abduction Charles Peirce (1955) brought the term ‘abduction’ to our attention in his development of semiotic theory. Abduction is a form of reasoning that generates hypotheses rather than tests them. It is, in fact, the kind of reasoning that Sherlock

Holmes used – despite his mutterings about “deduction my dear Watson”, his strategy for solving crimes was to look for something out of place, strange or surprising (such as ‘the dog that did not bark’). Once he had puzzled out exactly why the dog didn’t bark, he was able to solve the crime. Abduction is an important interpretative strategy in qualitative research, and is the basis for the Q methodology research approach.

adversity policies Such policies have been actively promoted by neoliberal governments worldwide in response to the economic ‘crash’ in 2008. In the UK it has taken the form of a massive downsizing of state support for welfare services,

including education, social services and health care, as well as severe cuts to benefits – especially for single parents and people with disabilities and issues with mental health.  It was justified by certain politicians and newspapers portraying people as either ‘strivers’ (i.e. people deserving of state support) or ‘scroungers’ (i.e. people who do   not deserve it!).

affective practices Margie Wetherell (2013) uses this term to describe how meaning- making may be done in an embodied way, mainly to argue that psychology must stop ignoring affect, which is a crucial aspect of human being, and that it must find ways    to investigate what is going on and how we understand it.

auto-ethnography The application of ethnographic research methods (such as careful observation and keeping field notes) to oneself. It is where suitably trained scholars and practitioners seek to ‘stand back’, and then report and interpret their own lived experience.

Aotearoa The Māori name for New Zealand. As it is a bi-cultural country, it is more appropriate to use both names.

being An interesting word because it is a gerund – both a verb (as in being human) and a noun (another word for a creature). The philosopher Martin Heidegger is best known for his focus on being, pointing out that ‘in our kind of Being, our Being is an issue for us’ – it matters to us as to who we are in all sorts of ways. This is why

I chose it as the title for this book – I liked its ambiguity and the way that makes us ponder what it means to be human – which is what the book is about.

binary machine A term devised by Deleuze and Guattari (1977) to describe the illusion that our social world is ‘naturally’ divided up into either/or alternatives – male/female, beautiful/ugly, true/false, for example. They argue that it constrains the way we can think about ourselves and the world in which we live by excluding other possibilities – such as being trans, polysexual or explicitly non-binary. The point they are making is that human diversity is a lot more complicated than either/or.

biological annihilation A term George Monbiot uses to bring home the catastrophic nature of environmental destruction going on globally, largely as a result of the massive expansion of the food industry, but also through pollution of all kinds, including insecticides. I use it because it does make what is going on sound a lot more serious and urgent than ‘environmental change’ or ‘global warming’.

biologising Where people’s actions, feelings and thoughts are assumed to be essentially biological, usually drawing on evolutionary theory based on the principle of ‘survival of the fittest’. It is an approach that largely sidelines the importance of human agency and self-awareness, creating a mechanistic, gene-driven impression of what humankind is like.

body fetishism The way that people do things to their bodies (or have done to them) in order to imbue them with power and meaning. Many forms, like circumcision or infibulation in certain cultures, are about conforming to conventions about what is    an appropriate body. Others, like nipple-piercing, are about creating a special sexual allure. To be fetishistic involves the arousal of strong feelings in yourself and/or in others.

calidad de vida (quality of life) A term used in the Hispanic world which somewhat loses out when translated into English as ‘quality of life’ (a system for measuring people’s levels of satisfaction and happiness). It is about having a fulfilling and meaningful life in terms of human welfare and wellbeing, based on local cultural and community values (see, for example, Casas et al., 2010).

callous obstructionism A term I made up (with help from my sister, Sally Brown) to describe something I think we badly need a name for. The ‘obstructionism’ bit describes the way obstacles are increasingly being put in our path as we seek to do

things that used to be straightforward – like making a reservation at a restaurant or paying your bills by phone. Now, with so much of it done online, we have to battle with systems that refuse to respond unless we have filled in information exactly as they want us to. The ‘callous’ bit is to make it clear that it has been done with little or no concern about its consequences. Basically, it consists of the transfer of effort and responsibility from the service provider to the service user, or, to put it another way, strategies adopted to increase productivity, efficiency and therefore profits.

