Talk by Dr Anup Dhar at NIMHANS - 'Psychology as a Human Science'

Dr. Anup Dhar is an Associate  Professor  at the School of Human Studies Ambedkar University, Delhi.

Date and venue - Date 24^th 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.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/u1dqmo

A profile of rioters

 Since a week I have been following the story of the riots in UK. The scenes of violence don’t look good. What looks worse is the way it is almost necessary for every journalist, politician and ‘ expert’ to comment on what kind of people committed the acts of violence. Poverty, bad bringing up and even races were brought into question.

It has almost become essential to categorise the criminal. We have effectively created a criminal type. This idea has  an appeal to the those in power, it makes the crime and the criminal appear as a species in its own right and it provides an explanation or rather an excuse.

7 billion people on the planet some of them are bound to have something in common. What we have in way of reassuring the public is making criminals seem different. The larger the crime the more the aura of the criminal. Take Hitler for instance numerous books about his ancestry, childhood, and failed love affairs are cited as his reason for megalomania. Almost all of us have bad childhood experiences and failed love affairs, but finding evidence of criminality in alleged pathology colludes with the criminal.

Criminality has acquired the status of the ‘other’ in our discourse of normality. By creating a criminal profile we stop asking how we create criminality or how we define crime. We have come to excuse the criminal of their crime. The most recent example would be how the new DSM is choosing to medicalise rape and thereby giving the rapist  the sanction to rape. The rioters in UK were of all colours, religions or lack of them, communities, social strata and not all of them were young, all of them didn’t have neurochemical imbalances, which made them criminals.

Criminals are not born, criminals and crime are created spontaneously.

PS: Homosexuality was a crime too and homosexuals were also profiled to find what kind of social or personal inadequacies created homosexuality. The situation seems absurd now but it has taken the life of many homosexual individuals.

Art Therapy in Bangalore - a Conversation with Brother Mani. Part -2

What do a hands closed in prayer have in common with gothic Churches?

What do south Indian women have in common with Buddhists?

This is the second part of the interview with Brother Mani, an art therapist and Anil his assistant.  

This interview looks at how an art therapy session is conducted in a group or individually. Both Brother Mani and his assistant Anil talk about how they have used art therapy.    

Art therapy does not have a singular history but has multiple histories depending on when and where want to trace its history. Art has always been with us even in caves we had a need to decorate or use art to express ourselves. The history of art therapy is usually traced in the west during the early part of the 20^th century however art has always been with us and it is not something new.

I have attached some of the artwork that is referred to in the interview. 


Here is a link to the interview      http://www.sendspace.com/file/qsawez

Murals made by the participants being put up on the walls to form a large collage

Brother Mani and Anil

Art Therapy in Bangalore - a Conversation with Brother Mani. Part - 1

Is art for artists? Or can anyone paint?

Art isn’t about beautiful paintings or vases it is a personal expression.

You don’t have to be an artist to be an art therapist or to be a participant in art therapy.

The post modern idea that art need not be restricted to a canvas or have perfection is what drives art therapy.

I met Brother Mani a few months back when he was conducting a workshop on art therapy. Brother Mani is an art therapist

This is an interview where Brother Mani speaks about how art therapy can be transformative and therapeutic.

Here's as link to the interview

http://www.sendspace.com/file/4g5z5f

There is a second part of this interview, which is a bit longer which I will post in a day or two.

The pictures are made by the students who attended the program. 

Scientific therefore neutral

Does science = neutrality ? This is  an assumption we take for granted in the modern era(by modern I refer to the era during and post enlightenment). We have come to believe that science unlike religion is more informed and is rational. The term rational is quite problematic as it assumes there is something irrational. It creates a dichotomy between ancient and medieval and modern. Modern being a better state. The realm of the other 2 eras is relegated to being romanticised or being seen through biased eyes.

Our idea that science is rational when compared religion or belief is misleading, science is never neutral. The assumption that cutting something of from its natural environment and studying it will give us a neutral response. Psychology is one such discipline that desperately tries to use scientificity as a means to justify its end. At it heart lies the assumption that it can acquire the same status as the natural science if its methods are mimic those used in the natural sciences. Statics come to the rescue here; breaking something down into numbers will apparently make it more scientific.

