaches. Community level adversity Our mental health is determined by the conditions in which we are born, grow, work, live, and age, along with the wider set of forces shaping the conditions of our daily lives (WHO, 2014). There is a causal relationship between poverty and common mental difficulties, and people living in poverty will be disproportionally impacted (Ridley et al., 2020). Recognising the role that our social circumstances play in shaping our psychological health involves understanding that it’s about what’s happened or is happening to people and not about what’s wrong with them (Johnstone et al., 2018). Multiple studies have found that levels of violence, crime, education, psychological distress, and various health problems are associated with place-based characteristics, particularly poverty (Eyerman et al., 2004; Thesnaar et al., 2013; Veerman & Ganzevoort, 2001). The stresses of living with inadequate access to economic and educational opportunities, or a lack of opportunity itself, contribute to experiences of community level adversity. Trauma is therefore equally created by political, social and cultural processes when,

the psychologist july/august 2021 landscape of poverty Getty images

for example, people and communities aren’t able to have their basic emotional and physical needs met and are unable to live in safety or are disconnected from each other (WHO, 2014; Compton et al., 2020). There are speciﬁc ways in which individual and community trauma impact our psychological health. These can be summarised as prolonged exposure to humiliation, shame, fear, distrust, instability, insecurity, isolation, loneliness and being trapped and powerless (Psychologists for Social Change, 2015). Chronic exposure to these is detrimental to our physical and psychological health. A focus solely on the treatment of individuals can therefore only ever be one part of the

solution to supporting people to ﬂourish and overcome poverty. As a result, a number of psychosocial ecological approaches or place-based strategies are emerging. The most effective of these respect the complex nature of the task at hand. They recognise that these issues sit within complex networked adaptive systems that aren’t linear or predictable. In these systems everything exists in relationship to everything else, and so relationships are the key operating principle. With such complex problems, practice is continually changing. It is localised to place. It needs to be built together using the principles of

Place-based ways of working A strong sense of community is not new to Wales: it is a country steeped in the importance of community in all its forms. ‘Community’ as your road, your local rugby club, your school. It has a history of strong, thriving connected communities. For many growing up in the valleys there was a powerful narrative about a sense of belonging felt by those living in the once thriving mining communities. Life was no bed of roses… it was hard, with high levels of Key sources poverty and adversity. But this was a shared struggle, an ‘in it Compton M.T. & Shim, R.S. (2020). together’ experience, with the Why employers must focus on the protective whole greater than the social determinants of mental health. sum of the parts. There was a American Journal of Health Promotion, shared responsibility; the shared 34(2), 215-219. hand washing of the rugby kit; the Eyerman, R., Alexander, J.C. et al. (2004). Cultural Trauma and Collective lifting of the whole town’s spirits Identity. University of California Press. on a Friday, payday, bringing with Ham, C. & Alderwick, H. (2016). Placeit a collective sense of celebration. based systems of care: A way forward for These were communities that were the NHS in England. not financially rich but had huge Johnstone, L. & Boyle, M. with Cromby, social capital. They represented a J. et al. (2018). The Power Threat Meaning Framework. Leicester: British significant social power in their Psychological Society. connecting as equals to confront the Psychologists for Social Change. (2015). shared life struggles and providing The Psychological Impact of Austerity: A meaningful shared solutions. It is Briefing Paper. no wonder, then, that Wales was the Ridley, M., Rao, G., Schilback, F. & birthplace of the NHS. Patel, V. (2020). Poverty, depression, and anxiety: Causal evidence and Gwent Community Psychology mechanisms. Science, 370(6522), emerged in 2014 with a partnership eaay0214. with a local housing association. Thesnaar, C.H. (2013). Embodying The aim was to support those who Collective Memory. Scriptura: already had relationships with International Journal of Bible, Religion children, young people and families and Theology in Southern Africa, 112, 1-15. to offer ‘light touch’ psychologically Veerman, A.L., Ganzevoort, R.R. (2001). informed interventions. Since Communities coping with collective significant investment in this trauma. Psychiatry, 101, 141-148. approach in 2019, a newly formed WHO and the Calouste Gulbenkian team has developed partnerships Foundation. (2014). Social determinants with organisations such as police, of mental health. housing, families first, youth

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co-production, respecting culturally relevant local knowledge, expertise and leadership. The complex nature of these interactions requires a greater move towards a uniﬁed psychosocial ecological approach, with the development of an evidencebase alongside it to better support theory reﬁnement and solution development. To reduce the damaging psychological costs that contribute to intergenerational cycles of distress and disadvantage we must shape our public policy and services to ensure the key indicators of a psychologically healthy society – including agency, security, connection, meaning and trust – are met. We need our current social and health care systems to be delivered in ways that are relationally informed and can address the social determinants of mental health.

No bed of roses: housing in Ebbw Vale, South Wales in 1930s

workers and sports and leisure teams. We have developed what has become known as the three tier model of consultation and offer a range of skill-based activities including group consultation, training, and programmes of group work, reflective practice and staff wellbeing sessions. We are working towards developing ways of working directly with communities and discovering how to remove the organisational barriers associated with this. As a process-driven and emergent model of service delivery with the concept of ‘doing with’ at its core, we find it helpful to frame this initial stage of service development as part of a clinical cycle. We are assessing each community’s strengths and assets, learning about gaps and planning interventions that fit with our co-constructed formulations. These in turn will be evaluated and fed back in to the overall assessment of each community’s wellbeing and resilience. One example of a more recent partnership is with a different housing association. We were initially invited by a family support worker to offer workshops to a small group of parents, on themes the parents had requested, including children’s resilience and children’s emotional wellbeing. Through this collaboration the group moved towards sharing stories about their own resilience, and they have decided to write a book together for children to share their stories. For us, the development of community psychology ‘work’ has often started this way. We are invited as ‘experts’, because largely that is what expected of psychologists, and through conversations we shift expectations of ‘help’. We are willing to listen and learn with humility and respect about what is helpful and what our collaborators can teach us.

the psychologist july/august 2021 landscape of poverty

We also wanted to go further than this and partner with communities themselves. A local movement towards place-based and collective trauma thinking has allowed our team to begin to explore ways of working alongside neighbourhood partners. We have begun to develop this way of working through 1) building community mental health understanding (i.e. dialogue, critical thinking, and community conversations), 2) meaning making, storying and collective action, and 3) reflection and evaluation. Drawing on work by Campbell and Burgess we recognise the importance of supporting spaces for dialogue to explore how we understand psychosocial health. These spaces are developed through critical reflection about the local drivers of distress as well as an understanding of the barriers to accessing services or resources. Spaces need to fit with people’s cultural beliefs or local support networks and knowledge needs to be nurtured and developed at a local level. Taking a psychosocial-ecological perspective, the underpinning ideas about what we need for wellbeing include having our basic physical and relational needs met, having a voice/active citizenship and being free from discrimination and oppression. Meaning making Central to this way of working is ‘meaning making’. Social and physical environments must be comprehensive, manageable and meaningful in order to avoid chronic stress. Humans like to recognise and complete patterns, and so we have chosen to draw on storytelling approaches to support this sense making. Here we have drawn on team formulation and narrative therapy ideas to co-construct stories (formulations) of local issues. By building relationships with each other and developing a shared sense of meaning, we can support communities to heal and build good psychological health and resilience. This process can act as a springboard toward collective action, where communities can engage in processes to seek necessary systemic change to alleviate their distress. Through this place-based formulation work we have begun to co-develop focused initiatives. In one area of Newport for example, two dominant areas of struggle have emerged through network consultation, surveys and workshops. One is the sense of ‘relational

security’ between organisations, services and residents, i.e. the police, as well as within intimate partner and parent to child relationships. The other is the ‘lack of opportunity’ for children and young people in terms of safe and green spaces to play and increased exposure to gang exploitation for drug running. As a placebased learning system we have jointly devised solutions to begin to explore how we can increase Dr Jen Daffin ‘relational security’. For example, Clinical a project between the network and Psychologist, Gwent Police will see the ‘Heddlu Gwent Bach’ (mini-police) in local primary Community schools listen to the community’s Psychology Lead ideas. Through discussion they for Newport would like to improve their trauma informed ways of working by Dr Sarah Brown listening to the school children and Clinical local residents. Psychologist, This approach is a continuous Gwent cycle, constantly evaluating Community and reflecting on its position as Psychology relationships develop, the story Lead for thickens and changes emerge. A Monmouthshire constant process of reflecting with communities about what difference this is making is crucial. Dr Rhiannon Cobner Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Lead for Gwent Community Psychology rhiannon. cobner@wales. nhs.uk

Beyond the fortress As Psychologists working with children and families in Wales, we have become increasingly aware of the parameters of clinic-based child-focused interventions, and we are not alone. A move away from a ‘fortresses mentality’ and towards place-based and integrated systems of care are essential if we are serious about addressing poverty and health inequality (Ham & Alderwick, 2016). The evidence base is telling us now that mental health is complex, and addressing these issues is equally complex. These are multi-system issues that require a cross multi-sector response. This includes communities themselves. We all have a responsibility and a contribution to make. Working in ways based on scientiﬁc reductionism, slicing problems into unrecognisable parts, can be incredibly frustrating but also obscures and limits access to solutions. It is often said that applied psychologists need to let go of ‘being the expert’. Perhaps we should also consider embracing complexity. We don’t have all the solutions. We cannot know what the necessary intervention is going to be in unpredictable non-linear adaptive systems – otherwise known as ‘people’. Instead, we can use our skills and knowledge to help construct meaning and solutions together in safe spaces, not one person at a time but across whole communities.

Eliza Southwood - www.elizasouthwood.com

the psychologist july/august 2021 the framing of poverty

‘You can improve the policy by attending to people’s dignity’

David Robson meets psychologists considering the importance of how poverty is framed

f you have never experienced poverty for yourself, take a minute to imagine that you are applying for ﬁnancial support. The money is there, you are told, if you are ‘needy’, ‘deprived’, and ‘vulnerable’ – the ‘people who have nothing’. The employees you meet are empathetic and you are grateful for their help. But at every step of the bureaucratic ladder, you are faced with constant reminders of the fact that you are ‘disadvantaged’ and the subject of ‘charity’, and that this money should only be used to pay for the bare essentials. Now imagine that you could get exactly the same support, but that it’s delivered without the negative framing. The money, you are told, will be a step to building a better life for yourself and the people around you, and you can use it however you want to grow your skillset and reach your goals. How do you think your attitudes and behaviour might change in each case? The psychologist Catherine Thomas was confronted with this question on a daily basis when she lived in Nairobi, Kenya. ‘You would see different NGOs abound in this area, and some were really focused on hope and empowerment, while others were all about charity, in essence,’ she says. ‘And I was interested in how it might feel to be a recipient of a charity, rather than an organisation that’s working with your community towards a better future.’ When Thomas returned to Stanford University to study for a PhD, she decided to put the idea to the test. Her research joins a growing body of literature examining the stigma of poverty and the way that it shapes people’s thinking, feelings and behaviour – with some serious implications for the ways that organisations and governments deliver their support. The culture of poverty Thomas’s research builds on decades of interest in the causes and effects of poverty – some of which has done more harm than good. In the 1960s, for

instance, sociologists such as Oscar Lewis described a self-perpetuating ‘culture of poverty’, passed from generation to generation, that leads to disengagement and apathy, and hostility to institutions such as the police or the government. They were often fatalistic about their circumstances and had few aspirations for change. The ‘culture of poverty’ was believed to become engrained at a young age, with long-lasting effects on people’s lives. ‘By the time slum children are age six or seven they have usually absorbed the basic values and attitudes of their subculture. Thereafter, they are psychologically unready to take full advantage of changing conditions or increased opportunities that may develop in their lifetime,’ Lewis wrote in Scientific American in 1966, based on his work in Puerto Rico and New York. The concept has lingered in politics and the media. ‘It led to a lot of very pejorative interpretations and representations of “the poor”,’ explains Jennifer Sheehy-Skeffington, a social psychologist at the London School of Economics. When it came to providing financial support, policy-makers were worried that financial handouts would simply breed a growing dependence that further perpetuated this culture. They certainly didn’t want to frame welfare in positive terms; people needed to remember that it was a last resort for the needy, otherwise they would never want to leave the system (Edin et al., 2017). It is only with careful experimental research that we have been able to reject many of these assumptions. These studies show that financial instability can indeed have important consequences for people’s reasoning and decision making, but that these effects are highly dependent on people’s immediate context. If poverty is self-perpetuating, it is because the mental strain makes it harder to find long-term solutions to the problems at hand (Shafir, 2017); they are not engrained in the culture. ‘You can take anybody who’s very capable, and put them in the context of poverty, and they’ll start performing less well,’ says Eldar Shafir at Princeton University. And any relief that eases that strain should

bring about direct benefits to short- and long-term thinking. Consider a study examining shoppers at a New Jersey mall – a sample of participants that broadly corresponded to the socioeconomic spread across the whole USA. The scientists first presented the participants with a financial problem, such as: ‘Your car is having some trouble and requires $X to be fixed. You can pay in full, take a loan, or take a chance and forego the service at the moment... How would you go about making this decision?’ In some cases, the value of X was relatively large, $1500, while in others, it was $150, which would be more manageable to most people. The participants were then given two nonverbal tasks: a common test of ‘fluid intelligence’, and a test of cognitive control, in which the participant had to provide rapid responses to different stimuli while making as few errors as possible. Key sources For the richer shoppers, the form of the financial problem did Cheek, N.N. & Shafir, E. (2020). The not seem to matter – whether the thick skin bias in judgments about car repairs cost $150 or $1500, people in poverty. Behavioural Public they were equally able to complete Policy, 1-26. the cognitive tasks without any Edin, K., Shaefer, H.L. & Tach, L. (2017). difference in results. For the A new anti-poverty policy litmus test. Pathways Magazine. poorer participants, however, the Jachimowicz, J.M., Chafik, S., Munrat, differences were stark – with much S. et al. (2017). Community trust worse performance following the reduces myopic decisions of low-income ‘difficult’ financial problem. The individuals. Proceedings of the National purely fictional scenario about Academy of Sciences, 114(21), 5401–5406.

David Robson is the author of The Intelligence Trap: Revolutionise Your Thinking and Make Wiser Decisions, out now in paperback (Hodder and Stoughton). He is @d_a_robson on Twitter.

costly car repairs seemed to have triggered their own financial worries, which temporarily reduced their fluid intelligence and their cognitive control. To replicate the result in a more distant cultural context, the researchers performed a similar experiment with farmers in the Villupuram and Tiruvannamalai districts of Tamil Nadu, India. With much of their income drawn from a single crop – sugar cane – the farmers often face financial strain in the weeks immediately before their harvests, as they struggle to eke out the money made from the previous crop. After the harvest, however, their resources are relatively abundant. Testing the same farmers’ fluid intelligence and cognitive control in both circumstances, the researchers found reduced performance in the times of financial hardship, and elevated performance after the crops had been gathered (Mani et al., 2013). The researchers describe the effects as a restriction of our ‘mental bandwidth’, which, they believe, could contribute to many counter-productive decisions. ‘If all

Eliza Southwood - www.elizasouthwood.com

Johnson, S.E., Richeson, J.A. & Finkel, E.J. (2011). Middle class and marginal? Socioeconomic status, stigma, and selfregulation at an elite university. Journal of personality and social psychology, 100(5), 838. Joshi, P.D. & Fast, N.J. (2013). Power and reduced temporal discounting. Psychological Science, 24(4), 432–438. Lewis, O. (1966). The culture of poverty. Scientific American, 215(4), 19–25. Mani, A., Mullainathan, S., Shafir, E. & Zhao, J. (2013). Poverty impedes cognitive function. science, 341(6149), 976–980. Shafir, E. (2017). Decisions in poverty contexts. Current opinion in psychology, 18, 131-136. Sykes, J., Križ, K., Edin, K. & HalpernMeekin, S. (2015). Dignity and dreams: What the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) means to low-income families. American Sociological Review, 80(2), 243-267. Thomas, C.C., Otis, N.G., Abraham, J.R. et al. (2020). Toward a science of delivering aid with dignity: Experimental evidence and local forecasts from Kenya. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(27), 15546–15553

Students from poorer families seemed to ﬁnd the talk much more tiring than their richer peers

the psychologist july/august 2021 the framing of poverty

your bandwidth is devoted to this financial juggling, you have fewer resources left to ensure that you are eating healthily, or that your kids are doing homework – everything is neglected,’ says Shafir, who was one of the co-authors of the paper. The same scattered thinking could also lead to workplace errors that get you fired, or a missed opportunity for promotion – things that would make it harder to escape the current situation. The social stigma attached to poverty will only exacerbate these effects. In one study, at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, students were asked to give a presentation about their expectations of their future prospects, before being given a test of mental focus. Conscious of their low status, the students from poorer families seemed to find the talk much more tiring than their richer peers – leading to worse performance on the later test. The greater mental ‘depletion’ could also be seen in their behaviour; after giving the presentation, the poorer students were also more likely to snack on unhealthy treats. To test whether this was due to students’ fears about being judged harshly, the researchers asked another group to talk about a subject that was less likely to trigger thoughts about their socioeconomic status – such as where they planned to live after graduation. Now, there was little difference between the richer and poorer students. It was the potential to experience stigma – and their sense of being an ‘imposter’ at the prestigious university – that seemed to be exhausting their mental resources. And the more sensitive that they, personally, felt about their social status, the worse they performed (Johnson et al., 2011). Crucially, someone’s perceptions of their social status – and its effects – can also modify the way they think about the future. In laboratory tasks, people who are assigned to the role of ‘manager’ were more willing to wait longer for a bigger reward – while those who had been assigned the role of a general worker tended to prefer to receive a smaller reward upfront, even if it meant that they would lose out in the long-term (Joshi & Fast, 2013). This tendency of focus on short-term goals may be related to the reduced ‘bandwidth’ and self-control that comes with feelings of lower status; if you’re constantly feeling distracted, it’s hard to come up with long-term plans. But you could also see it as a rational response for people who face continued instability as a result of their low status, says Sheehy-Skeffington. ‘I think the sense of control and predictability are key,’ she says. If you don’t have any faith that the future will turn out as hoped, it makes sense to stay focused on the here and now. Tellingly, this kind of myopic decision making is much less common when people have greater trust in the community around them – independent of their financial situation (Jachimowicz et al., 2017). Whatever the reason, the result of that short-term thinking may be less investment in things like education.

The thick skin bias The effects of poverty are often easily visible. So why do richer people find it so easy to turn a blind eye? Nathan Cheek and Eldar Shafir at Princeton University have one answer, with a string of studies investigating the so-called ‘thick skin bias’. Put simply, this is a common assumption that people who have encountered hardship will find it easier to endure further trouble in the future. ‘The general perception is that if you have a life full of little discomforts and abuses, then they will hurt you less,’ says Shafir. In the first study, participants were asked to consider a description of a character called Jordan. They were then told about various difficulties that Jordan has to face, from the relatively trivial (having a nasty boss) to the serious (being wrongly accused of shoplifting), and asked to rate how ‘upsetting’, ‘annoying’, ‘intolerable’ or ‘hurtful’ Jordan would find each event. Cheek and Shafir found that the participants were surprisingly unsympathetic, if they had been told that Jordan had already suffered many financial difficulties in his life, with parents who were in and out of work. Perversely, they cared much more if Jordan was instead a privileged rich kid whose family had never had to struggle for ‘food, rent or other basic things’. Further studies revealed the assumption that the ‘thick skin’ builds over time: they had less sympathy for someone who had been poor for the last ten years, than someone who had only recently lost their money, for example. A bankrupt financier, apparently, would be much more worthy of pity than someone who had grown up on a council estate. Worryingly, the thick skin bias appears prevalent in a variety of professionals, including teachers and mental health therapists, with potentially important ramifications for the ways that people of different social classes are treated. Shafir thinks it will also stretch to the people in power who would have a chance to tackle poverty head on. ‘This research basically suggests that policymakers will be indifferent to the everyday discomforts of the public,’ he says. ‘They don’t think it’s a big deal.’ In reality, there is little evidence that the chronic stress of poverty increases mental resilience, whereas there are very obvious reasons why financial stability can take the sting out of negative events. Jordan’s wrongful arrest would be far less worrying if he could afford good legal support, for instance.

Ultimately, the feelings of instability will make it much harder to climb the social ladder and escape your current circumstances. ‘If you see yourself as an independent individual, who is more in control of your circumstances, then you will be more comfortable when you’re put into high status situations; you’re more likely to apply for those sorts of positions, and you’re more likely to be accepted,’ says Antony Manstead, a social psychologist at Cardiff University. Empowerment Given these ﬁndings, it may be possible to offer some small ‘nudge’ techniques to ease the immediate psychological burden. Shaﬁr, for example, argues that

urging companies to pay employees weekly, rather than monthly, would increase their financial stability. ‘It would make the financial juggling a bit easier,’ he says. For jobs with flexible working hours, meanwhile, employers could give their timetables a few weeks in advance, so that it is easier for people to arrange childcare and transport. The aim, in each case, is to reduce the cognitive load, so people have more bandwidth to deal with other tasks that might improve their lives in the long-term. ‘We, as a society, can make the poor significantly smarter by facilitating their lives,’ Shafir says. ‘It could mean that people eat better, sleep better, and make fewer mistakes at work.’ The research on social status and stigma, meanwhile, may lead us to rethink the ways that poverty is represented in the media, which often perpetuate unhelpful stereotypes. ‘They often feed into this general perception that somehow people are choosing a lifestyle, and that they are almost relishing the situation,’ says Manstead. As we’ve seen, these negative portrayals will only amplify the problems that come with financial instability. Most counterintuitive, however, are the implications for the policy-makers who are actively

trying to alleviate the stress of inequality. As Catherine Thomas noticed in Nairobi, it is not just the tabloids that stigmatise ‘the poor’. While well-intentioned, the messaging of many charitable and governmental organisations reinforces the idea that people are somehow powerless and unable to help themselves. Qualitative research within the USA had already suggested that the specific framing of financial support could have an important impact on people’s attitudes and incentives. Using a series of in-depth interviews, the researchers had compared the effects of two programs – Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the core welfare program, and Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which offers refundable federal tax credit for lower-income workers. Whereas TANF – with its emphasis on the ‘needy’ – tended to set up feelings of hopelessness, the researchers found that EITC left people feeling more optimistic and proactive. That may come partly from the name. ‘It is more like an honorary title – it suggests that everyone is contributing and that they deserve to have this support from the government,’ explains Thomas. It may have also helped that the payments are made through the Internal Revenue Service, which lacked the stigma attached to the ‘welfare office’, which made it more socially inclusive. The resulting sense of empowerment appeared to translate to greater investments in the future – including educational

Early Career Conference Bursary Scheme This Research Board bursary scheme supports the work of UK early career psychologists.

year, with submission deadlines on 1 April and 1 October. Get your applications in now for the deadline on Friday 1 October 2021.

Conference bursaries are available to support members of the Society, who are UK early career psychologists, to attend any academic conference (physically or virtually), either in the UK or internationally, relevant to the applicant’s work. Each bursary consists of up to £250 (UK) or £500 (international) to contribute towards the costs of registration and travel to attend the full conference.

