Hardly any of the 'symptoms' of
psychological distress may correctly be seen as medical matters. The so-called
'neuroses', 'psychoses' and related forms of suffering are nothing to do with
faulty biology; nor indeed are they the outcome of individual moral weakness or
other personal failing. They are the creation of the social world in which we
live, and that world is structured by power.
Social power may be defined as the means of obtaining
security or advantage, and it will be exercised within any given society in a
variety of forms: coercive (force), economic (money power) and ideological (the
control of meaning). Power is the dynamic which keeps the social world in
motion. It may be used for good or for ill.
One cannot hope to understand the phenomena of
psychological distress, nor begin to think what can be done about them, without
an analysis of how power is distributed and exercised within society. Such an
understanding is the focus of this web-site.
There are three principal strands to the site:
literature and links in a) psychology and psychiatry and b) more general
socio-economic analysis (click below) and reference to my own work (click on
items on the side bar).
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