Conscience and Critic

The selected works of Keith Tudor

Keith Tudor

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315460956
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Psychologie
• Categoría: Conseil en psychothérapie

Conscience and Critic: The Selected Works of Keith Tudor brings together 35 years of Keith Tudor's finest contributions to the field of mental health. Covering a wide range of subjects that encompass psychotherapy, social policy and positive mental health or wellbeing, Keith reflects on practice and theory from his wealth of experience in various fields of practice, including probation, counselling, field, hospital and psychiatric social work, psychotherapy, supervision, and education and training.

Over the span of his professional career, Keith's concerns and contributions have focused on the interface between psyche and society. This is reflected in his writings on the politics of disability, mental health reform, class-conscious therapeutic practice, the application and critique of theory, health and professional regulation and registration.

Conscience and Critic will be of interest to psychotherapists and mental health practitioners, as well as students of psychotherapy.

PART I

The 1980s

Employment, other work, professional qualifications, and memberships

1979–April 1981	Living in west London; unemployed; community and political activist
1979–1985	London W12 Housing Co-operative, member, and, 1981–1983 living in its first, custom-designed collective house Big Flame, member
1981–1985	Upstairs Project (Hammersmith Crisis Intervention Centre), counsellor/researcher
1982	Meets Christine (Louise) Embleton
1983	Moves to live in second collective house
1984	Pellin Diploma in Gestalt Therapy and Contribution Training (Pellin Institute, London)
1985–1987	Living in Italy
	Freelance teacher of English as a foreign language, and translator
1987	Scuola Media 150 Ore (Italian school leaving certificate) (Scuola Media Statale “E. De Marchi”, Ministero Della Pubblica Istruzione, Milan, Italy)
	Moves back to west London
1987–1990	Hammersmith Social Services, 1988–1990 senior social worker (mental health), and approved social worker, also National Association of Local Government Officers’ shop steward
From 1987	Self-employed vounsellor, and, 1987–1994 psychotherapist in training
1987–1994	Institute for Transactional Analysis, UK, member; European Association for Transactional Analysis, member; International Association for Transactional Analysis, associate member
1988	Meets Christine (Louise) Embleton (for the second time), begins relationship
1989–1991	Guild of Psychiatric Social Workers, member

CHAPTER 1

GAZETTE UNSTUCK

“Glue sniffing” (1980)

Retrospective introduction

In 1979 I completed my social work training at the University of Kent in Canterbury, where I had been very influenced by radical social work theory and practice and specifically by my contact with Mike Brake (and, specifically, with regard to sociology), Janet Sayers (psychology), and Vic George (social policy). At the end of the course I moved to London where I quickly became involved in Left politics both locally, as a part of which I joined a collective of activists who produced Bush News, a local socialist community newspaper, and nationally, through my membership (1979–1985) of Big Flame, a revolutionary socialist organisation (see https://bigflameuk.wordpress.com/). My involvement in Bush News was a great training, not only in politics and collective action, but also in how to write to a specific word length, to edit, to layout, to print, and, of course, to sell a newspaper.

During my social work training, I had come across the work of Michael Schofield and, specifically, The Strange Case of Pot (Schofield, 1971), in which he challenged common myths about cannabis, including the supposed escalation from smoking pot to using heroin; and, more broadly, the work of Stanley Cohen (1972) on Folk Devils and Moral Panics, in which he suggested that such a panic occurs when “[a]‌ condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to prevailing social or cultural values and interests” (p. 9). The article reproduced here was provoked by two articles published in the Shepherds’ Bush Gazette, which, in my view, had precisely represented such a panic: “Parents are worried that young children could be coaxed into joining a teenage gang of glue sniffers”. (Editorial, 1980: 3). A brief textual analysis of this editorial would suggest that the use of the word “parents” is intended to imply all parents; and that it is significant that the potential childen are named as young children, and that they will be “coaxed”, thereby implying coercion, and that the glue sniffers are made into a gang. The Editorial went on to quote a local Tory councillor, who had said that: “a lot of parents are worried … Glue sniffing can kill … there has been an increase … We want the police to get the situation under control”. (Editorial, 1980: 3). A week later, the situation – or, rather, the response – had, with no reference to any facts or evidence, escalated: now a senior police officer was calling for a change in the law! This was supported by two articles, reporting “A nightmare in the park for Robert, 13”, and a cafe owner getting rid of some kids whom he suspected of glue-sniffing (Penn & Langton, 1980). At the time, I was doing voluntary work in the community with young people; worked with colleagues from Release, the west London drug agency (http://www.release.org.uk/, now the oldest such agency in the world); and knew some of the young people involved. I thought this moral panic needed a response, and so wrote the article which was published in Bush News. The article provoked quite a response, with letters published in both the Gazette and Post and Bush News, which, of course, came under attack in part because it was a socialist newspaper, letters to which both individuals and the collective also responded.