An alternative is ‘tech torture’, which is easier to say.

cognitive miser A term adopted by Nisbett and Ross (1980) to describe how people usually process information, given that human thinking tends to be limited when operating in ‘automatic’ mode. It is contrasted with the image of a motivated tactician, where human thinking is mindful and insightful.

concourse Having an everyday meaning of being a place where people meet and congregate, William Stephenson (1986) used it to depict a kind of discursive space containing all the different kinds of things people think and say about a particular topic. A concourse is situation specific – for example, we can talk of the concourse of opinions about abortion in the context of the 2018 referendum in Ireland.

crip theory An ‘insider term’ adopted within the crip community of people with disabilities and their allies. A deliberate reinvention of ‘cripple’, it is intended to shock those with unconscious prejudice towards disability in order to make them think and challenge their knee-jerk assumptions.

critical health psychology A psychology that adopts a broader and more contextualised definition of health than mainstream health psychology, and directly challenges its theories and methods, especially in the ways it stigmatises particular groups. Critical health psychology focuses on promoting human welfare, using a mix of qualitative methodological approaches and sophisticated forms of analysis and interpretation. In this way it gains insight into and understanding of the lived experience of being ill, undergoing treatment, recovery and improving and maintaining their health. It transcends disciplinary boundaries and is open to innovation, such as arts-based research.

critical hermeneutics of suspicion A term first used the philosopher Ricoeur (1970) to describe how phenomenological interpretation can be applied in ways that seek to uncover ‘what lies beneath’ what people say about their lived experiences. An example is where psychoanalytic theory is drawn upon to interpret, for example,

ways in which people may be ‘going into denial’ about their feelings and, say, seeking to cover up a hidden antagonism to somebody they are supposed to care about.

critical narrative analysis Langdridge’s approach to phenomenological interpretation applied to biographical or more generally narrative accounts.

critical psychology An approach to psychology that grew out of a wide range of theoretical and activist movements, including community, feminist, liberation, Marxist, psychosocial and postcolonial approaches. It is specifically critical of contemporary mainstream psychology, in particular its positivistic focus and its claims to be a science. It has a different epistemology and ontology, as well as different aims – to gain understanding of and insight into quite specific and situated ways of being human. It is much less individualistic and more interested in what goes on in human social and cultural worlds and processes than within the ‘workings’ of individual human minds.

default man A term invented by the artist Grayson Perry (2017) to describe what he calls ‘a tribe’ of men who are white, heterosexual and, especially, come from privileged backgrounds. He chose the word ‘default’ because it alludes to ‘not

having to pay their way’ and ‘being able to evade responsibility’. This tribe, he says, has a virtual monopoly on high-status, high-earning jobs, and, more generally, ‘set the rules’ in ways that enable them to benefit from their privilege. They gain this power, he says, through the combination of an expensive education, good manners, charm, confidence and sexual attractiveness. It is a particular version of hegemonic masculinity, with a strong sense of entitlement.

deficit identity A term adopted by Scott and Wilson (2011) to describe people who   are ‘unwilling or unable to commit to maintaining the healthy lifestyle. . . [and] can    be easily coded as passive, irresponsible, or otherwise lacking in moral qualities’. I use it more broadly to depict the harm done to the identities of those who are Othered – subjected to moral censure within a neoliberal worldview.

discursive resources Resources available to us – such as feminist discourse or neoliberal discourse – that we can use to tell particular stories about how the world operates. They are the building blocks from which we can construct a particular social reality.

