Transformative psychology #5: Self-talk as encouragement and protection

"Self-talk" is not a phrase used to my knowledge when I was young. Now, however, psychologists from many perspectives with many motivations have centered it in psychological health and performance enhancement. Even the military sees[1] the value in helping its members understand and learn adaptive practices of self-talk.

They note the difference between more-or-less "automatic" self-talk--spontaneous and sometimes debilitatingly self-deprecating with no helpful measure of appropriate self-confidence--and what they call "strategic" self-talk, which is meant to be conscious, deliberate, motivational and problem-solving.

Researchers also found self-talk can improve anaerobic power, especially when that self-talk is motivational and is accompanied by the physical affirmation of head-nodding (Mateos, Ruiz & Horcajo, 2024).

Self-talk can prep us for stressful situations. We train to engage in it on the Portland Peace Team in order to head into escalated situations with no available triggers, no chink in our emotional armor that can reduce us to debate, argument, or loss of temper. 

Thus, self-talk is shown to be effective in preventing emotional explosions and also in increasing explosive (anaerobic) power, physically.

References

Mateos, R., Ruiz, I. C., & Horcajo, J. (2024). Increasing Anaerobic Power in Cycling By Implementing Embodied Self-Talk. Sport Psychologist, 38(3), 207–216. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1123/tsp.2023-0154 

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[1] https://www.armyresilience.army.mil/ard/r2/The-power-of-Self-talk.html#:~:text=Benefits%20of%20Effective%20Self%2DTalk,%2Desteem%20and%20self%2Dworth.

Transformative psychology #4: The power of positive listening

Some communications experts call it "active listening," some call it "reflective listening," some deem it "elicitive listening," and it might also be "transformative listening" or "positive listening." What are the characteristics of such a practice?

·       genuine listening with all forms of our intelligence (certainly emotional intelligence coupled with intellectual intelligence)

·       listening to formulate questions that draw a person out further

·       patient listening

·       reflective listening that paraphrases with humility, using follow-ups such as, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I hear you saying is..."

·       empathic listening for the trauma behind some narratives

·       connective listening that seeks to identify commonalities with the other rather than listening for "gotcha" points to prepare a retort or refutation

The United States Institute of Peace[1] offers many techniques that can be considered part of active listening, as long as care is also given to the sequencing. For example, they include, "Help the speaker see other points of view," which is certainly a valuable technique but likely only helpful after first using many of the other techniques and then gingerly probing to see if such a "help" is welcome or if it would effectively end the conversation. In short, the psychology of positive listening is at least as crucial as the checklist. 

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[1] https://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/2017-01/Core%20Principles%20of%20Active%20Listening%20Handout.pdf

Transformative psychology #3: Identity and resilience

What enables some people to manage a post-conflict healing, a peace without much new threat of violent conflict? 

Part of the answer may be in the methods used to wage the conflict. For example, in a 2005 study published by Freedom House, the general tendency to relapse into not conflict following a regime change increased when the insurgency that defeated the old regime was armed and tended to not devolve into war when the insurgency was nonviolent (e.g., Serbia in 2000, Philippines in 1986, fall of communist regimes in Warsaw Pact in the 1989 period, etc.) (Karatnycky & Ackerman, 2005). While the seriousness of the struggles are the same, the lack of atrocities committed by the nonviolent victors might not feed so much into the powerful motive for revenge, which sometimes can go on for years, even generations, when a party lost to violence.

Individuals vary in levels of resilience in context of identity struggle. Psychology researchers found "greater identity resilience is associated with more adaptive reactions, less undesired identity change, and less negative affect after thinking about aversive experiences" (Breakwell, 2021, p. 573). 

Being able to manage those aversive experiences is a challenge to many individuals and to identity groups, e.g., those especially on lower status levels in a particular culture at a particular time. Being gay in a homophobic culture, being BIPOC in a racist culture, being a girl or woman in a sexist culture are all situations where identity and culture work to damage resilience for some, if not most, of the downpressed identity groups. When they suffer from that it is also referred to as internalized oppression.

Some practitioners of social activism who are members of historically marginalized groups assert that being an activist for justice is a way to develop "internalized resilience"[1] that can overcome any internalized oppression. 

Families of origin in communities with shared identities can also help prepare youth to grow into a resilience based on pride in ancestry, identity, and cultural greatness. 

