An excellent, thoughtful and angry article from Grace Blakeley, highlighting the flaws and false economies in Rachel Reeves’ plans to expand welfare cuts. https://graceblakeley.substack.com/p/welfare-cuts-arent-just-cruel-theyre?r=1bljal&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true
Author: Midlands Psychology Group
Promoting social materialist psychology
Powerful blog by John Cromby dismantling the arguments for the benefits cuts. A timely counter to recent troll attempts to claim that critcs of psychiatry are supporting and facilitating the government’s actions. The best way forward is tackling the poverty and inequality that drives people to despair in the first place – not depriving them of their means of survival.
Another theme in Team Of One, the debut novel by Midlands Psychology Group member, Penny Priest, is wisdom. Some think protagonist, Frances Fisher, is ignorant and behind the times, simply because she doesn’t think the latest therapy, Zen Psyonics, is all its cracked up to be. But in many ways, she is wise to be critical. There is also the wisdom of patients. For example, Mandy is really wise when she says to Owen, maybe it’s not you, Owen, maybe the CBT was crap.
You can read more in the interview below: https://www.madintheuk.com/2025/03/papering-over-the-cracks-obscuring-the-problem-a-review-of-penny-priests-debut-novel-team-of-one/
One of the themes in Team Of One, the debut novel by Midlands Psychology Group member, Penny Priest, is the link between body and mind, between physical and mental health. As touched on in the interview below, ‘If exercise is your medicine and you lose the ability to exercise, what on earth do you do?’
You can read the interview here: https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/i-witnessed-so-many-examples-people-supporting-each-other
In this interview, which first appeared in the Spring 2004 issue of the Journal of Critical Psychology, Psychotherapy and Counselling, David Smail talks to Paul Moloney about his views on people and their environments, together with reflections on psychotherapy, counselling and psychology.
Abstract:
For psychologists, psychotherapists and counsellors, claims of professional expertise have led to an excessive focus on the workings of the client’s putative internal psychology. In doing so, we have failed to recognise the fundamental importance of the sufferer’s world in the origins of their problems. Only by swapping our focus on ‘insight’ for one on ‘outsight’ can we begin to develop an understanding of personal distress and of our own professional role that takes full account of the workings of power; and that faces up to the limitations of talking treatments.
Read full interview here: https://midpsy.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/david-smail-interview-2004-final-version-03-03-25.docx
John Cromby’s new blog on ‘Mad In The UK’ critiques the contemporary politics of psychiatric diagnosis, by engaging with issues including:
What does a consistent critique of psychiatric diagnosis look like?
What is the scientific status of depression (and other common psychiatric conditions): are they supported by good evidence?
Does using diagnostic terms such as ‘depression’ cause difficulties in conversations between left wing activists?
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Gary Stevenson’s 2025 taster
Some of us in the Midlands Psychology Group are looking forward to hearing Gary live on tour in Nottingham at the end of January. His latest Youtube video sets out reflections on 2024 and plans for 2025. He doesn’t need a crystal ball. He just needs more people to listen to him about the crisis of inequality and Labour’s failed economic orthodoxy. The way he sees it, ‘we’ve got an economy that’s dying of cancer and a political system that doesn’t believe cancer exists.’ https://youtu.be/QROpbj_Yz-0
The Psychologist magazine did a special issue a while back on communicating science and the power of narratives over scientific texts. It’s an idea I have become increasingly interested in, especially after seeing how a story about the evidence can be more powerful than the evidence itself, as in the case of the ITV series, Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
Before both these came out, I had already decided that the messages in our book, Outsight (2022), might be better heard as a story, rather than an academic text. I therefore wrote a novel, Team Of One, which has just been published by Egalitarian Publishing (www.egalitarianpublishing.com) and is available to buy here: https://www.thegreatbritishbookshop.co.uk/products/team-of-one
The book deals with many of the themes we have discussed in Outsight: the evidence base; the power and importance of human relationships; embodiment in psychology; money; power; inequality; working conditions.
I have drawn hugely on my own experiences working in the NHS. One of the central characters, Frances Fisher, is oppressed by the public health service she works within. She is often a lone voice challenging the system: ‘Public mental health services are keen to push more and more people through treatment programmes to meet the ever growing demand, and the most fashionable therapy of the moment is Zen Psyonics. As the story unfolds, the problems with Zen Psyonics begin to become apparent. Does it actually work? Might it be dangerous? Can we really change our essential natures? Who benefits most, the patients or the therapists? And what do human beings really need in order to survive the harms and cruelties that the world inflicts upon them?’
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NHS talking therapies update
At a time when the UK government is again enlisting mental health services to get people back into work, this update on NHS talking therapies shows a continuing picture of high attrition and arguably poor outcomes.
NHS talking therapies updatehttps://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/does-the-nhs-talking-therapies-service-have-an-attrition-problem
In this interview, blog editor Elena van Stee chats with Musa al-Gharbi’s new book, We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite. The book explores the emergence of a new “woke” elite and the hidden ways they actively benefit from and perpetuate the inequalities they vocally oppose. They also discuss Musa’s commitment to avoiding academic echo chambers.
Musa al-Gharbi on woke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJBsQRzGMog&t=2s
Midlands Psychology Group 