doxa Common wisdom or ‘what everybody knows’. We still use it today, in the term ‘orthodox’.

drapetomania A medical condition that was defined by the slave owner Samuel Cartwright in 1851 as an illness; the imprudent propensity of slaves to run away from their owners, against the will of God.

emotional capitalism A term coined by Eva Illouz (2007) that refers to the ways in which capitalism (and I would add neoliberalism) manipulate human feelings to achieve their goals. An example she gives is the way women are encouraged not to allow themselves to ‘be emotional’ in professional settings, but to adopt the ‘cold intimacies’ of men, so they will work more productively and efficiently, and be less likely to question the harms they may do to themselves and others in the process.

enabling bodies A phrase I have used to offer a more positive take on disability, talking about the ways in which human bodies can be enabled and made capable rather than dwelling on the ways in which they can be incapacitated.

episteme A term from classical philosophy generally used to describe expert knowledge, such as that of science. Plato contrasted it with

doxa – common wisdom or ‘what everybody knows’. Michel Foucault adopted episteme to indicate a nexus    of new knowledge which allows those in the know to exert power in new ways, thus generating new forms of governmentality. Eva Illouz gives a good illustration – the new and highly influential knowledge about how to manage people through their emotions (such as their desire to please) produced by psychology from the 1930s on how best to manage people.

Eudaimonia A Greek word that describes the virtue of ‘living well’ in a collective sense, with an emphasis on the responsibility for ‘doing good’. It is about living in harmony with others and actively contributing to the common good.

eugenics movement Initiated in 1883 by Francis Galton and based upon a crude reading of evolutionary theory and its principle of the ‘survival of the fittest’, this movement was a rallying cry to take action to prevent ‘weakening the race’. He advocated measures such as sterilising people considered to be ‘feeble-minded’ – and we know where this led in Nazi Germany.

explication A term adopted by Curt (1994) to provide a contrast with the term ‘explanation’. Plication is the Greek word for ‘folding’ – the addition of the ‘ex’ turns it into ‘unfolding’. By contrast planar (as used in explanation) is the Greek word

for ‘smoothing out’ – making things as simple as possible by getting rid of all the irritating bits and bobs to get to the heart of what causes what.

fetishising A term often associated with creating sexual arousal or tension but that     has a broader meaning to do with imbuing something with some kind of magical or sacred symbolic quality. Objects like good luck charms are fetishised by the power we imbue in them, as are rituals.

finance con Another term I have made up, this one based on Nicholas Shaxson’s title for his book The Finance Curse (2018). I altered it because I believe that what he describes is not so much a curse as a con – a pretty successful strategy for misleading us into believing that the financial sector is both necessary and benign; that there is no viable alternative to the way big finance works.

fundamental attribution error Another term devised by Nisbett and Ross (1980) that describes how people tend to overemphasise the personal causes and underemphasise the situational causes of actions. Basically, people get blamed for things that go  wrong, rather than the circumstances.

genealogy This is Foucault’s word to describe an interpretational approach of contrasting how things were different in the past in order to better understand what goes on in ‘the present time, and of what we are, in this very moment’, in order ‘to question . . . what is postulated as self-evident . . . to dissipate what is familiar and accepted’ (Foucault, 1988: 265). It is sometimes called studying the ‘architecture of knowledge’.

governmentality The ways in which certain people are coerced by the powerful, and by the exercise of power, to comply with the rules being imposed at that time and in that place. Originally used by Michel Foucault, its most important proponent with regard to psychology is Nikolas Rose (1999), who identified psychology as the

discipline in the social sciences that engages most in regulating and controlling people (see also psi complex).

guttural clutch The way that we experience certain reactions to sights or other events very viscerally – literally in our stomachs! I like the term because it draws attention to the very embodied way in which we experience some feelings and emotions.