For the full criteria and a link to the electronic application form please contact Carl Bourton at the Society’s Leicester ofﬁce carl.bourton@bps.org.uk

There are two rounds of the scheme each 30

Note: For the purposes of the bursary scheme, we deﬁne an early career psychologist as a person who is within eight years of completion of their doctoral degree or practitioner doctorate in psychology. To avoid unconscious bias, we select applicants through a process of blind assessment.

the psychologist july/august 2021 the framing of poverty

opportunities – and higher aspirations of social mobility (Sykes et al., 2015). Inspired by these findings, Thomas wrote three different mission statements for a new programme of economic aid. The first was framed as a ‘Poverty Alleviation Organization’ – designed to ‘help them this into account when they plan their programs. ‘Our meet their basic needs’. The second was called tendency, as Westerners, is to start with interventions ‘Individual Empowerment Organization’ that aimed to and narratives that are very individual-focused – that ‘promote individuals’ potential to create a better future talk about individual goals, individual aspirations, for themselves’. The third framing, in the form of a ‘Community Empowerment Organization’, was written and individual financial independence,’ she says. In a second experiment, Thomas found that relatively from a more collectivist viewpoint. ‘This organization simple questionnaires could accurately predict people’s aims to empower people to improve their own lives behavioural responses to the different messages – a and those of the people and communities they care simple level of testing that could be applied before aid about most.’ programs have been established, Back in Nairobi, Thomas then she says. recruited 565 participants from Some NGO workers may worry low-income settlements, who “…the Community that messages of empowerment were given 400 Kenyan shillings Empowerment message are less likely to elicit donations. (around two days’ wages) alongside that really spoke to the Perhaps the organisations need a mission statement from one of to emphasise the desperate the three programs. Afterwards, participants, however – circumstances in order to get they were asked about their feelings reducing the sense of sympathy and attention? But about receiving aid, and how stigma, enhancing their Thomas’s third experiment, shows others might view them – whether that this is not the case. Using an they would be seen as ‘selfish’ sense of self-efficacy…” online survey, US participants were and ‘dependent’ or ‘lucky’ and told they had been entered into a ‘responsible’ – and they answered lottery to win $100. They were then some questions testing their sense shown one of the three aid messages, and asked how of self-efficacy. To see whether the different messaging much of the prize they would be prepared to donate affected their behaviour, they were also given a choice to the organisation at hand, should they win. Overall, of six videos to watch – four of which were pure the participants were relatively generous – on average, entertainment, and two of which were educational, they were willing to give around 37 per cent of their explaining potential business skills. winnings to charity, and there was little difference As expected, the people seeing the ‘Poverty between the conditions – confirming that NGOs can Alleviation’ message tended to report the most put a more positive spin on their work without risking negative emotions, and they were less likely to a reduced income (Thomas et al., 2020). choose an educational video to watch. The Individual Sheehy-Skeffington is impressed with Thomas’s Empowerment fared a little better, alleviating some of study. She agrees that the narratives around aid can the participant’s concerns about other’s perceptions – be powerful, though she thinks that message of though this did not seem to translate to significantly empowerment will need to be reinforced throughout greater interest in personal improvement. It was the Community Empowerment message that the recipients’ interactions with the organisation, from the forms they have to sign to the attitudes of the really spoke to the participants, however – reducing employees they meet. ‘That framing and that narrative the sense of stigma, enhancing their sense of selfshould be part of a broader experience,’ she says. efficacy and increasing the motivation to view the Promisingly, Thomas’s research has already educational videos. ‘They were more interested in provoked some interest from outside of academia, expanding their financial literacy – in this case, how including an organisation that helps to direct the TANF to build businesses in an informal economy,’ says benefits in the USA, and she’s also working with the Thomas. social protection unit of the World Bank Group. ‘We’re now testing these ideas at scale and in the field.’ She hopes that many more policy makers will Powerful narratives take note of the narratives they’re using. ‘Depending For Thomas, the findings highlight the importance of on how it’s given, aid can inadvertently be a vehicle ensuring that the messaging is culturally appropriate. for reinforcing social inequality, or it can alleviate It is now well accepted that European and American these stigmatising narratives that keep people down.’ citizens are often more individualistic than people Switching those messages should come at little cost, from other cultures, where people tend to be more with great benefits. ‘You can improve the policy by aware of their interdependence with other people. attending to people’s dignity.’ But many international aid organisations fail to take

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.

he long-term negative psychological, physical and societal impacts of austerity (low/negative public investment) are well established in the academic sociological and epidemiological literatures (e.g. Barr et al., 2015). Political choices are understood to impact the health and wellbeing of those in society. ‘Health in all policies’ is an approach that recognises the impact that every government policy has on its citizens, importantly emphasising that it is not only health policies that affect health (LGA, 2016). Policies on transport, education, and trade, for example, also affect how people live and die, and who thrives and who does not. To this extent, when we see poor health, it then follows to some extent that we can recognise this as the outcome of policy choices. Because of the many ways that government policies shape the lives of people who live in society, the broadranging issues that people experience can be seen in all aspects of psychological practice. The impacts of austerity policies, in particular, affect people in ways that psychologists encounter regardless of the domain in which they practice or research. For example, educational psychologists might see effects of austerity in poor concentration in students from homes where hunger is experienced (Passmore & Harris, 2004). For clinical psychologists, austerity’s effects might be seen in rising suicide rates due to low employment and workfare policies (Haw et al., 2015). For health psychologists, the effects of austerity are evident in cuts to addiction services, resulting in patients being absorbed by emergency or psychiatric instead of outpatient services (Drummond, 2017). For forensic psychologists, the effects of austerity might be seen in the lack of funding for policing, proposed to be linked to increases in violent crime (Dodd, 2018). Austerity shapes psychologists’ everyday work on a macro-level – yet many of the people we encounter may not use these explanations for the problems they face (see David Smail’s Power, Interest and Psychology). Although poverty is a leading determinant of mental and physical health (see ‘The Marmot Review, 10 years on’), many people do not understand the links between these factors, and instead blame individual

choice and lifestyle factors for poorer health outcomes in those on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum (Bullock et al., 2001; MacDonald et al., 2014; McKendrick et al., 2008). The way the public understands poverty is presumed to be an important factor in the perceived legitimacy of state welfare and provision of basic needs (Chung et al., 2018). It is therefore imperative that the general population understand the pernicious effects of austerity on individuals, communities and the nation. Yet there are many psychological barriers which make the disparate and multi-causal ways in which austerity impacts health particularly difficult for the public to understand. These implications are cognitively problematic to grasp due to their abstractness, complexity, competing political narratives and lengthy time horizons (cf. Markowitz & Shariff, 2012). Common or divided identities Carl Walker’s piece in last summer’s edition asked how it is possible that communities have rallied to help those affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, but have done little whilst many more died from austerity. He suggests that the experience of an emergency and sense of shared fates can create a common identity, which brings people together to fight adversity. Arguably, the deaths of 120,000 people in this country from austerity policies is such an emergency. But where the Covid-19 emergency was portrayed in a way that brought people together, austerity has been built out of splitting the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’, and its language is one of blame and undeservingness. In social psychology, it has been posited that the way one makes sense of the reasons for another person’s need for help determines their affective and behavioural responses towards addressing this need. The terminology, or framing, used to describe a phenomenon has, for example, been shown to affect the way in which people appraise subjects and situations. In line with this, the perceived legitimacy of welfare benefit schemes relates to the extent to which members of a group are viewed as personally responsible for their own needs (Forma, 1997; Mau, 2003; Albrekt Larsen, 2006; and van Oorschot, 2006).

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When poor people are viewed as responsible for their plight due to a perceived lack of ambition, lack of budgeting, problems with substance abuse, or similar, welfare tends to be seen as a reward system for those who have chosen to do nothing (see Gregg Robinson on ‘the contradictions of caring’), leading to stigmatisation of the poor. Examining the psychological processes that underpin these views, and exploring the factors that might inﬂuence them, is important for understanding how the public view welfare policy and spending. We want people to understand that these discourses around austerity divide us, and that this is detrimental to us all. It has been frequently evidenced that austerity affects those at the bottom end of the social gradient most, with the biggest cuts to programmes that helped people remain within the social safety net (Stuckler et al., 2017). In addition to its egregious effects on the most vulnerable, austerity breaks up our communities and pits individuals and groups against each other for access to funds and resources. Most people will have experienced some form of cuts due to austerity. Many will have experienced our children’s schools having to reduce hours, GP and nurse shortages, and/or lack of access to social care. The lack of PPE that our NHS experienced was nationwide, challenging efforts to control the Covid-19 crisis, along with reports that this lack of supplies was due to austerity measures (Booth, 2020). Exploring whether people understand that austerity has affected them as well as those who are more vulnerable, across a range of social and health-related domains, is important in understanding how to motivate people to agitate for change. False narratives and false economies prevail in an austerity policy environment. Changes to welfare provision in the UK have increased general levels of poverty as well as the myriad attendant effects of poverty (such as feeling low and being unable to afford food or eat healthily; Stuckler et al., 2017). This in turn has created greater demands on an already beleaguered state welfare system (Jones et al., 2015), which has only partly been met by an expansion of third-sector provision for speciﬁc needs, such as is

documented in the dramatic rise in foodbanks across the UK reported by The Trussell Trust. It is necessary to explore whether the public understand that stagnating wages and cuts to beneﬁt programs do not actually result in savings, but instead move the costs to other social and health services. The experience of not getting support when and as needed often intensiﬁes the problem, resulting in more complex (and costly) interventions being needed subsequently. Make My City Fair Birmingham We have observed and are working to challenge these issues in our local ‘Make My City Fair’ (MMCF) project. MMCF Birmingham started through a set of relationships which had been developing for a number of years. Two members of the team knew each other through their membership of a political party. One of them was already a local councillor and cabinet member and had already coined the phrase ‘austerity divides’. The other was a newly retired clinical psychologist with experience of working in the Department of Health and with links to the West Midlands Psychologists Against Austerity group (WMPAA, recently re-launched as West Midlands

Visual Illustration of the City Service Provider Perceptions of Austerity in Birmingham; Artist Jimmy Rogers (https:// booyeah.co.uk/)

City Service Provider Perceptions of Austerity in Birmingham Question 1: What do you think the public need to know about austerity? Austerity is a false economy – there are no ‘savings’ • Cutting non-statutory services results in more need and uptake of statutory services which become overwhelmed. • Private companies are able to cherry-pick who they serve – often leaving the most difficult and costly cases for government services. They are for-profit only. • People need to understand the nature of preventative services – that sometimes investment is needed at the front to save further down the road. • Austerity was caused by the financial crash – people have forgotten. It’s not acceptable and it’s not fair – it disproportionally affects those in the lowest income categories • Those in the lowest income categories feel disempowered and worn out, which makes it easier to blame other people. • Frontline staff have historically been expected to go above and beyond in their roles, but now an everyday expectation. • Budgets for services have been shrinking, management structures have been increasing. This puts extra demand on the frontline staff left. • Many frontline workers are also experiencing poverty due to a decade of nearly frozen wages and inflation. People need to understand that they might also be in need of care someday • It would be more difficult to justify low pay and lack of esteem for care positions, which in turn contribute to a shortage of care staff. The lack of community spaces, which have been closed down due to austerity makes it difficult for people to come together. It is reversible – we can do something about this • People need to understand valuing more than financial aspects of how a society functions – happiness index, for example. • There is good work happening in some communities and there are good things happening. People need to know this so that they don’t feel like nothing can be done. Question 2: How do you think this can most helpfully be communicated? Money talks • People need to see examples of how it impacts them and their family. • It may be helpful to create a ‘balance sheet’ of the real cost of savings to an individual’s wellbeing and the financial costs to their town. Find a way to bring people’s stories to the budget holders • Budget holders need to understand that people aren’t just numbers. People in the private sector just aren’t aware of the extent and impact of cuts in the public sector • Participants felt that their friends would be shocked to hear some of the stories of cuts and the lives affected by them. Question 3: Does the social determinants rainbow provide examples of the impact of austerity on mental wellbeing? Participants felt that demographics are important for understanding the levels of the impact of austerity, but not necessarily communicating this. 34

Psychologists for Social Change). WMPAA included two academics from Birmingham City University, with research interests in public health and the impact of inequality on human development, and a clinical psychologist with a focus on the impact of austerity on communities. We came together over a period of weeks to share thoughts about the situation in the city and decided to collaborate, taking as our starting point a document produced by the Equality Trust called Make My Council Fair (Equality Trust, nd). In order to broaden these discussions and start developing collaborative acts to combat austerity, we launched a seminar in June 2019, where we brought together city council members, health and social care staff, police and crime commissioners, union representatives, along with those who have been subject to some of the worst austerity measures. A key driving logic of the seminar was the need to bring people from very distinct services across the city together, to hear and recognise the commonalities of the stories of the effects of austerity on services, and to join this with stories from those whose lives have been most impacted by austerity. Although there are many anti-poverty initiatives in the city, we were motivated by the role of austerity in particular because of the political choices inherent in adopting the model and because of the divisions and hardship it causes. Silo-type thinking can be challenging at the best of times, but our experience is that cuts and the constant reactive mode of working within strippeddown services causes professionals to become even more inwardly focused. We hoped to create a space to overcome this and focus on the shared aspects of different experiences. Three key themes emerged during the seminar. Firstly, there was a call from participants to really understand what austerity means for people whose lives are damaged by it. We heard powerful testimony about what it is like to live a life challenged by the effects of austerity, including a speaker for whom statutory services were of no help, where serious health and social problems were overlooked by both the health and social care system. We heard about the constant undermining struggle with the Department of Work and Pensions. In the end, it was a voluntary day service run by an ex-plumber and entrepreneur that helped our speaker turn his life around. Secondly, attendees wanted to know which services have been lost and the actual cost impact of this. Subsequent discussions with city council members enabled the scale of the costs to the council to be tabulated so we could identify that the total cuts required by Birmingham City Council since 2011/12 were £736,456,000. Moreover we could break this down to demonstrate that £95 million of these cuts were to the Place and Neighbourhood Directorates, £91 million to the Adults and Communities, £67 million to Children Young People & Families and £44 million on Adult Social Care and Health.

the psychologist july/august 2021 austerity

Thirdly, there was a strong sense that much more should be done to counter prevailing narratives which hold the council, NHS, Education and Police and Crime responsible for cuts when in fact these were forced upon them by national policy. Attendees wanted to challenge false economies and false narratives around austerity. In particular, there was a desire to show how austerity ‘savings’ are ‘false economies’ that shift costs to other services, store up greater costs for the future, or effectively pass costs back to the (often poorest) people of Birmingham. As a consequence of these discussions we reﬁned the speciﬁc aims of Make My City Fair (Birmingham) to: • Challenge austerity: We are clear that austerity is unethical as a political approach, unsuccessful as an economic policy (McKee et al., 2012), and inhuman in its application. We reject it absolutely. • Mitigate the impact of austerity: We will work together to develop and support different approaches to avoid damage being done to people, for example by pressing all agencies to pay the living wage, and encouraging statutory agencies to buy services and goods from local businesses and social enterprises.

participate in a focus group which was also visually recorded using live illustration from local artist Jim Rogers. Our ﬁrst question was, what do those working on the frontline want the public to know about austerity? Secondly, we asked how best to communicate this. Thirdly, we asked whether the social determinants of health rainbow (Dahlgren & Whitehead, 1991) might be a useful visualisation of this. A summary of the preliminary results of this research can be found in the ‘City service provider perceptions…’ box and in the infographic on the opening spread.

Moving to flourishing: Making our future city fair Make My City Fair (Birmingham) continues to be an opportunity to bring together people from a range of backgrounds within the community. But it is also an opportunity to reflect on the role and value of psychology and psychologists in combatting austerity. We have used the term ‘citizen psychologists’ – a demonstration of engagement in one’s community (see apa.org/about/governance/citizen-psychologist) – to understand this role. The broad definition is appealing because it is accessible and allows for engagement at any level. For those of us who are too We have since been working “We are identifying and familiar with evidence showing towards this in a number of developing city-wide increasing health inequalities over ways. We are exploring how to years of austerity and have seen encourage our local council to community/service the impact on services we work in fully engage in alternative models networks which build and communities we live in, citizen of local government which enable common will to counter psychology means taking an active investment in what matters to stance against austerity. people locally, for example building the impact of austerity We can do this at multiple on the ‘Preston Model’ of local on services, alongside levels. At the broadest level, investment. The Preston Model anti-poverty and psychologists can help inform is an example of community debates on framing and wealth building, which has five environmental groups.” communicating the impacts of main tenets. In general it serves austerity and challenging current to organise a local community’s narratives. One of our focus group economic structure so that participants expressed concern about the fluctuating wealth is recirculated through the community (for nature of ‘truth’ in current narratives: more information on the five principles, see CLES, 2019). We are identifying and developing city-wide ‘The problem for me right now is “what is the truth?” community/service networks which build common The truth seems to be a real bendable commodity will to counter the impact of austerity on services, right now… in my community … conversations are all alongside anti-poverty and environmental groups. We the time about “I don’t know who to believe”… so if are working as part of the local Health and Wellbeing we talk about austerity it’s gonna be a real battle for Board to take forward these joined up programmes to them to really understand … a different truth to the mitigate the impact of austerity. one that they’ve already been sold.’ Narratives surrounding austerity in Birmingham As a first step towards challenging and re-framing the existing narratives around austerity in Birmingham we asked frontline services about their experiences working with those affected by austerity policies. Specifically, we asked those who work in affected services (e.g., Pathfinder, Social Work, City Council, Learning Disability Services, Homeless Shelter) to

This is likely to become a particularly pressing issue in the next months and years. In August 2020, the OECD’s ‘The world economy on a tightrope’ reported that UK GDP fell 20.4 per cent, further than any other G7 nation, entering the UK into the deepest recession since records began. The UK was already in a period of poor growth and productivity, having enjoyed little to no investment prior to the pandemic, and most households are now experiencing a reduced amount

of income. The report also highlights that these inequalities are set to worsen from the combination of the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit. There is now a very a real risk of the austerity narrative returning with even greater force, following the necessary yet insufﬁcient increases in Government spending required to stave off the worst Key sources economic impacts of the current Covid-19 crisis. Psychologists can also draw on Albrekt Larsen, C. (2006). The their professional insights to ensure Institutional Logic of Welfare Attitudes. Ashgate. that wellbeing is at the centre of Barr, B., Kinderman, P. & Whitehead, all decisions within public, private M. (2015). Trends in mental health and voluntary institutions. Our inequalities in England during a period focus group participants highlighted of recession, austerity and welfare concerns that peoples’ stories reform 2004 to 2013. Social Science & weren’t being brought together to Medicine, 147, 324-331. Drummond, C. (2017). Cuts to addiction allow decision makers to see the service are false economy. BMJ Opinion. problems as a whole:

Bullock, H.E., Fraser Wyche, K. & Williams, W.R. (2001). Media images of the poor. Journal of Social Issues, 57(2), 229–46. Campbell, F., Conti, G., Heckman, J. et al. (2014). Early childhood investments substantially boost adult health. Science, 343(6178), 1478-1486. Centre for Local Economic Strategies (2019). How we built community wealth in Preston: Achievements and lessons. Chung, H., Taylor-Gooby, P. & Leruth, B. (2018). Political legitimacy and welfare state futures. Social Policy Administration, 52(4), 835-846. Dahlgren, G. & Whitehead, M. (1991). Policies and Strategies to Promote Social Equity in Health. Stockholm, Sweden: Institute for Futures Studies. Equality Trust. (nd). Make my council fair: Tackling inequality and poverty where you live. Haw, C., Hawton, K., Gunnell, D., & Platt, S. (2015). Economic recession and suicidal behaviour. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 61(1), 73–81. Jones, G., Meegan, R., Kennett, P. & Croft, J. (2016). The uneven impact of austerity on the voluntary and community sector: A tale of two cities. Urban Studies, 53(10), 2064–2080. Local Government Association (LGA). (2016). Health in all policies: A manual for local government. McKendrick, J.H., Sinclair, S., Irwin, A. et al. (2008). The media, poverty and public opinion in the UK. York, JRF. Passmore, S. & Harris, G. (2004). Education, health and school meals. Nutrition Bulletin, 29, 221–227. Stuckler, D. et al. (2017). Austerity and health: The impact in the UK and Europe. European Journal of Public Health, 27(Suppl 4), 18–21. Full list available in online/app version.

‘If you take an extended family, there’s gonna be old people in it, … babies in it, … schools in their lives… if everyone is cushioned ﬁnancially then they may not see it… and I’m not knocking people for that because you don’t quite realise, do you?’

Psychologists come into contact with people affected by austerity in a range of contexts, and can help facilitate conversations across silos; working with councillors, PCC, third sector organisations, etc. We can help councillors see the big picture, to integrate health and psychological health in all policies from housing to procurement. At the service-level, we were struck by how many people suffering under austerity received ‘support’ that was ad hoc and disjointed. There is need for organisational psychologists to work with service users and consider how stripped-down services might collaborate, making support more coherent. And ﬁnally, there are individual contributions we can make, both as citizens and citizen psychologists. There are many concrete local actions that can help offset some of the worst impacts of austerity, such as donating to foodbanks and helping the homeless. Many people perceive a lack of agency in combatting systemic problems and this can be a signiﬁcant block to change. One focus group participant also struggled with tackling these problems, but emphasised the

importance of little steps: ‘Giving tools that actually can affect something … and if we all did something in a little way, wouldn’t life be kinder, nicer and a bit more palatable?’

As citizen psychologists, we can use our psychological insights to help each other take these steps forward. We need to think about what we want the future to look like, particularly at this pivotal point in our society’s history. As one focus group participant articulated: ‘… at the moment it’s very much like this is bad, this is happening, we have to stop it, and then the only alternative is … go back to how it was because it was slightly better back then, but that’s not really a future, that’s not really a vision. It’s painting a picture of what do we see as being the society that we want to have… where does it already exist and how do we take all of those bits and re-paste them back together in the jigsaw world that we want?’

Ultimately, we do not want to just undo the harm of the past 30 years; we want people to think about the kind of world in which they want to live and empower them to ﬁght for that. We see the MMCF group as a venue to continue to pursue challenging the austerity narrative and to bring people together to combat the divisions that austerity creates. Austerity is not new, but within the current economic, social and public health crises we are all facing, this work is more important than ever.

Angela Tufte-Hewett, PhD CPsychol SFHEA Senior Lecturer in Health Psychology Birmingham City University Emma Bridger, BSc MSc PhD CPsychol FHEA Senior Research Fellow in Psychology Birmingham City University Martin Straker Welds Councillor, Birmingham City Dr Carl Harris Clinical and Community Psychologist, Birmingham UK and Chair of the BPS Community Psychology Section Lawrence Moulin Consultant Clinical Psychologist Chair of West Midlands BPS Branch

the psychologist july/august 2021 austerity

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‘I’m one of them’ Our editor Jon Sutton meets Professor Greta Defeyter, Director of Healthy Living, a research lab at Northumbria University

Given your area of work – childhood food insecurity – I’m guessing you’re busy at the moment… To give you an idea, in my inbox, I’ve got over 4500 emails. I have emails from organisations, companies, associations, the public, editors, academics, MPs, and civil servants. I’ve always struggled with time management and organisation… skills not helped by my ADHD. And emotionally, I sometimes find my research a heavy burden to shoulder, especially when the findings of our research studies may influence decisions that could be life-changing for families and children. Sometimes I wake up at three o’clock in the morning thinking about our research on child food insecurity and holiday hunger and think, am I sure? What’s the evidence? Double checking everything. More so than if your findings were staying within academia? First and foremost, I am an academic, not a policy decision maker. However, I feel a responsibility to ensure that I am presenting the research findings in a clear and easy to understand way. Writing academic papers is something that all researchers are all trained to do, and that skill develops over several years. But when you are invited to present research evidence to policy papers/makers, Select Committees, Parliamentary Inquiry’s, Government Departments it is totally different, it requires a different level of expertise, skills and knowledge set, which I’ve had to learn quickly over the last few years. I also think it is important for people to know the limits of their expertise and the role they play in providing research evidence to the wider society.

Do you think anyone would feel that emotional burden in the same way? Perhaps, it is hard to know. I think I feel it in particular, because I’ve been there. I’ve been truly hungry. When I ﬁrst came back to the UK, in 1993, after living in the USA, I returned to university to study an undergraduate degree in psychology at the University of Essex. I was lucky that I received a LEA grant and had excellent friends and lecturers who supported me, but I still really struggled. Following graduation, I was awarded an ESRC PhD studentship at the University of Essex. Again, fellow PhD students and lecturers supported me, and I have remembered and valued the support they freely offered every day since. However, despite their support,

my household income was low and being a single mum of a child that had ADHD, finding time to study was really hard. Although adorable, he was almost impossible to put with a childminder… no-one would take him. I remember one Christmas I served turkey and pineapple chunks, because I’d waited to get the reduced food at Tescos, and that’s all they had left. So yes, I’ve been there. Of course, social policies change, and I am not comparing my experience to the experiences of families living in poverty in 2021. At the time, did it feel like being hungry was about more than just an empty belly? Did you feel the effects of hunger that you’ve gone on to look at? I felt the effects of poverty. I felt the effects of feeling worthless. I felt ashamed… it was devastating to me. I was a single parent of a child who had been diagnosed as having ADHD and I had come back to a country where I hadn’t lived for over a decade. And I struggled. I was lucky that, through the grant, I was able to access an undergraduate programme of study, and then continue my studies through receiving a grant from the ESRC to undertake a PhD. Through education, I hoped to end up doing something worthwhile for the discipline and achieve positive outcomes for both myself and my son. I was one of the lucky ones… I could have easily been somebody sitting on Universal Credit right now. That set you on your research path, right? Yes and no. Initially, I didn’t research food security. My work focused on investigating how children understood the function of objects. I then started to research children’s understanding of object ownership – blue sky stuff. However, after starting a lectureship position at the University of Northumbria, I supervised a PhD student who was interested in the effects of breakfast cereal on children’s cognition. It was during data collection at a school that I saw a child at a school breakfast club, stuffing toast into his pockets. It brought back all of the memories – ‘that could have been my child’. I asked the headteacher what school breakfast clubs were, and she looked at me as though I had flown in from outer space. ‘It’s where we provide breakfast to pupils before they start their school day… if we don’t, they’re likely to come in hungry’. I just stood there looking at this little boy: there was toast in his

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backpack, there was toast just about everywhere. The headteacher came with me, reassured him there wasn’t a problem, and I asked him, ‘why are you doing that?’ And he said, ‘I’m taking it home for my tea’. Just that one child saying that one thing, and seeing it with my own eyes… I said, I’m going to research this.

attendance on a variety of outcomes. I was fortunate to supervise two excellent PhD students who conducted extensive research on school breakfast clubs.

Maybe that shows how normalised it has become in the last few years, that children go hungry. I just assumed that people always knew that, and that was always an area of concern for psychologists. Did your PhD student go into studying that area There is evidence that children have experienced because they were looking at the impact of say, food insecurity for many years. To illustrate, the first skipping breakfast out of choice, when you didn’t report of holiday hunger – children need to skip breakfast? So that going hungry across the school whole research area wasn’t about “Just that one child saying holidays – was in Parliament over food poverty? That’s only just occurred to me… isn’t that weird? that one thing, and seeing 100 years ago. So, parliamentarians researchers have known about Not at all. She was conducting it with my own eyes…I said, and childhood food insecurity and a number of quasi-experimental I’m going to research this” the effects on other household studies in which she manipulated members (e.g. parents skipping breakfast consumption and meals), but it has not been until subsequently tested children on a recent years that this issue has been brought to the cognitive test battery to examine the effect of breakfast attention of the wider pubic; especially following the consumption on different cognitive processes. So no, high profile media campaign by Marcus Rashford. we didn’t really consider food poverty at the time… The UK is a relatively rich country, yet we have the the research was grounded in the fields of nutrition/ highest level of childhood food insecurity in Europe. cognitive psychology. It was only when I saw this little However, many people consider poverty to be an boy with the toast, I thought ‘there’s something not individual problem – of individual parents and some right here’. have labelled parents as ‘unfit’ or ‘underserving’. Some This gave me the impetus to develop a programme politicians have even suggested that food insecurity is of research with the primary objective to investigate not the problem, rather the problem is one of demand. the effects of school breakfast clubs in the UK on In short, holiday clubs, like food banks, create an children’s health, social development, and educational infinite demand. As I have listened to debates in the outcomes. My lab has published several studies House of Commons, myself and colleagues are often that have examined both the effects of breakfast shocked to hear arguments put back and forth that consumption and the effects of school breakfast club

there is no real problem. There is plenty of evidence that shows poverty is a real problem in the UK, and that changes in social policy have significant, positive or negative impacts for those living in poverty. For example, recent reforms to the benefit system, including Universal Credit, the bedroom tax, the two-child benefit cap have negatively impacted many people who are already the poorest in our society. Although your research began with the impact of school breakfast clubs on children’s cognition, social relationships and the like, recently you’ve expanded to investigate the level of food security in children when they’re not in school? Yes. When in school, the majority of the UK’s poorest children qualify for free school meals and often attend school breakfast clubs, although some children living in poverty do not qualify for free school meals and there are differences in terms of the eligibility threshold across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Despite differences across countries, it quickly became apparent that, during the school holidays, many UK families experienced a range of issues, including food insecurity (holiday hunger), lack of access to affordable childcare, lack of activities for children and young people, increased financial hardship etc. In parallel, local authorities have experienced cuts to their financial budgets resulting in several cuts to services, including closures of Sure Start Centres, libraries, youth and community centres etc. I remember a few years ago whilst I was in London, I was talking to a member of the London Youth Board, a young person, probably about 13 years old.

