Critical Social Policy

This paper argues that shifting regimes of welfare provision are accompanied by shifting disciplinary practices. Concern with the psychological dimension has always been present in welfare practices but has typically played a subordinate role in political constructions of policy. We raise the idea that we have entered an epoch in which the `psycho' resonates as surely as the `social' alongside `welfare'. We challenge the popular psychologization of well-being which can result, arguing instead that welfare and well-being need to be rethought together and that one implication of this is the need to rethink the knowledge practices of the social and psychological disciplines in relation to changing configurations of welfare.

In this paper the authors are primarily exploring the notion of social suffering within a psychosocial paradigm. A brief outline of Bourdieu's concept of social suffering, and a similarly concise explication of the psychosocial subject as contemporarily theorized are given. The central section of the paper looks at some understandings of social suffering that are experienced internally as well as within structural inequalities and power relations. The concept of hurt is considered, offering the internalized injuries of class as an example. Loss is then examined in relation to the severing of, for example, communities and the losses of social recognition and internal esteem. The complex concept of double suffering, in which hurt accrues more hurt and is re-experienced, is then discussed. The welfare subject of contemporary policy and practice is, finally, briefly revisited.

This article explores the emotional dimension of public participation. It contrasts the understanding of deliberative forums as spaces in which reasoned argument is intended to lead to good policy making, with the importance of values and emotions in motivating action within social movements. In the context of a widening of the participatory sphere and the increasing likelihood that social movement activists will also take part in officially sponsored participation initiatives, it considers the significance of the emotional content of experiences that service users and citizens bring to discussions about policy and service delivery. Drawing on a feminist ethic of care it suggests criteria for assessing the capacity of deliberative practices to encompass an emotional morality and to deliver on aspirations for enhanced well-being, welfare and social justice.

Child homicide has been a key influence on childcare policy and practice over the last three decades, with a particular focus on the assessment, management and monitoring of situations where children are at risk and on associated inter-agency working. A psychosocial analysis of the pre-offence experiences of 68 adults (mostly parents or carers) who killed or attempted to kill a child identified complex, intricate and heterogeneous processes in respect of their interpersonal relationships, stress and mental health and the relationship of these factors to the offence. These findings indicate that the current policy and practice focus upon procedures and performance in safeguarding children may not address successfully the complex needs of those adults who may pose a risk to children. It is suggested that appropriate therapeutic services should be more readily available.

This paper challenges dominant analyses of policy documents and documentation practices as coercive welfare technologies. Instead it develops an interdisciplinary feminist psychosocial analysis which posits policy documents as material semiotic actors in the process of governance, produced through and productive of the social relations of public service provision. It uses an empirical case study from the author's experience in equalities policy making in education to develop an understanding of the multiple social relations constituted through document production. It applies the concepts of boundary object and transitional phenomena to understand the ways in which policy documents enable collective resistance to dominant constructions of otherness and alterity in equalities work and policy. The paper also considers how this sort of analysis highlights `uncomfortable truths' around the position of critical social researchers in document production for policy purposes.

Despite the best, and at times the worst, efforts of systems of care `to include', there remains a group of people whose refusal to be included remains a problem both for themselves and for society as a whole. Our discussion re-locates the problems arising from the anti-social stance at the heart of this refusal from the internal world of the refuser to phenomena associated with what we have called psychosocial dis-memberment and the ` un-housed mind'. We explore the complex reciprocal relationship between the housed and the un-housed, between society's members and those whom society dis-members and we consider some possible implications for individual workers, staff teams and organizations who are tasked with attempting to house, re-member or otherwise to accommodate such people. We conclude with a challenge to practitioners, academics and policy makers to reframe the philosophical basis of their approach towards these complex psychosocial problems.