Dennis Fox has a weblog

I just discovered Dennis Fox's blog. Dennis has published a great deal on critical psychology topics (such as Critical Psychology: An introduction, co-edited with Isaac Prilleltensky) and has assembled a collection of very useful resources on critical psychology.

In a recent post Dennis comments on Critical Psychology International (CPI), an intiative we recently mentioned on this blog but which is (I think) being coordinated by Louise Madden of Cardiff. Dennis was involved in launching a similar initiative in 1993, RadPsyNet, which he describes as now "somewhat moribund", and suggests that "it’s time to discuss how to maintain critical psychology organizations beyond their enthusiastic births, an issue with relevance to many kinds of politically progressive organizations".

I think in part we have to take our cue from the global political landscape where the trend seems to be towards looser, ad-hoc organizational forms that interlink and cooperate around particular issues and events, and then disappear again or become temporarily moribund. This may simply be a symptom of the the extent to which the left is in disarray and conservative forces and ideologies control everything, but there also seems to be something positive about these new styles of cooperation.

1st Annual Duquesne University Critical Psychology Graduate Conference

Via PsyACT comes news of the 1st Annual Duquesne University Critical Psychology Graduate Conference (theme: "Catching Sight of Our Shadows") which will be taking place on April 1-2, 2005. Abstracts can be submitted until 1 January.

PsyACT - Psychologists Acting with Conscience Together

PsyACT is a site for "psychologists, counselors, and other concerned citizens around the world [who] act together to address issues that affect individual and community well-being through letters to editors, campus actions, teach-ins, & community activities". A nice resource and, unusually for critical psychology stuff on the web, it has a site feed - which I've promptly added to the list of feeds I read via bloglines.com. Site feeds (aka webfeeds/RSS/Atom feeds) make it easy to keep track of when new stuff is added to a site without having to keep re-visiting the site. I actually discovered PsyACT because Scot Evans wrote a comment on this blog asking where our site feed is. It's near the top right of the blog and looks like this: [Atom feed].

The UK's Civil Contingencies Bill

This draconian bill is soon to be debated in the UK parliament. More information from the Freedom Association.

Am I depressed?

Not sure if you're depressed? Not to worry - the good people at Screening for Mental Health Inc. can give you an objective answer. They'll also help you find the right doctors, pills and stuff.