This fallacy has often lead to disastrous results by scientists conducting scientific research. One of my favourite examples is intelligence and intelligence testing. Intelligence is a badly defined concept and one that most psychologists do not agree upon. On this shaky foundation intelligence tests were constructed using scientific means. The Nazis picked up on these ideas of inferiority and superiority as a basis for killing people. this of course is well documented history and an extreme example. There are a lot more horror stories but I will skip them. Today intelligence tests help separate students with difficulties from well functioning children. We set up special schools for such children. All of this can hide behind the guise of being helpful and science.

We have come to believe in science as something that will give us the right answers. I use the term ‘believe’ deliberately because we don’t question its authority and believe in its benign presence. We assume that if an idea has some scientific backing it is good and correct and neutral.

Science however is never neutral, and it can never be. By writing a certain way or by following certain methods and idea does not become neutral. Natural science isn’t neutral. It takes a certain amount of conjecture and intuition to prove something in the natural sciences. The natural sciences are learning to live with uncertainty. Psychology however needs to prove the existence of things that are merely constructed by it. By hiding behind the guise of pseudo neutrality psychology subtly pushes its own agenda.

Most scientific ideas are based in not so neutral ideas. Take for example eugenics, which sorted out good healthy people from the ones that were useless to society. This idea has taken the form of cultural differences or gender differences. Women are not unclean creatures (not a medieval idea as we like to assume) but they are trapped by their biology. PMS syndrome is presented as evidence for a woman’s weakness and her inability to be as competent as a man. The people behind such research are not consciously trying to suppress women nor are a part of a grand conspiracy; they are products of their environment in which women internalise passive roles.

Good science if there is such a thing isn’t about proving something it is more profound than that, it is about accepting that a problem may not have an answer or the answer isn’t what one hoped for or that the answer isn’t dependent on the method.

Science has come to take the place of religion. Lets not say but religion was false and look at how it oppressed people. This is a weak argument that goes nowhere. Lets not assume religion was universally bad and science is universally good and is helping us become rational beings. We can’t discard either. We need to question both. Lets not assume that a sterile lab can give us all the answers we are looking for and we can do things better.  The egocentricism that modernity has assumed towards other forms of thought are repressive.

I am attaching 2 links one to a program which is aired on BBC Horizon which starts with the question how long is a piece of string. This program challenges the idea of observation and measurement as an absolute.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbodZKrAOGg

The second link if for a documentary by Adam Curtis- All Watched By Machines Of Loving Grace. This documentary looks at how we have come to believe that technology will set us free and how ideas of order and balance have been oppressive.  The documentary a lot of interpretations these are just two of them that I thought complimented the paper.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxb3Vs9i7DU&feature=related

this link is for part one of four.

Obscure 80's song for the day - Corey Hart -Eurasian Eyes

I found this song on youtube two days ago and I cant get it out of my head.  The song is very typically 80's synth pop with some powerful vocals. Very Corey Hart in style. The Track featured on the movie 9 1/2 weeks. It has a nice intensity and an unpretentious video to accompany it. 

Disability in India - Resources

Here are a few resources you will find helpful


Anita Ghai - A Reader in Delhi University, Dr Ghai teaches in Jesus and Mary College Delhi. I have had the pleasure of meeting her at a conference. Her work on disability in India is very moving and very raw.


Here are a few links that I have found useful.

(Dis)embodied form: issues of disabled women

 By Anita Ghai


click here

Psychology In India Volume 3: Clinical And Health Psychology

 By Misra Girishwar
click here 


Dr Ghai looks at disability in India from both a historical and current perspective. She questions the notion of disability and looks at the social construction of disability.


Disability like mental illness is socially constructed, it serves a social and political purpose. It is tied to our ideas of productivity and usefulness to society, since 'disability' is seen as a burden, the disabled individual is thought to be useless.


