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a inde “s en ere Sc emo ie a ecm ee eaten Ata x poveeren tz i. de neti ane ee " ” psychology ol psychology snd specch pathology — 1 love that combination of names — } wngeniysan's , Bike gust say T teach ia. Erfhka Berman: 1 can’t say 1 went Into committed to saving the wortd. But I was a feminist. i had + Jooked at what developmental and edu- cational does to women, 10 Black to lesbians, in terms of y the ways it insidiously creeps into everyday conscloweness — like the provision of child care, decisions about what's considered normal for children, decisions about whether people should be sent off to another institution, ihe + evaluation of parents and femily. { realized that I coulda’: teach develop- mental psychology end just perpetuate that. I have to try to draw my students attention to the way psychology has been used and the role of psy- chological within contem- pormry society A@fance: How did you meet each other? Parker: We icach in the same depert- ment at Manchester Polytechnic Uni- versity. Bernnan: We'rs also part of a network, a very small network of critical post- graduate stacents who are getting imo pou-structaralist Ideas 8 a way of com- menting on psychological processes. Alfence: What do you mean by post- structuralist ideas? Berman: Post-strecturalist ideas are ideas that are currently being used out- side of as a way of locating secular ideas, bodies of knowledge that pass as scientific and are therefore secn a8 value-free, and showing them w be ideological and full of biases. tty hee ‘hy Becdtann, Damn fiend. Sab Gonrye. Joveh maratt. (Gary Lovie, Cane Sten i “ Cievnatin Canty irierneterel Ateedeing tung * Otte | Suaweredigste lw live Dep eattetetinn «Tha Cate Cetecte —— . ‘paherr'gfice: Penat: 1690 tar 1 yene. Vetere nies $38.08 ‘The filial Altarae VEBN OFER-138") ‘a pttepat matty (auto cat fe week 4 dy 4 296 tin wom of Once Zi by Nee Hears Prbatnne, We, 200 57H 637, Thinking about | , activins who were at ce. ine cali, ing of the mental health . : aes . Ee ne Sees fund: to ad apt-quentl site mermaid rraniis pony Leer fre Lait TEMES a gfe Aten Seep eeeMn tor eteeet Metintn me am ~-dions opposing their closure because there is nothing to replace them... ‘Parker: ...And defend services that have been oppressive io those patients who were locked up in these hospitals for There are some alternative projects. One is a group in North that has boen inepired by & of psychiatrists from Trieste, in northern Italy, where in an entirety dif- ferent political context a decision was made to close the mental hospital and to put something more radical in its place. As in Trieste, scine of the men- _ tal health workers in North Manch- enter have been struggling to involve peopte in their own services — to get consumers of the services involved in the renning of short term housing and ether community mental health centers thet have been set up. AMance: Have you visited Trieste? . Parker: We have both been there. ‘The Trieste ¢: was developed im the 1970s, at a time when the Com- muniat Party was quite influential, peo- ple were optimistic and there was local -government funding. So they could Glove the local mental hospital and ry radical experiments, There isn’t eny- thing like thet climate in Britain. Berman: That was a perticuler moment fm aly, Mental health wsucs were very . explicitly on the politics! agenda in a . Way they aren't in England. : AlMance: It seams like the situation has been exacerbated by the failure of the deft in England to deal with the connec~ tion between politics and psychology. changing the jworld? Take a hands-on course in , participatory democracy! « Prepare your career in polities. Toke a job with America’s” Lobby for Democracy. Hiring octivists fornational campaign for fair elections. Bring home the worldwide - movement for democracy. Boston: 617-547-6505 Chicago: 312-929-7777 Washington, DC: 202-157-0700 Excellent training in grassroots organizing. Opportunities f for Capitol Hill lobbying. Good pay and benefits, Cail the field office nearest you: ° toral parties interested in mer'-l fewth ° issues, And it's very diffloutt to got fet”. groups interested in mental health “. issues because K's not “proper poli- tics. The nearest we've got to a connec-— tion between individwal stress hd pain‘ and political isewse is the deblie over the personal and the political thet came -: out of the feminist movemeat in the 19708, There wee quite « crisis in the . Jeft at that time because of séme very * tionnaire and fcund her responses very helpful. a ‘Alliance: How did you meet