habitus A term coined by Pierre Bourdeieu, who defines it as ‘a socially constituted system of cognitive and motivating structures’ through which we present ourselves to the world. It is, he said, a ‘durable manner of standing, speaking and thereby of feeling and thinking’ that marks the person out as, say, working class, middle class    or an aristocrat (1977: 76). It is an ingrained aspect of our human embodiment – the bodily form of our everyday being-in-the-world.

healthism Defined by Crawford (1980) as a ‘popular health consciousness’, this is a worldview dominated by seeing good health as a major priority for the way people should live their lives. It is where good health is understood as mainly a matter of personal ‘choice’ and ‘lifestyle’ – and, crucially, personal responsibility.

hegemonic masculinity This is the kind of masculinity that is promoted by

patriarchy – the image of a ‘real man’ who is strong, masterful, all-capable and brave.  It is a hard act to follow, and causes considerable distress to men and boys generally. However, it needs to be noted that it is also the basis of much male power, which can have harmful impacts on both men and women and the way we run our society.

heteronormativity Regarding heterosexuality as the ‘normal’ way to be and, by implication, assuming everything else is deviant in some way. It is a form of Othering, and can cause harm to anyone who cannot ‘fit in’ or refuses to do so.

human psychology A term I have adopted to describe what I believe is a fresh approach to the subject of psychology, one that I think is more joined-up and, to put it bluntly, much more relevant these days than the mainstream approach. Its focus

is specifically on what makes us human, and especially on the cultural and social resources available to us – the ones that make it possible for us to be competent and insightful creators of our own destinies. It fully acknowledges that we are limited by the biological materiality of our bodies – but sees us as so much more than that, with the capacity for compassion, courage and trust and the ability to inspire each other.

humaneering A benign motivation for psychology, where ‘sound knowledge of human nature’ is seen as the basis or ‘directing social changes, so as to make social institutions and practices better suited to human needs’ (Tiffin, Knight and Josey, 1940). It was a precursor to the social justice agenda, but has been accused of peddling an over-rosy image of what psychology is up to (Stainton Rogers et al., 1995).

hurrah words Words that signify being good and desirable (as opposed to ‘boo words’ that carry the sense of being bad and horrid).

individualising A term used in critical psychology to indicate that a particular concept, description or theory is distorting because it focuses solely on what goes on in individual minds, largely ignoring the way that so much of human life and experience goes on in social and collective ways.

intersectionality A term that describes the ways in which different aspects of our being and identity – such as our social class, gender and age – act together to socially position us in particular ways, limiting us but also offering us opportunities. As a middle-class, older woman I have a range of options available to me that, say, a black, working-class millennial woman would not – but I also face ageism in ways she would not, and she has to deal with racism in a way I do not. This concept is of growing importance in critical psychology and is essential for an understanding of human being.

intersubjectivity An important term in human psychology, as it stresses the sharing of meaning among people. Human thinking is regarded as a largely a collective product, rather than one of individual subjectivity.

kinship care A term used in the UK to describe what happens to children legally defined as ‘at risk of significant harm’ when being looked after by their birth parent(s) and who are then placed with a relative, mainly in order to maintain continuity, familiarity and contact with their wider family, friends and community.

knowing of the third kind A term invented by John Shotter (1993) to describe the   way non-linguistic communication provides us with a source of ‘sensuous-practical moral knowledge’, a knowing that is sensed rather than understood. A good example    is the way that touching someone – or even standing too close to them – can have a strong emotional impact, depending on the situation. Depending on the context, being touched can come across as comforting, exciting, threatening, disturbing – or hardly     to matter at all.

liquid life/liquid modernity Terms adopted by Zygmunt Bauman (2005) to describe  the postmodern world as one in constant flux – where people constantly have to ‘keep up’ by continually getting better at what they do, buying the latest upgrade, etc. He described it as like being in a dark place where you have to constantly keep striking

a match to have enough light, a persistently anxious state. Svend Brinkmann (2017) calls it ‘being on the hamster wheel’.

