Terry  Couchman
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The Theories from which we operate:

During my arguments here you will see me refer to Psychological and Emotional Features, rather than diagnosed conditions. This, and other re-definitions of psychological and emotional states, are a deliberate avoidance of diagnosis. I deal with the psycho-social aspects of presenting problems not the 'psychiatric' diagnosis. The diagnosis is the domain of Psychiatry. I operate on the boarders of psychology, sociology and anthropology, or in the realm of non-clinical social psychiatry, where I refuse to qualify, other than by experience.

The people I am referring to may also have a 'diagnosis' but that would be in order to identify a legal and/or medical problem that is having a distressing effect upon the individual (and their society), to the point where they seek, or are assessed to need, clinical interventions. It is my argument that this is for those situation where the individual and their cultural milieu, have been unable to accommodate and adapt to the psycho-social features. It is for those circumstances where the individual and society have become mal-adapted, or at odds, that we seek to have a purpose.

I do refer to the 'conditions' but in this respect I am describing the psycho-social conditions, or dispositions, without pre-qualifying whether they are inherently positive or negative, constructive or destructive, dispositions. What potential benefits and disadvantages are available, I assume are largely contextually determined by social interactions, cultural expectations, environmental conditions and the social adaptability of the wider culture. Basically, how accommodating to the a particular person the 'social context' is.

Genetics does not come along and say hear is a good feature and here is a bad one. Neither does it just go wrong. There is, of course, extreme chromosomal and genetic 'damage' which leave us with a clear 'organic' problem, raising possible psycho-social problems. But even in these cases nature has been clever. If the right circumstances and resources are available some aspects of this feature, in association with other established genetic features (individual and group), can have some beneficial psycho-social outcomes.

Relatively spontaneous, on-going variation is the life blood of genetics. We carry some of these features and they may not be activated at all. Other influences, or disposition, may take over and shadow the range of alternatives (at least for significant periods). If we are truly adaptive (as we are basically designed to be), we will comfortably bring to the fore, those features that best fit the circumstances that we meet during a particular phase of our social experience. Our adaptability is sometimes bred out of us, genetically, but mostly socially.

Why does a mother-to-be demand that she be allowed to suck on coal, have chilly sandwiches, or eat a whole cucumber, or a raw potato? Why do societies of otherwise perfectly reasonable people accommodate to a cultural inclination that sometimes leads to their own extinction and in other circumstances, to the point of genocide? Why do cultures have widely differing contentious disagreements about what are fundamentally common aspiration, like spirituality, humanity, self expression, language, the environment, etc.

Some people do not like variation. It makes them feel insecure and requires constant adjustment, or differing presentations. We acclimatise to what we are used to and things are then more predictable and reliable for us. Ironically, this variation is critical to our survival, so there has to be some mechanism for accommodating to the variations that are thrown up. There is a constant tension between continuity and change. The variations in ways of thinking and doing are our adaptation resources for the future. When they are needed they are often valued but till then they can be an irritation to institutions (they need a place to thrive)

We sometimes find teachers and parents have problems with the child that sees things differently, who thinks, asks questions and theorises (sometimes wrongly) about everything, rather than accepting what they are told. Similarly; the child who uses his left hand rather than his right (or either), or the child who has problems with reading and writing accurately, because they think ahead and recreate a story in their head, neglecting to write components of it. The child who bounces around and doesn't focus for long, is interested in everything going on around them, rather than the limited activity in front of them.

We tend to look for the negative features in these child actions rather than consider that a different kind of process may be going on that has some advantages over the usual approach. The child who is shy, slow and introspective by their nature; maybe they are observing and taking in more information before laying it down as 'given' facts. The child who comes up with an odd, inaccurate answer to an question asked them; perhaps this is because they understood a more complex interpretation of the question.

Before we correct an apparent error we should first check out what alternative explanations there may be. Some children do think, process information and focus differently. They may even use different parts of their brain to other children. There may appear to be environmental features that have a bearing but not all children react to their environment in the same way, nor should they. Good teachers and parents value the 'differences' in spite of the irritating features that can be apparent.

It may be irritating, but rather than just look for a problem in the individual we should look to provide a wider range of stimulation to meet the particular requirements of all individuals, modifying the environment to facilitate their particular learning styles and rates. In later life we find that people who had a particular problem as a child develop gifts as they get older. They are different but in useful ways as well as 'irritating' ways. How many children's gifts are we trampling over in an effort to make them 'good' and conform to the norm. How much damage are we unknowingly doing to their psyches.