I have included this short article in this collection for a number of reasons. First, it is one of my earliest published pieces, written just over 35 years ago, and thus gives a starting point for this volume. Secondy, it reflects my long interest in advocacy and commitment to social justice, especially for people who and issues which are misunderstood, misrepresented, and marginalised. Third, in terms of development as a thinker and a writer, it represents and prefigures my interest in and concern about the way in which the social – and the political – impacts on the personal, as well as reflecting a voice that has sometimes evoked or even provoked a strong response (see also Chapter 10). My own critique of this piece is that it is somewhat polemical. Whilst, in part, this was due to the nature of the publication, I think it detracts somewhat from the argument. On reflection, I would include statistics about deaths from tobacco and alcohol (which would have made the argument stronger), and would not end with the comment about leaving them kids alone (as that was not what I was suggesting). Whilst I stand by the argument about moral panic(s), with the benefit of further experience, knowledge, and training, I would also want to talk about the depressant effect of solvents on the central nervous system (by activating the brain’s dopamine system), the dangers of inhalation (e.g. irregular and rapid heart rhythms), and the risk of death from toxic shock. I would also want to talk more about the causes of solvent abuse and the psychosociological dimensions and impact of poverty, alienation (see Chapter 5), isolation, and lack of resources, especially in poorer communities.

The Shepherds Bush Gazette has done it again! Its article “Parents warn of young glue sniffers” (5 June) is the latest example in a long tradition of irresponsible and inaccurate coverage of activities among youth. This kind of “moral panic” became most obvious in the ’60s when reports about cannabis smoking talked in terms of “addiction”, of “leading to” heroin dependence, and causing sex orgies, violence and – with usually a heavy racist twist – mugging.

So a few facts for Tory councillor Tony Hennessy, his three children and the 40 parents who signed the petition.

1“Glue-sniffing” should properly be termed “solvent-sniffing”, as it is the volatile agents (such as toluene, acetone, and certain carbon and benzene compounds, etc.), i.e. the solvents in various substances which are inhaled and not the substances themselves (glues, fluids, adhesives, etc.).

2There is very little evidence to suggest permanent physical deterioration, and physical addiction is extremely rare. A leading Scottish researcher stated at one conference that she had only come across one case of addiction in the several hundreds she had dealt with. Solvent-sniffing is almost totally confimed to the 14–16/17 age group.

3Since 1975, when the death of an 11-year-old boy was attributed to suffocation resulting from the inhalation of toluene (a constituent of Evo-Stick), there have been about 40 deaths which can be said to have been caused by this activity. During the same period how many people have died as a result of smoking tobacco? During the same period how many people have died due to socially “acceptable” use of alcohol?

4Most of the accidents or injuries that have occured through solvent-sniffing have been as a result of the activity taking place in isolated and dangerous places such as canal banks and waste land. Some of the responsibility for such accidents must rest with a society which labels and isolates such activities through ignorance.

So, no scaremongering, no crocodile rears and no double standards. The answer is certainly not for the police to “get the situation under control” as suggested in the Gazette’s article. Most police still haven’t read the facts about existing classified drugs, so goodness knows what they think they know about solvent-sniffing. Any police involvement would only criminalise an activity which at present is not illegal.

What we need is more widespread and accessible information for both genuinely anxious parents and kids. We should also have more health education so that we can become more aware of the effects that various substances have on our bodies. In this way the potential dangers and accidents associated with solvent-sniffing will be minimised. Unless they are prepared to become better informed, Tony Hennessy and the like would do well to just “leave them kids alone”.