‘I’ve learned so much from my colleagues’ Tell me more about the applied, multi-disciplinary approach. There are academics that want to do focus solely on blue sky, psychological research and there are other psychologists interested in conducting more applied research, and psychologists like myself who enjoy working in a multi-disciplinary or interdisciplinary way, involving colleagues from across a range of disciplines. In my case I regularly conduct research with sociologists, nutritional scientists, educationalists, social geographers, computer scientists… I could go on and on. Personally, I think that there is value to be gained from the many different approaches. I really enjoy being involved in multi-disciplinary projects, especially when conducting research on complex topics. My psychological training, in terms of developmental psychology, and my life experiences, initially resulted in me being interested in researching the effect of poverty on children’s cognition, which is turn made me interested in children’s dietary intake, and household income, unemployment etc. Goodness, I’ve learned so much from fellow psychologists and colleagues from other disciplines. Really interesting stuff happens when you start to understand how colleagues in other disciplines approach a topic. You start to unravel, unpick and question some of your own understandings and approaches to conducting research. 40

School breakfast clubs enable children to socialise, eat a healthy breakfast, and enable parents to get to work

I asked her, ‘Why do you hang out in the fried chicken shop… do you like the food, what is it?’ And she said ‘we hang out there because there’s nowhere else to go. It’s not particularly that we want to eat the fried chicken. But it’s cheap and we can sit there for a long time, it’s somewhere we can all meet up’. As a result of these government cuts, the primary response to holiday hunger has been holiday clubs, often funded by charities, non-proﬁt organisations and local government and staffed by volunteers. While such a grassroots response is admirable and has resulted in several positive outcomes for children, parents, and communities, such programmes leave the root causes of poverty and food insecurity untouched, and research by my colleague Emily Mann and others has shown issues regarding equality of access. Our recent research ﬁndings, alongside writing a book on holiday hunger, has changed my thinking – it is apparent that food poverty is just one aspect of poverty, as is period poverty, furniture poverty etc. The solution is simple: eradicate poverty. Easier said than done. Within that grassroots activism as a psychologist, what do you keep bringing it back to? Do you end up focusing on the cognitive impacts of going hungry, or at the other end of the scale of living in an obesogenic environment, or…? I realised very quickly that how poverty affects people is far more complicated than just looking at the effect of food insecurity on children’s cognition. It quickly became apparent that I needed to broaden my research collaborations and work both cross-disciplinary, but also interdisciplinary [see box]. I am currently working with sociologists, economists, dieticians, nutritional scientists, teachers, and public health experts to

the psychologist july/august 2021 food poverty

look at the effects of poverty on children’s cognition, educational attainment, social development, mental well-being, dietary intake, physical activity, and community networks.

hardship, it’s about housing, it’s about childcare, it’s about communities, it’s about poverty. It’s about the type of society we all want to live in.

Are there different issues at stake psychologically To spark genuine policy change, you’re going to need around holiday provision compared to breakfast? I think that the psychological issues around holiday that multi-pronged approach. provision and school breakfast clubs are similar. Yes. I’ll provide the example of school breakfast The holiday hunger research that my lab has been clubs. There’s some excellent research out there, conducting for the last seven with many studies conducted by years has really started to shape psychologists, that clearly shows policy in a big way. Our research the effect of breakfast on children “It’s not just about food has shown that holiday provision and young people’s cognition security…it’s about the reduces parental stress, reduces and educational attainment. This type of society we all food insecurity, increases children’s evidence is generally accepted by physical activity, improves the majority of the politicians/ want to live in” children’s dietary intake and policymakers. However, these mental well-being, similar to our findings alone may lead to the research on school breakfast clubs. development or amendments to However, there’s an argument that holiday programmes different government policies. One policy may see the and school breakfast clubs don’t tackle the root government funding a national programme of school cause of poverty. On the one hand, I agree that such breakfast clubs. While another policy decision may interventions directly prop up lack of government lead to the provision of food vouchers for parents investment in the welfare state. From a pragmatic point so that parents can provide their children breakfast of view, if we can have both investment in the welfare at home. Note that both policies would share the state, and investment in communities that provide aim of increasing the number of children and young opportunities for children to engage in activities within people eating breakfast before school. Moreover, there their community, then let’s have both. could be multiple clauses and variations to these I think that we need to rethink how we look at policies; providing vouchers to all children; providing our whole society – to make sure people have dignity, vouchers to children in receipt of free school meals; choice, and autonomy – to eradicate poverty. But I can’t providing vouchers to primary school aged children see a radical change occurring, typically such changes only etc. Hence the same research findings may lead are complex, and it is worthwhile bearing in mind to markedly different policies and result in different that people have different points of view. In terms of outcomes for children and young people. When I am ‘levelling up society’ I would like to see improvements presenting evidence to policymakers, I always remind across many areas, including our social security system, myself that it is important to be aware of different widespread adoption of the living wage, a strategic political approaches and potential policy outcomes. approach to investment in school meals, investment However, as I’ve said, I am not a policy maker… in so called ‘left behind’ communities. But mainly I always try to provide as full an account of the investment in people and the communities in which research findings in my area of expertise as possible. they live, shaped by residents of the community. Goodness knows, post Covid-19, a great number of From that you would generally favour provision on families, individuals, and communities will need lots of school site, rather than the vouchers? support. I would not be in favour of families receiving food vouchers to be able to provide breakfast for their children. In my opinion, as a society, we shouldn’t be in Are you increasingly feeling listened to? If not a position where some parents are having to send their ‘Marcus Rashford level’ listened to, do you feel that children to a school breakfast club because they cannot psychology has got a prominent seat at the table on this issue? afford to provide breakfast at home. Having said this, a number of research studies have Yes. I have advised the DfE on their Holiday Activity and Food Programme, that has resulted in an shown that school breakfast clubs have additional investment of £220 million, for 2021, across England. benefits to simply providing food – one of the obvious This programme will provide a range of activities, ones being childcare. We’ve got a growing population day trips, and food for some of the poorest children of the so-called ‘working poor’ and many parents in England. Our research has also informed the struggle to meet the costs of childcare. Breakfast Food Foundation, working with more than 20 other clubs provide an opportunity for parents to drop civil society organisations, that supported the End their children off at school prior to the start of the Child Poverty campaign led by Marcus Rashford to school day, enabling children to socialise, eat a healthy implement the three recommendations on children’s breakfast, and enabling parents to get to work. So, food in the National Food Strategy between September it’s not just about food security, it’s about financial

and November 2020. The fact that Marcus Rashford spoke out about child food insecurity is fantastic. His campaign certainly attracted the attention of the government. That kind of work has seen you named as one of The Big Issue’s top 100 changemakers for 2020. You’re a Fellow of the BPS, and so much more. Yours is a personal story of moving from poverty to flourishing. Sometimes I find myself on the same day, working with co-designing an intervention with some of the most deprived members of our community, and an hour later, I can be sitting in a Westminster meeting or giving evidence at a Select Committee in the House of Lords. I still feel like the interloper sometimes. I see and experience the two worlds… I move from one to the other. That can be humbling. In fact the best recognition of my research comes from the feedback I hear from parents and children attending school breakfast clubs and the Holiday Activity and Food programmes. A parent, now a friend, once said to me ‘Greta, you understand, you’re just like us’. I’m one of them. Even today that brings tears to my eyes. I remember the house I lived in when I was studying at the University of Essex. It was a two up two down, in a deprived neighbourhood. My son always went to school in second-hand uniforms, he qualified for means tested free school meals, we experienced racism… I now think of my son pursuing a career in teaching history at a secondary school in London, of the house I currently live in – still in a deprived town – and how lucky I have been to pursue a career that really interests me. I think this is important. Psychologists, we’re a mixed bunch. People will have taken different routes to studying psychology, shaped by their current and past experiences and opportunities. We’re all different, and I’m no exception. When you think of the Society priority, ‘from poverty to flourishing’, what does ‘flourishing’ mean to you in this context? The basics, no child should go hungry?

Professor Defeyter is due to appear for ‘The Psychologist Presents…’ at Latitude Festival in Suffolk from 22-25 July. https://thepsychologist.bps. org.uk/psychologist-presentslatitude-festival 42

I set my sights higher than that. I would argue that we have to look at poverty in its entirety. Food poverty, period poverty, digital poverty… Just giving people the basics to survive will not provide families or households with opportunities to flourish, it may provide them with the basics not to be living in poverty, but more is required to flourish. That’s not the kind of society I want to see. In my opinion, we need to consider how to provide equitable, and free, access to education. It’s not that one type of education is better than another type of education – degree apprenticeships versus university degrees – every individual should have the right to choose which route they wish to follow; it shouldn’t be dictated by a lack of income or fear of taking out a loan to study. I see education, just like the right to food, as a human right. We have to have serious debates about some of the existing inequalities in society and think about how everyone can have the opportunity to flourish, achieve and be self-fulfilled. What would you say to people who argue that ensuring the financial security of families and the general economic structure of our country is ‘political’, and not our place as psychologists? I don’t think it’s my role to do it. That’s the government’s role. As I have said previously, I am academic, not a policy decision maker. However, if I’m conducting research that can inform the government about interventions or policies, then I think that I have a moral duty to share the research findings. Obviously, there’s an interplay between the evidence and the political agenda. I think a good example of this interplay can be seen in the work of SAGE. They’re not advising the government on the economy or making the political decisions concerning Covid-19. They’re advising the government regarding the data on public health. Of course, the secrecy around the science and the worries over the government strategy motivated Sir David King to set up the Independent Sage. So, I am going to follow the above examples and speak up. Whether the government actually follows the science is another matter. I believe that psychologists, such as Professor Susan Michie, have much to offer. Maybe you feel that particularly because of your life course. I’m sure that my past experiences have shaped my thinking. I have experienced what it’s like to have no money left on the electricity meter. I have experienced what it is like to ask friends and family for money to enable me to send my son on a school trip. I understand exactly what it’s like to buy a secondhand toy from Barnardos, wipe it with bleach and wrap it up as though it was new for my child’s Christmas present. I’ve been there, I have experienced it and that experience will never leave me. And I don’t think it should. In the ‘flourishing’ I have never forgotten where I came from.

the psychologist july/august 2021 food poverty

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‘You cannot predict the outcomes of human development. All you can do is, like a farmer, create the conditions under which it will begin to ﬂourish.’ Sir Ken Robinson – the late author, speaker and international advisor, Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Warwickshire

the psychologist july/august 2021 care leavers Eliza Southwood - www.elizasouthwood.com

Forging brighter futures with young care leavers Duncan Gillard, Louise Hayes, Aoife McNally and Kate Willis on giving people skills to ‘reboot’ their lives

What are the conditions under which young people are enabled to grow, ﬂourish and reach their full potential? And what might these conditions look like for young people in the care system, many of whom have encountered signiﬁcant relational adversity and trauma through disruptions to their care experiences?

ypical life outcomes for people who have been in the care system during childhood can be distressing to read about. Research over the past quarter of a century suggests that young people who have been in care typically fare far worse than other young people across a wide range of areas such as mental health and wellbeing; educational achievement; physical health; prevalence of teenaged pregnancies; socio-economic status; and involvement in crime, including substance misuse (Burch et al., 2018). It may seem, then, that for these young people, we have not yet ﬁgured out how to create environments that enable them to ﬂourish. However, as the famous American writer, William Gibson, once said, ‘The future is already here, it’s just not very evenly distributed.’ The Reboot West Project In 2018, a charity sector organisation called 1625 Independent People (1625IP), which operates in the West of England, applied for a Department for Education (DfE) funded Strategic Impact Bond (SIB). The funds attached to the SIB were allocated with the overarching intention that they should provide the resources for charity and public sector organisations to improve overall life outcomes for young care leavers, including improving access to education, employment and training (EET) and improving overall social and emotional wellbeing. A unique feature of the application by the charity, submitted in partnership with four Local Authorities

and a Social Investor (Bridges Fund Management), was that it outlined a single, driving psychological model at the centre of the proposed project. This was a developmentally informed version of the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy model (developed by Steven Hayes, Kirk Strosahl and Kelly Wilson) called DNA-v (L. Hayes & Ciarrochi, 2015). Following their initial application and a prolonged and nail-biting short-listing process, 1625IP and their partners were successful in their application. What followed was the recruitment of 10 Education, Employment and Training Coaches and a Project Manager, and the commissioning of a series of training and monthly team supervision sessions delivered by the authors and a small team of ACT and DNA-v trained psychologists [see box with online version for more on the supervision process].

The discoverer, noticer, advisor and more Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is part of what has been broadly referred to as the third wave of cognitive behavioural therapies (Hayes, 2004). According to Hayes and Hoffman (2017), this third wave focuses ‘more on the person’s relationship to thought and emotion rather than on their content. Third wave methods emphasise such issues as mindfulness, emotions, acceptance, the relationship, values, goals, and metacognition.’ Key sources ACT in particular articulates a narrative of human wellbeing in Burch, K., Daru, J. & Taylor, V. (2018). terms of Psychological Flexibility Analysis of outcomes for children and (PF), which can be defined as young people 4 to 5 years after a final contacting the present moment as a Care Order. Social Research Number conscious human being and, based 29/2018. on what the situation affords, acting Fang, S. & Deng, D. (2020). A metaanalysis of the efficacy of acceptance in accordance with one’s chosen and commitment therapy for children. values (Hayes et al., 2004). Journal of Contextual Behavioural Importantly, the ACT model is Science, 10, 225-234. considered to be transdiagnostic. Hayes, L. & Ciarrochi, J. (2015). The That is to say, rather than being Thriving Adolescent. New Harbinger informed by an account of a Publications, Inc. Hayes, S., Strosahl, K. & Wilson, K. particular deficit or pathology (2012). Acceptance and commitment within the human condition, it is therapy, second edition: the process driven by a theoretical account of and practice of mindful change. New the general human psychological Harbinger Publications, Inc. condition, known as Relational Gloster, A. T., Walder, N., Levin, M., Frame Theory (RFT; Hayes et al., et al. (2020). The empirical status of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: 2001). The empirical trail blazed A review of meta-analyses. Journal by ACT thus far extends to a of Contextual Behavioral Science, 18, wide range of issues, including: 181-192. depression, anxiety, work-related Morris, E. & Bilich-Eric, L. (2017). A stress, chronic pain management, Framework to Support Experiential smoking cessation, palliative care, Learning and Psychological Flexibility and Supervision: SHAPE. Australian sports performance, parenting and Psychologist, 52, 104-113. mental wellbeing in young people (see Gloster et al., 2020, for a full Full list available in online/app version. discussion). According to Gloster et al.

(2020), the empirical journey of ACT so far includes 325 published Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) and a recent meta-analysis identifies 14 of these as reporting on interventions for young people (Fang & Ding, 2020). As encouraging as this is, the ACT model was never designed with explicit regard to child-development matters. In light of this, along with her colleague Joseph Ciarrochi, one of the authors of this article (Louise) embarked upon a journey to develop a more developmentally sensitive version of the ACT model, which they called DNA-v (L. Hayes & Ciarrochi, 2015). The strength in DNA-v is its solid and clear scientific foundation plus its readily accessible style. In application it can be visualised using the disk image in Figure 1, below, where young people learn experientially to move their lives in valued directions using four ‘skills’ which are behavioural groupings with real practical utility. DNA-v also includes two contextual perspectives that are targeted to ‘see’ ourselves and others. These segments of the model are designed to help young people practice using perspective taking skills flexibly, to promote personal growth and to reduce rigidity and excessive experiential avoidance. • The Discoverer. Learning through trial and error, attempting new things, developing new skills, and paying attention to what works. Low skills in this area would be indicated by repetition of unworkable behaviour. • The Noticer. Listening to the wisdom of our body and using the messages as a guide for responding, or pausing, with awareness. Low skills in this area would be indicated by being reactive and excessively avoidant of unwanted inner sensations and feelings. • The Advisor. Using our thoughts, rules, beliefs and judgements in a practical way, learning how to

Figure 1. The DNA-v contextual model of development. (L. Hayes & J. Ciarrochi, 2015)

the psychologist july/august 2021 care leavers

hold unhelpful language and cognitive processes like worry and excessive resentment at a distance. Low skills in this area would be indicated by rigid thinking and taking thoughts literally. • Values. Learning to being open to listen to the journey of our hearts and practicing choosing actions that build wellbeing. • Flexible self-view. Learning to take a flexible perspective on oneself in the past, the present and the future and learning to see your potential rather than your limitations. When working in the flexible self-view space, the aim is to see our stories about ourselves as just that; as a story that we tell about our lives (thus far and future-projected), rather than as literally true. • Flexible social view. Learning to take a flexible perspective on others; on our social world and our relationship to it. Working in this space within the model involves targeting the expansion of one’s social networks, creating lasting, positive and meaningful relationships. Using DNA-v in community-based coaching contexts Like ACT, DNA-v is a model that can be used to inform clinical work, including one-to-one therapeutic interventions. But its value for informing the work undertaken by Reboot is in part owed to the flexibility of its application. So many of the young people with whom they work are highly disaffected; unsurprisingly given that they may have met scores of professionals over the years, due to their care and familial circumstances. So, coaches need a way of bringing effective practice to young people – to where they are right now – not just psychologically, but physically. ‘She fits around when I can do, meets me later in the day which I need and takes me to cafes to get a hot chocolate.’

Reboot coaches apply their therapeutic model flexibly, across a whole range of community-based contexts, from the coffee shop, to the gym, to walking in nature – wherever the young person wants to, and is able to, meet. And there is real power in this. For many years Behavioural Therapists and Cognitive Behavioural Therapists have written about the challenge of transferring their work from the primary sphere of influence (face-to-face work in the therapy room) to the secondary sphere of influence (clients’ daily, lived experiences) (Villatte et al., 2016). Working therapeutically in the community bridges the gap

Duncan Gillard is Senior Educational Psychologist with the Bristol Inclusion Service. duncan.gillard@bristol. gov.uk

Aoife McNally is an Educational Psychologist with the Bristol Inclusion Service. Aoife.mcnally@bristol. gov.uk

Louise Hayes is a clinical psychologist working in private practice in Australia. louisehayes@me.com

Kate Willis is an Educational Psychologist with the Bristol Inclusion Service. kate.willis@bristol.gov. uk

between direct therapeutic input, on one side of the river, and the daily lives it is intended to affect, on the other. Critically, this is not work that coaches do to young people; it’s work coaches do with young people. The training and supervision that coaches receive is deeply experiential, requiring a personal commitment to applying psychological flexibility processes in their daily lives. Coaches are supported and encouraged to practice consciously noticing internal barriers to valued action – difficult thoughts, feelings and sensations – that show up in their own lives. And they practice being open to these in the service of living a life with ever-increasing purpose, value and vitality. As well as benefiting coaches own lives, the intention here is to model psychological flexibility in the presence of young care leavers. He does a lot of practical things with me. He’s caring and supportive. It doesn’t come across that he does it for money. He does it because he cares.

The story so far Young care leavers, even those who experience stable and loving foster care placements, can find the transition to independence a huge challenge. Whilst some foster carers are able to make themselves available for ongoing support during, and even after, this transition period, many young care leavers have no such support systems available. And even those who do can find this an extremely daunting and frightening phase of life. Curtis has been in the care systems since he was 15 years old. Now aged 22, having moved into independent accommodation, he describes how ‘Being in care was like being in a little bubble. And when you leave care you’re out of that bubble in the world.’ The Reboot West team are accountable for achieving a number of outcomes at specific timepoints. These include: • Access: The number of young care leavers who access the program;

• Education: The number of young care leavers who access and sustain formal education placements and achieve qualiﬁcations; • Volunteering: The number of young care leavers who enter into and maintain attendance within voluntary work placements; • Employment: The number of young care leavers who enter into and maintain paid employment; • Stability: Self-reported wellbeing and social stability.

‘Before Adam [Reboot Coach], I was a bit scared and thinking what am I gonna do, what am I gonna do with my life. But with Adam, he’s sort of modelling me to get a better life, pushing me in the right direction to actually enjoy life.’ (Curtis, 22 years old) ‘My Coach helps me with work and stuff. I’ve got a good work ethic now. I used to hate work but my Coach has helped me to get my head round it. They’ve helped me with it. Now I love working.’ (Donnie, 20 years old)

At the time of writing this, two years after initial But the success of the Reboot West project doesn’t program set-up, current data indicates that 212 young lie in pushing young care leavers into education, care leavers are accessing the coaching and support employment or training coercively or against their services provided by the Reboot team; since working will. Quite the opposite, in fact. Evaluative feedback with Reboot, 101 have started formal educational indicates that the key success factors lie in establishing programs (of which 73 have therapeutic, positive and trusting completed more than 50 per cent of relationships between one human “…inside these numbers the program and are still enrolled, being and another, and then and 56 have completed the full using that relationship as a strong are the real, personal, course and gained a qualification); foundation upon which young lived experiences of the 8 have started at university; 73 are people can explore their interests, young people accessing in sustained, paid employment; 193 their values, and what they most report feeling safe; and 198 report want to nurture and grow in their support…” having a minimum of one valued, lives. After a period of time in the sustained, consistent relationship in prison system, another young care their lives. These figures far exceed leaver accessing Reboot, just 19 the targets set by the SIB program managers. years of age, says it like this: But inside these numbers are the real, personal, ‘The best things aren’t necessarily the activities. It’s lived experiences of the young people accessing him saying I’ve got potential, him telling me I’ve got support through the project. Inside are their fears, insight and that he had hope in me even when I didn’t worries and anxieties, as well as their hopes, dreams have hope in myself. Sometimes he just listens to me and aspirations. complaining about shit. I haven’t got other people to A commonly used metaphor in ACT work, talk to about that kind of stuff. I respect him a lot. My typically known as the coin metaphor, goes something Coach realized I just needed someone to talk to. Now like this: I’m about to start work as a construction labourer.’ What if I told you that this small coin represents all the treasure you hope to find in your life – can you imagine, for a moment, that it represents all of your hopes for the future. But it has two sides. On one side, here, are all of your dreams – all of the things that, in your bravest moments, you dare to believe might be possible. And on the other side is your fear; your worry; your concerns. You can take this coin – here; it’s yours. It’s your choice. Are you willing to make space for fear, for worry; for self-doubt, in order for your dreams to become realities? (adapted from Ciarrochi, Hayes & Baily, 2012).