lived experience The sum of the bodily and emotional sensations and feelings that we continually experience because we are embodied. It relates to the awareness we have; an embodied conciousness of what is happening to us, before or in addition to our thinking about it. It is the focus of phenomenological approaches to research, one that seeks to make embodied experience open to critical analysis and interpretation.

logic of care Anne-Marie Mol’s term for a system where medical care involves  offering compassion, consolation and the encouragement to discuss and negotiate courses of action that take into account the situation the patient is facing and having     to cope with. Mol gives an example of treatment for diabetes, which involves teaching and encouraging the patient how to manage not just their blood sugar levels, but their feelings and expectations; it ‘is not a matter of providing better maps of reality, but of crafting more bearable ways of living with, or in reality’ (Mol, 2008: 46).

logic of choice Term  adopted by Mol (2008) to describe an approach to medical   care promoted by neoliberalism. It is based on the principle that health care should be driven by market and people encouraged to make their own choices about their treatment. Mol makes a powerful case against it, arguing instead for a logic of care.

majority world Term suggested by Shahidul Alam as a better alternative to terms like the ‘Third World’ or the ‘Developing World’. These are the people and countries who have to cope with the economic and social impact of imperialism and colonialism, in contrast to the minority world where, (often as the colonisers), their exploitation has made them richer and better resourced. By using a different kind of binary, it shifts the moral emphasis in thought-provoking ways.

mansplaining Generally understood as the way in which some men automatically go into ‘explain-mode’ in conversations with a woman, ignoring the possibility that she does not need (or want) this explained to her and oblivious to the possibility that she may know a lot more about and understand the topic better! In my experience, it often happens without conscious thought or intention to belittle the woman concerned – but nonetheless it is frustrating (and can be insulting) and is a form

of misogyny. But for some men it can effectively become a form of deliberate defiance, when, so determined is he to display his authority, it can come over as very confrontational – as many women, for example, experience when they gain high-end qualifications like a PhD.

matrixes of intelligibility The way Judith Butler (1993) describes the complex network of interconnected ideas, concepts and beliefs that constitute common wisdom about a particular topic. Generally, in this book, I have tended to use ‘worldview’, mainly as    it is simple and brief, but it doesn’t quite capture the subtlety, complexity and sheer scope of what is being talked about. Butler’s is my term of choice, when the situation   is right.

meritocracy A ‘winner-takes-all’ philosophy that assumes that it is hard work, determination and self-discipline that lead to success. In this view, succeeding has nothing to do with having a ‘head start’. It is important to note that Michael Young,  who first introduced the term in the 1950s, did so to warn us about such assumptions.   If people take this line, he said, it could lead to severe levels of inequality and the creation of a large, downtrodden underclass. Sadly, he was right.

minority world I use this term to refer to what we often call the ‘industrialised world’, ‘the West’ or even the ‘First World’ – as opposed to the ‘Developing World’ and even the ‘Third World’. Minority world was suggested by Shahidul Alam as a better and more respectful alternative. The term ‘minority’ highlights that it is not a matter of ‘development’ from a primitive to a civilised state, but rather to do with the economic and social impact of imperialism and colonialism (see majority world).

missy A recently constructed female identity in South Korea, where being a modest, retiring wife and mother (in the past, the only one available once a woman has married) can be overturned. A ‘missy’ is a progressive, modern and stylish woman, free to follow fashion and to progress her own life opportunities. This identity was created initially through advertising but now is being promoted by women themselves as a form of resistance. I use it as an example of the way social change alters the kinds of identity that can be claimed.

moralising As used in this book, this term refers to the process of making moral judgements about people. To say health is ‘moralised’ is to draw attention to the way the concept has become burdened with a great deal of judgemental baggage, in which the state of one’s health gets treated as a personal responsibility.