Disability is not biology alone but the complex creation of a social system that chooses to make disability real.


PS: I am not saying the pain a disabled person might feel isnt real, the pain is all too real, its the labels that are unreal.

Photos of early psychiatry

Some dreadful, some disgusting pictures of what 'pioneering' work in psychiatry looked like. Now before you get all patronising thinking we have made great leaps think again we still do the same to people today. we lock them up, we still think criminals have something different in their neuro chemcial system and women are still targeted for their biology.


http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-204_162-10008523-7.html?tag=img

Disability in India

में  पेचले कुछ दिन से एक पेपर लिख रही हूँ , विकलांग व्य्क्तिन्यो पर जो हिनुस्थान में रहे रहें हैं. 

हिन्दुस्थान की जन्सक्न्ह्या लगभग १.२१ बिल्लियन है.

For the last few weeks I have been writing  a paper on disability in India here are some of the things i found out. 

The current Population of India in 2011 is estimated to be 1.21 billion.

Disability affects over 20 million people in India.

The population of Mumbai is about 20.5 million.

20 Million disabled people, this amounts to 20% of the population.

To break it down further that would be about 20 disabled people in a group of 100 people. 

However this number could be larger as a lot of people are not included in the census.

Disability could include visual problems, auditory problems,  speech defects and mobility issues to name a few.

When disability affects such a huge number of people why don’t we see them more often?

How many disabled people did you go to school with?

How many disabled people work with you?

And most importantly how do view these people?

Do you believe disabled people are not the same as you? Most people do. Most of us have grown up with prejudices about disabled people. A few people grow up feeling sympathy for the disabled and may contribute to charity. Do the disabled want our charity or do they want us to treat them equally?

MANGOES !!

Nothing like mangoes in the summer !

गर्मी के इस मौसम में आम के सिवा का फल ! 

How does one practise critical clinical psychology?

This is a question I posed to my critical psychology professor a few years ago, hoping to find a simple answer. Three years later I stand corrected.

Critical psychology does not criticise and no it doesn’t offer a blanket solution to all the problems of the world (it creates a few of its own though).

So now that this has been cleared lets proceed to what I think of the question and its possible answer.

Critical psychology is often engaged in activism of the unheard kind, it asks patients what they expect of the system, it gets them involved and thinks of them as being capable of being an expert on their condition. It attacks most things conventional in psychology and does not provide a simple solution or a one solution to every problem, sometimes it the solution is up to you if you want one that is. The goal isn’t to provide a quick answer that can be applied everywhere as conventional psychology does, it keeps looking for answers and basks in its own dissent.

Perhaps I was so used to a solution or to see clinical psychology being practised (in the most conventional sense of the term) that I didn’t see what lies at the heart of ‘curing people’. that critical psychology is engaed in activism maybe enough for a few people is sometimes impossible to imagine. Why would activism be enough? Is there anything else to it then a few nosiy protestors? These are some of the questions I had. However a protest is neeed not be a means to an end it maybe the end or if I may use the term ‘therapeutic’.

The assumption of treating, counselling  has been with us for so long that I am afraid that it takes a huge leap to think beyond the language of therapy. Perhaps some people don’t need or want therapy and protesting about it makes perfect sense to them. Perhaps its is not for me to decide what to replace conventional therapy with. That would be a real shame- replacing an oppressive syatem with a new improved version of itself.

The answer if one can call it that is not to fall into the old ways of complacency and rhetoric but to invent and reinvent and dissent.

Disclaimer: This article only represents my view of things and isn’t everyone’s view of how the ideas of critical psychology can be put into clinical practice or help change what exists.

Terry Jones- Medieval Lives

History isn't necessarily what happened. It's often what people want us to think happened. Terry Jones.

When it comes to history and medieval history most people have two kinds of views - love or hate. We tend to classify the middle ages as the age of ignorance and tend to believe our age is superior. Viewing the past from the present can be coloured by our assumptions of our own age. we tend to look at the part in simple good bad dichotomies. We have come to believe that the age we live in is the epitome of progress and rationality and the past was an ignorant era. 