Metaphors like this one are designed to target acceptance and willingness – willingness to consciously bring a little of our sometimes-painful internal world along for the ride, as we move our lives in valued, meaningful directions. The human psychological condition is such that we simply can’t have one without having some of the other. And this is exactly the kind of experiential learning process that Reboot coaches are achieving in their work. As Curtis and one other young care leaver, Donnie, beautifully put it:

Where to from here? If the service currently offered by Reboot West to our young care leavers is part of an unevenly distributed present that we want to transform into a more evenly distributed future, a radical transformation in the skills and approaches found in relevant organisations is required. Professionals on the frontline – social workers, coaches, youth workers and others – will need to ﬂexibly apply models that help young people relate skilfully to their complex, rich and often painful internal worlds. Yes, we will require a robust and wide-ranging research agenda to understand what works, and for whom. And yes, this will need to carefully compare outcomes across a range of different psychological models, interventions and approaches. But we must continue to believe in the plasticity of the human condition, if we are to create the optimal conditions for those who’ve experienced signiﬁcant early relational trauma and loss. We can think of no single group that deserves to learn these skills more than young care leavers.

the psychologist july/august 2021 care leavers

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Taking context seriously

Jennifer Sheehy-Skefﬁngton with a socio-ecological perspective on decision-making in contexts of poverty

n transforming the way we live and relate to each other, the Covid-19 pandemic has also radically altered the context in which we make decisions. When making tradeoffs and planning for the future, people must now consider financial scarcity from lost employment, unpredictability in everything from income to childcare, and barriers to social support in the immediate context and social solidarity more broadly. While currently placing constraints on the decisions of all of us, such precarious conditions have long constituted the everyday experience of an entire segment of our population: those living in or near poverty. Until recently, the role of the wider material and social context in shaping the decisions of low income groups had been thoroughly neglected. Classic sociological work had focused instead on a purported set of values and norms that were said to characterise a ‘culture of poverty’ in a way that prevented low income groups from improving their conditions. Psychological interventions had focused on the development of mindsets and character traits that were hoped to facilitate decisions that privilege long-term goals such as education and social mobility. These perspectives do little to challenge stereotypes of ‘idleness’ and ‘carelessness’ applied to government benefits recipients, advanced by reality shows such as Benefits Street, tabloid newspapers with anti-welfare agendas, and politicians looking to justify austerity. An opportunity to move the focus away from the individual came with experimental studies of decisionmaking in poverty over the last decade. Middle income participants exposed to aspects of the experience of poverty made the apparently short-sighted or suboptimal decisions associated with low income groups, showing that the same psychological response to adversity can be elicited in any of us (for a summary, see Mullainathan & Shafir, 2013; Sheehy-Skeffington, 2020). Drawing on behavioural ecology and social psychology, my own research (see Sheehy-Skeffington, 2019, 2020) considers such decision patterns less as suboptimal than as adaptive to the context of socioeconomic strain. By examining decision-making in the context of material and social adversity, this work has

as much to say about decisions needed at the policy level as it does about decisions needed at the individual level. Adapting to material adversity Discourse about decision-making among low income groups often focuses on individual behaviours that are harmful for long-term outcomes, including spending money on unhealthy habits like smoking, taking out high-interest loans, or failing to invest in education (see e.g., Bertrand et al., 2004; Pampel et al., 2010; Sheehy-Skeffington & Rea, 2017). The result is a picture of apparent deficits in self-regulation and cognitive functioning, some of which have been discussed in terms of long-term psychological damage inflicted by early childhood experiences of adversity (see Hackman & Farah, 2009). A socioecological approach, on the other hand, positions behaviour as a response to the constraints and cues of the environment someone lives in. This reveals how behaviour that may seem irrational to a middle-class researcher or policymaker can in fact demonstrate a level of adaptiveness and resilience we can all learn from. The most salient characteristic of life in poverty is resource scarcity – not having enough money to meet one’s basic needs. Early experimental work on this topic has shown just how pervasive the psychological impact of scarcity is. Behavioural economists have demonstrated that experiencing scarcity disrupts cognitive functioning, leading to decisions that harm individual’s long-term interests, and even makes individuals appear less intelligent than they are (Mani et al., 2013; Shah et al., 2012). More recent work in this tradition has highlighted the more subtle ways scarcity shapes cognition, such as directing attention towards money-related concepts (Shah et al., 2018), and inoculating against framing effects that can distort perceptions of value (Shah et al., 2015). Similarly, research in my lab indicates that scarcity in food may impair cognitive performance on tasks unrelated to food, but not on tasks involving food stimuli (Sheehy-Skeffington et al., 2021). Rather than only harming decision-making through stress and cognitive load, scarcity appears to modulate cognitive

the psychologist july/august 2021 context and decisions BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images

functioning, adaptively focusing the mind on ways to obtain the scarce resource. Seeing behaviour as adaptive makes even more sense in the domain of self-regulation. In contexts of plenty, ‘successful’ self-regulation demands the privileging of long-term over short-term goals. But if you live from one paycheque to the next, it may not be rational to hold off on meeting a current need for the sake of a future goal which you may never be in a position to realise. If you don’t know whether you will be able send your child to university, why should you deprive them of treats for the sake of saving for a college fund? If you have little influence over how long you will live, why should you deprive yourself of a stress-relieving cigarette for the sake of avoiding health damage 20 years in the future? Adaptive self-regulation is calibrated to the perceived impact of our behaviour on our life outcomes. We will only be oriented toward delaying gratification if it will make a difference. Decades of public health research shows that those with a lower socioeconomic status have a lower sense of control over their life outcomes. This diminished agency or lowered ‘response efficacy’ is an important explanatory factor in the socioeconomic gradient in health. Response efficacy is different to self-efficacy, which is our appraisal of whether we can carry out our desired actions. Although self-efficacy can be improved through training and knowledge, response efficacy is best enhanced by making concrete improvements to the power that people have over their life conditions and prospects. Another salient characteristic of life in poverty is instability of income and living conditions. Decisions consequently play out in unpredictable environments.

Behavioural ecologists have highlighted the different ways unpredictability can manifest and how it determines the adaptiveness of behaviour in context (see Frankenhuis et al., 2019). For those in precarious work, income is unstable from one week to the next – the current availability of resources is not predictive of future availability of resources. In these circumstances it doesn’t make sense to focus limited cognitive resources on inhibitory control which would help in resisting immediate temptations, in this case for no apparent future benefit. Instead, it makes adaptive sense to hone cognitive flexibility, which readies responses to shifting demands and reward schedules. A stream of research on the ‘hidden talents’ of those growing up in adversity focuses on this kind of adaptive prioritisation in the development of cognitive skills. People from low income backgrounds perform better than those from high income backgrounds in certain cognitive tasks (see Frankenhuis et al., 2020). To the extent that such cognitive modulation toward meeting the needs of the ‘here and now’ does lead to decisions that harm long-term well-being, the appropriate place to intervene is in changing the precarious financial conditions that lead to the salience of instability, as opposed to changing the mindset of those immersed in such conditions. From material to social adversity Behavioural ecological perspectives have made substantial progress in repositioning the gaze of poverty research away from the person and towards the situation to which they are responding. However, in drawing on models of foraging and reproductive behaviour from other animal species, such perspectives

Decades of public health research shows that those with a lower socioeconomic status have a lower sense of control over their life outcomes.

are less well equipped to articulate the complex social aspects of human ecology, which are again severely affected by the experience Jennifer of poverty. SheehySense of agency is not only Skeffington, others. The salience of low relative personal, but also relational. Assistant standing may thus trigger shifts The absence of (primary) control Professor of in cognition and self-regulation at the individual level can be Social Psychology, LSE that mirror the impact of other compensated for by investing J.A.Sheehy-Skeffington disempowering aspects of poverty. (secondary) control in trustworthy @lse.ac.uk My lab is currently looking at this others. In our daily decisions in experimental studies, gathering we consider the other people we evidence for when, and in what way, perceptions of may or may not be able to rely on as well as money low subjective SES lead to the adaptive prioritisation and shelter. Reliable social partners are a critical of cognitive resources and related patterns of economic requirement for the emergence of cooperation and its decision-making. benefits at both the collective and individual level. Second, being poor invariably means feeling If we can depend on others in our environment – excluded from the rest of society. Not only does whether for an informal loan, help with minding financial strain mean being less able to participate children, or emotional support – we are likely to feel in widely shared aspects of an acceptable life, such more able to effect change in our life conditions. as socialising or recreational pursuits; it also means Conversely, if we receive cues that real or potential feeling less welcome in a society which increasingly social partners are absent, unreliable, or even hostile, associates personal worth with economic worth. the social context offers merely another source of Decades of studies have demonstrated the impact of adversity. This may be just as disempowering as social exclusion on well-being, sociality, and riskmaterial adversity. taking (see Hartgerink et al., 2015). Conversely, There are at least three ways in which research in the ‘social cure’ tradition shows how a sense circumstances of poverty may involve adversity of the of belonging to a social group enhances physical and social kind. First, being poor entails the salience not mental health, in part through increasing one’s sense only of absolute scarcity, but of relative scarcity, and of power and control over the environment (see Jetten the related awareness of low subjective social status. et al., 2017). My PhD student Julia Buzan is leading One of the most prominent approaches to the study of my lab’s investigation of social exclusion as a salient social class allocates a central role to the diminished aspect of poverty, and the mechanism through which sense of control that comes from perceptions of low this might shape control appraisals, cognition and selfsocietal rank, and a consequent shift in orientation regulation. toward seeking positive social relations (Kraus et al., The third and final route through which poverty 2013). Feeling low in a social hierarchy also disrupts may engender social adversity is through creating an cognitive functioning, triggering a focus on threats environment of deprivation in which almost everyone in the environment and the neglect of goal-relevant is, as Daniel Nettle (2015) puts it, ‘living on the edge’. actions, especially if those goals There are competing narratives for the impact of are positioned in the future (for a Key sources community-level poverty on social solidarity. Some review, see Galinsky et al., 2015). emphasise the ways in which necessity leads people These patterns make sense when viewed as responses to signals living in poor environments to band together to help Frankenhuis, W.E., Young, E.S. each other out. Others focus on how deprivation concerning how valued we are by & Ellis, B.J. (2020). The hidden can lead to desperation and rivalry – people may feel the surrounding social context. talents approach: Theoretical and methodological challenges. Trends in forced to use aggressive, antisocial means to obtain the Signs that someone is at the bottom Cognitive Sciences, 24(7), 569-581. resources they perceive they need to survive. Although of a societal hierarchy (especially Mullainathan, S. & Shafir, E. (2013). evidence from the psychology of social class and some where that hierarchy is steep, as in Scarcity: Why having too little means so sociological ethnography might support the former highly unequal countries) imply much. Macmillan. account, other sociological and criminological data that they are not socially valued. Sheehy-Skeffington, J. (2020). The support the latter. Living in an environment in which This impression is enhanced effects of low socioeconomic status on decision-making processes. Current solidarity is frayed by the pressures of scarcity, through by social representations that Opinion in Psychology, 33, 183-188. foreclosing secondary as well as primary routes to stigmatise the poor and those in Sheehy-Skeffington, J. & Rea, J. (2017). control, robs poor people of yet another source of the receipt of government benefits, and How poverty affects People’s decisionresponse efficacy that is needed to make future-focused by frequent negative interactions making processes (pp. 1-73). York: decisions rational in the first place. with representatives of societal Joseph Rowntree Foundation. It is well established that social support buffers the institutions when accessing benefits. Full list available in online/app version. impact of poverty on well-being. More recent work Being socially devalued can mean has shown that the perceived trustworthiness of the being unlikely to receive help from

the psychologist july/august 2021 context and decisions

community can shift an individual’s mental calculus such that decisions oriented toward the future become rational (Jachimowicz et al., 2017). Consistent with this, we are currently testing our prediction that poverty may trigger not a general antisocial mindset, but the constriction of one’s trust and related prosocial energies toward only the closest familial and social circles (see Sheehy-Skefﬁngton, 2020). The challenge will be to see how this work can feed into interventions aimed not only at enhancing the interconnectedness and perceived trustworthiness of neighbours in deprived contexts, but also at ensuring low income communities have enough resources in the ﬁrst place to enable people to sustain the cooperative dynamic needed for any collective to thrive. Shifting perspective Seeing behaviour as an adaptive response to socioecological cues shows the complex ways that poverty may shape decision-making processes. Policy and public discourse on apparently self-defeating behaviours such as smoking and ‘rash’ spending should shift its perspective away from a middleclass worldview and lived experience, in which investment in the future usually pays off and people and institutions are mostly benign. In the context of scarcity, instability, low status, exclusion, and breakdown in social cohesion, behaviours that focus

on grasping immediate rewards at the cost of future gains can make adaptive sense. These decision-making patterns may have come to characterise the behaviour of increasing segments of the UK population enduring an unprecedented year of material and social adversity. The unpredictability of the lifestyle changes triggered by the pandemic, the scarcity of vaccines, and barriers to social connectedness, have robbed us of our usual sources of agency and control over our lives. We have learned that societal interventions, whether in the form of an increase and expansion of Universal Credit to reduce financial scarcity, an extended furlough scheme to reduce financial instability, or grassroots mutual aid groups to enhance social support, can mitigate against the worst of these socio-ecological changes. Indeed, research from my lab led by PhD student Iván CanoGomez uses cross-national data to demonstrate that when governments provide a strong social safety net (in the form of welfare benefits and universal healthcare), the association between income and perceived control is diminished (Cano-Gomez & Sheehy-Skeffington, 2021). My hope is that we can harness insights from the socio-ecological psychology of poverty, and our own unprecedented experience as a society, to develop policies that ensure precarious, disempowering conditions are no longer a context for decision-making at any place along the socioeconomic spectrum.

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The stranger A chapter from Darren McGarvey’s book Poverty Safari

Extracted from Poverty Safari: Understanding the Anger of Britain’s Underclass by Darren McGarvey (pictured right), published by Picador, £8.99 See darrenmcgarvey.com and ﬁnd him on Twitter @lokiscottishrap

y first appearance on the BBC took place at my auntie’s flat in Govanhill, on Glasgow’s southside, where she lived with my two cousins and a mother and child she had taken in who were fighting deportation. Having got involved in the Pollok Free State, she later became a local environmental activist and was eventually elected to the Scottish Parliament as an MSP. By this point I was about to leave secondary school but had trouble getting work. I had been working as a temp in Next but was not offered a contract after the Christmas period. There was speculation that certain employers were screening potential employees based on their postcode – which was an indicator of social class. BBC Radio Scotland was covering it on the news and I was asked to come on and talk about it. It went well and I was asked back more over the course of the year. Charities, arts organisations, youth workers and even politicians were becoming familiar with me. At events like gala days or fetes, I would be presented as an example of a young person who was doing something positive with his life. I’d be allotted time to perform or speak about my experiences and this was becoming a regular fixture of my life, even after I became homeless. The BBC, after letting me host their flagship news programme as a guest presenter, asked me to present a four-part series called Neds. In Scotland, a ‘ned’ is like a ‘chav’; a poor person, usually young, who causes disruption in their community through antisocial behaviour – which was high on the news agenda at the time. Now working at the BBC, my life represented something of a schism: on one hand I was homeless and developing a dependency on alcohol and drugs and had no self-esteem, but on the other hand I was about to become a radio presenter who travelled the country like a proper journalist. When you have no real sense of self to anchor you to reality then you become whatever the world decides you are that day. Some days I was flying high, thinking I was on my way to some kind of job and would make my family proud. Other days I was unable to get to the BBC on time because I was so hungover and depressed. When the series ended, another was commissioned, this time a three-part show about Shettleston, a housing scheme which had among the worst health

the psychologist july/august 2021 poverty safari

statistics in the country. I had a growing public proﬁle and was involved with several organisations as a volunteer while making a name for myself as a local rap artist. But whether it was low self-esteem, imposter syndrome or just a self-sabotage instinct,

I began to question people’s motives for wanting to help me. Beneath everything, all I was looking for was connection; to feel understood, heard and supported. To feel respected, safe and loved. The praise and platforms I received certainly made me feel I was Steven Reynolds

heading in the right direction, but once the novelty wore off and I began to consider what was going on more deeply, some things started bothering me. The big contradiction of my life at this point was that the people who apparently wanted to help me, with whom I craved a connection, were all being paid to be there. So it wasn’t that big a leap to assume that if they weren’t getting paid then they’d be away doing something else. I also noticed that while people were always keen that I tell my story, in whichever form it took, they seemed to prefer that I stick to certain parts of it. The testimony about my childhood was fine but they were less keen on the observations I started to make as my understanding of poverty, its causes and impacts, deepened. I was growing and learning and evolving, as I had been all my life, and this created new lines of inquiry that I would immediately pursue, no matter the consequences. Queries such as ‘Who makes the decisions about your budget?’ and ‘How do we solve poverty if all your jobs depend on it?’ were making people around me nervous. This sort of sentiment didn’t seem as popular among the various youth workers, charities and journalists as the story about my dead mum. When I realised this, I soon learned to use that story as a Trojan horse, mainly because without it, people seemed much less interested in anything I had to say. It was as if the only thing that qualified my opinion was the fact I had been poor. The second I wandered off that topic people started shuffling their papers and things got awkward. It seemed my criticism was often deemed not to be constructive enough. Despite the constant talk of empowerment and giving voice to the voiceless, it was obvious many of these people were only interested in my thoughts if they were about my experience as a ‘poor’ person. It was assumed that people like me had very little insight on anything else. This was disheartening and confusing. I couldn’t figure out if people wanted to associate with me because I was smart or because they wanted to use me in some way. Having very little self-esteem, it led to wild fluctuations in my sense of who I was. Sometimes I felt my ideas were of value, other times I was crushed by the terrible thought that I had just been kidding myself. That I was worthless and stupid. But rather than buckle beneath that confusion it seemed to stoke the flames of my anger. The conflict seemed to concentrate my mind, just like fear, and the things that upset me, just like traumatic experiences, became a form of fuel. Even mental illness and problems in my personal life didn’t stop me from pursuing my lines of inquiry and going after my targets. I followed my instincts, right or wrong, despite the fact I could sense resistance to the message I was transmitting. Eventually, like the books and poems teachers tried to make me read, I began to take an adversarial attitude towards the people and organisations I believed were trying to influence how I thought and spoke about these issues. I began to lash back against anybody I felt was

manipulating me, either to pacify my criticism or to extract narrative or data for their own agendas. My story, which I had been conditioned to retell like a party piece, got me so far and then people became wary of me, aggravating my sense of rejection and exclusion. I was learning that there were limits to what you could say when you wanted to talk about poverty. I was learning that even the harshest childhood experience wouldn’t get you a free pass to cast a critical eye on the structures around you. But I was also learning that the emotional damage that growing up in poverty had done to me, made it that much harder for me to engage with the very people deployed to help me. I often projected my pain, mistrust and sense of exclusion onto people who really did mean well. I was never quite sure if my instincts were right or if I was in the grip of an episode of mania. What I soon learned was that, no matter your background, you are cast out the second you offend the people who’re in charge of your empowerment. Sometimes it’s a person, other times it’s an organisation. Sometimes it’s a movement and other times it’s a political party. But the minute you start telling your story in service of your own agenda and not theirs, you’re discarded. Your criticism is dismissed as not being constructive. Your anger is attributed to your mental health problems and everything about you that people once applauded becomes a stick they beat you with. Look out for these people. The people who pay wonderful lip service to giving the working class a voice, but who start to look very nervous whenever we open our mouths to speak. I never regarded my childhood as hard until I saw the look on people’s faces when I talked about it. I never assumed that my life, or indeed I, was interesting or signiﬁcant in any way until people started telling me so. I never assumed I had anything of value to say until people began prompting me to repeat this poverty narrative over and over. But if I happened to stray off script, then curtains would mysteriously close, lights would mysteriously fade, microphones would mysteriously cut out. The BBC didn’t offer me any more work. The anti-social behaviour news agenda had moved on. They didn’t even respond to my pitch about another programme. The week the Neds series came out, the Sunday Mail, who had interviewed me earlier in the week and sent a photographer out to take pictures to promote the show, ran a story called ‘Neddy Burns’. In it they used a picture of me in which my hat had been blown up by the wind, appearing to sit at the same angle as the stereotypical ‘chav’. The minute the social deprivation agenda dried up in the media, there was no longer any need for me. I thought I had been asked to take part because people valued my insight. Because I had something to say. Then one day it dawned on me why they had asked me to present Neds in the ﬁrst place: it was because they thought I was a ned. Today I know better. Today I understand that my poverty narrative is viewed by many as an

the psychologist july/august 2021 poverty safari

opportunity, as opposed to something with inherent value that people who read books could learn from. Please understand that I think no less of those who inadvertently helped create that impression, nor do I think for one moment that people employed in the poverty industry have anything but good intentions. The issue here was my assumption. Perhaps due to my radical roots in far-left communities and maybe my naivety as a young person, I always just thought whether we want to accept it or not, is that when it the aim was to dismantle poverty. However, once you comes to poverty – not as a political football but as a see the mechanics of the poverty industry up close, global phenomenon in which we all play an active role you realise it’s in a state of permanent growth and – there is no one actor or group that we can blame with that without individuals, families and communities in crisis there would no longer be a role for these massive any certainty. Contrary to what we’ve been told, the issue of institutions. I’ve been wheeled out by organisations and political poverty is far too complex to blame solely on ‘Tories’ groups and had my ‘powerful’, ‘honest’, ‘heart-breaking’ or ‘elites’. It’s precisely because of the complexity at play, and how difficult it is to grasp, that we look for testimony offered as proof of the changes we need to easy scapegoats. Whether it be the left blaming the make as a society when it comes to poverty. But the rich or the right blaming the poor, we tend only to be moment my lines of enquiry change, relative to my interested in whichever half of the story absolves us growth, understanding or aspiration, and my critical of responsibility for the problem. That’s not the sort eye turns to those who would repurpose my story for of thing a politician looking to get elected can say to a their own agendas, whether it be an activist, a charity potential voter. or a politician, then I am cast out as an ‘arrogant’, Poverty has become a game played between a ‘aggressive’, ‘dangerous’, ‘self-sorry’, ‘indulgent’, few competing political teams. The teams vary from ‘ego-maniacal’ ‘pseudo-intellectual lightweight’ country to country but the rules of the game are ‘sell-out’ ‘who always makes everything about him’. usually the same. Blame for poverty All fair criticisms. I am certainly is always ascribed to someone else; not a flawless person. But all I’ve ever done is talk about poverty. “Your anger is attributed an outgroup that we are told not only enables poverty and benefits And the only way anyone would to your mental health from it, but also gets a kick out of listen to what I had to say was problems and everything people being poor. This game is if I prefaced my opinion with so underhanded and cynical that personal testimony about my about you that people the truth, itself, only becomes dead, alcoholic mother and what once applauded becomes true when it can be appropriated, a difficult childhood I had. I don’t a stick they beat you with. weaponised and redeployed by one write about myself because I think I’m important, it’s because that’s Look out for these people.” side against the others. Rather than admit that nobody really knows what I’ve been conditioned to do what to do, besides tweak some in order to be heard. That’s the sort knobs here and there, our hapless of window dressing that is required leaders, with their own immediate political dilemmas before the great and the good become willing to take to consider, simply pretend to have the situation under lower class people seriously. Even at 33 years old, this theme continues to define control. And when they inevitably break their empty promises, made in haste to placate our anger, they my life. Well I’ve told you all about my life, now here’s tell us it’s because the other teams are deliberately what I would really like to say. impeding progress. This game is played by all parties, I no longer believe poverty is an issue our regardless of which end of the spectrum they claim. politicians can solve. Not because they don’t want to, And we eat this nonsense up like f***ing children. but because an honest conversation about what it Let’s take a moment to truly consider the damage will require is too politically difficult to have. this game is doing to our society. If those in power were straight about what addressing When one political party blames another for the this problem would require it would shock us to problem, it creates a false impression in the public our core. And not merely because of the magnitude mind that this complex issue is within the competence of the task facing society, which is unconscionable of one political actor or group to solve. This is a in scale, but also because there is a certain level of personal responsibility involved that’s become taboo to dangerous oversimplification. An oversimplification acknowledge on the left. For all the demand we in left- which forces us to cast one another as heroes and villains in the long-running saga of poverty, often wing circles feign for fundamental change and radical based on our unconscious bias, false beliefs and, action, people get a bit touchy and offended when increasingly, our resentments. Just like stress creates you suggest that might apply to them too. The truth,

all its internal contradiction, is here to stay for the foreseeable future – certainly for the lifetime of anyone reading this. And while insurgent political parties and social movements may force grudging concessions from the powerful, much as they did throughout the last century on a range of issues, the sort of fundamental shift required to truly tackle poverty at the root is unlikely to materialise within our lifetimes. That doesn’t mean people should stop fighting for what they believe in. Nor does it mean we should submit to forces that are a demand for relief through alcohol, food and drugs, clearly acting against our interests. Just that we should so too does our refusal to get serious about grappling let go of the idea that all we require is for capitalism with the complexity of poverty; creating a demand to collapse or for a new country to be created and for the sort of political juvenilia that reduces every everything will just work itself out. It won’t. person to a caricature and every issue to a soundbite. The only thing worse than an unjust economic These partisan rivalries are now so toxic that the idea of getting around a table with your opponents, in good system is an unjust economic system when it implodes. The idea of rubbing our hands waiting for this to faith, is almost laughable. Proposing such an idea is happen is, at best, exceptionally uninspiring. At worst, regarded widely as naive. Meanwhile, trying to build it’s short-sighted and slightly sinister. Once we accept a consensus or, God forbid, acknowledging the virtue this is wishful thinking, we can channel our energy in or integrity of people you disagree with politically or other directions based on a more realistic assessment conceding where other ideas have succeeded, can get you publicly shamed and lynched – by your own team. of what is currently possible. As well as discussing and debating the abstracts of ‘the system’ we can also Not even the stark reality of child abuse, the begin considering less intangible aspects of poverty inexorable rise of crime, the ubiquity of violence, the that are within our immediate grasp to address. As I’ve horror of domestic abuse, the scourge of homelessness already outlined, poverty comprises many domains or the tragic inevitability of alcoholism or addiction of the human experience: social, that underscores so much of psychological, emotional, political it is enough to humble us into cultural. Some things we showing some contrition in the “What we now need to ask and can’t immediately impact, like face of this issue. This despite ourselves, as a matter of the economy. Others we can knowing fine well that we’ll never be able to address a problem of urgency, is which aspects affect intermittently, like political But other areas, such as this scale in any meaningful way of poverty can we positively parties. our mental health, consumer without input from right across affect through our own behaviour or lifestyle, which also the political spectrum. We’d play a significant role in our quality rather play games. Sadly, there is thinking and action? ” of life, are not as intangible and absolutely no incentive whatsoever inalterable. What we now need for a politician to be honest about to ask ourselves, as a matter of the true extent of this problem. urgency, is which aspects of poverty can we positively Let’s be honest, we wouldn’t accept it. We all need affect through our own thinking and action? If poverty someone to blame. For some it’s the bankers and for is negatively affecting our quality of life, is there any others it’s the poor themselves. We’ve become so tribal action we could take to mitigate this harm? Ultimately, in our thinking that politicians have little choice but which aspects of poverty are beyond our control and to supply our demand for illusory quick fixes, overwhich are within our capability to change? simplified soundbites, scapegoats and comforting, On the left, I see constant talk of new economic reassuring platitudes that conveniently ascribe blame to the people we don’t like. It’s a truly sorry state and if systems, of overthrowing elites or of increasing blame is being apportioned, there’s certainly enough to public spending. I see endless debate about the overlapping, interdependent structural oppressions go around every one of us. of western society and the symbolic violence inherent In these conditions of tribalism, bad faith and in capitalism. But I rarely see anyone talking about political uncertainty, the problem is only likely to emotional literacy. It’s rare to see a debate about get worse. The time has come to face this reality over-eating. I never see activists being more open which will place a heavy burden on those of us who about their drink problems and drug habits or the are resolved to see progress on this matter. With no psychological problems fuelling them. appetite for cross-party consensus and even less for Nobody ever seems to be writing a dissertation on radical change, despite the odd flourish of rebellion the link between emotional stress and chronic illness every few years, people with an interest in helping or writing an op-ed about how they managed to give the poor (or themselves for that matter) must now up smoking. As if somehow, these day-to-day problems begin grappling with the notion that this system, and

the psychologist july/august 2021 poverty safari

are less consequential to the poor than the musings of Karl Marx. As if somehow, we can postpone action on the things that are demoralising, incapacitating and killing us until after the hypothetical revolution. Beneath all the theoretical discussion and torturous terminology about politics and economics, these problems of mind, body and spirit and what we do to manage them as individuals, families and communities, are the unglamorous, cyclical dilemmas that many people are really struggling with. These are the issues that compound povertyrelated stress. These are the problems that make people apathetic, depressed, confrontational, chronically ill and deeply unhappy. And it’s these painful emotions that drive much of the self-defeating consumer behaviour that delivers adrenalin to the heart of the very economic system many on the left allegedly want to dismantle. Yet on these matters we, on the left, have very little to say. Or at least, very little that people in deprived communities are interested in listening to. And it’s not hard to understand why. Every problem is discussed like it’s beyond the expertise of the average person. The cumulative effect being that responsibility for poverty and its attendant challenges is almost always externalised; ascribed to an unseen force or structure, a system or some vaguely defined elite. These things are undoubtedly constituent parts of the problem, but our analysis rarely acknowledges the complexity of poverty as it is experienced by human beings, day-to-day. A systemic analysis which focuses on external factors unwisely foregoes the opportunity to explore the role we, as individuals, families and communities, can play in shaping the circumstances that define our lives. A systemic analysis does not account for the subtleties of poverty at ground level; the link between false belief and self-defeating action that keeps so many of us trapped in a spin cycle of stress and thoughtless consumption. But these problems, as banal as they seem, are as fundamental to tackling poverty at the root as any critique of an economic system. Yet, rather than integrate this truth into our analysis, we have allowed right wing movements to monopolise the concept of personal agency and the notion of taking responsibility. Worse, we vilify anybody who implies that poor people may sometimes play a role in their own circumstances, whether they be desirable or adverse. We’ve forgotten that not every problem or issue can be ascribed to a broader social problem or power dynamic. We deny the objective truth that many people will only recover from their mental health problems, physical illnesses and addictions when they, along with the correct support, accept a certain level of culpability for the choices they make. Yet such an assertion has become offensive to our ears despite being undeniably true. When was the last time you heard a prominent leftwing figure speak of the power inherent within each of us to overcome adversity and transform the conditions of our own lives?

