Outsight : Psychology, politics and social justice

If psychology is to address the despair and anguish that increasingly afflict us all, it needs to develop ‘outsight’; to stop looking inside the head of each troubled individual that seeks its help and turn its gaze outwards. Causes of distress are not to be found in faulty or dysfunctional brains, but in the often toxic circumstances of our lives.

If psychology is seriously to address the despair and anguish that increasingly afflict us all, it needs to develop ‘outsight’. It needs to stop looking inside the head of each troubled individual that seeks its help and turn its gaze outwards. The causes of distress are not to be found in faulty or dysfunctional brains, but in the often toxic family circumstances, community settings, the workplace and the wider social world, with all its inequalities, injustices and environmental breakdown. These are the true influences on our wellbeing, argues the Midlands Psychology Group, a collective of counselling, clinical and academic psychologists who continue to find inspiration and guidance from the thinking of David Smail. In this hard-hitting challenge to their own profession, they outline their proposal for a social-materialist psychology – one that is concerned with the influences of our shared, material world and how it shapes everything we think, feel and do. For too long psychology has served the interests of the exploitative economic systems that dictate the lives of so many people in the industrialised world. Instead, it should be placing the values of compassionate solidarity at the heart of all that it does. This book seeks to inspire that shift and equip the profession to question, challenge and even change what it does.