Is it possible to create a politically engaged,contextual psychology of disability?

Until recently disability studies has ignored questions regarding the psychological nature of oppression. Proponents of the social model have viewed such concerns as diversionary, diluting their emphasis on material and economic barriers to inclusion. This paper argues that the discipline’s role of reflecting and interrogating disablism will remain incomplete and lacking in transformative power without undertaking a psychological conceptualisation of disabled personhood. Some prior attempts at elaborating the social model to include the psychological realm have been presented; these are critiqued, and argued to lack truly psychological conceptualisation. Preliminary ideas regarding a proposed psychology of disablism are presented. The focus of this work will be the exploration of bi-directional links between disablist ideology and disabled subjectivity, operationalised through interpersonal and institutional processes of lifelong socialisation. Reflections towards development of the under-theorised notion of internalised oppression are presented. Conclusions are that a combination of critical psychoanalytic insights and the participatory methods of liberatory and feminist psychology hold promise in driving disability transformation.     

Interview with Andrew Samuels

Andrew Samuels is Professor of Analytical Psychology at the University of Essex, Visiting Professor of Psychoanalytic Studies at Goldsmith's College, University of London and a Jungian Analyst in London. We were lucky to have Andrew participate very generously in the Brisbane Family Therapy Conference in September, 1998. Andrew has written widely on psychological and psychotherapeutic themes, and has opened up new areas around the relations between therapy and politics. In his book The Political Psyche (1993) he poses the questions: Is there a special psychology of and for politics and culture? If so, what does the clinical practice of analysis and therapy with individuals or small groups contribute to the forming of such a psychology? ... In what way is the personal political—and in what way is the political personal? We interviewed Andrew in Brisbane just one week before the 1998 Federal Election, with talk of Howard, Beazley and Hanson pervading conference conversations. It was a great time to have Andrew around. But first we had to clear up a few matters about Jung.     

Relative Work and Family Role Centralities: Beliefs and Behaviors Related to the Transition to Adulthood

The current study of 434 young adults investigated the relative centralities of anticipated adult roles. Based on assigned percentages to career, marriage, and parenthood roles, five distinct relative centrality profiles were created: Child Centered, Marriage Centered, Marriage and Child, Career Centered, and Family and Career. The Career Centered and Marriage Centered groups tended to differ the most, with the former being less enthusiastic toward marriage and reporting less cautious beliefs and behavior related to sexuality and risk taking. Other nuanced differences were also explored. It is argued that the centrality profiles have implications for the decisions that young adults currently make that could lead them along various trajectories toward adulthood that influence if and how adult roles are realized.     

“A problem of resources”: defining rural youth encounters in education, work & housing

Using empirical evidence from a study of rural youth living in a remote region in the West of Ireland, this paper applies a structurationist approach to focus on and explore how young people's scope for action and choice is shaped and mediated. In particular, it applies Giddens's concept of authoritative resources (‘organization of life chances’), social practices and relations to understand the encounters, events and experiences within education, work and housing. The paper concerns how the types of practices and relations encountered within these three arenas tend to problematise the choices and opportunities available for young people. In the late-modern age, these three spheres of life can generate considerable pressures, which, depending on circumstances, are differentially mediated by young people. In conclusion, it calls for policy to engage in more ‘enabling’ terms with rural youth experiencing the negative effects of rural economic restructuring.     

The Greens and Social Policy: Movements,Politics and Practice?

The central aim of this paper is to show how different types of green movement respond to questions of social policy. An important factor in this is a difference in attitudes to the state between more anarchistic greens and those greens that are prepared to accept a permanent and/or strategic role for the state. The paper is divided into two parts. In part one, after defning the green movement, it outlines how different green social movements from local groups, direct action protestors, established environmental groups and green political parties, have developed analyses, responses and alternatives to social policy issues. Part two of the paper looks at some of the ideological/theoretical debates within green politics with regard to social policy, with particular regard to the role of the state. It goes on to look at some of the ways in which European green parties have viewed social policy, and at proposals they have advanced for moving the aim of social policy from welfare to well-being. It concludes with suggesting that the post-materialist characterization of green politics is very wide of the mark in terms of the range of analyses and policy alternatives greens have put forward, from health, education and drugs to transport. The central and long-standing green concern with lessening socioeconomic inequalities (but without relying on indiscriminate and unsustainable economic growth) means that in terms of social policy, green politics can be seen as an environmentalism of the poor, concerned with materialist issues.