Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No69
Newsletter Themes: therapy culture and deconstructing society
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It is worth remembering that John Swinney was the man who pushed the Named Person scheme, an initiative to appoint for every child in Scotland a state guardian from (and indeed before) birth, with the aim of ensuring their ‘wellbeing’. Even after a number of its proposals were judged by the UK Supreme Court to breach rights to privacy and a family life under the European Convention on Human Rights, Swinney continued to argue that ‘the named person approach will continue’.
The likely new leader of the Scottish government is rightly understood to be a ‘continuity candidate’ in the sense of someone who will continue to promote the ‘progressive’ approach, despite the concerns raised by parents and the public.
In this video, for example, you can see Mr Swinney being questioned about the deeply problematic and sexualised nature of the RHSP education children receive in schools. Calm at times, keen to talk about consultation and the evidence and the ‘process’, Swinney is a master of turning any question that contains moral values into a technocratic matter about ‘equipping young people’.
Of course, beneath this hollowed-out language we find a new type of values being developed and promoted by Swinney and ‘aware’ professionals. This awareness, it is worth remembering, is what led to Swinney and the government voting for gender self-identification, an approach that supported the housing of rapists in women’s prisons.
Despite Swinney’s technocratic language and appearance, there is also another side to the man and indeed to the modern ‘progressive’ approach to politics and policies, an approach that has been categorised as part of a therapeutic culture.
This is a term used by sociologist Frank Furedi. Furedi is one of the most cited and influential thinkers in the UK today, and we are delighted that he will be joining us later this month to discuss what is going on in education (Tickets to the event are available here).
Anyone who looked into the Named Person scheme would have noticed immediately that the term wellbeing was used ad nauseum to explain what the initiative was about. Myriad wellbeing indicators were created to assess and attempt to understand and monitor children in Scotland. These wellbeing indicators, presented as a tick list, were indicative of a bureaucratic approach to life. However, the idea of wellbeing is also deeply therapeutic and is often related to the emotional wellbeing of children.
Seen most noticeably in the past few decades, having grown out of the culture of the 1960s, this focus on the emotional aspect of personhood has, Furedi argues, become a core new prism through which almost all aspects of society have come to be understood. More particularly, this therapeutic approach starts from a presumption of an emotional deficit – an idea that as individuals we all need help and support with our inner emotional selves.
Through a single-minded focus on emotions (and our potentially damaged emotional selves), almost all social problems are reimagined. Unemployment, an issue that was previously understood in terms of economics and politics, has increasingly come to be understood as a psychological problem associated with ‘stress’. Education, a knowledge-based discipline previously engaged the thinking-self, but has increasingly come to relate to the emotional-self and to the problem of ‘self-esteem’. Consequently, across our institutions, and indeed within our culture, there emerges a new type of therapeutic governance, and with it, a growing number of professionals who are ‘trauma informed’ and at hand to give us and our children, all the support we all need.
Within this framework, one of the things we also find is that therapeutic language and categories start to be used across society and with reference to children and, indeed, by children themselves. With this cultural change, what we also start to see is the medicalisation of children who are carriers of newly created labels, syndromes, and behavioural categories that are understood to require some kind of pharmaceutical intervention.
Over the next few months, we hope to look into this issue in detail. We have already noted in previous newsletters that the number of children who are understood to have additional support needs has grown exponentially. The number of children being diagnosed with dyslexia, autism, ADHD and other conditions is a significant part of this growth.
While some of these developments relate to serious difficulties and serious problems faced by some children, it is also arguably the case that what we are also seeing is a new professional perspective growing, one that labels children unnecessarily, and one that is, at times, coming to rely on drugs, with little or no discussion in society about what is going on.
Below, in her opinion piece, Julie Sandilands starts a discussion about this issue. It is an issue that SUE recognises attracts many different perspectives and opinions, and we feel that it needs to be urgently addressed. If you have any thoughts about this, please get in touch so that we can start a public discussion about this issue info@scottishunionforeducation.co.uk
Stuart Waiton, Chair of SUE
Deconstructing society?
Julie Sandilands is a private tutor and SUE’s education correspondent. She has worked as an English and business teacher in Fife.