I’ll wait. Instead, we peddle the naive idea that everything will be fine just as soon as the current system breaks down. We push the lie that trading one political or economic system for another is merely a painless formality. We set forth the proposition that it’s easier to redesign an entire society to suit our ever-evolving personal needs than it is to make some moderate adjustments to our own thinking and behaviour. And we cry foul any time somebody in our own ranks has the temerity to point this stuff out. So, I apologise if you think this isn’t constructive. In the absence of real leadership, it’s time we demanded more of ourselves. Not because it’s easy or fair but because we have no other choice. We must now evolve beyond our dependence on political figures to map out reality on our behalf. Poverty is not a game and it’s going nowhere any time soon. Poverty is here to stay and things will get worse before they improve. That’s the truth our leaders know but don’t have the guts to tell us. Which is why we must open another frontier in politics. Not one solely based on railing against the system, but also about scrutinising our own thinking and behaviour. One which is about reclaiming the idea of personal responsibility from a rampant and socially misguided right wing that has come to monopolise it. A new leftism which is not only about advocating radical change but also about learning to take ownership of as many of our problems as we can so that we may begin rebuilding the depleted human capacity in our poorest communities. In this far bleaker context, where politicians have no real solutions and can’t even bring themselves to discuss the matter honestly, what hope can we offer to people living their lives right now – without filling their heads with false hope or lies? What do we have to say to the people who won’t be around when the third industrial revolution begins? The people who’ll never see Universal Basic Income being rolled out? Well, I suppose we could start by being honest: There will be no revolution. Not in your lifetime. This system will limp on and so must we. Much of the reason this system endures is directly related to how we think, feel and behave as individuals, families and communities. Just as we are products of our environment, our environments are also a product of us. From the foods we consume, to the products we buy. The newspapers we read to the politicians we vote for. So many of the problems we face, that we often attribute to ‘the system’ are, to some extent, self-generated. Therefore, many of these problems (though certainly not all) are within our individual and collective competence to positively affect. Considering this, and in the absence of a bloodless revolt any time soon, the question for people on the left is no longer simply ‘how do we radically transform the system’, but also, ‘how do we radically transform ourselves?’ And something about my dead mum.

‘Out of poverty, I felt like an alien’

Karina Webb reﬂects on the complexity of ﬂourishing

don’t live in poverty, but it was not always so. I grew up with my five siblings in a two-bedroom council house on a low-income estate. By the time I was seven, my mother was a single parent, and it had become apparent that raising six young children alone meant that balancing work and childcare was not feasible. We inevitably found ourselves relying on the welfare system to get by. For the rest of my childhood, my family lived a life of necessity. Keeping everyone fed and a roof over our heads was the priority, which was by no means a small challenge. Everything else was secondary. It was not an easy time, but we survived, not least because of my mother’s ingenuity in feeding a small army on a shoestring budget and keeping six small people occupied – despite not being able to provide the holidays, toys or pocket money that other kids were accustomed to. As the second eldest child, I often helped around the house and with the younger children. Now, I feel fortunate to say that I enjoy a comfortable life and would be regarded as flourishing. But living like this led to certain attitudes becoming ingrained within me: heightened awareness of the value of money and that life situations are precarious, for example. By the time I reached secondary school I had resolved that this was not going to be my life. At that stage, I didn’t know how much the transition from poverty to flourishing would impact my identity and sense of belonging for years to come.

Shifting identities More than 20 years on from my adolescent resolution, poverty remains an ongoing social issue in the UK. Calls for action to resolve many of the issues associated with poverty include an interconnected web of secure employment, affordable housing, sustained education, ﬁnancial security and improved physical and mental health services. As I tried to move on from poverty, I subscribed to what I perceived to be the guidelines for someone in my situation: get an education, get a job, work hard and the rest will follow. Over time I was lucky to tick the boxes one by one. Life gradually became more comfortable – at least from the perspective of my

socioeconomic status. It was not until later that I learned that the reality of moving from poverty to flourishing transcended the socioeconomic markers that are the focus of mainstream discussions. There were other social and psychological complexities that nobody seemed to have mentioned, that I wasn’t prepared for. The socioeconomic changes were just one part of the story. After my circumstances started to transform it became apparent that this transition was not as straightforward as simply achieving tangible, socioeconomic goals. I found myself living in what felt like a new and unfamiliar world. Now that I was out of poverty, I felt like an alien. Being frugal and living within my means no longer seemed to be a commendable quality, but instead attracted negative connotations of being ‘tight’. I was no longer surrounded by people grateful for whatever they had, but by many who complained of salaries that to me were unfathomable. Rather than receiving any recognition for having improved my circumstances, my efforts were reduced to luck. In the beginning a kind of identity hyphenation took place. I very much openly remained the girl from the humble beginnings, but I was also starting to blend into my new world. On the surface at least, my identity began to shift to reflect a hybrid of my two worlds. This hyphenation was not to last. I gradually found myself being less open about where I had come from. It started with a watering down of my story to make it more palatable. Then, for the social comfort of those in my new world, I would simply allude to a once different life. Eventually, I resorted to barely speaking of a time before I was flourishing. Feelings of shame Ultimately, I recognised that the rules of engagement are different in the world of the flourishing. My modest upbringing was mostly incompatible here. Others assumed that because I was flourishing I shared the same background. I remember standing around a JustGiving Tree with colleagues one Christmas, beholding the gifts donated for disadvantaged children. One colleague commented just how lucky the three of us were that we would never know such hardship. By this point I was no longer in a place of identity

the psychologist july/august 2021 complexity of ﬂourishing

Shame can be two-directional after poverty. The ubiquity of inequality in our society means that those with newfound privileges can become laden with guilt. Those who have been fortunate in their education are aware that others have not been afforded the same platform to break free from poverty. With increasing prosperity there is more guilt. New successes may be suppressed or played down with one social group, while personal histories of struggle are suppressed with the other.

Karina Webb is a forensic psychology undergraduate. k_mwebb@ outlook.com

hyphenation but of identity compartmentalisation – I did not, I could not bring myself to correct them and expose that part of my identity that had been switched off. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly why some of us who have made the transition from poverty to flourishing feel compelled to silences such as these. Some have attributed it to an emerging sense of shame that their backgrounds were lesser, a sense of shame triggered upon frequently meeting more privileged people. When I reflect on the stories I’ve encountered of others moving from poverty to flourishing, I see some commonalities with migrants experiencing acculturation on moving to new cultural environments. The attitudes of the receiving society influence the extent to which migrants feel accepted. In sharing his own experience of migration, Austrian philosopher Alfred Schutz described how having an outsider’s perspective could lead migrants to feel like strangers. Your everyday knowledge, which ordinarily makes navigating the environment effortless, becomes less pertinent in the new environment. The context is undoubtedly different in transitioning from poverty to flourishing, but there is a similar change in environment that can demand substantial adjustment from the individual.

Interrelating cultures John Berry proposed, in his theory of acculturation, that when people migrate there are several possibilities for how their heritage and new cultures will interrelate. The process is much more complex than discarding a heritage culture and replacing it with a new one. I believe this is also true when transitioning from impoverished environments to flourishing ones. Berry’s acculturation model offers four acculturation strategies: • Full assimilation into the new culture, abandoning the heritage culture • Remaining fully attached to the heritage culture and separating oneself from the new culture • Equal integration of both the heritage and the new culture • Being suspended between the two cultures Strategy adoption relies in part on the attitude of the individual, but the attitudes of the receiving society have real governance over which options are available. It is easy to see how similar scenarios could apply to people moving from poverty to flourishing. Some might turn away from their roots and immerse themselves in the flourishing world without looking back. Others might struggle to let go of who they feel they really are and shun the values of their new world. Others may be fortunate enough to enjoy the best of both worlds, and some will live their lives with a sense that they do not truly belong in either group. The cost of transition Make no mistake, there are many wonderful things about flourishing, and I have no regrets about moving on from poverty. It is imperative that efforts to end poverty continue. But we must be mindful that there can be a cost to making the transition. It would be a disservice to those making the journey to not inspect some of these potentially negative psychological side effects more closely. The pathway out of poverty is laid out, not that it is necessarily easy or possible for everyone at the moment. Let us now complement this by understanding the journey, and better preparing people to navigate unfamiliar territory. If individuals are to truly flourish, the psychological challenges of this transition should be recognised alongside the psychological challenges of remaining in poverty.

Four approaches for ﬂourishing

Experiences from the Psychologists for Social Change network

he BPS theme for 2020, ‘From poverty to flourishing’, pleased many across the Psychologists for Social Change (PSC) network. In many ways, this theme seems to capture a core motivation of our group. Much of the work across the network has been influenced by critical, community and socio-material approaches to psychology and mental health. Informing our collective activity is the position that poverty, both absolute and relative, is a strong predictor for the development of mental health difficulties. PSC grew out of the London Community Psychology network; as an approach community psychology aims to work alongside marginalised communities and individuals to promote empowerment, wellbeing and emancipation. Inherent in the theme is a call to action, for us to move people out of poverty and into flourishing. Implicit is that psychology and psychologists are to be the agent of this change. Whilst members of the PSC network have welcomed this call to gather psychologically informed resources, from both research and practice, in this area, we must also remember that poverty is not a psychological problem. Only the redistribution of resources can make people less poor. Engaging with social issues and social justice, such as poverty, involves understanding the limits of psychology as well as its power. Here we draw on the eight years’ experience across the PSC network of the different ways our members have used psychological knowledge, training and skills to work with policy, politics and activism.

The network Psychologists for Social Change is an international network for those who are interested in applying psychology to social and political action. The network started in 2014 as Psychologists Against Austerity, arising as a response to the austerity programme – cuts to public services and beneﬁts – of the Coalition Government. We aimed to provide a space for psychologists to take action against austerity, due to a lack of a visible response from the ofﬁcial bodies of the profession and what we perceived to be our

ethical duty to speak out about the social determinants of distress. This small campaign soon grew to a larger network of autonomous but connected groups operating around the UK, Ireland and Jersey. The network is entirely voluntary. A focus on austerity later widened to a broader investment in social justice and social change. Together, we have tried to find ways – as people variously connected with psychology (trainees, assistants, those with lived experience of structural inequalities and/or formal services, chartered psychologists, academics, therapists, students, graduates and community members) – to ethically respond to inequality and injustice. These motivations have been differently taken up across the network, depending on the interests, backgrounds, skills and dynamics of each group. In this sense PSC is a form of ‘networked activism’ (Land, 2009) operating with an open and flat structure, connected through virtual and in-person meetings. This approach has left flexibility for groups to take up the PSC idea in different ways, responding to context and interest. PSC therefore taps into ‘new power’, which is collaborative, distributed, participatory and peer driven (Heimans & Timms, 2018; and the March 2020 issue of The Psychologist). Most people in our network have tended to be somewhere on the Clinical Psychology pathway, although a much wider variety of people have been involved (academics, undergraduates, Educational and Counselling Psychologists, therapists, service users/survivors, artists, writers, and community psychologists). We see no reason to be bound by history, however, and offer this article as a way of explaining the different approaches to social change which have emerged across our network, with the hope that these will be of interest to psychologists across the diversity of the discipline. We are, of course, not the first group of psychologists to be interested in social change. PSC exists as part of a wider trend within psychology towards political and social engagement in psychology; a development which has attracted some criticism. This article is particularly aimed at those who are interested in social change but perhaps feel they do not have the skills or knowledge to participate in

the psychologist july/august 2021 approaches to ﬂourishing Eliza Southwood - www.elizasouthwood.com

The insight which shaped this paper is that a psychological perspective is rarely drawn upon in political and policy discourse. In much campaigning, there is a tendency for arguments to either use the abstract, macro language of economics, or personal experience. Psychology can help to draw these together and provide an evidence basis for the individual impacts of social policy or social issues. The understanding of people’s cognition, behaviour, and emotions which we take for granted within psychology is little known in political circles. Despite Psychology being one of the most popular degrees in the UK for instance, only two current MPs have a Psychology background. Psychological insights are therefore often missing, although they may seem obvious to people with a psychology education. We have used this insight “As citizen psychologists, to repackage different kinds of psychological knowledge, from Using psychological knowledge we have the ability to the impacts of child poverty on An early observation which influence at various mental health and wellbeing; underpinned our first campaign levels – directly in the the social psychology of how to was that psychological knowledge, talk to people who disagree with quite standard within our world, community, through you; and the psychology of place is often not widely known. One media, and through for a redevelopment of Belfast contribution to social change engaging with the different town centre. This approach is we therefore identified as being therefore not tied to one area of able to make was to disseminate levels of government” Psychology. The key is to identify psychological knowledge beyond the issue, your audience, and what the usual boundaries of the psychological knowledge is missing from the debate. discipline. This involves repackaging academic These elements give you the basis to think about how and professional knowledge in forms which reach to frame your argument to have the most impact on non-psychological audiences, which we have done in the form of briefing papers, open letters, a manifesto, a your audience. blog, presentations and talks, events, media interviews, and consultation responses. Using psychological skills The first of these was the ‘Psychological Impact of Another approach taken by our members has been to Austerity’ briefing paper, which brought together the think about repurposing psychological skills in a range existing research on social contexts of mental health of new settings. There are of course some limitations with material on specific impacts of austerity, such on how psychologists can practice outside of their as the rise in food banks, rise in insecure working, official workplace, and any work like this needs to intensification of punitive benefits culture, and loss be properly supervised and insured. Our members, of preventative services. We framed the literature in however, have found ways to work creatively to terms of five ‘austerity ailments’: fear and distrust; expand psychological skills beyond the clinic. humiliation and shame; insecurity and instability; One example of this approach is the Benefits isolation and loneliness; being trapped and powerless. Clinic run by PSC South West. This group decided The aim behind this formulation was to draw out early on to focus on the experiences of benefits the felt experience of austerity, as a counter to often claimants negotiating an increasingly hostile and abstract and macro policy language. Understanding sparsely resourced system. In response, the group that simply stating the problem is not enough to set up a regular benefits clinic in collaboration with effect change, we also formulated five ‘psychological the Citizens Advice Bureau which offers a one-hour indicators of a healthy society’, which were our assessment with a Psychologist, who can then provide response to the question ‘what does good social policy a medical evidence letter to support benefit claims. feel like’. Drawing on existing literature, we suggested This is a prime example of how psychologists can these could be: agency; security; connection; meaning and trust. This formulation has since been taken up by consider utilising their direct clinical skills outside NESTA as a basis for a tool for local government policy of usual contexts, providing a resource which can materially improve incomes and combat poverty making; and used as a framework in subsequent PSC directly. Realising a wider lack of knowledge and skills publications, such as our 2019 Manifesto (PSC, 2019) amongst psychologists about the benefits system, and briefing paper on Universal Basic Income (PSC, the South West group have also provided training to 2017). political or social action. Many, if not most, people who have participated in PSC have had no experience of political or community activism beforehand. It is our belief that psychology training gives a range of skills, knowledge and experience which are welcome and often missing in political, policy, and activism spaces. We offer here some examples of ways to re-orientate psychology: beyond the clinic and the academy; from the micro to the macro. This does not necessarily involve an additional skillset, but instead requires thinking differently about the skills, knowledge and experience which exist within psychology, in all its diversity. We have characterised our main approaches into four areas: using psychological knowledge; using psychological skills; citizen psychologists; and working alongside.

the psychologist july/august 2021 approaches to ﬂourishing

local NHS Trusts on producing high quality medical evidence letters. Another approach was taken by Suffolk PSC. Noticing a rise in food bank use in the run up to Christmas, the group approached local community organisations working with people affected by poverty or homelessness, to see what help or support they could offer. A church-run homeless charity took up the offer, asking the group to come and help with their volunteers. Those running the food banks reported feeling out of their depth with the kinds of difﬁculties experienced by the guests of the service – overwhelmed at times and having difﬁculty feeling empathetic. They asked for psychological support with these feelings. The group discussed this and provided psychoeducation for the service on mental distress, addiction and reactions to trauma. Volunteers reported feeling both more secure and more empathetic to the guests attending the service following the session. There is potential for other areas of psychology to think about repurposing skills in creative ways. London PSC has worked with the organisation ‘London Roots Collective’ who offer free support for grassroots organisations on developing a functional organisational culture. Any psychologist with expertise in organisations, management, or group dynamics could be helpful for grassroots and activist organisations in this way.

Citizen psychologists We also all have power as citizens and community members to reach out and try to inﬂuence policy and practice. An early action we undertook as PAA was to encourage psychologists to write to MPs and local newspapers, as well as to attend local election hustings and ask questions about austerity. Professional expertise and position have clout, and can help in being listened to and published. Any constituent can write to their MP, but writing as a psychologist of whichever stripe, can be effective. The psychology of persuasion tells us that the messenger is important along with the message, and so the closer the topic to your professional or academic expertise the better. PSC members in Scotland, Oxford, Newcastle, Wales, and Brighton have all been published in local media, drawing on clinical experience and psychological evidence to argue for changes to policy and practice. Some members have expressed disquiet about making political statements using their name and professional position. This is a reasonable worry. It is worth checking if your position is politically restricted, especially in a local authority. There are only relatively few job positions which, however, have this restriction. When speaking ‘as a psychologist’ our members have also been careful not to name speciﬁc Trusts or workplaces, but instead draw on generic experience. One of the positives of a network, however, is that we

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can speak under the name of PSC, so those who are more limited by job role or personal preference do not have to be individually named. As well as individual action, our groups have engaged in collective community and citizen action. As a network, we coordinated an open letter responding to the Government Green Paper on Children and Young People’s Mental Health, gathering 1400 responses from a variety of psychology professionals invested in the future of CYP services. This action was led by South Wales PSC, who have chosen to focus speciﬁcally on children and young people’s mental health. Their main target has been the devolved Government in Wales. In 2018, they held a joint event with Leanne Wood, the then head of Plaid Cymru, and developed a close relationship with members of the Welsh Assembly. Another approach has been to organise community events. Our North East group is one of the longest running, and decided to remain as Psychologists Against Austerity NE to keep their campaigning focus clearly on the impact of austerity. They have run community events and street stalls directly aimed at improving public understanding of austerity and poverty. As citizen psychologists, therefore, we have the ability to inﬂuence at various levels – directly in the community, through media, and through engaging with the different levels of government (local, regional, national).

Working alongside As PSC, we try to work from the position that we don’t have all the answers, there are multiple kinds of expertise, and that we should seek to avoid reproducing unequal power dynamics. A key example of this is the professional/service user power relationship present in mental health services. Being humble, listening and being responsive can be as important as being dynamic and speaking out. Part of this approach is recognising that issues which psychologists interested in social change may want to act upon – such as poverty, homelessness, inequality, racism, sexism, climate change, mental health, disability – will already have a rich ecology of groups and people taking action, ranging from grassroots activists to professional lobbyists. Activists in these groups will often have decades of experience campaigning on the relevant issues, and professionals and academics have a history of taking over or taking credit for work done by grassroots activists. As psychologists entering political or activist spaces the ﬁrst advice we give to new groups is to research, make connections, and listen, before considering if the contribution of psychology and psychologists is required. Sometimes this can be as simple as adding some professional backing to existing campaigns. In 2017, for instance, PSC produced a joint statement with activist group Recovery in the Bin objecting to

the appointment of Esther McVey to the board of the Samaritans, considering her role in benefits cuts which had damaged both mental health and mental health support. The other element of this approach is to acknowledge and consider the ways that societal power dynamics play out within activism and campaigning. Any work on poverty, for instance, involves an inherently marginalised group of people, who are often stigmatised and side-lined. Drawing on community psychology thinking, we have aimed to work alongside rather than speak for people directly affected by, for instance, poverty or austerity, disability or mental health difficulties. Since the beginning of the Psychologists Against Austerity campaign, we have worked alongside groups led by those at the sharp end of poverty, austerity and benefit cuts, such as Disabled People Against the Cuts, Black Triangle and Mental Health Resistance Network. Sometimes this joint working has been direct, such as joining with the DPAC and MHRN work critiquing the inclusion of IAPT services in Job Centres. Sometimes this has involved actively stepping back and passing on invitations to speak as experts on austerity or benefits to those with experiential, rather than professional, expertise. Possibilities in policy, politics and activism These four approaches – using psychological knowledge; using psychological skills; citizen psychologists; and working alongside – have emerged through the work that people across the PSC network have done over the past six years. The focus of PSC has also continued to evolve, with new groups working on trans rights, disability and inclusion, as well as racism and Covid. The examples listed are not definitive, but offered as a picture of our collective experience of navigating policy, political and activist spaces as psychologists, with the hope that psychologists from across the discipline might also find these useful. Whilst the work that we have done through PSC has shown us the possibilities for psychology in policy, politics and activism, it has also been humbling to meet many reminders of the limitations of our discipline as well. Psychology is not a replacement for material security, resources or housing; psychology cannot make people less poor. We can, however, help to make the case, shape the debate, and build the evidence for policy which makes our society a more equitable place. If you would like to get involved in a local geographical group, a specific ‘issue’ based working group or an operations based working group, please email psychologychange@gmail.com or visit our website www.psychchange.org. Follow us on Twitter @psychsocchange.

the psychologist july/august 2021 approaches to ﬂourishing

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How can we flourish? Guan Mao guanlan_mao@hotmail.co.uk ‘I recently completed a conversion course to Psychology, and currently work across two mental health services in London whilst serving as a research assistant for the Groups and Covid project at Sussex University. Before converting to Psychology I studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics and worked for the civil service for a couple of years before deciding to pursue a career as a clinical psychologist – a career track which provokes A to B thinking much more often than not! I am interested in the relationship between economics, politics and mental health, in particular public mental health and approaches to psychological therapy which extend outside of the traditional oneto-one counselling format. More generally, I am interested in how our immediate subjective experiences of being in the world are shaped by the social structures we operate in, and how we in turn can shape those structures. In the future I hope to ﬁnd ways to communicate ideas at the intersections of psychology and other ﬁelds to a wider audience, in a way that engages people and provokes them to consider alternative ways to relate to themselves and others.’ 68

Two years ago I went to see a therapist for the first time. I did so because I was spending approximately 20 per cent of my waking hours thinking about death, a preoccupation which, for all its diverting characteristics, had become a bit of a drag. After a few sessions, she stated with unexpected candour: ‘you’re not interested in death, but escaping life’. It was hard to argue with. I had come to internalise a mindset which made life suffocating. At its core was the concept of flourishing. The ‘positive psychology’ movement, epitomised in the work of its founding father Martin Seligman, centres the idea of flourishing, happiness and the good life. In the popular consciousness, flourishing is associated with growth, authentic self-expression, and realising your potential, as encapsulated by the common exhortation to ‘live your best life’. What could be wrong with that? Let’s revisit that mindset my therapist identified: I call it ‘Always Be Flourishing’ (ABF). Some characteristic cognitive patterns include: • Tunnel vision: My true life path is getting from A to B. • Wasted time: Time spent not getting to B is wasted time. • Means-ends reasoning: How do I get from A to B most efficiently?

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the psychologist july/august 2021 how can we ﬂourish?