motivated tactician The view that human thinking is mindful and insightful. It views a human as ‘a fully engaged thinker who has multiple cognitive strategies available and chooses among them based on goals, motives and needs’ (Fiske and Taylor, 1991). It  is a contrast to the view of humans as cognitive misers.

nativism A particularly xenophobic form of nationalism, going beyond national pride in and a sense of belongingness to our homeland, into a more generalised, and often vociferous antagonism towards ‘alien others’. When Others like this get described by politicians as ‘hoards’ and ‘vermin’, we are seeing a call to nativism. Xenophobia is another term for it.

neoliberalism A worldview predominantly based on the economic theory that economic growth and competition are the keys to human progress and prosperity. It is where commerce is seen as best practiced through striving for the greatest level of profitability without having any conscience about its impact on the people it exploits. This philosophy has expanded to include the public sector, viewing the provision of welfare services as also more functional when based upon competition. Many people rubbish the term as pretentious and rather meaningless. But it is, in my view, the ‘best of a bad job’ in that attempts to give us something better have floundered. The term allows us to talk about a set of assumptions, ideas and values that most certainly matter to our understanding of human being in the 21st century. Its reach has been enormous, and, in my view, it poses a severe threat to the sustainability of humankind and of our planet.

New Optimists Those who challenge the ‘doom and gloom’ story about environmental catastrophe and inequality, arguing that there continues to be significant human progress in health, education, standards of living and prosperity. The best-known advocate is Johan Norberg, whose claims that ‘[d]espite what we hear on the news, and from many authorities, the great story of our era is that we are witnessing the greatest improvement in global living standards ever to take place’ (2016: 3).

neurodiversity Term used to challenge attempts to ‘cure’ certain conditions (like various forms of autism and dyslexia), rather than properly value the enhanced mental capacities they have to offer.

normalisation A term adopted by Foucault to describe a form of governmentality – a strategy by which a specification for ‘being normal’ functions to label all else as ‘deviant’ and undesirable. Power is exercised by those who define what is ‘normal’.

Othering This is about when one group, ‘us’, constructs another group as ‘not us’. It is not just about them being different, but ‘less-than-us’ in some way – less human, not worth anything, not deserving of our kindness or concern. It is an antagonism that is used to justify discrimination, disrespect, mistreatment or undermining of the Other.

patriarchy A worldview, or perhaps better described as a matrix of intelligibility, which operates to sustain and maintain the historical power by which heterosexual men’s interests dominate the way the world works. This is not to claim that there is a deliberately devious and malignant male conspiracy going on. It is more complex than that, and more insidious. Patriarchy is a complex system of interwoven ideas,

assumptions, practices and relationships based on a particular understanding of the nature of human being – a patriarchal view of masculinity and femininity and the different functions and roles, expectations and entitlements of men and women, girls and boys.

physics envy A delicious way of being rude about psychologists who desperately want to be ‘hard’ scientists, with all the bravura and credibility that offers. You  can work out the connection to penis envy for yourself.

political correctness Often intended as antagonistic (“that’s just political correctness gone mad!”). It is a ‘war of words’ (Dunant, 1994) against attempts to change

the way that we use language, in order to make the things we say kinder, more considerate and respectful. For example, in the US there has been a strong shift from wishing people “Merry Christmas” to “Happy Holidays” in order to be inclusive

to all sorts of other religious rituals and celebrations going on at much the same time. Yet I have seen it mocked on Facebook as ‘a nasty Americanism’, failing to understand the motivation behind it.

popularsism This is a notoriously difficult term to pin down. Mudde and Kaltwasser (2017) possibly come the closest, defining it as a ‘thing-centered ideology’ – one that sees the world and its problems in terms of highly simplistic explanations and simple solutions: ‘Get rid of the outsiders’! ‘Take back control’! ‘Build the wall’! Just get on with it! Statements like these reflect a worldview in which people are divided into ‘us’ (the good guys – often ‘the people’) and ‘them’ (the bad guys – the elite or corrupt politicians, say). The logic behind it is that ‘we’ simply need to sort out the damage that ‘they’ are doing (irrespective of consequences), and our life will become a bed

of roses. It is worth noting, though, that popularism can come in widely different variants as to who is ‘us’ and who is ‘them’.