Valerie? Parker: Valcrie was involved in a jour- nal that started in 1977 called Ideology and Consciousness, which was impor sible to read. I struggled and struggled with it. Berman: It was very difficult but it, came a focus of debste and some active useful feminist erttiques of male ways «ity and stated a lot of the key issues about of organizing. One of the effetts, how- ever, of making that jink between the persona) and the politica that, many on the left drew the conclusion thet they should just go into the al. So there has been a Might from poti- tics. This is manifest in an emphasis on “ personal development — “tearning what's wrong with psychology. Parker: Many of the people who were involved in the journal were co-authors of a book that appeared in 1984 called Changing the Subject, which had on ‘important influence on radical psychol- ogists in England. . how not to be a violent porvon™ kind Of |" norman: I'm writing @ book for Row- stuff — and spiriesality. What's inter- ° esting about what you're doing here fs { that the connection is being made between the and the political and you've realiged that the personal isn't political enough — it's the poll- tics that must take charge... ‘ Alliance: Can you*tell ut more about how you learned af the Social Therapy movement? : Parker: 1 was putting together « colfec- tion of writings on the link between peychology and Marxism for a book Tm doing with Rusee!l Speers in Ame- lerdam, Wo put together a fairly oxhaustive to eond around to prychotogists we Gought were Marazlsts of were interested in Marxism. One of the people Valetie, Walkerdine suggemed we speak to tng 7 Z ig al P77 ry | NC “4 New York/New Jersey! : 212-397-2101 My San Franciscos 415-541-5043 | Rainbow Lobby. America’s Lobby for Democracy. |' * someone like Minister Perrakhan, who ledge that wil! probably be called Deconstructing Developmental Pry- chology. As well, I've been interested | (in radical approaches to psychology for a while. We were both coming to a conference in Massachusetts so we thought this would be a good opportu- nity to see what you've done. Alliance: What have you done while you've been here? : Parker: We've seen the play Our Young Black Men Are Dying and Nobody Seems to Care. We went up 0 © Harlem, for a New Alliance Party meet> ing with Dr. Fulani. We've talked to” Social Therapists, to Lois Holzman, 9 Pred Newman. J oy Alliance: What are your impressions of the political community we’ ve built? Berman: | feel it’s quite difficult to { finest all the impressions and put jogether everything. we've seen. It , seems clear 10 me that whal you've got here is an accomplishment that has* volved « great deal of work. It is very, ‘Nery interesting that you've done it. I om to try and find owt something how you've been able to do this. ‘and place it in the context of what's- happening in this country.” : Parker: Castillo is a fanantic achieve- ‘ment and is making a significant com tribution on all kinds of issues. The ~ ‘play was fantastic and clearly spoke to the people in the theatre. And the room was packed. It is a wonderful buikting and good atmorohere. I thought that the: -New Alliance Party would be like the Marxist partics in England, but it seems Slear that NAP isn’t like that. It isa nuch broader alliance, with people * from a wide variety of political views, - “What also surprised me is the way Dr,” * Fulani presents herself as a serious ‘{}, Presidential candidate. I wes very impressed by the way Dr. Fulani. addressed an audience of Black youth ’ tad told them to come along to the Gay Pride March next Sunday. She was also quite open about Social Therapy being - founded by a Jewish mast. Bui therp is & contradiction that worries us. We are wondering how far you can court and-Semite as well as being homopho- bic. How far does courting him so you can address Bleck youth work? How fas will courting him simply build him up and increase the dengers? I'm not. sure, Alflance: It seems like your concern is based on the premise that the New: Alliance Party and Dr. Fulani are “courting” Minister Farrakhan in order so organize the Black community and Black youth. in reality, the New Alliance Party has been organizing in. the Black community for the bener part of two decades. Dr. Fulani works with Minister Farrakhan because he is a distinguished leader who is followed by millions of African Americans. As Dr. . Fulani has said numerous times, the white community cannot tell the Black commanity who its leaders are, nor will thie tendency pander to the racism of the white media in order to gain legitimacy in their eyes. Moreover, Dr. Fulani, who