Terry Jones challenges this idea we have of the middle ages. He presents a social political picture of why things were a certain way and how ideas, calamities, economics and even disease shaped an era. 

The series consists of 8 episodes (30 minutes each)

The eight episodes are:

The Peasant

The Monk

The Damsel

The Minstrel

The Knight

The Philosopher (Alchemist)

The Outlaw

The King

If you live in UK the episodes are available on youtube.  

Human Trafficking in India and Nepal: Narratives from the Field

How long does a prostitute live in red lights areas of South Asia? 
35 years.


how much can a young girl be sold for? 
15000 Rupees


These are a few shocking facts about the lives of women trafficked in India and Nepal.  


Sister Jessy Kanjirathinal has worked in Nepal and India to rehabilitate young women who have been trafficked from this region. She holds a Masters degree in Counselling. Her project/ research work has been on developing a program to help young women who have been trafficked. 


Young girls from Nepal and India are trafficked and sold as prostitutes by their families who are unsuspecting of what their daughters are getting into, sometimes due to poverty families are forced to sell their daughters. These girls are sold in various countries for a small price. The problem is compounded by the fact that this region has a high rate of HIV/AIDS. 


Sister Jessy speaks  about the process of rehabilitation and about the dangers encountered in this field. 


Some of the organisations that rescue and rehabilitate young women are. 


Maiti,  Nepal. This organisation is run by Anuradha Koirala who worked tirelessly in this field. 
http://www.maitinepal.org/pages.php?option=About%20Us


International Justice Mission- India and Nepal. 
http://www.ijm.org/

 
Here is a link to the interview.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/yakq6j




If you want more information about Human trafficking and what you can do to help please feel free to contact me. 

Pink Geraniums!

These pink geraniums were growing around and I had to take this picture 

Lancan made easy

 The best way to understand the writings of  Jacques Lancan is to read what other people have written about him and then proceed to his work. Lancan's work can be best described  as complex. 

Lancan is perhaps the most important psychoanalyst since Sigmund Freud. 

Lancan for beginners by Philip Hill is one of those books. its quite easy to understand and has a few quirky bits that ease the Lancanian experience. you could a find a preview of the book on Google books. 

http://books.google.co.in/books?id=Xr0-mdvR8uYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=lacan+for+beginners&hl=en&ei=xI_STYCGG9GqrAfU-Yy-CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Post modernism and Post Modern psychology

 Post modernism has come to affect us in more ways than we can imagine. Often misunderstood as a nihilistic ideology post modern thought can be quite liberating. Post modern thinkers question long standing notions of identity, art and power. We are forced to evaluate the dichotomies in which have made us divide the world in black and white. However breaking these ideas can be difficult if not impossible to imagine.

Where does post-modern thought emerge from and more importantly when did it begin. Like its philosophy it is hard to point out one point of origin. Post-modern ideas have certainly broken our notions of certainty through a grand narrative and through a good theory of physics. Uncertainty becomes something to be embraced and not feared, it pulls us out of our smugness.

Post modern psychology, if it is possible to have a post modern psychology has to contend with the dichotomy of madness and sanity which are entranced in power and politics. It must question its long standing assumption of speaking the language of the natural sciences.

Psychology is a discipline that is obsessed with being an art which speaks the language of natural sciences and it fails to do both. As a result the psychology we have today fails to do both most research is just recycled common sense or prejudice.  Psychology today is a discipline that has tried to obliterate it past and presents itself as a universal discipline. It treats madness as though it always existed and it needs to be located within the individual. It claims to be apolitical and objective yet is the guiding force behind some of the most oppressive and exploitative polices we have today.

Post modern psychology requires a demise of the expert and the inclusion of the irrational. It requires us to break our ideas of benign therapists, of helping people in distress, of being able to prove things and create universal theories of what human and animal behaviour is.

These are just a few things I have written in a hurry so I have given some quick solutions, however I don’t think there can be any easy solutions when it comes to applying post modern thought. 

this is a link to a small talk a few of my friends had yesterday.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/2eyrxj