From my Twitter comments, best read from the bottom up:
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Regarding other human beings as a “lump” not as individuals is a form of “objectification.” It stems from poor parenting who objectified their children. The psychologist John Bowlby wrote three volumes on the subject and triggered a huge cottage industry on the topics of attachment and caregiving. Very slowly this industry is beginning to permeate human society and ultimately will have an effect on its politics. Meanwhile society has to experience the negative consequences of voting for “high functioning” sociopaths to lead their countries like Trump and Johnson!
Helen, you reminded me of a conference I helped organise in 2013.
Our main speaker was Matin Seager who said he had been asked by a Labour Minister ( i don’t know who ) to do some work on a psychologically informed framework for the delivery of public services e.g. education, mental health, social work, welfare services. (At the moment we have unemployment claimants being called ‘customers’ as though they were there by choice. )The group included several high profile Psychotherapists . It seems the minister was moved on before she could implement the policy framework they came up with. Martin Seager’s comment to me was that attachment theory is the best attested psychological theory and thus a sound basis to build on.
In officaldoms dealing with people, it is the quality of the relationships which count. In our tick box world that gets down graded or even ignored.
Human well being is not just an individual thing but dependent in large measure to the community in which we live. The health wealth and happiness trinity is in fact a bio-psycho-social trinity.
Social policies need not only to work in that framework but encourage the growth of those qualities in people.
It seems to me a great opportunity was lost.