Some 'slow learners' who have 'behavioural problems' are actually processing the information more thoroughly and developing their own theories and explanations. They are fascinated by their experiences and soak it up and play with it, compared with the child who conforms and settles for what is given and demonstrated to them. The outcomes are different ways of perceiving and conceiving how the world works. If they are given accurate, quality physical and social environments to explore they may actually come up with the unique, creative and useful explanations that other conceptions did not encompass.

Our world thrives on this 'novelty', why do we, at the same time, smother it? What of the parent, or teacher, or institution, who has ambitions for the child that are not the child's. Worse still what of the 'expectations' of parents and teachers and other professionals, that do not fit the pattern of the child's natural thinking, interests and processing? These conflicts of interest not only potentially deprive us of a creative adult but risk producing a child and adult who acts out against the system that intellectually and emotionally imprisoned them.

When wise people say 'listen to the child' they don't mean recognise when the child is asking for sweets and asking to go to the toilet. The idea is to listen and think about what the child is saying and look to how they may be experiencing things differently to what we assume. It is not just that they may be being bullied and abused in some classic way. It may be that they are being institutionally bullied, forced to operate in a framework that does not fit them. They will not be alone, and it is not a new phenomena. Any inflexible system; mentor, psychiatrist, nurse, or social worker can generate these problems for and with the child (or Adult, or Older Adult)..

Frustrate a child's, or an adult's, opportunity to express themselves, verbally or practically, in constructive ways and you will see them express themselves in negative ways. Either way you will eventually see their intellectual and emotional skills working; if you look for them. These methods of expression may be self destructive in some measure and may also impact upon other individuals and the community. The child says 'you never listen to me' and often we didn't. We heard them speak and interpreted the words in the framework of our rather rigid way of learned thinking, but we did not listen.

In a very crude sense there is a battle within our cultures and within ourselves, between the Neolithic selves and our Modern Social selves. We carry all the features that allow us to selfishly survive emergencies and meet our needs, moderated by the 'social adaptive genes', that enable us to co-operate and share. For the 'social human' to overcome the Neolithic tendencies, there has to be social justice and fairness. There has to be a purpose and structures that encompass all legitimate persuasions and compensates for when things go wrong. It is no accident that this is the trend. It is unavoidable adaptive tendency that is resisted only by the Neolithic character within us.

This sets the scene for what follows. Here I will test out with you some ideas about differences, anomalies and variation in human beings. I will ask you to take a wider perspective on what we call genetics and what we understand to be 'normal'. In doing so I will provide some 'potential' novel answers but mostly I will stimulate additional questions to ask, of yourselves and those you bring up and/or care for. Asking the right questions is critical to getting useful answers but listening properly to the answers also gets us closer to the truth, which, in turn, will always require refining in with new knowledge.

I would ask you to consider a much looser definition of 'adaptation' to the environment and circumstances. This form of 'adaptation' includes human beings' special gift to 'change' how they see the world, allows them to share this with others and then change the world they live in quite profoundly, for better, or for worse (or both). I then ask you to consider how we each act to generate the very problems we have, in seeking to achieve so>£k*7=Ú#me kind of persistent conformity in people, above and beyond that necessary for some kind of social order.

The links on the left take you to various aspects of this wider 'alternative' universe we need to consider, if we are to constructively incorporate ourselves and our various charges, into a society that is accommodating, tolerant, knowledgeable and empathetic. Copernicus, Newton, Darwin, Freud, Skinner and many others, have made their contributions to how we understand our social universe; for they each contributed something to how we perceive and conceive of it. These theories are good for what they are good for and are advances on what went before. They are not the end of the road of changing perspectives.

Einstein gave us a 'relativity' theory that seemed to go against our direct experience and yet it is agreed, by all eminent physicists, that he was basically right, in spite of not seeing direct evidence to support this himself. It was because he was not caught up in the evidence and refusing to seek answers from asking the established questions of the time, that he gained this new insight. Max Plank asks us to consider that in certain fundamental ways 'things' are not material but energy (waves). In a sense; things are both material and energy at the same time. Both are right, if you like.

None of these theories are final answers to the riddle of how we experience the social universe but the later ones are more general and more encompassing explanations than the previous ones. Einstein is still looking for his General Theory of Relativity. If he had been a psychologist he would probably have found it. We have to make do with what we have got but we can continue to seek more general, constructive theories that encompass and include the potential to understand, value and incorporate the wide ranging perspective in social psychology, human understanding and social adaptation.

