Training that domesticates or education that liberates? Tensions and dilemmas related to teaching critical psychology in the context of UK clinical psychology training. Training that domesticates or education that liberates? Tensions and dilemmas related to teaching critical psychology in the context of UK clinical psychology training

'Get people to think, rather than telling them what to think...enough of that out there already'
Prof Claire Grant

Before taking up my current academic post I worked as a clinical psychologist in a community mental health team in inner city London. Partly as a result of that experience, I became aware of the potential for mental health services to do harm as well as good. I also observed how dominant discourses and practices socialise trainee mental health professionals from various disciplines, sometimes appearing to blind them to this potential for harm (Foucault, 1967; Coles, Diamond & Keenan, 2013; Newnes, 1990). I became interested in critical perspectives on psychology and in particular on psychosis (e.g. Pilgrim & Treacher, 1992; Johnstone, 2000; Bentall, 2003) and began writing in this area (e.g. Kinderman & Cooke, 2000; Cooke, 2008).

As an academic I am currently active in promoting professional and public debate about ‘taken for granted’ (Barrett, 1996) ideas in mental health (e.g. Cooke & McGowan, 2013; Cooke, Gilchrist & McGowan, 2014; Cooke & Kinderman, in press). My current role at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK includes teaching on a doctoral programme that trains clinical psychologists to work in the British National Health Service.

This chapter describes some of the tensions inherent to teaching critical psychology in such a context. It also outlines the ways that colleagues and I have managed these tensions and developed teaching in this area such that the programme’s critical ‘edge’ is now one of the aspects most valued by trainees (Chatfield, 2016).