There has been a noticeable rise in the diagnosis and medicalisation of both adults and children in the past two decades. This appears to be changing, in part at least, our sense of what it means to be a person; indeed, at one level, it appears to be an assault on our humanity.
The use of anti-depressants: selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors
There has been a growing number of pupils in Scottish schools being diagnosed with an additional support need, coupled with a substantial rise in children receiving Child Disability Payments for mental and behavioural disorders. The University of Aberdeen, in January 2023, reported that mental health prescriptions for children had risen by nearly 60 percent. Additionally, in one month of last year it was observed that more than a million Scots in our ‘Prozac Nation’ are taking antidepressant drugs – close to one in four of the adult population.
Jefferey Jaxen, an investigative journalist, recently presented a report on the devastating side effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in an episode of American alternative current affairs programme The HighWire. He reports that although SSRIs are designed to decrease the symptoms of depression, there are instances when they actually have the opposite effect, especially in children and young adults. One such side effect can be seen in a black box warning on the package insert leaflet. Other side effects include an increase in anxiety and agitation.
In order to learn, the mind must be in an optimum state, open to new ideas and with the ability to think clearly through those ideas and communicate them either verbally or in writing. Taking a drug which inhibits the ability to think will directly reduce the ability to learn, achieve qualifications, and become an economically active, independent human being. It could also be argued that the colossal investment in education outcomes via initiatives like the Attainment Challenge is being somewhat offset by the investment by the health service in prescribing life-changing pharmaceutical interventions, with many consumers (including children) on never-ending repeat prescriptions, thus joining the herd of cash cows listed on Big Pharma’s balance sheet.
Another key side effect of SSRIs is sexual dysfunction. Jaxen quotes Dr Joanna Moncrieff, professor of critical and social psychiatry at University College London, who says, ‘The majority of people taking SSRIs will get some form of sexual dysfunction – there’s no debate about that’. The NHS lists loss of libido (reduced sex drive), difficulty achieving orgasm during sex or masturbation in men, and difficulty obtaining or maintaining an erection (erectile dysfunction) as side effects associated with taking SSRIs. Equally concerning is that even through and after the prolonged withdrawal process, this side effect continues to be a problem. Dr Moncrieff explains that as the drugs are prescribed for sex offenders to curb their libido, it is unsurprising that these symptoms persist. For children taking this class of drugs, does this interference impact on the natural biological process of puberty on both a physical and emotional level?
The birth rate in Scotland has been in decline since 2008. For a population to replace itself, the total fertility rate (TFR) needs to be 2.1. National Records of Scotland has reported that Scotland’s total fertility rate dropped from 1.30 in 2021 to 1.28 in 2022, a record low. With approximately 1000 fewer births in 2023, this record looks set to be broken. The impact is now being seen in the gradual decrease in primary school numbers, down 15,551 in the past five years. As SSRIs are now in their third decade of use, it is worth considering them as a possible contributory factor.
Perhaps a way forward is to ensure that the information detailing the two side effects discussed here is (without exception) passed on to patients by the medics in whom they trust to ‘first do no harm’? Because without such knowledge, informed consent simply cannot be given.
Scotland is struggling to cope with:
increasing levels of behavioural problems and absenteeism in schools.
a continuing decline in the total fertility rate.
an unsustainable welfare bill.
stagnant economic growth.
The science behind the use of SSRIs as the solution to what is a very complex problem has been challenged, and yet, despite the knowledge that they are highly addictive and cause damage at the individual and collective levels, the number of prescriptions being written show no sign of slowing. Why?
The credibility of knowledge
In recent years, Scotland has hurtled down the track of cultural change. Its political and elitist class, egged on by government-funded activist organisations, is convinced that in order to be progressive, then gender ideology, critical race theory, and the narrative of anthropogenic climate Armageddon need to be embedded into the fabric of both public and private institutions. Each one is regarded as indisputable, with the threat of public denigration for anyone bold enough to challenge its truth or legitimacy. Rather than centres of learning, schools risk becoming almost church-like, as places where those evangelical for the cause ensure no avenue of escape. Resources are being rewritten and teachers’ brains ‘rewired’ to deliver a one-sided world view. There is a growing tendency for dogmatic ideas, rather than accepted facts, to be incorporated into the curriculum in service of the delivery of what can arguably be seen as indoctrination as opposed to education, with open discussions about controversial subjects forbidden. It is therefore not surprising that Stephen Tucker asks ‘Can modern children really trust what they are being taught in their schools?’ He laments that ‘The true child-indoctrination centres these days are being run by the state’. But, in my opinion, the ‘progressive’ culture being imposed on our children can only survive through fear. Fear of death, fear of disease, fear of war, fear of famine. More chilling, fear of isolation and ostracism as punishment for non-compliance. There was a very good reason that pornographic magazines were always on the top shelf of any newsagent. Now it seems as if that shelf has been relocated to every classroom.
