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?’
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.
Midlands Psychology Group 