• Social comparison: Are others reaching B faster? • All or nothing: Not reaching B makes me a failure. Whilst many of these thoughts should be recognisable to anyone familiar with CBT, what distinguishes ABF is its preoccupation with flourishing itself. ABF reframes the desire to live well into an obligation: to ‘languish’ is to fail yourself. ‘B’ could be any subjective marker of a ‘good life’; but it can also manifest as an absence. During my peak devotion to ABF, I had no idea what I wanted from life. I was therefore living in ‘wasted time’, yet simultaneously unable to choose between competing futures for fear of choosing the wrong one. I suspect I was not alone. A 2018 Mental Health Foundation survey of young people found that 60 per cent felt unable to cope to due to pressure to succeed, and 57 per cent due to stress about making mistakes. Could there be better ways to relate to flourishing? One approach comes from a surprising source: the philosopher Karl Marx. Marx was concerned with human flourishing and the ways our economic system suppresses it. He argued that because specialisation improved productivity, capitalism produced ever more specialised jobs. These repetitive and low-skilled jobs caused workers to feel machine-like and unable to express their human nature. However, Marx predicted that as technology improved, this requirement for specialisation would cease, such that people would be free, in his words, to fish in the morning, hunt in the afternoon, and criticise at night. Whatever your opinion of Marx, his analysis surfaces two important insights. Firstly, our relationship to flourishing is structured by our economic system: not just in whether it meets our basic needs, but in the way it demands specific kinds of rationality from us. If I spend 10 years as a teacher and switch to nursing, I factually have to ‘re-start’ in an entry-level job, a move with concrete implications for my pay and conditions. Therefore, insofar as ‘career ladders’ do exist, they reinforce the ‘wasted time’ and ‘means-ends reasoning’ characteristic of ABF. Similarly, because our access to some opportunities really does hinge on our success in competition with others, ‘social comparison’ can be a reasonable response. Secondly, in contrast to conventional discourse which conceptualises growth as an upwards trajectory on a handful of predetermined pathways, Marx’s alternative conception emphasises variety: growth outwards, not just upwards. Instead of a pre-given

‘true’ self which we must discover and pursue, the self which emerges from this conception is plastic, multifaceted and playful in its exploration of different activities. We are encouraged to enjoy each pursuit for itself, without an ‘ideal’ end in mind. This emphasis on variety also weakens the link between each person’s core identity and any given project they engage in. Research on the ‘social cure’ – from Jolanda Jetten, Catherine and Alex Haslam and others – shows that the more social identities an individual possesses, the greater their resilience against adverse life events. The more I see myself as other things than a fisher, the less my failed catch impacts my self-worth. Equally, the weight of a negative social comparison in one area is lessened when people have other areas to draw on – just as siblings manage rivalry through differentiation (see Mark Feinberg’s research). This conception has many implications for how we flourish. On a psychological level, we can reject a limiting ‘A to B’ view of life and self, instead valuing change, diversity and exploration. This is not simply an injunction to ‘add more variety’; instead, we should reorient judgements of ourselves and others away from ‘always more’ towards contentment (see the 2016 piece in the Annual Review of Psychology by Daniel Cordaro and colleagues). But to do so in isolation is to fight against the tide, because our economic system incentivises an opposing worldview. Flourishing therefore demands we restructure our economic life to endow people with greater real freedom (see Philippe Van Parijs’ 1997 book Real Freedom for All: What, if Anything, Can Justify Capitalism?). Policies such as a reduced working week, unconditional minimum income, and a National Education Service can provide people with the time, resources and security they need to live varied lives, explore their capacities and form new identities. These changes are tied up with a wider cultural project of shifting our idea of flourishing itself towards one which is solidaristic and inclusive. How can we live good lives? We cannot meaningfully do this until we critically appraise our understanding of a ‘good life’. No image of a good life is above contestation, because any image holds a latent set of beliefs, values and norms which regulate who can participate in that life. Must our vision of flourishing bear a constant threat of exclusion for those who do not win the select assortment of races enforced on us? Or can we create an alternative, one which is democratic, egalitarian and liberating?

Masters of our own learning ‘Why do some of our children choose to misbehave?’ asked the headteacher during one of our weekly brieﬁngs. As a Master’s student searching for a suitable dissertation, this was an intriguing question. The immediate response of a colleague was even more so: they lack resilience when challenged. When pressed to explain further, feelings of

frustration began to surface, towards learners who complained that the work was too hard, and who subsequently disengaged from the lesson. Low level disruption was believed to be one consequence of that disengagement. I decided to investigate the concept of resilience in an effort to develop practice in ways that could improve the learning environment and, I hoped,

provide insight into the challenges we faced. Resilience is a word I had often heard – and probably used – without being completely certain of its meaning. According to the dictionary, resilience is the ability to ‘withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions’. The definition seemed problematic in the context of what we’d been discussing; could challenges presented in the classroom be classed as difficult conditions, and who was I to judge? Experiences are subjective, after all. The adolescent brain, dealing with the onset of puberty, has a lot going on. Searching for ‘resilience’ in the library catalogue only deepened my anxiety. Resilience was described in terms of far greater adversity. How could the disappointment of one low mark in a spelling test – as one of my participants later described it, the ‘head Elizabeth Otterburn Elizabeth.otterburn@outlook.com ‘I graduated from Coventry University in 2020 with a Master’s in Psychology with Merit having undertaken the conversion course. I’m working as a teaching assistant and my aim is to become an Educational Psychologist. This is a short reflection on my dissertation and how practitioners have hopefully begun to flourish as a result of the research.’

on the desk response’ – equate to the challenges faced by the children who sat their exams in the immediate aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire? Or children diagnosed with cancer? It couldn’t. I began to feel as though I had had my wings clipped: this was not my idea of flourishing at the start of a potential new career as a psychologist. When individuals flourish, they grow and develop healthily because they have the right environment and conditions. When organisations flourish, they also develop rapidly and successfully. In psychology, flourishing refers to the experience of positive emotions and an optimal level of social and emotional functioning for most of the time. In my role as a special educational needs teaching assistant, I could relate to these different ways of describing what it means to flourish: learners and practitioners require their needs to be met in an environment which provides safety, security and appropriate challenges. Gradually, a new angle emerged: I wanted a word to describe learners who were successful in regulating emotional responses when obstacles blocked the path to understanding. If there were an alternative way of articulating the problem, then perhaps colleagues would feel more able to identify strategies to overcome it. If resilience was not the right word, then what was? What about flexibility, plasticity, durability, adaptability or buoyancy? Eureka. Academic buoyancy

‘Well, what gives you energy?’

Two years ago, on a rainy November morning, I was slumped in a chair in a therapist’s office, having been referred for mental health treatment following a very difficult break-up. As the professional on the other side of the desk tried to build up a picture of my situation, after some standard initial inquiries (he asked what I liked to do for fun – which I couldn’t answer), he instead posed that question: ‘What gives you energy?’ I remember the moment so well, even now. I was almost insulted by him asking. I felt like a deflated balloon. Nothing gave me energy. That’s why I was here, for him to tell me what to do! I was annoyed that he couldn’t magically sense that from spending 10 minutes with me; couldn’t he tell that I’d been suffering? I didn’t enjoy baking (too much washing up), I didn’t go out with friends (I was too focused on trying to salvage my relationship), I used to like writing (but felt too overwhelmed to risk writing a bad first draft of anything at the time). I didn’t do any of the recreational hobbies other people did – long bike rides, being part of an am-dram group – and nor did I want to. At the time I was so deeply exhausted, having carried around a lot of stress for such a long time. The realisation that I hadn’t done anything fun for months knocked me further into a melancholic state.

But I had to say something. ‘Reading?’ (I hadn’t read anything longer than a tweet for some time.) ‘Great!’ he replied. ‘Anything else?’ I stared at the door and, in the unfortunate case that someone wasn’t about to rush in declaring an emergency, I instead wished my chair might swallow me up. ‘Um. Playing the piano?’ I had endured piano lessons as a child, but it offered an answer I thought he might like. ‘OK,’ he said, maybe not convinced. ‘Anything else?’ I was annoyed at his persistence, desperate for my time to be up. But that question, that idea of dedicating your life – outside of the obligatory duties such as work and food shopping and tax returns – to activities that energise you. That is an idea that stayed with me as I spent the next several months recovering from the break-up (or breakdown). It’s something I continue to think about as I follow a new career path in psychology as a ﬁrst-year undergraduate student. Author Alain de Botton wrote in An Emotional Education: ‘A breakdown is not merely a random piece of madness or malfunction, it is a very real – albeit very inarticulate – bid for health and self-knowledge. It is an attempt by one part of our mind to force the other into a process of growth, self-understanding

the psychologist july/august 2021 how can we ﬂourish?

describes learners’ ‘ability to successfully deal with the academic setbacks and challenges that are typical of the ordinary course of school life’ (Martin & Marsh, 2008, p.54). I began to wonder about the potential relationship between academic buoyancy and learner behaviour. If, as Nash and colleagues (2016) posit, all behaviour is communication, and classroom disruption is a defensive mechanism against punitive measures, then perhaps some learners needed support to improve their academic buoyancy, leading to greater flourishing? I revealed a potential gap in the understanding of academic buoyancy. It has been quantitatively observed in relation to self-efficacy and academic engagement; I felt that a qualitative exploration of academic buoyancy was an opportunity to explore language use within the classroom, and broaden vocabulary around learner engagement. I wanted the voices of participants to be heard beyond a dissertation: for this research to be meaningful to colleagues who gave their time. In short, I hoped staff and learners would flourish as a result of my efforts. I selected interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA), as it assumes individuals are selfinterpretive and self-reflective. Setting out with a Dictaphone and boundless enthusiasm, I discovered there is a knack to a good interview. I learned the importance of putting

participants at their ease, to Key sources structure my schedule to enable answers that reveal nuances and subtleties, and that listening Martin, A.J. & Marsh, H.W. (2008). without interrupting is harder than Academic Buoyancy: Towards an understanding of students’ everyday it looks! Everyone had their own academic resilience. Journal of School definition for academic buoyancy. Psychology, 46, 53-83. ‘The whole package’; ‘well balanced’; Nash, P., Schlosser A. & Scarr T. (2016) ‘does not let difficulty or newness Teachers’ Perceptions of disruptive of a topic interfere with the desire behaviour in schools. Emotional & to learn’. Indeed, academically Behavioural Difficulties, 21(2), 167-180. buoyant children were considered masters of their own learning. The crunch came when I asked: do children who cause low level disruption always lack academic buoyancy? No. Classroom disruption has many factors, of which level of academic buoyancy may or may not be one. Participants identified a far broader context: the importance of engaging with parents, carers and families, of building relationships and the impact of wider social issues. Ultimately, I’m not exactly sure how my dissertation concluded. The relationship between buoyancy and behaviour is complex and goes beyond mere cause and effect. But one thing is certain: a conversation has begun. People have been encouraged to speak, and to provide new insight into academic buoyancy. In this respect, we are flourishing.

and self-development which it has hitherto refused to undertake.’ So, a shift had begun. But how could I discover those things that would help me thrive, when all I really wanted to do was sleep for three weeks? For a broken individual, for a broken society, healing has to come before flourishing. So, in exploring how we might flourish during these incredibly testing times, first we must heal: fill in the cracks, fix what is broken. In order to thrive, we must first be able to survive, to be able to cope with life’s difficulties and obstacles. In the past year, the global pandemic has presented more unfamiliar difficulties than we were used to. There has been individual and collective loss, on such a huge scale; widespread fear of an invisible virus and the strangers who may carry it; a longing for closeness after such a long stretch of time where touch has been scarce. And yet the very definition of flourishing implies that to really thrive, growth needs to happen in a ‘congenial environment’, in other words, an enjoyable, gratifying environment that many of us don’t have access to right now. Numerous lockdowns have meant that for many of us, the only environments we have had any control over have been our inner ones, our minds. Making this environment a pleasurable place to be

has to start from a place of self-compassion – that’s psychotherapy 101. The relentless lug of a global pandemic has made that increasingly evident. Compassion is where true flourishing must begin, from a place of self-acceptance, of gentleness; a healthy foundation from which things can grow. And how can we flourish from there? Well, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. I assume the role of the therapist before me, and implore you to ask yourself, ‘What gives me energy?’ It took me many months to figure this out, and I couldn’t begin cultivating those desires until the conditions were right: until I was well-rested, until I’d learned how to talk to myself kindly, until I thought of compassion not as a hippie buzzword but as a vital component of wellbeing. If self-improvement feels like too much of a stretch right now, self-sustaining is good enough. In these conditions, overnight success stories are out of the window – perhaps flourishing is more gradual than we might want it to be; maybe it’s as simple as rediscovering what you enjoy about life and slowly, steadily, dedicating more time to it.

Tara Lepore Tara.a.lepore@gmail.com ‘I’m 24 (so am considered a mature student) and worked as a journalist from the age of 18 up until last September. I’ve now decided to take a different career path in psychology, with a longterm goal of training as a psychotherapist.’

‘The pandemic has highlighted the huge social divide that exists in the UK’ Vivian Hill talks attainment gaps, education and resilience

Vivian Hill is a Consultant Educational Psychologist and Director of Educational Psychology training at University College London’s Institute of Education. She is also a member of the British Psychological Society’s Poverty to Flourishing campaign’s expert reference group. Hill spoke to Ella Rhodes about her vision for the return to school post-Covid-19, and the many opportunities this brings for how we see the role of schools and education.

here is substantial evidence that tells us that when children from the poorest and most disadvantaged families start their education, many of their skills and early learning attainments are less well developed than those of their more advantaged peers. Despite the best efforts of the education system the evidence from the Education Policy Institute (EPI) suggests that by the age of 16 that attainment gap increases to reﬂect a difference of 18 months. For the past decade there has been a concerted effort to close the attainment gap, yet even before the pandemic struck worrying evidence from EPI was highlighting that this process had stalled. In addition to concerns about the attainment gap there has been increasing alarm about children and young people’s mental health and well-being in the pre-pandemic world. This is only predicted to escalate in the post Covid-19 context. The pandemic has highlighted the huge social divide that exists in the UK. It has had a strikingly different impact on our poorest communities, those from BAME backgrounds, those delivering frontline services, older people and those living in overcrowded accommodation, all of whom were found to be at greater risk of both morbidity and mortality. For children and young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds the impact of digital poverty was noted to be seriously impacting on their access to education during lockdown. The Institute of Fiscal Studies report in May 2020 suggested that each day during lockdown children from the most

the psychologist july/august 2021 complexity of ﬂourishing Tina Vedrine www.thevedrines.com

disadvantaged backgrounds accessed 75 minutes less learning than their advantaged peers. Since then there have been numerous studies investigating the impact of the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns on children’s learning. Some are suggesting that, on average, children are now seven months further behind than they should be, whilst other estimates suggest they are 22 months delayed. That doesn’t just include delay in conceptual learning but also includes language development, social skills, the ability to build and sustain relationships, manage conﬂict and regulate emotions. That’s the nature of the gap – it’s not just a gap of measurable learning but a gap of a wide range of social and emotional skills too. The national response to the educational impact of lockdown has been to focus on developing a ‘recovery’ and ‘catch up’ curriculum, but the challenge is to ensure that this is ﬁt for purpose and does not neglect or exacerbate the psychological and emotional needs of children and young people. This raises important questions about what the focus of this curriculum should be, and how it should be delivered, providing an important and unique opportunity to consider what a good 21st century education should encompass. We have an important opportunity to consider how to embrace a more holistic conceptualisation of education that integrates both good mental health and well-being alongside a pedagogy that supports meta-learning.

What is education and what are children’s rights? The context we’re in right now should encourage us to think carefully about what education is and what children’s rights and entitlements are, to consider what young people have missed and how best to address that. Members of the BPS Division of Educational and Child Psychology and Division of Clinical Psychology and a group of young people from States of Mind recently met with Robert Halfon (MP) and Chair of the Education Committee to discuss these issues and attempt to inform next steps. It was felt that we need to see recognition that we’re coming out of a pandemic and need to manage not only the academic consequences but the psycho-social ones too. This is a unique context that provides important opportunities for change: what won’t help is trying to cram in ‘lost learning’, and there have rightly been robust rejections of any suggestion to do so. The new tsar for closing the attainment gap, Sir Kevan Collins, is someone whose approach aims to promote social justice and he’s been talking about extending school hours, perhaps offering learning opportunities over some of the summer holiday. He comes from the Education Endowment Foundation and advised the Labour Party during the ‘Every Child Matters’ era, which is where the notion of extended schools originated, and it involves thinking about them as a resource for the community. We need to recognise

that we have some children who have been conﬁned in overcrowded accommodation, without access to safe outside play or socialisation opportunities, whilst others may have been exposed to domestic abuse and the extended school offers a safe place to go to play, to build friendships, to learn social skills, and through these activities provide opportunities for learning. I don’t think that the emphasis is going to be focused exclusively on formalised academic skills… it’s going to be much more about helping children and young people to catch up on a wide range of developmental tasks.

Opportunities in the return to school We have to think about the return to school as a great opportunity to embrace a much more holistic view of education and to look in great detail at the interconnection between emotional, psychological and academic development and see that as a completely integrated process. I’d like to see a much more holistic view of education and what learning involves, making sure that we provide a school environment where developing the mental health and well-being of all pupils is at the heart of the curriculum. The BPS put out two papers on returning to school – one on the compassionate return to school, which is about considering children’s experiences during the pandemic including bereavement and extreme deprivation, the other considering applying psychological perspectives to support the wider community through this process. In catching up with the curriculum you’ve got to deal with the mental state of children and young people, their families and communities as a starting point. I would also suggest that many of the initiatives that have started during the pandemic really need to be carried through to their completion. For example, we’ve seen a recognition of the impact of digital poverty and it’s brilliant that we’re now giving children access to the internet and laptops in the poorest families. That will support closing the attainment gap – those children will start exploring on the internet and have access to knowledge and information that they’ve been largely denied up until now. I would really encourage things like that to continue – we need to get laptops into every family home. I would also like to see education and school contexts being seen as somewhere where you develop a much wider range of skills, thinking about children’s psychosocial development as well as their intellectual growth, and the understanding that the two are interconnected, you can’t do one effectively without the other. There’s lots of evidence that tells us about the importance of a sense of school belonging to help

reduce both school exclusion and subsequent social exclusion. If we make the return to school harsh and academically-focused and intolerant of behaviour problems we are going to lose some children. Psychology and psychologists have a huge amount to contribute to supporting this process – for example we can help schools identify the most appropriate social developmental activities for different age groups who will have missed out on some really quite fundamental, language, conceptual, learning and social and emotional growth activities. Flourishing We need to consider how flourishing in its broadest sense applies to everybody – but some children need much more support to flourish than others. Some have had difficult experiences during lockdown, but that is not true for everyone. For some children it has been beneficial. I was talking to a parent the other day whose child has autism, and he’s been going into school throughout the lockdowns and has benefited so much from being in a small bubble of six to eight children, in terms of his learning and social and emotional development. I think it is crucial to challenge the deficit model that highlights how every child has been damaged or delayed by lockdown experiences, we will see lots of different effects, but I want to introduce a note of optimism and suggest that children are really resilient. Learning isn’t static, it is dynamic and different aspects of learning will have taken place during lockdown, perhaps different skills and abilities will become evident in our children. If we think about the last significant disruption to children’s education and daily life in the UK it would be the World War Two era. At that time our society changed in remarkable ways: it was the context in which the National Health Service and Welfare State evolved. What is clear now is that we must look at ways of reducing inequalities. From my point of view that’s exactly what Covid-19 has done – it has highlighted the huge social inequalities in our society and the need to redress those imbalances. It has raised challenges about the differential opportunities afforded to people from different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. It has brought into sharp focus the toxic nature of poverty. Perhaps we need to review the nature of the tasks of education for all children, reflecting on the experiences required at different ages and stages of development, what this offer should look like to ensure our education system is more inclusive and preparing all of our children for adulthood and their place in society. What we’re really uncovering is that, for human beings to flourish and to thrive, they need a sense of belonging, they need to have their basic needs met. I want to see the return to school focusing on building supportive networks that meet the needs of the whole child, including their social, emotional and learning needs. It is not just about closing the achievement gap.

the psychologist july/august 2021 complexity of ﬂourishing

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Jobs in Psychology Whether you are a recent graduate, or a Psychologist looking for a change in career, you can view current vacancies for a range of Psychology roles here, or view the latest roles on the new appointments site www.jobsinpsychology.co.uk The job site is still the number one online resource for psychology jobs. Fully accessible on mobile and desktop computers, the site features increased search functionality, superb ease of use and navigation. For recruiters, there are many more targeting options for you to promote your vacancies to potential candidates. All adverts placed in The Psychologist will have their adverts included on the job site.

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NIGEL BLAGG ASSOCIATES Psychologists for Adults, Children & Families Established in 1990, we are a busy psychology practice specialising in assessments of adults & children in child protection, PLO or family court proceedings in England & Wales.

We urgently require experienced HCPC registered Clinical, Educational & Forensic Psychologists to join our expert witness team. • Understanding of child abuse, neglect, parenting, mental health & attachment issues is essential. • Training in ASD assessments is desirable. • Prior experience in family court work would be helpful but support & supervision can be provided. Please call Dr Blagg on 07974127001 or Rebecca Horsey on 07572053282 or email your CV and contact details to rebecca@nigelblaggassociates.co.uk

w w w . j o b s i n p s y c h o l o g y. c o . u k If you are looking for a change in career or just getting started, the BPS job site has the latest vacancies in all areas of psychology throughout the UK and overseas. Register on the site today to be notified of new jobs in your area. please contact: Caroline Harland, 01223 378 027 | caroline.harland@cpl.co.uk Slimming World, Mental Health and Wellbeing Specialist Location: Derbyshire Salary: up to £45K plus bonuses, dependent on experience. Package includes a company car and private medical insurance Reporting to our Director of Training and Development, you’ll work collaboratively with the Director team to deliver a dedicated support service. You’ll also be responsible for delivering engaging and tailored learning opportunities across our districts in the UK and Ireland as well as support service to provide mental health advice Closing date: 14th July 2021

Maggies, Clinical Psychologist Location: Oxford Salary: £44,511 - £53,414 DOE Maggie’s are looking for an enthusiastic and highly motivated Clinical Psychologist to join our team at our Oxford centre.The post-holder, as a member of a multi-disciplinary team, will be responsible for the provision of a high-quality and specialist programme of psychological and emotional support. Closing date: 15th July 2021

Home Group Ltd Regional Clinical Psychologist Location: Leeds Salary: £60,000 pa As Regional Clinician in our Transforming Care team, you’ll provide a specialist psychology service to our customers across the North region equipping our frontline operational teams to deliver support that enables our customers to live a fulfilling life in their own home within the local community Closing date: 14th July 2021 Job Ref: 21658 a

University of Edinburgh, MSc in Applied Psychology for Children and Young People Location: Edinburgh Salary: Agenda for Change Band 6 (entry at first point of scale, £33,072) This one-year MSc is provided in an innovative partnership between NHS Education Scotland, the University of Edinburgh and NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. It is a taught masters programme that trains psychology graduates to become competent practitioners in psychological assessment and interventions with children, young people and families Closing date: 14th July 2021

The Open University, Psychology and Counselling Associate Lecturers (UG and PG) Location: United Kingdom The undergraduate programme is recruiting across the Psychology and Counselling curriculum at levels 1-3. Associate Lecturers will support students through their studies on particular modules, providing comprehensive correspondence tuition on assessments and teaching in online and face-to-face tutorials and day schools. Closing date: 22nd July 2021

The Cleveland Clinic, Consultant Neuropsychologist Location: London Salary: Circa £80,000 The module takes a critical and creative approach to methodology in psychology culminating in the completion of the independent empirical project. The module also teaches across the BPS core areas of biological, cognitive, developmental, social psychology, and individual differences, at an advanced level. Closing date: 11th July 2021

Educational Psychologist roles in London EdPsychs provide educational psychology services to schools across London and beyond. We have been successfully supporting schools since 2008, and we aim to offer a quality first model of service delivery to embed educational psychology across the whole school community. The core company values of integrity, freedom and contribution to society run through all aspects of our work, and our company aim is to help create a fairer, more ethical and more inclusive society. Our educational psychology team is experienced and highly skilled (and many are former course directors, doctoral tutors, principal psychologists and senior EPs). We offer a very high level of EP training and support; regular joint development days; regular and ongoing supervision using a range of models and a variety of EP work across mainstream and specialist schools. We also have a team of Assistant Psychologists (APs) who successfully support the work of our EPs and schools. Our EPs are exceptional and we are a rapidly expanding company. We have the following positions available:

0.4 EP contract 0.6 EP contract 0.8 EP contract 1.0 EP contract These entry level contracts start at £55,000 a year with 11 weeks holiday (all to be taken during school holidays) or pro-rata thereof Regular training, support and supervision Future opportunities to work on the EdPsychs Research, Leadership and Development Team (RLDT), and these roles start at £62,000 and progress to £70,000 per year (or pro-rate thereof) with a £2000 a year annual additional training budget

To be eligible to apply, you must be a HCPC registered Practitioner Psychologist with at least three years’ experience working as an educational psychologist in the UK. To apply, simply send a copy of your CV to Tereza Matysova, Operational Director of EdPsychs at enquiries@edpsychs.com with your answers to the following questions: How would you support an anxious, demotivated Year 7 student who is finding it hard to write? What is the most impactful EP training you have ever delivered and why? When have you made the biggest difference in a school? What do you hope to achieve as an EP? How would you contribute to EdPsychs?

We also have a range of consultancy opportunities available across London at our usual rates of £475 a day. As we provide so much initial training, supervision and support there is a minimum 60 days per year commitment for consultancy roles.

You can learn more about some of what we do at www.edpsychs.com EdPsychs are an equal opportunities employer. If you require any reasonable adjustments at interview, please let us know in advance. The closing date for applications is Monday 9th August 2021. © EdPsychs Ltd Company Registration No: 6862108 VAT Registration Number: 251 3899 87 10 Harley Street, London, W1G 9PF Tel: 0207 467 1517 www.EdPsychs.com Email: enquiries@edpsychs.com ●

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Practitioner Psychologists O Role: Practitioner Psychologists O Hours: 37.5 hours per week (Negotiable) O Location: Various. Flexibility to combine direct and remote working O Salary: Up to £50,000 pa (Pro rata, depending on experience) plus car allowance, £3,600pa

Keys Group is a leading provider of therapeutic care and education to children and young people who have complex emotional and behavioural needs. We are currently recruiting additional Practitioner Psychologists to join our clinical team in supporting the delivery of our services across England and Wales. This is an exciting opportunity to join a continually developing organisation as part of a friendly, professional and supportive team. You would be working with other Practitioner Psychologists and professional colleagues providing direct clinical work, assessment, supervision and training and also contributing to the ongoing development of services both locally and nationally.