post-humanism The speculative exploration of what it may be like to be beyond human – such as being a cyborg or an alien being from  another  planet.  Not surprisingly,  as an idea, it has links to science fiction and futurology. Often, though, it is used as a frame through which to explore what it means to be human, especially in terms of ethics.

precariat Those who live precarious lives because of the insecure nature of the gig economy, working long and unpredictable hours in hazardous conditions, and where renting somewhere to live has been horribly destabilised. This state of being is a direct consequence of neoliberalism, and harmful to human welfare and wellbeing.

psy complex Nikolas Rose (1979) adopted this terminology to categorise together psychologists, psychiatrists and people in various counselling and other ‘helping’ roles (I think he would now include roles like life-coaching and motivational speakers). His concern was with the way this group of professionals have developed governmental systems – strategies, practices and, more recently, technologies designed to resolve social problems (like criminality and mental distress), to manage performance

(like staff recruitment and setting performance targets) and to enable people to live healthier and more productive lives. In so doing, he argues, this group acts as a powerful force for getting people to comply with regulatory regimes, many of which undermine human welfare.

queer theory Defined by Damien Riggs and Gareth Treharne (2017) as a broad approach that contests the assumption that gender and sexuality are merely matters of individual identity or ‘choice’. Instead it explores the multifaceted ways in which both are governed, constructed, managed and performed. They draw extensively on the work of Judith Butler (1993).

reification is a process of ‘thingifying’ – a strategy adopted in human thinking, where an abstract idea or a number of coexisting ideas or events get conceptually converted into a ‘thing’. An example is a condition like Drapetomania.

retroduction Concept developed by Charles Pierce to spell out how rational thinking can work. It draws conclusions by working from a particular standpoint (such as feminism or Marxism) and then interpreting what is going on, drawing upon its particular assumptions and theories. A good example is feminist relational discourse analysis (Rickett, Day and Thompson, 2018) in which Foucauldian discourse analysis is applied to data through an explicitly feminist interpretational frame.

social capital Defined by Bourdieu (1983) as a matter of ‘resources that are based on membership in a group’. It draws parallels with economic capital, and is about the social support and other resources (such as level of trust) within a community that contribute to individual and collective wellbeing and resilience.

social identity The identity that people gain from their belonging to or membership of a professional or social group (such as being a nurse or a member of a biker community) and/or social categories (such as being an INCEL or a British resident of Gibraltar). In all cultures and societies, people come to identify themselves with

particular groups and collectivities of all kinds. They then define themselves as having the characteristics of that group.

social justice The principle that everyone should be treated fairly – justly and  equitably (but not necessarily the same). It is an approach that seeks to address issues like poverty, inequality and injustice.

social practice A term used in discursive psychology to make the point that the ways in which humans behave are always social. Human thought and action cannot be decontextualised – they are always situated within a particular set of circumstances and mindset, such as ‘going on honeymoon’ or ‘looking after my patient’.

social representations theory Developed by Serge Moscovici in the 1960s, this theory identified the shared understandings and belief-structures  through  which  people make sense of the social world as the means by which social groups are formed and maintained. Sharing a common worldview like this leads to group cohesiveness.

structural racism A term adopted by Reni Eddo-Lodge who defines it as ‘dozens, or hundreds or thousands of people with the same biases joining up together to make     up one organisation, and acting accordingly’. I find it a very useful term – as she herself says ‘Structural is often the only way to capture what goes on unnoticed – the silently raised eyebrows, the implicit biases, snap judgements made on perceptions of competency’ (Eddo-Lodge, 2018: 64). This is very different from what is popularly understood as racism – overt hostility and antagonism to others, based on race. It is     a much more subtle and insidious kind of racism. While it may not be intentional, it still has a very powerful effect.