CHAPTER 2

UNEMPLOYMENT AND MENTAL HEALTH (1983)

Retrospective introduction

I wrote this paper when I was working as a counsellor and researcher for a voluntary sector organisation, the Upstairs Project (Hammersmith Crisis Centre Ltd.). The Project was a small street agency in west London, which was aimed at and attracted young people (which the Project defined as aged between 18 and 25, although we did work with some clients either side of this age range). We had opened in 1981, committed to providing a youth counselling service and to evaluating the service. However, first we had to deal with the fall-out from a research design, a randomised controlled trial, by which it was planned that we would randomly accept or turn away young people from the Project. Another aspect of the proposed design was that we would then follow up the young people who we had turned away in order to compare their subsequent lives with those that we had seen for counselling! A local psychiatrist (who, we subsequently discovered, had control over the Project’s finances) attempted to impose this research protocol on us; we refused, and, as a result, were promptly sacked. We picked ourselves up, dusted ourselves down, raised money, and, within a few months, had reopened the centre with an independent management committee, with both staff and management still committed to practice-based research.

I have included this paper in this collection as my first sole-authored paper and thus, as another starting point for reviewing the development of my ideas and writing. Its – and my – Marxist leanings are revealed in its reference to the analysis that mass unemployment was a strategy for economic problems, which, in turn, was informed by my study of Marx and Marxist praxis during my social work training (1977–1979), and my membership of Big Flame (1979–1985). Whilst the paper itself is undeveloped (and it is no accident that I did not seek to publish it), and the style of the paper is somewhat youthful, it does capture a sense I had – and have retained – of the importance of the social world. As Marx (1894/1962) himself put it: “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but on the contrary, it is their social existence that determines their consciousness” (p. 4).

In the paper, I refer to productive work being in short supply. At that time the annual unemployment statistics in the UK had risen from 5.7 percent in 1979 to 7.4 percent in 1980, 11.4 percent in 1981, and 13.0 percent in 1982, a percentage that remained above 10 percent until 1987 (Denman & McDonald, 1996). In the paper I adopted the convention of using “we”, partly as an assumed academic style, and partly in the hope that other colleagues in the Project would adopt the thesis of the paper, which, broadly, they did.

Henceforth the quality of a society and its culture will depend on the status of its unemployed: will they be the most representative productive citizens or will they be dependents?

(Illich, 1978: 84–85).

We have examined some of the literature and research relating to mental health and unemployment. Some studies emphasise the state of unemployment from social/political perspectives; others concentrate on the psychological implications of unemployment; few attempt to come to integrated conclusions for practice, particularly in relation to young people. In this paper, with reference to some of the literature, we explore current thinking on unemployment as it affects young people, ways in which the Upstairs Project approaches the problem of unemployment, and our recommendations and tentative conclusions.

Jahoda (1979) suggested that, apart from having the manifest (economic) function for people of earning and living, employment also has several latent (psychological) functions: it provides time structure, regular shared contacts and experiences, and personal status and identity; it links people to specific goals and purposes; and it enforces activity. The underlying implication is, as Hartley (1980) pointed out, that these functions are positive: they reinforce legitimate relationships between the individual and society, and our cultural values give “employment” (as a concept) moral overtones which derive from the Protestant work ethic. By the same token, as a state in which such functions are not provided, unemployment has negative psychological implications including low(er) and/or loss of self-esteem.

There are two main comments to make about this view of employment as having functional effects. The first is that employment is not always a positive experience. Job dissatisfaction is not a subject that concerns us here, suffice it to say that many people would consider a number of essential jobs to be tedious and unattractive. As a result, interest and concern has been shown in the effects of work motivation, involvement, commitment, alienation and effectiveness. At the same time there is political pressure towards a rationalisation of labour resources in streamlining, speed-up, etc. However, as Warr (1982) has pointed out, research over many decades indicates that people want and need to work even if they cannot afford to do so. The psychological benefits seem to outweigh general occupational stress and the negative aspects of employment. Evidence has shown repeatedly that the majority of people prefer to have jobs even if they bring in less than social security levels.

Second, there is an important distinction to be made, as Hartley (1980) has done, between work as an activity and employment as an economic reward for such activity. This is particularly significant for young people as the positive psychological returns gained from employment are not the same as those experienced on job schemes. Stafford’s (1982) study, using Goldberg’s General Health Questionnaire (Goldberg & Hillier, 1979), which has also been used in a pilot study at the Upstairs Project, found that participation in a youth opportunities programme (YOP) “acts as a buffer alleviating the detrimental psychological effects of unemployment” (Stafford, 1982: 12). This effect is temporary, however, found only during participation in a YOP, and the detrimental psychological effects of unemployment return for those ex-trainees who are unemployed after...