As well as a competitive salary and in house professional support and supervision, we offer excellent opportunities for CPD and want to invest in your career development. Ideally, you will have some post qualiﬁcation experience working with children and families. Experience of working with children who are looked after would also be very useful. However, we would also welcome applications from newly qualiﬁed or about to qualify psychologists who are committed to working with children and young people and who have the skills to complement our team. We are keen to hear from HCPC Registered Psychologists with either a Clinical, Counselling or Education background who are able to take on regional roles in the East of England, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire or Wales.

To discuss these roles further and to find out more about our services, please call Jacqueline Fairhurst on 07885 387987 or send your CV to jacqueline.fairhurst@keys-group.co.uk

John Sturrocck/reportdigital.co.uk

The hope and tragedy of poverty Pithead on the peripheries of Glasgow. With no money, ouglas Stuart’s 2020 Booker Prize winning novel little transport, and few shops, there is the additional Shuggie Bain is a love story as much as it is a story burden of required extra expenses to travel and about hope. Stuart tells the fairly tragic story of to buy even the most basic of groceries. Once a childhood in absolute poverty in and around upon a time many real communities like this had 1980s Glasgow. It is a very grim portrayal of the Shuggie Bain high rises, the misery, the alcoholism. Poverty Douglas Stuart a purpose such as coal mining and were largely forgotten when that stopped under the grim makes a home in many towns and cities where Picador; policies which became known as Thatcherism. opportunity or effective supports are lacking. HB £14.99 People who had the means were able to exit It could be any UK city, but it just so happened for jobs elsewhere, and those who stayed had that this story of a growing wee boy was set in limited employment opportunities. Social housing was my home city. more likely than not to be appalling and built in isolated With poverty often comes isolation. For most of the areas with limited transport and a scarcity of standard story the central character Shuggie lives in ﬁctitious

the psychologist july/august 2021 books services such as entertainment or a GP practice. It becomes the tyranny of distance. Even on the peripheries of cities the lack of opportunity quite often leads to poverty for children such as Shuggie. For many years in Glasgow, the Council, in their wisdom, built massive sprawling housing estates at the four points of the compass peripheries of the city boundary. Places like Castlemilk in the South, Easterhouse in the East, Drumchapel in the West, and Sighthill in the North developed a dubious reputation for unemployment and crime. I grew up in the 1980s on the boundary of Castlemilk and delivered papers there on many a cold morning. I could see the boarded-up flats and the wasteland, but I also saw factories and people heading to work in an industrial estate. It looked like a tough environment for many, and I was lucky to be just on the other side of the trainline. Poverty in different forms, even if not absolute, might seem quite contained in certain areas but it permeates more widely. In 2017 the then Scottish men’s national football team manager, Gordon Strachan, came out with an interesting excuse for not qualifying for another major football tournament. Strachan said, ‘genetically we are behind’. In football circles his comment was much derided, but he was specifically talking about the lack of height of Scottish players compared to other nations. In essence he was referring to poverty and the lack of nutrition which affects growth through childhood and adolescence. Poverty is a blight on our society and a stain on our credentials as a rich nation, with 22 per cent of the UK population experiencing it in some form or other. The government needs to really target the eradication of poverty especially through equity in policies. A by-product could even be the regular qualification of Scottish football teams for major tournaments, which would make many people stand tall, not just a few. Shuggie deals with poverty the best he can. He always retains hope that aspects of his life will improve. Despite so many knocks and so much adversity he can see a positive future, although for many surrounding Shuggie, hope has been long vanquished. They are unable to retain the hope that, as Viktor Frankl argued, can be a psychological shield in desperate circumstances. Poverty is a beast and Stuart makes you feel it creep up behind you and put a cold wet hand on your shoulder. For those who have experienced abject poverty that hand is never far away. Stuart’s incredibly vivid account of poverty, drawn from his own experiences throughout his early life teaches us that there can be hope and incredible resilience despite a very inequitable society. It also gives us insight into the thoroughly damaging and hellish effects that poverty continues to have for many in the UK and beyond. Sadly, without political will, it could be with future generations for centuries. Reviewed by Christopher Boyle PhD FBPsS, University of Exeter

How poverty shapes confidence An extract from How Confidence Works: The new science of self-belief, why some people learn and others don’t by Ian Robertson (Bantam Press). Groups of people, even where millions of people are involved, can have a sense of collective confidence. Leaders play a major role in building this. So, can collective confidence be learned? A 2014 study from an impoverished, food-insecure region of Ethiopia suggests that it can. Poverty in an area shapes the can do and can happen expectations of whole communities. When everyone around you is struggling, it is understandable that expectations become tailored to what seems to be an unchangeable reality. The researchers at the Centre for Economic Policy Research asked local development agents to find stories of people who had improved their wellbeing despite adversity. They chose ten people and made short documentaries about their lives. They told the stories of their achievements, which ranged from starting a small business to diversifying their sources of income. Their spouses and mentors gave testimony to their personal qualities such as perseverance, determination and reliability. The fact that they succeeded through their efforts, albeit with some outside help, was emphasized. In other words, the films tried to build confidence – both its can do

and can happen elements. A onehour screening of these ten short documentaries was then shown to groups of people in their villages. Compared to placebo control groups who watched entertaining movies, the confidence-building film groups showed significant changes in their behaviour six months later. First, their aspirations – their can happen expectations – were raised, and they began to save more and become financially more stable. They sent more children to school, and the people in these communities showed a boosted sense of control over their lives – something that we have seen already is crucial for confidence. Confidence can be learned – and that includes the collective confidence of large groups of people, including whole nations. For a Q&A and different extract, see https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/ over-confidence-works-point

Push beyond Lead beyond the edge Frederique Murphy Practical Inspiration Publishing; £19.99

Enthusiasm bursts out of this book, as Murphy shares her framework for increasing self-conﬁdence, overcoming self-doubt and limitations, and pushing beyond the comfort zone. She shows how her framework is underpinned by neuroscience and illustrates with case studies as well as her own personal story. The framework itself feels thorough but quite complex – it may be hard for individuals to apply but could work well within coaching. If Frederique talks as she writes, I suspect she’s a great motivational speaker. Reviewed by Emily Hutchinson, Associate Editor (books), Director of Apply Psychology

Reﬂecting on happiness An Economist’s Lessons on Happiness Richard A. Easterlin Springer; £9.99

Have you ever wondered what makes people happy? Earning more money? Being young or old? Male or female? Living in a socialist or capitalist society? The answer to these questions is… It’s complicated! An Economist’s Lessons on Happiness is a captivating and enlightening journey through many different facets of happiness. It highlights the strengths and pitfalls of associated research, challenging some commonly held beliefs around happiness originating in poor quality published research. The book explores happiness over time, happiness in different countries, and the impact governments can have. Easterlin explains why countries that transition from socialist to capitalist do not have the expected increase in happiness levels. This is largely due to the shift from cradle to grave issues being catered for by government policy in a socialist economy to being frequently left in

the hands of the free market under capitalism. Fear surrounding job availability and security is also a factor for both the unemployed and employed. The concepts are well explained and easy to apply. There is clear practical guidance for how to

increase your own happiness and to assess whether your actions match your view of what the ‘good life’ is. The moral of the story is – don’t chase the money, it often takes the focus away from being able to give time to things that increase your happiness according to your values. Reading this book gave me the opportunity to reﬂect on my own priorities. As I am currently looking for my next job opportunity, I received this welcome message warmly, as though coming from an older wiser uncle. This book provides a satisfying, holistic perspective on the many factors contributing to happiness in an educational and personable read. This is a great opportunity to assess whether we are living a life that is true to ourselves, and to identify areas for change and improvement. Reviewed by Tara Dean, a Business Psychologist

Our colliding worlds

through the Covid-19 pandemic. Many of us experienced Steve Bonham wrote this fabulous book during the early the strange intertwining of home and work, which we stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, when so many people’s fight to keep separate and yet are so work lives and personal lives collided. inextricably linked. This book looked at How do we flourish in times of enormous each side of life with understanding and uncertainty? This book advocates accepting How to Survive acceptance, advocating a strong and the uncertainty, making sense of it, and and Thrive in an confident way forward to feel connected to supporting the positive outcomes. Impossible World your authentic self – to be the ‘captain of Bonham writes in an engaging, thought Steve Bonham provoking and fun yet guiding way, adding Artisan Creative Ltd; £12.99 your own ship’. Bonham suggests allowing yourself to be ‘wild’, but in a strong, lots of great psychological theory and controlled, rehearsed and safe way by knowhow. It really sang to me! I felt as if I being ‘experimental’. went on a journey with Bonham as he shared information Readers will pay attention to different aspects of the about his career, life and travels with lots of interesting, book and will no doubt get what they need. I will hold on insightful tales. to some excellent phrases such as ‘self-consciousness is Every one of us is on our own personal journey a self-imposed limitation whilst self-awareness is a door to liberation’. This book is more than just a great read – it has Extras online workbook style pages to complete. It guides you, but Find exclusive book extracts without the pressure of a normal self-help book. I will and more book reviews at www. keep it on my shelf and come back to it as a lasting thepsychologist.org.uk reminder of the Covid situation, and how allowing your Including ‘Broken connections’: an two worlds to collide might just be exactly what you need extract from the new book by Emmy to truly flourish. van Deurzen, Rising From Existential Crisis: Life Beyond Calamity. Reviewed by Laura Burchill, Business Psychologist thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/brokenand Coach connections

the psychologist july/august 2021 books

Supporting poverty-stricken populations Through case studies embedded in cross-cultural From the outset of my career, inspired by how psychology research, these concepts and issues are at the influences policies and perspectives, I aimed to forefront of Professor Ascher’s book, The Psychology of positively impact those who have suffered adversity. I Poverty Alleviation. Ascher tackles challenges of social identify as British-Sri Lankan (Tamil) as my parents and categorisation, intersectionality and affirmative action grandparents migrated from Sri Lanka to London in the in countries including but not limited to Argentina, the early stages of the civil war in the 1980s. Dominican Republic, India, Mexico and I took the opportunity to teach Sri Lanka. Negative stereotypes of the and mentor underprivileged children ‘poor’ being incompetent and the ‘rich’ and young people in Sri Lanka during The Psychology of Poverty being successful are debunked and my gap year before university, which Alleviation: Challenges in recommendations are put forward to strengthened my aspirations and Developing Countries include all groups and eradicate ‘ingroups’ portrayed the significance of, for example, William Ascher and ‘outgroups’. I have seen first-hand how Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological systems Cambridge University it is possible for those living in adverse theory. It was also the year the war Press conditions to participate in policymaking. ended, so I could see how the tumultuous Therefore, this book broadened my environment caused by a war in the midst understanding and I believe that aspiring, trainee and of poverty had affected the growth and development of specialist psychologists will benefit from it in their work my students, predisposing them to co-morbidities such with poverty-stricken populations. as depression, anxiety and other attentional, behavioural, eating, self-image and neurodevelopmental disorders Reviewed by Chrissie Fitch BSc (Hons) MSc MBPsS, (which, of course, are also experienced by individuals in Self-Employed, London; Distance Learning Assessor, non-developing countries). This enabled me to implement Researcher and Learning Support Assistant (Child and integrative child-led approaches in my work, and I Educational Psychology); Associate Editor (Culture); became aware of the need to be trauma-informed in E: chrissie_hmic@consultant.com; T: @fitchy_chris supporting children and young people, and their families.

More online… ‘We need connection’ David Bradford and Carole Robin answer Emily Hutchinson’s questions about their new book Connect: Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends and Colleagues.

Tools for mental health A Toolkit for Modern Life: 53 Ways to Look After Your Mind by Emma Hepburn, reviewed by Philip Miti.

From motion to emotion: The evolving brain Evolutionary Neuropsychology: An Introduction to the Structures & Functions of the Human Brain by Frederick L. Coolidge, reviewed by Dr Nicolò Zarotti.

The power of ACT ACT in Sport by James Hegarty and Christoph Huelsmann, reviewed by Dr Josephine Perry.

Getty Images

From poverty to poetry

For our annual poetry competition we asked for entries related to the BPS policy theme, ‘From poverty to ﬂourishing’. We present the winning poem followed by three runners up… plus a poem commissioned by the BPS from member and spoken word artist Sanah Ahsan.

Allowed to dream My mind a seed inside dark earth I didn’t know was allowed to dream, told none my dreams, so did not grow. No self-belief. Wrong was my song. When chanced to tell, my dreams came true because I heard the truth in me. I listened slow, not fast, to hear of all the ways I was to grow. Hope held my hand, drew me to rise. Each day I dreamt I could grow more. I found I’d cope through drought and ﬂood, if I just thought how much I’d gained. And now I want to sprout and shout, tell all ﬂowers that we are free. I dreamt of growth, and found in light the world awaits, and dreams with me. 84

Stuart Larner

‘I am a retired chartered psychologist. I worked for over thirty years in the NHS as a clinical psychologist. I have written scientiﬁc papers, articles, stories, poems, novels and plays. “Allowed to dream” was written after receiving inspiration from several sources. My ideas came from: the update on the society’s “From poverty to ﬂourishing” campaign in the October 2020 issue of Psychologist; the original article by Albert Bandura in Psychological Review, 1977; the Martin Luther King Speech “I have a dream”, 1963; and Maya Angelou “Still I Rise”, 1978. My other writing can be found at https://stuartlarner. blogspot.com/p/stuff-you-can-accessnow.html.’

the psychologist july/august 2021 poetry

Hard work Life is hard. Growing up as a child No-one tells us that. We work it out for ourselves.

We ﬁght hard. From our conception, We ﬁght penniless to grow Aided by nature, science and nurture.

Understanding is hard. Do this, do that. Say this, don’t say that. People and culture forming our thinking.

Trusting is hard. Friends come and go. Our hearts break. Colleagues betray us.

But, stop! Look at you here, And all you have achieved. You survived it all. Life can be easier now. Work on getting to know you. Get to understand your values, Your likes and dislikes, Recognise your imperfections. Work on your goals and your vision Give your life meaning, Recognise you are enough. You are worth more than you think.

‘My work in psychology is just beginning. A former Master of the Gaelic language, I am currently studying a postgraduate degree in Psychology at the OU. Outside of my studies, I am training to be a professional practitioner of CBT and NLP and my aim is to be one or two steps in front of those I am guiding from a position of learned experience. I have written a lot of personal poetry which I aim to have published by September 2021. Poetry is a gift that has helped me handle life’s changes.’

Work on being the best you. You’ll lose people you know, You’ll make new friends, Opportunities will open up for you. Work your mind and body. Listen to your head, your heart and gut. Act according to your values. Work hard at this and you will ﬂourish. Jamie Wallace

Coronavirus came The whole earth seemed of one language, and of one speechWhen Coronavirus came. A global pandemic, a domino rally of Lockdown, Daily deaths. Stay home. Protect the NHS. Save lives. Self-isolate? Sure. I’ve got sick pay, my rights. Do you? Confronted by fear, of the virus, of each other, We obeyed. Restrictions, adaptation, To the new normal. We worked from home, Or not at all. Furloughed and ﬁred. ‘We’re in this together!’ Every household affected similarly, Yet so differently. ‘We can’t live on that!’ we cried, Faced with Universal Credits and basic rates of pay. We know!’, said those who’d already tried. And died.

Don’t hug, don’t kiss, don’t touch, Stand two meters apart. Don’t date, don’t party, don’t chit chat, No time for that. Keep working, no complaining, Adapt, adapt, adapt. How are you doing? We don’t dare ask. Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Teams, Meeting, meeting, meeting. The Wi-Fi dropped out; Straight to the next, The screen has frozen. Wine, whine, winding everybody up. Children home-schooling and videobombing, Overloading the Wi-Fi with Fortnite, If they have a computer. ‘You’re on mute!’ We’re all on mute. Muting our exhaustion, our fear, our rage. Why are you not ﬂourishing? We needed hope, So painted rainbows to give thanks. Clapping on the doorstep, For posties, for police, for the NHS. The colourful frown, concealing the shame.

Not all key workers treated the same. As the line graph rose, clapping turned to anger. ‘PPE, PPE, PPE. Don’t let them die doing their jobs’. But they did. And spring sprung in glorious sunshine. Freed from the conﬁnes of four walls, If we weren’t shielding. Sitting in the park, If it wasn’t locked. Enjoying the countryside, If we could get there. Cycling the quiet roads, If we had a bike. With no cars, no aeroplane trails, The trees breathed a momentary relief. Why are you not ﬂourishing? Black Lives Matter, yet the R-rate gets more air time. Don’t march for George Floyd, they said, Stay home, protect your NHS. We know we haven’t examined white privilege, Or the climate crisis, or Brexit. But shh, we’re at war with Covid, Lost lives dehumanised, Wavy lines on a graph. None of this is our fault. We’re following the science. Ignoring the science, Kneading the science. Blaming the science, Blinded by science. Science. Science. We’ll beat this together, If only you’d follow the rules! Oh sure, he visited Barnard Castle, But he was protecting his family. Look at you on the beaches, risking lives. Form a bubble. Support bubbles, care bubbles, class bubbles, I’m forever blowing bubbles. Bubbles like Venn diagrams, They’re touching, But don’t touch. Contacts contacted by Track and Trace, If it’s working today.

Lockdown ends. Stay alert. Control the virus. Save lives. Turf the homeless out of the hotels, We need them back. Holidays, haircuts, nail bars, One meter apart, and wear a face covering. Or don’t, it’s your responsibility. As is buying your children lunch. What child poverty? We’ve given money, money, money, For after school activities. tutoring. ‘Please sir, we want some more’.

Boris says ‘More?! Get better at budgeting, Cook them something nourishing’. His MPs say ‘No’, But ‘Yes’ to a pay rise. We want more, Money, money, money! So Rashford keeps on asking, ‘Til Boris makes a call… ‘We say yes to lunch.’ What a guy, I wonder why?! Why are you not flourishing? Lockdown two. Stay home, stay safe. If you can. Or don’t. Remember we’re still at war. The virus, our collective enemy. The new distraction, the pharma-race. Who will cross the line first? He’s ordered the vaccines, He’s ordered the Primary Care teams. Any failure down to those NHS scoundrels, Too lazy to work 12 hour shifts 7 days a week. No pay rises. No negotiation. Why are you floundering, not flourishing? Tiering up as we ready for the big festivities. Calling for our secular release, On December the twenty-fifth. Yet Passover, Ramadan, Diwali, All compromised in lockdown. ‘All souls matter, But not as much as mine!’ And money. We’ll let you out for shopping, For the long-term forecast looks gloomy. Our nation is in debt. Let’s stop the international aid, Charity begins at home. An unemployment storm on the horizon, A mental health epidemic. Prescribe the pills, deliver more therapy, Let’s fight this thing with science. Ignoring the social ills that infect humanity, Fighting. Flighting. Flailing. Why are you not flourishing? Many in poverty, deeper in poverty. Many who flourished now know poverty. Many with poverty knocking at the door. Financial poverty, poverty of touch, Poverty of power, poverty of hope. Many. Many. Many. The global poverty of empathy, Profits no race for a vaccine. But with humility and wisdom, coursing through our veins, We can act inclusively, sustainably, ethically, Compassionately.

the psychologist july/august 2021 poetry Standing side by side, Touching heart to heart. Tearing down the structures, Preventing, Equality. You might say I’m a dreamer, But the task is far from done. The goal must be for one and all, Not ﬂourishing for some

‘I have been employed as a Clinical Psychologist in NHS services for 16 years and work in fostering and adoption services. I value approaches that interrogate structures of power and the accepted ‘order of things’ and work to challenge narratives that collapse responsibility onto the individual, without reference to sociological factors. I embarked on a part-time English Literature degree two years ago, and Covid swerved me onto a creative writing path, which means I’ve had to take my voice more seriously. I see this as performance / spoken word poetry, in the vein of the brave and wonderful Kae Tempest.’

Jo Kirk

White Picket Fence ‘I am a third year undergraduate psychology student, pursuing a career in Neuropsychology. I do not write poetry professionally and I have never had a piece of writing published, but I took inspiration from the title for this year’s competition by writing about the unrealistic expectations associated with the term “ﬂourishing” when compared against poverty. We are motivated by materialism due to the way the current economy functions and I wanted to show this competitive mindset by using language that would show envy and resentment towards those who appear to have more than us.’

I grew up in a world of “maybe next times” and “if you’re good” It wasn’t until I grew older that I really understood The situation I was born into and the cards I’d been dealt Maybe one day the grass will be greener on my side But how am I supposed to be patient for then When I lack the materials needed to water it On the other side of the road, where white picket fences are ﬁtted Around ivory towers, opportunities in abundance Where children grow alongside their trust funds, each getting bigger simultaneously Wearing their ignorance like a designer jacket Their education is their entitlement But to me it is a privilege An opportunity to better the situation I have been given Further education is a guarantee for them, With private accommodation and private travel on ﬁnance Everything oozing style and sophistication Their futures already near enough an empire With businesses and properties that they will one day acquire Just for being born on the right side of that white picket fence But my mother taught me manners And time made me wise my family gave me unconditional love and my experiences gave me eyes Eyes to see beyond Beyond the clothes, the cars, the inheritance, the trust funds and that white picket fence That bright white fed me lies of achievement and content All the while the wealthy had their own issues to attend

It turns out that money does not buy everything Health and happiness most of all I still had my education, and a house over my head I never missed a doctors appointment and I always ended the day in my bed No it wasn’t on the other side of that fence where I thought dreams came true No I didn’t have expensive things but I still had every opportunity that the rich kids had too And so I pose this statement So subjective is wealth And objective is poverty, Is it measured by health? Or possession of property? Georgina Rooney

‘We all lay flat sometimes, asking for the earth to hold us’ therapy rooms have become therapy zooms unsynchronised lips sounding how are you replace hot mugs passed between cupped hands we let each other in a view into our homes through pixelated windows & speak over each other in the lapse of connection the language of disorder has lost its meaning when the order is madness inducing the helpers need helping as death cues are coughed up onto streets littered with mud-stained masks. but we keep wading through hot breath rebounding under fabric smiling eyes saying more than muzzled mouths psychologists hand-stitch a chest pocket of calm on the over-spilling hospital ward fill it with peppermint oil a place for nurses to count their own breaths walk into a homeless hostel of 54 beds speak through shielded screens to the bare-faced and wet eyed therapy becomes ringing every person at the council to advocate for housing because drawing a hot cross bun in session 3 of CBT isn’t going to bring back your mum so she can rest a warm kiss on your forehead just one last time a thousand chants of black lives matter tear through white corridors & slippery floors of psychology offices & lecture halls anti-bacced hands dripping with grief are reaching for each other the helped are helping the unhelped are helping the bare-necked are guiding the lanyard wearing and everyone’s upper lip is sweaty we all lay flat sometimes asking for the earth to hold us but when the ground is trembling and opening how can any of us walk steady we all lay flat sometimes asking for the earth to hold us Sanah Ahsan

The last 15 months have brought personal and professional challenges to our members, many of whom have made a significant contribution to the UK’s response to the pandemic. In November, the British Psychological Society published a report into the impact on psychologists’ wellbeing, which drew on the personal reflections of more than 200 of our members, many of whom described experiencing an ‘emotional rollercoaster’. In recognition of this, the British Psychological Society commissioned member and spoken word artist Sanah Ahsan to produce a poem, which will be read to delegates at the BPS Conference. The poem reflects on the challenges psychologists have faced and overcome, and ends on a note of optimism. Sanah is a clinical psychologist and a queer Muslim womxn. Her award-winning poetry is centred on compassion, decolonising our understandings of mental health and ‘embracing each other’s madness’. Her psychological practice is rooted in liberation and community psychology, drawing on therapeutics, poetics, and activism as interconnected practices to support racialised and marginalised people. Sanah’s most recently published research is on the deconstruction of whiteness within UK clinical psychology. Her poetry has been published in several anthologies, and has been featured on Channel 4 and BBC 2.