strutting egos The way I describe a certain kind of self-satisfied and arrogant human behaviour, mainly to make a contrast with the more humane and gracious way I think we should behave. I first coined the term when descended upon in the hospital by a consultant followed by a flock of students around my bedside. I have relocated to a different hospital, and there are fewer of them in my new place. Sadly, you will find them all too often in the lecture hall and attending most conferences. I do like Suzanne Moore’s version of this – ‘peacocking patriarchy’ (2019).

symbolic capital A term adopted by Susanne Martikke (2017) within her discussion about social capital. This form of capital, she suggests, is about a person’s position     in society – whether they are ‘well connected’ or ‘down on their uppers’ – whether they are seen to have valued or deficit identities. People display their symbolic capital through their habitus.

sympatricity A very useful term that is commonly used to depict how different species evolve within an ecosystem, where several are competing against each other at any one time and in a particular place, vying to dominate (and ultimately take over) a particular ecological niche. I first adopted it (via a suggestion made by Press, 1980) to describe explanatory discourses about health and illness (Stainton Rogers, 1991), as it works well to describe the ways in which, at any one time and within a particular concourse, different discourses are made to compete with each other for dominance.

tectonics Word adopted by Beryl Curt (1994) from the geological concept of plate tectonics, where sections of the Earth’s crust crush against and move each other in   a dynamic manner over time. In psychology, the metaphor can be used to indicate how different discourses have the capacity to mould and shape one another, with

some becoming dominant and others fading into insignificance at different times and in different social and cultural locations. For example, where feminism flourishes, patriarchy can be made to subside (somewhat!).

template analysis An approach developed by Nigel King and his colleagues as a basis for phenomenological interpretation of lived experience, deriving themes from accounts of the experiences themselves.

testeria A term adopted by feminists as a counter to the use of ‘hysteria’ to define women’s behaviour as melodramatically deranged. I find it a useful term to describe the frenzied attacks by INCELs and the like against any criticism of hegemonic masculinity.

textuality Taken from literary theory, Michael Mulkay (1991) adopted this term to emphasise the complex nature of discourse, especially its narrative qualities, where people communicate by telling each other stories. Telling stories is the way we can convey to others not only accounts of what happened when and where, but also

of what tends to happen, can happen, should happen or we should prevent from happening. Textuality is not merely descriptive, it is also highly moralised.

transdisciplinary This is where scholars seek to break down the boundaries between different academic disciplines, rather than simply make links between them. Critical psychology is a good example, as it draws upon a range of disciplines, such as anthropology, cultural studies, social geography and sociology for both theories and research methods.

universal credit The UK’s new method of paying welfare benefits, being introduced as I write. Its purpose is to make the provision of state support simple and efficient. It is, however, creating severe problems in a number of ways, for example, by being very inaccessible to those unable to get online.

valued identity Scott and Wilson (2011) define this identity as a ‘neo-liberal subject who is active, autonomous, informed and a maker of rational . . . decisions’. Applied  to health, they add that it is also someone who ‘takes individualised responsibility     for maintenance of their own health rather than depending on medical professionals and health services to do this for them’. Identities like this gain the approval of neoliberalism.

workarounds A term used by Stephen Pinker to describe the capacity that humans have to intentionally and purposively make our thinking more flexible, accurate and productive, helping us to avoid the traps of being irrational. It indicates an active strategy that we can work on and develop.

worldview The term I generally use throughout this book to talk about the complex network of interconnected ideas, concepts and beliefs that constitute common wisdom – what everybody knows – about a particular topic at a particular time and in a particular place. In many ways, though, something like the matrix of intelligibility (taken from Judith Butler, 1993) is better at capturing the subtlety, complexity and sheer scope of what is being talked about. Worldviews operate sympatrically – they compete against each other for dominance.