Artificial intelligence is another potential weapon with which to wield control. Another industry, backed by billionaires, poised to rewrite history, science, etc. to mould young minds. The potential for good is obvious, but the potential for harm has already been demonstrated. Think Google Gemini. Think ‘the science is settled’. Once again, society is reliant on the agenda of the scriptwriters and their funders. He who pays the piper...
Are these strategies a deliberate power grab of minds and bodies? Divide and conquer. Label and box ’em up young and very few will escape to become free-thinking human beings, the sort who ask questions, and God forbid, the sort who challenge the carefully constructed narrative. Legislation such as the Hate Crime Act and the Online Safety Bill, policed by an army of gatekeepers and regulators, is creating more opportunities for the state to control what we see, say or hear, whether on a digital platform or within the walls of our own homes. And all the while ... it’s for your health, it’s for your safety….
And yet all is not lost. There is a growing awareness, an increasing trend of people looking for alternative evidence and analysis not provided by official sources or the increasingly compliant mainstream media. The rise of Substack accounts, like this one for example, has helped them in that endeavour. Steve Patterson, an independent researcher, suggests that the ‘best explanation for the current madness of the world is that we’re in a dark age and have been for at least century, and that the first step towards leaving it is recognising that we’ve been in one’. The state overreach over the past four years has been a wake-up call for many as to how fragile our idea of freedom actually is. It’s time to use our collective power to challenge the minority who through mission creep are slowly remodelling our world in order to micromanage every aspect of human life.
It has started. Let it grow. Let it prosper.
News round-up
A selection of the main stories with relevance to Scottish education in the press in recent weeks, by Simon Knight
Sarah Phillimore, Yet more battles won - how goes the war?. On April 28th the judgment in Rachel Meade's case was published, showing a decisive victory against her regulator and employer for their discrimination against her gender critical views. 29/04/24
Dave Clements, The cult of neurodiversity is making us sick. While those with genuine needs are ignored and much worse. 30/04/24
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/04/30/the-terrible-cost-of-the-school-shutdowns/?utm_source=Today+on+spiked&utm_campaign=4fa6f1082e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_04_30_05_16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-4fa6f1082e-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D Gareth Sturdy, The terrible cost of the school shutdowns. Lockdown has pushed absenteeism, suspensions and exclusions to record highs. 30/04/24
https://unherd.com/newsroom/keir-starmer-owes-rosie-duffield-an-apology/ Joan Smith, Keir Starmer owes Rosie Duffield an apology. 30/04/24
https://unherd.com/2024/05/the-lunacy-of-child-liberation/ Sam Leith, The lunacy of Child Liberation. My feral delinquents don't deserve rights. 01/05/24
https://archive.ph/vmMPs Daniel Sanderson, Private school had parents investigated by social services in row over trans daughter. Child’s mother says George Watson’s College in Edinburgh would rather defer to controversial LGBT charity than listen to the clinical advice. 01/05/24
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-myth-of-trauma/ John Mac Ghlionn, The myth of trauma. The term is so overused it’s becoming meaningless. 29/04/24
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-triumph-of-katharine-birbalsingh/ Douglas Murray, The triumph of Katharine Birbalsingh. 20/04/24
Andrew Doyle, What has “gender identity” got to do with the NHS? Doctors should not concern themselves with the metaphysical beliefs of patients. 02/05/24
https://freespeechunion.org/stonewalls-guidance-on-gender-doesnt-stand-up-to-law/ Frederick Attenborough, Stonewall’s guidance on gender doesn’t stand up to law. 02/05/24
Joanna Williams, In defence of standards in education. 02/05/24
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