the psychologist july/august 2021 poetry

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Building back better together Dr Clare Edge with a review of SICK! Festival Mindscapes

anchester-based collaborators and researchers and Rotterdam-based artist Merel Smitt’s collaboration, While Waiting, Wait Here, is part of the SICK! Festival Mindscapes programme. After taking part in The Big Debate session as part of Mindscapes [https:// thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/sick-festival-part-one], this time I explored an online interactive art installation based on research exploring job seekers and their participation in the UK benefits system. The collaboration involved Community Psychologist Professor Rebecca Lawthom (Manchester Metropolitan University), amongst other researchers. It creatively depicts stories of people in times of economic hardship accessing Universal Credit, including those who need welfare support due to mental ill health and physical ill health. Based in an office room scenario, the interactive online installation powerfully explores the disempowerment and frustration people can feel in the welfare admin system. When I enter the office space I am welcomed by ‘Susan’ and then asked to take a six-digit number, after

which I find myself in an office area with a number of files I am able to click on. I’m presented with a long message compressed into a small box that gives me an instant sense of confusion and frustration, heightened by the sound of typing and the constant whirring of a photocopier in the background. At the end of the message, once I have painstakingly scrolled down I am struck by the words ‘be proactive not lazy: find the joy in waiting, not complaining… sanctions are needed because we need the ones who pay for the system to know that it is actually working!’. Here the artist interprets the real life and frustrating emotional impacts of people within the system waiting to get support, as well as the political sense of people being punished for being recipients of welfare through sanctions. At the top of the page is a banner of revolving text highlighting devastating stories of people who have tragically died while recipients of state welfare – a disabled man who starved to death, an anorexic mother found dead in a freezing flat after her Universal Credit was cut because she was too ill to attend meetings – as

the psychologist july/august 2021 culture well the impacts of the system on children’s mental health. The sense of disempowerment within the ‘support’ to find work is demonstrated particularly well by the ‘Creative Confidence Workshop’ material I find myself clicking on, encouraging me to be ‘someone who follows the rules instead of questioning them’ and ‘someone who is great at following orders’. Another file gives me the ‘DIY Workshop’, which outlines an exercise exploring ‘what is your most memorable bureaucratic experience’ and encourages people to uncover the social norms under the assumptions made when people have been made to feel powerless, not listened to and unheard. The movement that I am proud to be part of, Critical Community Psychology, aims to amplify these very issues from the perspective of those who are disempowered at the hands of the system by building a social movement with an ethical commitment to working with the disadvantaged and oppressed (Kagan et al., 2011; Prilleltensky & Nelson, 1997). The sense of helplessness powerfully portrayed in While Waiting, Wait Here was echoed in Manchester Mood Drawing, across the Manchester Metrolink Network. The exhibition illustrates stories of people exploring a number of issues surrounding health and mental ill health, such as homelessness, welfare and how ill health and mental ill health can impact on people leaving them feeling helpless. One drawing outlines the story of Steven (40 years old) who had lived on and off the streets in Manchester since he was 13: ‘I have been registered and re-registered and reassessed so often. I feel neglected ALL I WANT IS MY OWN PLACE’. Another drawing outlines the story of an individual who worked as a refuse collector and their struggles with their wife becoming unwell: ‘she was diagnosed with neuropathy (a nerve disease) … I was worried about money focussing on the negatives was wearing me out… I stopped going to work because someone had to be with her all the time’. The social and health inequalities seen in the North West regions underline these voices (Office for National Statistics, 2021). The pandemic has exacerbated existing problems and there have been demonstrated negative impacts on mental ill health in the general population (Knolle et al., 2021). Campbell and Murray (2004) describe psycho-social mediators between community participation and health as well as the role of partnerships in creating ‘healthy communities’. The promotion of social justice, as well as the health and wellbeing of the general population, will be crucial to the UK Government’s commitment to ‘Build Back Better’. More collaborations like this, between Psychologists and the people who are feeling the direct negative impacts, are needed to build a better, more compassionate society that works for everyone. Reviewed by Dr Clare Edge, Lecturer in Psychology at University of Salford. C.E.Edge1@salford.ac.uk References in online version

Poverty and aspiration and also how high the hill is that you There is always one. In every need to climb. generation. A special one. We are Though we have one man, not talking about Buffy here, or Balram, at the centre of this story, even Jose Mourinho. We are talking his journey is not without a family. about a plucky young man, by the A family he is charged with name of Balram Halwai supporting; over a dozen of (Adarsh Gourav), who has film them. There is obligation and aspirations that nothing White Tiger responsibility which takes will crush. Nothing will Netflix on a whole new slant in the stand in the way of this end. Our protagonist moves fierce and courageous from one family, onto another ‘white tiger’, as he strives – the richer one – his responsibility to climb out of a fait accompli… one and obligation alter as he becomes that would have him slave away in a a driver at the beck and call of his dead-end family business, with no master. Master. That word is hard to room to grow or even get rich. hear, to see; but echoes the disparity Getting rich is the central theme that this film is built upon. There is a of White Tiger. It marries, to form a double helix, between two worlds that third family of a sort; but I won’t offer you a spoiler for that. are vividly constructed in the film. The words of Pinky Madam, a The world of the rich, powerful and strong-willed woman with whom our extremely well-connected contrasts protagonist forms a connection, are harshly with the those ‘caught in key. ‘I got out’, she says, trying to the rooster coop’; the world of those light a fire of emancipation beneath who live in abject poverty, may not him. You have to say it as Priyanka necessarily be able actualise their Chopra Jonas. Her presence in White potential and, are at times, at the Tiger gives the whole thing a lot of mercy of those who really do have clout. The film becomes a little bit more money than sense. more heavyweight to compete with As depicted in the film Lion (Dev Slumdog Millionaire. Pinky Madam’s Patel), getting rich is the doorway encounter with her misogynistic infor those in the latter camp; to laws is uncomfortable to watch, but a escape and to actualise potential. brave on-screen representation. She It is the doorway to power, and not made her escape as child, but as an being at heel to those who could adult still has to face the duality of easily swat you away like a fly. There being bi-cultural. As a fellow South is a clear difference between the Asian woman, I salute her. Chopra haves and have nots, a theme that Jonas is visible, present and standing Bollywood doesn’t really focus on; up to attitudes in dire need of being an industry aimed predominantly challenged. towards offering escape. It is also The ending made me sit up and hard to watch this film without having blink. I had one of those ‘hold on, Slumdog Millionaire at the back of wait a minute’ moments. I didn’t your mind – a thought reinforced with a couple of inspired references to that see it coming, it made smile. I was reminded to never assume and particular film. White Tiger simply always think twice. I’m tempted to gives us a slightly different viewpoint. carry out another hypothesis test. I Caste and discrimination run might even go and read the book. alongside the central themes of poverty and aspiration. This is, Reviewed by Punam Farmah, after all, a film that comments on MBPsS MBACP; Counsellor at Red different levels of society. Caste Maple Counselling, Birmingham. and discrimination then act as Tutor of Counselling at CUCoventry; confounding and extraneous Psychology and Counselling variables. You might not control for them, but you also may not be able to. Distance Learning Tutor at Oxbridge Ltd. T: @Redmaplecounse1, They will, however, still tint the lens E:redmaplecounselling@outlook.com through which the world is viewed,

Honest and intimate depictions

ﬁlm Lived Experience shorts Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival

Led by the Mental Health Foundation, the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival (SMHAF) has been a diverse and successful event for 15 years. Although there is no shortage of creative, thought-provoking films presented at the festival, this year the short film series Lived Experience caught my attention. As a postgraduate student who has studied within the field of psychology for the past six years, I appreciated the sensitive, yet realistic, depictions of the difficulties and stigma associated with mental health. The series began with My Own Personal Lebanon, in which Greek filmmaker Theo Panagopoulos explores his Lebanese heritage through difficult conversations with his mother about her past experiences of trauma and war. This short film depicts a young man searching for information about his heritage and forming his own selfidentity. Borderline Coffee depicts a young woman attempting to start her day with a trip to a coffee shop while fighting crippling anxiety. The film was based on star and writer Susanna Stahlman’s own experiences of borderline personality disorder, creatively representing her negative internal thoughts and feelings as Post-it notes. No matter how many times Susanna brushed away the Post-it notes, more replaced them, demonstrating the experience of intrusive thoughts in a visual way that many can relate to. An impressive feat to note is that this film only took one and a half days to film! In Benny’s Best Birthday, filmmaker Benjamin Schuetze plays the leading role in a short film about his personal experiences of mental illness and recovery. In the film, Benny returns to his family home in the early days of mental health recovery. However, despite his family’s attempts to be supportive, the film highlights the feelings of isolation and struggles of recovery. As the film progresses, you witness Benny’s family grow impatient in bemusement at his slow progress in recovery. The film realistically depicts feelings of hopelessness, isolation, blame, and stigma as a result of mental illness. It shows the reality of recovery, demonstrating the challenges both Benny and his family faced as a result of mental illness. In Fatboy, Dan Castro reveals some of the selfabusive thoughts he has experienced for years through an animated ‘self-portrait’. With this depiction of male body dysmorphia, this short film breaks down gender stereotypes within mental illness, challenging the concept that difficulties with body image are restricted to women. In Fatboy, a single animated character set on a plain, white background utters damaging and self-abusive words. Through revealing this once internal self-abuse, the film very effectively portrays the importance of selfkindness. Common Language is an intimate insight into filmmaker Voila Chajkouskaya’s Belarusian family. In this short film Voila discusses difficult topics for the first time with her mother and father. Voila and her mother discuss the impact of her father’s alcoholism and try to learn how to better communicate taboo topics. This short film is a

beautiful insight into a mother and daughter learning to open up about difficult topics. The final film of this series is Wave Form, which portrays filmmaker Daniel Tysdal’s experiences of mental illness in an entirely different way. In this film a female narrator talks about ‘[her] friend’s’ experience of mental health through poetry, comparing emotions to luma waveforms – graphical images showing the light levels of famous scenes from cinematic history. Wave Form describes the importance of watching and sharing films as a means of combating mental illness, and the luma waveforms are undeniably beautiful to watch. The Zoom Q&A was a great addition to the Lived Experience series, allowing the filmmakers to discuss their personal experiences of mental illness and explain how these led to the production of their short film. Having been slightly confused as to the ‘point’ of some of the short films within the series, listening to the filmmakers themselves made me realise that there didn’t need to be a ‘point’. Instead, these films were honest and intimate depictions of each artist’s subjective experience of life, without the over-complication of special effects, huge film crews, and detailed storylines. It is common for films about mental health to glorify mental illness – this was far from true in the ‘Lived Experience’ series. These films are a deeply personal insight into real people’s experiences of mental illness, and do an outstanding job of raising mental health awareness, reducing stigma, and sharing lived experiences. Reviewed by Amelia Remmington, Developmental Psychology and Psychopathology MSc Student, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London

the psychologist july/august 2021 culture

Houseless, not homeless It’s unexpected to be reviewing Nomadland for the summer edition of this magazine, devoted to the theme of ‘From Poverty to Flourishing’. The film’s premiere was at the Venice Film Festival in September 2020, with some subsequent limited American release. The pandemic, and the lack of cinemas in which to show it, suggested that this film was destined to rapidly fade away on a digital platform. Yet its extraordinary critical reception, culminating in an Oscar win for its director Cloe Zhao and (third) Best Actress award for Frances McDormand, means that Nomadland led the charge when cinemas reopened. It is undeniably a film worth the wait for a big screen viewing. Frances McDormand plays Fern, a widow who decides to leave the economically bankrupt town in which she and her husband spent their productive years, and become a nomad, living in her RV and taking whatever seasonal or temporary work is available along the way. Described as a ‘docu-drama’, almost all of the people she meets are non-professional actors, playing themselves or slight variations. They’re all of Fern’s age, people (and especially women) in their 60s and 70s, who know how to take care of themselves, or where to go for help if not – metaphorically, and actually

ﬁlm Nomadland Dir: Cloe Zhao

‘looking after their shit’. McDormand is our ambassador to this world, and she is totally convincing, playing without vanity or self-pity. The genius of the ﬁlm is the way in which form and content are aligned. A ﬁlm has a beginning, middle and end, just as our lives must. But in life we can only be sure of our beginning; the middle is an uncertain place, and the end remains unknown until we get there. This is the philosophy of the nomads whom Fern meets; they are travelling in the middle, embracing the uncertainty and without concern about the end. There’s a hugely moving speech by Bob Wells, a real-life anti-capitalist, where he articulates a devastating loss in his life, and the healing power of being able to say to people, instead of goodbye, that he will ‘see them down the road’.

The cinematography is one of the reasons why it’s worth seeing this film in the cinema. This is America seen afresh (as perhaps only someone born elsewhere can see), a place of epic natural beauty and serenity, with vast skies and endless vistas. It is in some way a meditation on the healing power of nature, after a lifetime spent in factories or offices – although those are also represented, as Fern takes a regular Christmas gig at Amazon’s monster ‘fulfillment centre’ in Nevada. The film wears its critique of capitalism lightly. The poverty in the film is many faceted, and subtle. Fern does meet some people close to destitution, and no-one in these working class communities has much money. But there is the poverty determined by capitalism, compared with the poverty of the soul. On meeting an ex-pupil in a shop who offers her a bed, Fern explains that she’s ‘houseless, not homeless’. Instead, the camaraderie of her fellow nomads nourishes her, and the freedom to travel anywhere and to be self-sufficient is liberating. Fern does indeed flourish. It’s a masterful and humane film, which will linger in the mind. Reviewed by Kate Johnstone, Associate Editor for Culture

Ensure the shameful actions of the past are not repeated tv Subnormal BBC iPlayer

In the 1960s and 1970s, hundreds of Black Caribbean children were deemed ‘educationally subnormal’ (ESN). The education system used labels such as ‘slow’, ‘aggressive’, ‘backward’, ‘remedial’ and ‘dunce’ to deﬁne these children. They were systematically excluded from mainstream schools. Instead, ESN schools became the containers for Black children, who were sent to these establishments often without the understanding of their parents. This BBC documentary exposes that shameful period in Britain’s history, where prospects for Black children were written off by the degrading assertions of their teachers, blighting their hopes for the future. These children were the victims of several processes. Culturally biased IQ testing originated as far back as 1905 (the Stanford-Binet test) and failed to take the children’s context or environment into account. Ill-founded research

(Eysenck’s theories on race and intelligence) later backed by the infamous Bell Curve and intelligence study by Murray and Herrnstein, leant further support to racist ideas that reinforced a sense of inferiority. The effect of colonialism reared its head. Children were compelled to disown their ﬁrst language (‘patois’ or ‘creole’) and steered towards the ‘Queen’s English’. There was no recognition for the possibility of dyslexia, dyspraxia or dyscalculia in these children. The suspicions of Black Caribbean parents became aroused. A research-informed movement by Black educators, activists and parents uncovered a connection between the purported under-achievement of Black children and sophisticated racisms. One output was a published book that exposed these atrocities and made important recommendations to re-engineer the self-

esteem and identity of Black children. The book attracted national attention, and the Supplementary School system was born. This programme is an uncomfortable watch, but well worth it to ensure the shameful actions of the past are not repeated.

Reviewed by Dr Deborah Husbands, Senior Lecturer, Chartered Psychologist & BME Network Co-Chair, University of Westminster. See also this response from the British Psychological Society’s Division of Educational and Child Psychology www.bps.org.uk/news-and-policy/decpresponse-bbc-documentary-subnormal-british-scandaland-role-educational

Rebuilding happiness for our times

exhibition On Happiness Wellcome Collection

This July Wellcome Collection will launch On Happiness, a season of free events, activities and two exhibitions – Joy and Tranquillity – which will bring together voices from across the cultural, scientific and spiritual fields to reflect on the elusive subject of happiness. How do people find resilience, hope and even joy at times of duress? How might we rebuild happiness for our current times? Wellcome Collection curators Laurie Britton Newell and George Vasey said: ‘As curators how do you tackle one of life’s most elusive and slippery concepts? Ideas about happiness change across cultures and history and are not universally felt or understood. But one certainty which has underpinned all of our research, is that everyone wants to feel good. We have been developing this project

Updating Happiness, 2021, Stefanie Posavec, Commissioned by Wellcome Collection. (CC-BY-NC)

at a time of tremendous difficulty and uncertainty and it has become increasingly important to think about how we might reclaim happiness and make it fit for purpose now. The exhibitions will invite artists, scientists and our audiences to reflect on what makes us tranquil and what brings us joy.’ At the heart of the On Happiness season will be the concurrent exhibitions Joy and Tranquillity which will consider different routes to experiencing these positive feelings. From the uplifting sensations of dancing and laughter to the calm of being in nature and diary writing, the exhibitions will consider the effects of emotion on our self and others. Newly commissioned works and multisensory installations by contemporary artists including Jasleen Kaur, Chrystel Lebas, Harold Offeh, Amalia Pica, Stefanie Posavec and David Shrigley will be on display alongside historic objects dating back to the 15th century from Wellcome’s collection. The exhibitions will consider ideas from different schools of thought including neuroscience, religion and psychotherapy offering a range of perspectives on the connections between emotions and health. In addition to the exhibitions, the season will offer a varied programme beyond the museum and online. Stefanie Posavec’s interactive digital commission and playful wellbeing questionnaire Updating Happiness will invite participants to submit their answers to a growing archive of definitions of happiness. An audio guide and podcast will bring together interdisciplinary voices to explore the themes of the season. On Happiness will also include Harold Offeh’s live dancea-thon Joy Inside Our Tears; digital stories exploring happiness through the ages; artist in conversations, amongst many other free events and activities. Emotional historian Professor Thomas Dixon has been working as the historical consultant for the season, liaising with the curators on this subject over the past few years. Professor Robin Dunbar and Professor Lynne Segal provided interviews for the exhibition audio guide; Dunbar talks about his research into social bonding and friendship and its impact on health and longevity, and Segal about radical and collective joy. Opposite, we hear from them, partly based around our summer edition theme of ‘from poverty to flourishing’. On Happiness season at Wellcome Collection launches 15 July. wellcomecollection.org | #OnHappiness

the psychologist july/august 2021 culture

A wealth of words and concepts My role in Wellcome’s ‘On Happiness’ exhibition, as a historian of emotions, has been to discuss with the curators their choice and interpretation of images, texts, and objects for the two exhibitions. I am a pluralist about emotions and so was pleased that the objects chosen ranged widely through the varieties of positive feeling that have existed across time and cultures – grouped separately into exhibitions on Joy and Tranquillity. The idea is to use art and history to look beyond 21st century notions of ‘wellbeing’ and ‘happiness’, opening our eyes to other ways of thinking and feeling about all sorts of states of passion and emotion, including not only joy and tranquillity, but also euphoria, ecstasy, transcendence, calm, contentment, pleasure, serenity, and delight.

The term ‘happiness’ itself contains a historical tension. It shares a root with words like ‘happenstance’ and ‘perhaps’ and originally meant chance or good luck rather than anything to do with emotions. In 1776, when the American Declaration of Independence referred to the inalienable rights of ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’, the intended emphasis was on the right to pursue good fortune and material prosperity rather than to aspire to feel good. Since the 18th century ‘happy’ has come to describe a particular kind of feeling as well as that sense of being lucky or fortunate. For some, the term ‘happiness’ has become so deeply connected with positive psychology and corporate wellbeing

Are you happy now? ‘Do what makes you happy’ is the advice we are most likely to hear in situations of self-doubt or conflict. Here, happiness is seen as a matter of individual feeling, something we can work at or design, perhaps drawing upon that army of happiness gurus to advise us. Nation states have even been busy monitoring and comparing the ‘happiness’ scores of their citizens. However, I fear that one underlying trigger for the emphasis on ‘happiness’ is actually concern over the mounting evidence of individual misery, with some awareness of the economic costs and market inefficiency of rising rates of depression. Faced with what some call the ‘happiness’ industry, its commercial remit escalating from the 1990s, critics like me remain cynical about the underlying assumptions of the advice on offer in countless self-help books. They share a characteristic disavowal of the many causes for sorrow or anger in what remains our deeply unequal world. We’re often told, for instance, that money can’t buy you happiness, when what is far more certain is that poverty, workplace stress, homelessness, unemployment, and so many other conditions of lack, will probably make you miserable. That is why emotions, of whatever kind, but especially happiness, always have a public as much as a personal dimension. They are not best seen as merely individual attributes, but rather as atmospheres circulating between us. We need to bring our explorations of happiness into the public arena, not rejecting the idea of ‘happiness’, but linking it to possibilities for identifying with the lives and feelings of those around us, near and far. In my view, maintaining our ties to others, whether in joyful endeavors or in any shared pain, will be as significant in keeping us attached to life as any more precarious state of contentment. This is why happiness is best seen through a collective lens, with our moments of shared joy all the more solid when connecting us with the lives of others and with some sense of the potential for human flourishing overall. Lynne Segal is Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies at Birkbeck College, and author of Radical Happiness: Moments of Shared Joy

programmes, that they have looked for other terms, such as ‘flourishing’ to name the states of thriving and balance that people have sought over the centuries. It’s certainly helpful to put a bit of distance between feel-good ‘happiness’ and a broader idea of flourishing which will include a wider range of emotional experiences, some of them difficult and painful. My hope, then, is that the ‘On Happiness’ season will inspire people to rediscover a wealth of words and concepts for states of euphoria and serenity, and also to think again about the difference between the two historical senses of ‘happiness’ – as a good feeling on the one hand, or a state of fortune and flourishing on the other. Professor Thomas Dixon is a member of the Queen Mary Centre for the History of the Emotions; you can learn more about their work at emotionslab.org

Friendship is the single most important thing Friendship is the single most important thing affecting our psychological health and wellbeing, as well as our physical health and wellbeing. Most of the things we do with friends – laughing, singing, dancing, feasting, telling emotional stories, the occasional caress – all trigger the brain’s endorphin system. Endorphins make us feel relaxed and contented, and trusting of the person we engage in these activities with. Should you prefer money to friendship? The short answer is an emphatic ‘No!’ Money may buy you luxuries, but luxuries are heretoday-and-gone-tomorrow. Friendship lasts a lifetime. Friends will always be there when you need them. Are happiness and ﬂourishing the same thing? I’d say: ‘Yes’. If you are happy, life’s a breeze. Nothing stresses you, and you’ll sail unperturbed through the worst the world can throw at you. Robin Dunbar is Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford

We asked on Twitter via @psychmag How can Psychology ﬂourish? @KBHealthPsych By doing more with the communities we aim to serve, rather than to them. @medusasneoneyes By being mindful of the privilege it holds as a discipline – more needs to be done to promote inclusivity for those who could potentially be at a disadvantage to even so much as believe they can join the BPS, let alone gain chartered status. @duffmonk Promoting collaboration rather than competition in applied settings.

coming soon… conversations on class, and much more contribute… options to reach 50,000 colleagues. See www.thepsychologist.org.uk/ contribute or talk to the editor, Dr Jon Sutton, jon.sutton@bps.org.uk

@reclaiming_s Putting people over politics. @UoNPsyched When more person centred approaches are adopted and we stop ‘doing’ psychology/research ‘about’ and ‘on’ individuals but rather ‘with’ and ‘by’ them. @Silverio_S_ I think British Psychology will always struggle to flourish when it and its ‘Psychologists’ lack any cohesive identity. We need to move to protect the title ‘Psychologist’ and give ‘Psychologists’ a sense of identity with each other, with the subject, and with the BPS. @DrMarySD Psychology can flourish if those with research to share do so in a way that is accessible to the people who would most benefit. Practicing psychologist and research psychologists collaborating, keeping the purpose in mind (not numbers of papers written but evidence of impact). @Findlotte Promoting psychology to A-level students and letting them have a voice and engage with research. They are the future of research, inspire them. @Mindfulmons The BPS should waiver membership and doctoral application fees for all who are not white if they are serious about irradicating racism within clinical psychology! @HorticulturalH By being brave, taking risks and pushing towards a more diverse discipline. Including and promoting voices that may not otherwise be heard. Giving a voice to those who may not feel that they have one. @luciebd By more focus on, and collaboration with, people around the world. We won’t truly have a science of people until we stop systematically excluding psychological science in languages other than English and in countries in the Global Majority. @LindaKKaye Better integration of insights from the arts. I’ve been reading a lot recently about kinaesthetic empathy and similar from performing arts & how it is used to explore the human experience in relation to others based on physicality. @GlobalisedMinds By breaking down silos between different areas of psychological practice & between countries, working together collaboratively, & being willing to challenge & recreate the central tenets of our current received wisdom. ‘We are not what we were and not yet what we are becoming.’ 96

Join the conversation by tweeting @psychmag

comment… email the editor or tweet @psychmag to advertise… reach a large and professional audience at bargain rates: see details on inside front cover maybe you missed… Did you notice that our ‘One on Ones’ with Society members have been an A to Z of surnames? See https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/ psychology-z for the collection. Tweet us on @psychmag with who you think should be invited next time around…

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President Vacant President Elect Vacant Honorary General Secretary Dr Carole Allan Honorary Treasurer Dr Roxane Gervais Chair, Education and Training Board Professor Niamh Stack Chair, Practice Board Alison Clarke Chair, Membership Board Professor Carol McGuinness Chair, Research Board Professor Daryl O’Connor Trustees Dr Esther Cohen-Tovee, Christina Buxton, Dr Adam Jowett

Chief Executive Sarb Bajwa Change Programme Director and Deputy CEO Diane Ashby

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BPS conferences and events See p.21 Early Career Conference Bursary Scheme See p.31

Supervision Guidelines Task and Finish Group See p.37

Director of Communications and Engagement Rachel Dufton Director of IT Mike Laffan Director of Knowledge and Insight Dr Debra Malpass Director of Membership, Professional Development and Standards 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).

DBT Skills Training: The Essentials™ 9-10 September 2021 Course Description

Trainer

This introductory two-day workshop covers the fundamentals of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) Skills: Core Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, Emotion each skills module and the targets for DBT skills training. They are also taught how to apply fundamental DBT strategies in skills training and coaching, so as to maintain dialectical balance in the endeavour. Clinical examples are used to Pauline McAvoy Trainer

Suicide: DBT Protocol for Assessing and Managing Risk™ 27-28 September 2021 Trainers

Course Description This training is intended to help health care professionals learn best practices for suicide risk assessment and management. Participants will become familiar with chronic and acute risk factors for suicide, protective factors for suicide, and how to formulate an overall level of suicide risk based on these factors. In addition, participants will learn when to screen for suicide risk and how to talk with individuals who may be suicidal to assess and manage risk. Participants will be taught suicide risk management strategies used in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), an evidence-based treatment for suicidal behaviours.

Dr Christine Dunkley Amy Gaglia Essletzbichler Senior Trainer Consultant Trainer

Regulating Emotion the DBT Way™ 11-12 October 2021 Trainer

Course Description The role of strengthening emotion regulation skills falls to the individual therapist. Clients may have read about emotion regulation or learned the skills in DBT group, but still tend to over-rely on distraction or distress tolerance when these skills are called for in everyday life. In this workshop delegates will learn the moment-by-moment steps involved in coaching the client to regulate an emotion. The facilitator will share some top tips on managing the common he facts.

Dr Christine Dunkley Consultant Trainer

Advanced Clinical Skills in DBT: Skills for DBT Team Leaders to Promote Team Adherence™ - 21-22 October 2021 Trainers

Course Description A DBT Team Leader is a crucial element towards the success of any programme. Team Leaders must combine skills in leadership, organisational negotiation for DBT Team Leaders to Promote Team Adherence training course is a postTeam leaders. This is also suitable for those aspiring to develop the skills to take on the role.

Please visit www.dbt-training.co.uk for all up-coming courses

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www.dbt-training.co.uk | 01978 346 900 | info@dbt-training.co.uk Integral Business Support Limited trading as British Isles DBT Training

Dr Christine Dunkley Consultant Trainer