leads a Black-ted, mili- tantly pro-gay party, many of whose founding members and principal orga- nizers are Jewish, has a crucial role to play in providing leadership to other Black leaders on controversial issues like the relationship between Blacks and gays and Blacks and Jews. We're a living example of what progressive relationships between and among those Parker: I don't mean to be negative. The rhetoric of NAP, of Castillo, of the East Side Center, is very good. It's very impottant that whatever con- situency is being addressed, there is no compromise. f haven't scen or heard anything to make me worry about that, I think the Center for Social Therspy is the moat interesting of the lot. I would like to see more shout how the Social Therapy groups work. I would like to know more about how people become empowered by those groups and come to think of themselves as changers — or revotutionasies, as ii was put in one of our discussions with Social Thera- pists — rather than objects or con- sumers. Berman: One of the key things that struck me Is your focus on building contexts and environments. I've begun to be a littler clearer on what that would mean and how that work could be linked to action. J can see that as an intervention into dominant forms of therapy, your work is very important. Particularly in engaging the focus on individualism which so many other therapies practice. And you're able to do this — 1 haven't really got my head around all of it — in Nexible ways. Parker: in looking at ell this, there are two we can't answer. First, how this movement fits into the patch- work of race and sexual politics given what's going on in America — how is it located in the struggles of Blacks, of lesbians and gay men, of women? We just don’t know enough about what is happening in America to be abit to . answer this, And second, how far can ; we ge mm taning writ you've wun aa transposing this to England, where there isn’t a private and independent system of mental health care? Berman: You've obviousty taken © advantage of a particular situation here in the United States. One of the things we felt quite strongly about what hap- pened in Trieste was that it had every- thing to do with the particular circum- stances in that city and country and had a particular relationship to the history and structure, What does all this mean for what's happening where we are? We need to think about where mental health services are at and where radical paychology is going. I've got to do that work in order to understend what you're doing here. Parker: We want to sce what can de done in Britain. This approach has come out of years and years of radical psychologists working together to build something which is connecting Ute per- sonal and the political. The worst thing that could happen is for peopie from our country to rush over and do a quick course in Social Therapy and then try to set something up in Great Britain. Alliance: What do you mean? Parker: That is the way so many brands of therapy have arrived. Profes- sionals have come to America and trained and then came back to Britain . and set up institutes. Most of them are quacks, dangerous quacks. Berman: One of the Social Therapists we spoke to talked about building the ship as you go across the ocean. It seems to me that when you are building something. the thing you are building is determined by who is building it and what you are building it with. My con- cern with exporting Social Therapy to England is that it would be done in such a way as to batten down the struc- ture of what is already there — the community mental health centers and radical mental health groups. Parker: One of the things that we Jearned from our work in Manchester is that it is difficult to get mental health consumers to talk to radical psycholo- gists because they never want to talk to psychologists again. They've been messed up and don't trust psycholo- gists. They are empowering themselves in a more effective way so it seems to me that the job of radical psychologists in Britain is to listen and support them in doing what Ufey are doing. The only way they can get out of the mess is to work on their own strengths. That means women as women, Blacks as Blacks. Social Therapy seems to share - the notion that therapy groups should be mixed groups — if people are to be cured, they need to learn how to work - together —- women with men, Blacks with whites. It is impressive that you have taken on different types of oppressions and are part of a network of struggles in America. That's. - extremely important and challenging to us as well.” iB