Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Press release on Government announcement on funding for psychotherapy

UK Community Psychology Network | 16.10.2007 20:56 | Health

For immediate release 16 October 2007


Changing politicians' minds about changing our minds?

"Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and associated approaches are
comprehensively problematic. Primary prevention is the only way to
substantially reduce socially, economically and materially caused
distress. To be effective primary prevention must involve social rather
than cognitive change. Reducing income inequality in our society would
be one of the most effective ways to reduce psychological distress and
ill health”, says the UK Community Psychology Network.

Full press release follows / is attached.

The UK Community Psychology Network

For immediate release 16 October 2007


Changing politicians' minds about changing our minds?

"Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and associated approaches are comprehensively problematic. Primary prevention is the only way to substantially reduce socially, economically and materially caused distress. To be effective primary prevention must involve social rather than cognitive change. Reducing income inequality in our society would be one of the most effective ways to reduce psychological distress and ill health”, says the UK Community Psychology Network.

Contact:
David Fryer01786467650  d.m.fryer@stir.ac.uk
or
Mark Rapley, 0208 223 6392 / 0208 223 4567  M.Rapley@UEL.AC.UK


Notes for Editors:

1. The government has recently announced £170m is to be made available by 2010 to increase the availability of low intensity, high volume, interventions, of which Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) is currently the most favoured, to be delivered at primary care level to adults of working age by people who have some basic training.

2. We welcome the recognition of widespread emotional distress and the will to spend public money on it. But the scale of socially caused distress is so vast, and growing so rapidly, that it is impossible to 'treat it better' by training enough people to treat all those in distress one at a time with any therapeutic technique.

3. Even if we could train enough practitioners, there is little reason to think that the one to one talking treatments by professionals are more than marginally effective in the hands of some practitioners for some people, especially those in the most difficult living circumstances. This is so even when delivery is organised through the stepped care model that runs from use of self help guides to full therapeutic interventions.

4. Whilst community psychology research suggests that lay people are as effective as professionals in delivering help through talking and listening, the effectiveness of CBT and kindred interventions in any hands is widely exaggerated and they are impossible to apply in many situations and with many people.

5. Moreover these treatments individualise social problems, draw attention away from the more important social economic and material causes of distress and position individual cognitive dysfunction as both the cause of the person's problem and the locus for intervention.

6. It is bad enough to be depressed because of difficult living circumstances or to be anxious because you are subjected to regular domestic violence, without being told your depression or anxiety are caused by your own dysfunctional cognitions. Blaming the victim like this imposes irrelevant therapeutic rituals on top of societal oppression

7. Besides, when those treated go back into the psychologically toxic contexts that made them distressed in the first place, to which many or most will have no alternative, they are subjected to the same social causes of distress all over again. If those treated do not go back into those psychological toxic contexts, there will still be an epidemic of newly damaged people coming on stream due others being subjected to the ignored social causes of distress.

8. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and associated approaches are comprehensively problematic and primary prevention is the only way to substantially reduce socially, economically and materially caused distress. To be effective primary prevention must involve social rather than cognitive change. Contemporary research shows that reducing income inequality in our society would be one of the most effective ways to reduce psychological distress and ill health not just for the disadvantaged but across society in general.

9. For the sake of conciseness we have not included scholarly references to substantiate assertions made here, but further background information can be obtained from the network via the two contact people identified above.

10. The UK Community Psychology Network exists to promote community psychology as one alternative to the individual focused approaches so dominant in the psychology of the English speaking world. Its members include clinical, educational, social, organisational psychologists, both in the field and in research and teaching posts, as well as people without formal psychological qualifications.


Signatories

Julie Bird
Jan Bostock
Mark Burton
Julie Chase
Deborah Chinn
Paul Cotterill
John Cromby
Dawn Darlaston-Jones
Bob Diamond
Paul Duckett
David Fryer
Michael Göpfert
Carolyn Kagan
Annie Mitchell
Paul Moloney
Moira O'Connor
Penny Priest
Mark Rapley
David Smail
Janine Soffe-Caswell
Carl Walker


on behalf of the UK Community Psychology Network

UK Community Psychology Network
- e-mail: mark,burton@poptel.org

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech