July!
A spicy issue. On using social issues to further one's personal brand, racism and any-supremacy, whether the left is eating itself, intersectionality, and carceral violence.
I feel like July! needs a jaunty ! after it to enable us all to survive this cold, wet winter. The BOM deeply failed me (I’m not angry, just disappointed) with its predictions of a milder-than-usual winter. Holy wind chill and RAIN, Batman. That said, I grew up in India and Lagos (Nigeria) and thus appreciate the joys of a cold day much more than some of my always-cold, black-clad, Melbourne-dwelling counterparts. Personally, I think Karla has absolutely nailed how winter works — snoozing, open fires, silk sleep masks to keep out tepid putters of winter light, warm bedding, and a willing human slave (i.e., me).
I have been embracing my inner pluviophile and sloth this past month. My writing has gone fallow for a while and I am coasting this, and noticing ideas churning and percolating somewhere within. This process is largely mysterious to me and at some stage my psyche will deliver up masticated material, ready to be transferred to paper (screen). Until then, I’ll be grateful for the lack of 5 am starts, and will continue to resemble a snoozy and lethargic greyhound x sloth (it’s called conserving energy, thanks).
I usually write on my couch or in bed (I know some writers sit upright like adults at desks, but this is not for me). However, I’ve been exploring other writing/thinking/reading venues recently, and have rediscovered my love for libraries. New spaces help me think in different ways and much as I love my house I need new vistas at times — but also require that these new vistas be quiet, relatively unpeopled, and that no one talks to me or around me, especially when I’m writing. For someone who talks and listens daily for a living, I find that I need a lot of non-talking time to recuperate, and to do the deep work of writing. This is quite an affliction, and an unfair one to inflict on other people. Quiet spaces are peculiarly hard to find in daily life (if you have any tips, please slide into my DMs), but libraries fit the bill very well.
I’m a proud card-carrying member of my own local, but it doesn’t have quite the inspirational and quiet non fluorescent lit writing spaces I seek (ideally with a view). The State Library of Victoria used to be my haunt, but I’ve been branching out. The library at the Dock is my new favourite, and I’m also going to check narrm ngarrgu library soon. I like being up high somewhere when I write. I recall reading a paper suggesting that elevation can increase our capacity to transcend the limits of our daily lives, but I can’t seem to find it now (so pinch of salt, people). A search for ‘creativity and being up high’ brings up the predictable results, not quite the type of high I was going for. Thanks anyway, Google. Go home.
On public intellectuals and mental health/social issues.
I promised you some reflections about social media and influencer-adjacent people in the health and wellness space a few months ago. I’ve been sitting on this, because I haven’t quite collected my thoughts or had anything more to say beyond ‘end stage capitalism’. I realise I sound like a RAGING leftie when I say this — but I’ve usually found that following the money helps me determine why people do what they do. I’m sure there are a whole host of psychological factors at play too, but essentially health and wellness influencers do this because it makes them money. Do with that what you will.
In an influencing-adjacent move, I’ve been observing a fascinating shift from activists, writers and advocates who have historically operated in the sexual violence and child abuse space, into the domestic and family violence (DFV) and intimate partner violence (IPV) space. On the surface this may make sense — both sexual violence and IPV are perpetrated by men and perhaps this makes them equivalent? It’s also likely that many with lived experience of one form of abuse will also have lived experience of the other, given the high rates of re-traumatisation/re-victimisation.
However, this concerns me as the behaviour are very different forensically, with vastly different drivers and remedies. As an example, the two biggest risk factors for sexual violence are general antisociality and sexual deviance — sexual deviance has no established relationship to IPV/DFV at all, and antisociality in this cohort needs to be studied more rigorously before we can make firm statements. Conflating the two behaviours and rushing to implement interventions based on pressure from activists or bureaucrats without a careful examination of the research will simply maintain the behaviour. I equate this to treating a cardiac issue as though it were a broken leg. If we misidentify a problem and apply the wrong interventions, we won’t make a difference, and the only people who suffer are victim-survivors (and I would argue, perpetrators, many of whom are victim-survivors themselves). An interesting exploration of this issue here.
There’s a general sense the public holds that crime and mental health are easy to understand and that anyone can have valid views about these concepts. However, opinions are very different to facts, and we all know what they say about opinions, yes?
DFV and IPV (they are different issues too – DFV includes abuse like parent to child abuse, child to parent abuse or sibling abuse) are in the public eye at the moment and I’ve been observing people pile onto the wagon with suggested ‘interventions’ (banning porn, legislating deepfake porn, banning alcohol, broad scale men’s mental health interventions, banning gambling, runnings ads during sporting events), regardless of whether they have any specific expertise in forensic matters, or any specialised understanding of the behaviour of concern and the actual evidence for relationships between these proposed interventions and drivers of behaviours. As an example, deepfake AI has no established relationship to IPV risk, though it is a a crime in it’s own right. Charitably, I see this as people simply being desperate for change. Less charitably, I see this as using a current and deeply dangerous and harmful social issue to further one’s personal profile and one’s pet ideas.
Doing the deep work of understanding, research and building expertise is essential — whether one is an activist or a professional. Reporting on the work of professionals is a different beast, but increasingly, I’ve seen writers and journalists jostle to position themselves as ‘experts’ in certain fields. I feel troubled by this, because reporting may give us a cross-sectional sample of people’s views and some good, on-the-ground knowledge of issues, but it really doesn’t confer the depth of knowledge and understanding of research and statistics we need to suggest or work on interventions, or to truly be an ‘expert’. Our views are biased by the views we are offered, and we likely won’t know enough about the literature to identify gaps in the views we are being fed. I’m not sure where it’ll end, but I am certain that conflating opinion with fact or overstating experience will not assist in any meaningful way. Similarly, lived experience is useful for advocacy, but lived experience as a victim-survivor (or any other identity) does not qualify someone to provide an expert opinion on forensic intervention and behaviour change for perpetrators. Indeed, I would argue the opposite, because emotions will understandably make it difficult to bring objectivity.
Nor do I intend to pull down people operating as activists and writers, or to deny the work they have done. Grassroots activism has brought us a long way and is essential (arguably even more so, given where the world is heading). However, if we have public profiles and a voice, we have the responsibility to speak sensibly, with care, and always with this ultimate question — are my words going to contribute to bringing about the meaningful change we need?
LEFT VS RIGHT — and is the left eating itself?
(+ white feminism, Harris and the hellscape of American politics)
(+ white feminism, Harris and the hellscape of American politics)
I started this past weekend by watching a beheaded Palestinian baby be placed inside a body bag.
Read that again, and let it sink in.
I started this past weekend by watching a beheaded Palestinian baby be placed inside a body bag.
I then moved into the online space and found that a couple of female commentators had spoken about Kamala Harris and suggested that the left needs to band together instead of ‘eating itself’ to vote Harris in — otherwise — we might have another Trump presidency. Full disclosure, in 2016 I too thought like this and was a Clinton supporter. I’ve since done a lot more reading and thinking (none of this influenced by passionate social media exhortations to ‘do better’ I add) and have realised the nature of Clinton’s policies and the harms she has caused. Similarly, Harris and the Dems in general have a foreign policy which can perhaps most politely be described as violence-supportive (if I were assessing them for risk of violence, I’d be saying ‘high risk of violence, high risk of imminence, active violent ideation'*). Noticing this and asking for better is essential, even if we do believe that Harris is a better alternative than Trump. After the disappointments caused by the policy failures of successive governments, I personally feel minimal political hope. I feel dismayed that Harris v Trump is seemingly the best we can do or ask for.
As a healthcare worker, I will always stand for humanitarianism, peace and freedom for all, and no preventable violent deaths — whether by intimate partner violence, or bombs. State sanctioned violence is still violence, and if we are raising our voices against IPV/DFV/child abuse but implicitly asking to sanction the deaths of those who are far away from us — we need to think carefully about what allows us to see others as less than human, and to see their needs as less important than our needs. I’ve often thought that ‘white supremacy’ is sometimes used as a thought-terminating cliche, but this is increasingly starting to ring true — there’s something about being able to flick away the deaths of thousands that perhaps speaks to whether we truly see the other as human. Perhaps it’s simply supremacy, not even white supremacy. India for instance has a terrible history of segregating people by caste, with extreme abuse meted out to people who are Dalits (‘untouchables’). This caste system pre-dated the British and cannot be attributed to colonialism. Similar behaviour is now being enacted by a far-right Hindu government against Muslims. Nevertheless, it is reality that most structural power in Australia is held by white people, and for white/white-passing people there is some additional work to do to really dive into the needs of minorities.
Wherever power clusters, harm tends to follow — and people can hold power based on gender, race, appearance, caste, religion, economic status, health status, education, employment (and a host of things I have likely missed).
Social commentators/public intellectuals have a lot of power (and hubris) built on their followings, and they don’t always use this wisely, or stop to examine their own biases and the constructs which have influenced their views.
Please feel free to send me references/thoughts when I do this (when, not if).
In any event, my heart aches for Palestinians, Muslim people and Arabs who have watched the deaths of many thousands be reduced to ‘identity politics’ in one swoop this weekend. When your people are being massacred, this is your identity, and these deaths are your politics (not wanting to speak for other BIPOC people here, just reflecting on how I would feel if a massacre were being enacted in India).
While I certainly have my own reservations at times about the manner in which the ‘left’ often communicates (also noting this is no different to the frank attacks of the ‘right’), calls to shut down dissent because ‘if we do, the bad guys will win’) is no different to any other form of totalitarianism, albeit one masquerading as social justice. There are people who act or speak in bad faith (or perhaps just in anguish) in any movement and whose words can rankle, but even these people can have important messages for us.
*tongue-in-cheek — there are no violence risk assessments for organisations or institutions. But also, past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour.
Psychology and social justice
I know psychology and social justice have a very uneasy relationship. With good reason too, we’ve been incredibly individualistic in our approach to mental health, have ignored social realities in favour of psychologising them, been frankly racist, contributed to active harms done to indigenous people, contributed to torture, and continue to privilege the individual comfort and emotional safety of some over the collective physical safety of millions.
As a BIPOC psychologist, I’ve seen this myself very clearly in the way the psychology profession in Australia has approached, and continues to approach, social issues. As a forensic psychologist, I likely contribute to harms done to incarcerated people in this system myself. I cannot and will not delude myself and hide from this truth. Equally, I avoid knee-jerk action and will find ways to continue operating in this system in a values-aligned and compassionate way, knowing that the system aches for health professionals who push for alternatives to punishment, or who care for those who are being punished.
Psychology and psychiatry have essentially sprung from a white, European, middle-class, liberal approach to the world and thus continue to privilege this frame. These professions can be deeply conservative, resistant to change and often deliberately ignore or repress the needs of BIPOC people, or anyone who is an ‘other’ (remembering that homosexuality was in the DSM as a mental disorder until 1974, until gay activists engaged in significant protest).
A lot of this is because of the identity of those who work in these professions — often white, middle class and unthinkingly geared toward expecting a world which will privilege them and their families, with no conception of what life might be like on the other side for the teeming millions. I doubt that this is deliberate or malicious, it’s just unconscious bias (thanks Meghan and Harry). We all have unconscious bias, there’s no way around this — the best we can do is to try and bring this into consciousness and avoid defences like denial (“I’m a good person and so I could never harm another”). To become a psychologist or psychiatrist requires significant money and resources (decades of study, unpaid placements) and this necessarily impacts on the type of people who can enter the profession and thus, the decisions made within the profession about what the profession stands for.
While I’m BIPOC myself and put myself through university without family support (lots of night shifts!), I am firmly middle class, had some family support if I needed it, and have significant educational and linguistic privilege. South Asian people are also well accepted in Australian culture and while I have faced racism, it’s likely nowhere near as significant as Black or Blak peers, or perhaps those from other cultures. Intersectionality at play, and I have to work quite hard to hold in mind all these different levels of privilege and need. It’s hard work, and I can see why it’s much easier for some to turn away from this process of interrogation, especially when questioning privilege means you might have to start to work toward a system which requires that you give up some of yours.
Despite these uncomfortable musings, I think psychology has sprung from helpful roots — a desire to understand the world and to help people cope with it. Psychology offers us deep wells of understanding, empathy, kindness and some useful strategies and ways to approach and heal the harms the world has caused. Psychology with a social justice overlay is a powerful force for good, and I am encouraged by the efforts of numerous psychologists who are working so hard to make changes for good. The profession has many kind and empathic people, and it’s one I am glad to be a part of. Overall, I see psychology as a possible force for net good in the world if we can use it in the right way, and I hope that those who are in the profession and are reading these words might start to consider carefully their own practises, and always work toward equity and righting historical wrongs.
While broader social frameworks are essential, my work as a psychologist is situated firmly in the individual and in the 1:1 relationship. It’s often through this that change can be catalysed. I never hector my clients or inflict my social views on them, but a large part of my forensic work is in behaviour change. And let’s be frank, even if the behaviour change I am enacting is one to reduce the use of violence by men to protect women, it’s still an imposition of my values and views and culturally accepted views onto another. Listening and empathising with the other first is an essential part of this process, and I often return to the words below by Carl Rogers on the importance of empathy. Empathy and understanding are preconditions for change, and I’ve never known anyone to make any meaningful changes because they are shamed. I hold this frame in all my interactions in the world (and yes, I’ve been called an ‘invidious, violent Liberal’ for it — I keep thinking that I should put this on a t-shirt) but it holds me in good stead as I grapple with the complexities ahead of us.
“An empathic way of being with another person … means entering the private perceptual world of the other and becoming thoroughly at home in it.
It involves being sensitive, moment by moment, to the changing felt meanings which flow in this other person, to the fear or rage or tenderness or confusion or whatever that he or she is experiencing.
It means temporarily living in the other’s life, moving about in it delicately without making judgments; it means sensing meanings of which he or she is scarcely aware, but not trying to uncover totally unconscious feelings, since this would be too threatening.
It includes communicating your sensings of the person’s world as you look with fresh and unfrightened eyes at elements of which he or she is fearful. It means frequently checking with the person as to the accuracy of your sensings, and being guided by the responses you receive.
You are a confident companion to the person in his or her inner world. By pointing to the possible meanings in the flow of another person’s experiencing, you help the other to focus on this useful type of referent, to experience the meanings more fully, and to move forward in the experiencing.
To be with another in this way means that for the time being, you lay aside your own views and values in order to enter another’s world without prejudice.
In some sense it means that you lay aside your self; this can only be done by persons who are secure enough in themselves that they know they will not get lost in what may turn out to be the strange or bizarre world of the other, and that they can comfortably return to their own world when they wish.
Perhaps this description makes clear that being empathic is a complex, demanding, and strong — yet also a subtle and gentle — way of being.”
NO CRIME SUNDAYS
(Disclaimer: As a registered psychologist, I cannot provide diagnoses or commentary about mental health unless I have seen a client, and if I have seen someone, then I cannot speak about them publicly for obvious reasons. What I present in this section are general thoughts only, and these musings are not intended to be seen as clinical advice. I’ll be picking out cases and using them as a way to springboard into discussions about relevant forensic issues. I have no specific, privileged knowledge of the cases I discuss, and my commentary is meant to be informational and educational in nature only. All views are my own only.)
I’m going to speak about something quite different, no crime dissection this month. While many of us love crime and true crime, I really want to emphasise that crime comes at a terrible human cost — for victims, their families, perpetrators, and everyone who works in the industry (even calling it an industry feels grotesque, but if you factor in the costs of all the courts, policing, prisons, staff, psychologists, and adjacent services — it absolutely is an industry, and likely a profitable one). Some examples of the human costs of crime here, here, and here.