I am not claiming to have found a general theory of social psychology. Einstein strangely started that process, as you will hopefully see. I am seeking, and I am encouraging you to seek, answers that more generally explain and encompass the variety we see in the social universe. Rather than having theories that are largely prescriptive, we need theories are objective and logically cohesive but that are also more descriptive and predictive. I hope we can at least start that process, or encourage it along. Perhaps you can help?

Theory
A set of cohesive hypotheses, logically organised from certain basic assumptions (usually supported by physical, or other kinds of observable evidence). The important feature is that theory  is capable of predicting events, or outcomes, on the basis of some simple observations.

Diagnosis
A diagnosis is given by a GP or a Specialist Consultant. This relates to a process of medical, or clinical interpretation of symptoms, expertly identified, which have persistent features that suggest a particular, characteristic, medical condition.

Condition
An identifiable medical condition has clear features and symptoms that suggest, to a medical expert, that a person has a particular form of poor physical or mental health. It is usually described as a Medical Condition.

I use this more abbreviated term to emphasise the idea that we accept that there is an identified problem but that it this not related to the person's 'health' alone. The condition is a consequence of the physical & mental state of the person and their interaction with their social environment.

Feature (Presenting ..)
I use this term to refer to characteristics of behaviour which can be described as being similar to those symptoms of a particular (psychiatric) condition. The term is usually used as a 'pre-diagnostic' explanation of behaviour. Where the person accepts a diagnosis I accept this usage.

I also use it to avoid a formal diagnosis but to succinctly refer to behaviour that may, or may not, have been diagnosed as a condition but which can usefully be summarised in the form of a representative set of 'presenting behaviours'. Some Psychiatrist would do the same, wishing to avoid a formal diagnosis for any reasonable reason.

A paranoid feature could describe the typical presentation of any of us at times of particular social distress. The symptoms do not necessarily make represent a psychiatric condition, although a psychiatrist may make such a diagnosis if the feature persisted under circumstances where the social stimulus was no longer present.

Anthropology
This is basically the study of cultures and societies. The Researcher attempts to make objective observations of human groups, without pre-judging their actions and beliefs. It requires  discipline and lateral thinking, in order not to project ones own cultural beliefs onto other social groups.

For myself, it is worth taking the approach as if one was a alien to human species. Some would say that I am anyway. It is impossible, of course, to exclude all biases & prejudices but it is possible to allow oneself to develop some affinity with some other, 'alternative', known cultural viewpoint, from which we can gain experience. The more cultural alternatives the merrier.

By doing this it is possible to firstly seek to remove all judgment as far as possible, recognise when there is a measure of judgement and then take an alternative 'known' cultural perspective and see if the perception of the new culture, or social group, is seen in a different light. I call this thinking process 'triangulation'. It allows us to try to view a culture from 2 or 3 different conceptual perspectives.

With some practice, it is also possible to do this with existing, identified groups (seen as having some commonality), within our own existing culture. We have to start from the perspective that we are not necessarily part of that group (if it even exists as an entity), in terms of its assumed members.

We can not fully appreciate the psychology & emotionality of its members, should they recognise themselves as a cohesive grouping in their own terms. With some work, however, it is possible to utilise our closely aligned experiences to develop an initial affinity & then engage with the group in its own terms, as much as we are allowed & are capable of it.

In many ways it is necessary to immerse ourselves in the group, but not to the extent that we loose contact with our original objective. Our job is to translate between the conceptualisations & beliefs of the group (or collection of groups with commonalities) and our own mix of cultures.

One thing is certain, by engaging with a group we influence it, however much we try not to. Similarly, there is a reciprocal effect, some of which we are not fully aware of. By taking various perspectives we can get a better insight into these prejudices and adjust for them. All we can then do is get a close approximation of understanding.

Whatever culture, or group, that we are researching there is still the individual cases that make up any group & we can become too influenced by the particular individuals that we engage with. The ultimate picture that we obtain is going to be an 'average' of the individual we engage with and it is the commonalities we perceive between these individuals that approximates to the Anthropological picture that we seek to develop.

Our interpretation of what we find will still ultimately be from the evectional viewpoint of western scientific method, within general social and cultural context of the researcher / observer, All we can hope to do is establish the basis for a general understanding of the investigated culture, relative to our own and with as few value judgments as we can achieve.

We need to state the facts and relay the culture's interpretation of these, through our own perceptual and conceptual framework.

Social  Psychiatry
 

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