Dr. Anup Dhar is an Associate Professor at the School of Human Studies Ambedkar University, Delhi.
Date and venue - Date 24th August 2011 National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bangalore.
Abstract:
How to make four equilateral triangles with six match sticks? If one thinks of the
match sticks as lying flat the problem appears and actually is quite insoluble. But as
soon as one thinks of solving it in a three dimensional space, by forming a pyramid,
one finds the solution.
This talk takes off from my own experiences as a novice in the mental health clinic. It is shaped by my discomfort with what was happening in the clinic – the narrow localization impulse and the rather simple cause-effect analysis of the medical perspective, the absent connection with larger historico-cultural questions, the pathologisation of suffering, the bracketing of distress in diagnostic categories and the insensitivity of practice. It is necessitated by the felt need to rethink on my part, a rethinking that is still incomplete and hence ongoing. However, why do we need to rethink? What is wrong with existing mental health science that it needs rethinking? This talk will deploy the ‘context of non-waking states and dreams’ to locate ‘lack’ in the mental health sciences along a number of axes (namely lack in width, depth, imagination, dynamism, plasticity, complexity, empathy, care as also lack in an attention to detail/particularity leading in turn to an impoverished understanding of the human, the human mind and the ‘matter of the mind’) and then see what one needs to rethink and how one can go about it. The talk shall also argue for a self-description of psychology marked primarily by the ‘human science’ angle. This will be done keeping in mind the question of evolution from inanimate matter (the world of physics and chemistry) to life-worlds (the world of biology), from elementary life-worlds to human worlds (the world of anthropology), from primal human worlds to worlds with consciousness, language, sociality, reason, value and ethics (the world of the human sciences). The talk would ask: would a more inter-disciplinary perspective, where disciplinary methodologies interrupt, contradict, supplement and bleed into each other, be more enabling for psychology? In approaching the psyche, should explanations follow the format of the laws of natural science or is it necessary to couch understanding in terms typically employed in the human sciences?
The talk addressed issues encountered in following a particular kind of method or model. It challenged the complacency in believing in one paradigm and not challenging it. It looked at the artificial boundaries created in universities in terms of disciplines.
Some of the questions raised were of using a ‘kind of psychology’ that engaged itself with the client. An engagement not in the terms that we know of but in exploring the suffering of the client.
Here are the slides that accompanied the talk.
Here is an audio link to the talk.
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