We shouldn’t gloss over these facts in the name of entertainment. When I entered the forensic psychology profession, it was with dreams in my head and stars in my eyes — I really wanted to make a difference. I still do, but the stars and dreams have been replaced with pragmatism, after almost ten years of seeing some variant of ‘no suitable services sorry’, and being asked to effect rehabilitation when the basics of housing, food security and healthcare often cannot be provided to those with the most complex needs (often also those at highest risk of reoffending).
All this was hammered home for me when I watched the movie, Sons, this weekend. A review here. There were some significant depictions of correctional brutality in this film, set in a maximum-security men’s prison in Denmark. While watching the film I was really struck by the brutality of the violence depicted, and realised how jarring it was to see this in a film when I’ve been protected from that violence in prison because of the role I held as a psychologist. While life in a maximum security prison regularly involves assaults, the use of police dogs for ‘extractions’ from cells, gassing people out of their cells, the use of batons, and the use of water cannons, I have seen none of this, though I have heard of all this referred to casually.
‘Yes, we had to use the dogs to get him out’.
’Use the spit hood’.
‘She can’t come out of her cell until the SOG get here with batons’.
Until I saw this on screen, I couldn’t imagine the terror and horror behind these words (I probably simply didn’t try). Prison is almost as brutal for staff as it is for prisoners, and levels of occupational trauma and violence are incredibly high. The more traumatised people are, the less they are able to hold compassion or care for those who are vulnerable, and the more entrenched the cycle becomes.
It’s difficult to know where to go with this line of questioning and thinking.
I cannot see a society in which we don’t need some form of policing or justice, and there are many, many people I’ve worked with who will wreak huge harm on others (including via sexual and general violence, or child abuse) without some form of supervision, monitoring and oversight. A tiny percentage of these people will absolutely need some form of long-term containment. I wonder if much of what is effected by force in prisons could be done without this force and trauma – though it would likely be much more costly, and would hold more risk. Perhaps this can all change over time if we can move toward a society set up with appropriate and adequate social systems designed to protect people from the earliest stages of life — but this is not our current society. It’s almost a misnomer to speak of things like trauma-informed care in our current justice system, yet it isn’t helpful to abandon any hope of changing the current system and focus on a radical utopia — especially given so many people are stuck in the current system, here and now.
I’m not claiming to have any answers about this and I hold more questions than anything else, as I track the changes in my own thinking. Nor is there a particular line of thinking I want you to approach via this piece — except perhaps some questioning of your own views about crime, how you interface with crime for entertainment, the policies you support, and the manner in which you engage with those in the justice system.
WHAT I READ (IN WHOLE OR PART) IN JULY
A Memoir of my Former Self: A Life in Writing - Hilary Mantel
Platform Seven - Louise Doughty
The Push - Claire McGowan
All Fours - Miranda July
The Honeyeater - Jessie Tu (for all Yellowface lovers!)
If You Go - Alice Robinson
A Shining Affliction: A Story of Harm and Healing in Psychotherapy - Annie Rogers, PhD
Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative - Melissa Febos
Boy, Lost - Kristina Olsson
Flesh Wounds - Richard Glover
The Extinction of Irena Ray - Jenny Croft
MEDIA WRAP
I spoke to the always excellent Jill Stark for her new podcast, Well Enough Alone. I strongly recommend this podcast for anyone struggling with (or embracing!) being single.
I also spoke to Shapes and Sounds for the Asian Mental Health podcast. We spoke about lots of useful things, such as definitions of trauma and mental illness, how to access care, and what actually happens in the first session of therapy.
RECLAIM was also shortlisted for a Davitt award, yay!
UPCOMING EVENTS
After a self-imposed and much needed media hiatus, I’m starting to book in events again for the end of this year.
I’ll be appearing at Kew library on 25th November for a Q & A about Like Skills for social inclusion week, will run a webinar for the ASA on 27th November, and will be teaching a webinar for the APS on intimate partner violence on 11th December.
(Cue me complaining about needing to do slides sometime around November.)