Hi All:
The more I contemplate the mental health crisis, the more convinced I am that the traditional psychological approach to this crisis is incomplete at best.
Our traditional psychological approach treats “mental health” and our treatment of it as a technical problem to be solved through scientific means. Our prevailing view of science is that it is a value-free activity — one that proceeds outside of a moral framework. And that, I suggest, does violence both to psychology and science.
To treat the mental health crisis, I believe, like Gregg, that there is a deep moral component to the problem. Our problem is that we need to cultivate selves organized around meaning, values and purpose; this necessarily brings us into relation with other people: it forces us to cultivate community — and not some abstract notion of “the common good” — but community between you and me.
I think that so many of our technical psychological interventions not only ignore this, but also ignore value of cultivating courage and resilience as an aspect of moral character. This is not to say with a shaking finger: You don’t have courage and you are bad; instead it is to say, “No one begins life with courage: let us help each other develop the courage to confront our crises”. Courage through compassion, and vice-versa, it seems to me.
None of this suggests that psychological science is not and cannot be useful. It does say that it cannot proceed as if it is not embedded in and organized by human values and relations.
Thanks for your post and for your third option, Gregg.
My Very Best,
Mike
Michael F. Mascolo, Ph.D.
Academic Director, Compass Program
Professor, Department of Psychology
Merrimack College, North Andover, MA 01845
978.837.3503 (office)
978.979.8745 (cell)
"
Things move, persons act." -- Kenneth Burke
"If it's not worth doing, it's not worth doing well." -- Donald Hebb
Hi TOK List,
I share here three very different analyses regarding the current state of our country and globe.
The first offers a conservative, pro-American view that our way of life was going along fine. The ball games, the economy, the general prosperity were neglected by doomsayers and the critical noise of the media. It says we need to embrace that “success” and return to normalcy post virus:
The second argues that there were many “pre-existing conditions” that were afflicting our country and the virus simply revealed them. We are struggling, our institutions are failing us, and we need a return to sane governance and good policies that create a much more stable, well-functioning system:
The third is more radical. It is an interview that includes TOK Society member Zak Stein and invites us to consider our global trajectory to be deeply and existentially misguided. The message here is that we need to seize the Kairos of the moment and reassess our fundamental values and metaphysics and re-emerge with fundamentally new sense and meaning making systems and new ways of being in the world:
Best,
Gregg
To unsubscribe from the TOK-SOCIETY-L list: write to: mailto:[log in to unmask] or click the following link: http://listserv.jmu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=TOK-SOCIETY-L&A=1