References

Breakwell, G. M. (2021). Identity resilience: its origins in identity processes and its role in coping with threat. Contemporary Social Science, 16(5), 573–588. https://doi.org/10.1080/21582041.2021.1999488

Karatnycky, Adrian & Ackerman, Peter (2005). How freedom is won: From civic resistance to durable democracy. New York, NY: Freedom House.

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[1] https://www.believeoutloud.com/voices/article/internalized-resilience-embracing-thrivingness/

Transformative psychology #2: Trauma-informed structural change

The psychological challenges to bridging the gap between violent conflict containment and conflict transformation at times face major barriers when the structural circumstances that produced the outbreak of violence remain (Gaynor, 2016). Understandably, this presents emotional traps for individuals and collectives, at times devolving back to hot conflict. This can be particularly powerful in cases like wars in Congo, where the mortalities were greater than any war since World War II. The psychology of atrocity accumulation and therefore perduring trauma is a powerful force perennially subject to reignition, most significantly mitigated by transformation of structural injustices, structural violence, structural inequalities (leading to strong resentments of perceptions of relative deprivation).

References

Gaynor, N. (2016). The limits to community-based conflict resolution in North-East Congo. Community Development Journal, 51(2), 268–284. https://doi.org/10.1093/cdj/bsv015

Transformative psychology #1: Former combatants turned transformative conflict workers

What is the psychology of a former combatant turning and learning conflict transformation? Irish researchers into the identity processing of former combatants during the Troubles reveal a tendency of those seeking to become conflict transformation specialists tend to construct a self-image of their new profession not as a negation of their former armed fighter identity but rather as an evolution along a professional continuum (Flack & Ferguson, 2021). This seems to psychologically self-manage the frequent collective and individual aversion to regarding what some would legitimately call a radical shift or pivot and instead justify or self-reassure pride in growth and skill development. 

A potential pitfall, of course, is the emotional need to self-assess the new profession as more expert and more valid than those who started with nonviolent conflict transformation and never went through the role of violent combatant. The tensions can better be managed when mutually understood. The former combatant often has a strong sense of pride in the bravery and total commitment of having been in combat, while the conflict transformer who decided against that in the beginning can descend into moral or ethical judgment of the former combatant. The vulnerabilities of both can be reduced by greater understanding of the other.

References

Flack, P., & Ferguson, N. (2021). Conflict Transformation: Relinquishing or Maintaining Social Identity Among Former Loyalist Combatants in Northern Ireland. Political Psychology, 42(2), 185–200. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12694

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #50: Hundreds more!

Every method of nonviolent action can be a method of participating in democracy. Gene Sharp, in his 1973 opus, listed 198 methods[1]. As a major update, Michael Beer produced a greatly expanded list of essentially double that in his monograph Civil Resistance Tactics in the 21st Century[2]. 

Just a few of those additional tactics since 1973, from the Beer collection (2021, pp. 87-88): 

·       Expressive Tactics Using Medium of Electronic Communication

·       RECORDING & DISTRIBUTING NEWS OF NVA

·       Livestreaming: The live public broadcasting of an event, incident, or protest

·       Short form digital video: A brief video detailing the issue that people are protesting for/against

·       Social media photo campaign: Promoting a particular image through social media platforms (for example, changing profile pictures)

·       Database leaks: Releasing entire digital archives of secret/classified materials in order to educate the public and/or increase awareness

·       CROWDSOURCING INFORMATION

·       Sousveillance: Covert surveillance by citizens, frequently of authorities

·       Maps and maptivism: Using maps, typically digital ones, to crowdsource data or information

·       Digital file sharing applications: Peer-to-peer file-sharing (uTorrent, etc.)

·       CREATING ONLINE DIGITAL CONTENT

·       Blogging/writing/commenting/tweeting: Creating online written content that addresses particular issues, which is especially useful if it is too dangerous to speak out or protest in person

·       Digital video and audio art: Using media forms such as videos, photos, photos of art, digital art, animations, and silent videos to protest/appeal

·       Digital games: Digital games that are used to criticize opponents and their ideas or to model a new behavior or institution

·       FALSE, IMAGINARY INFORMATION

·       Creating faux identities, websites, videos:

·       Creating some kind of hoax or fake information that is intended to mock opponents and/or shock the public

·       Mockumentaries: A documentary that uses humor and parody to mock an opponent or issue

·       Mock documents (government forms): Constructing mock documents or forms for use by the public

·       Deliberately fake money: Creating false currency that can be used to combat corruption, spread awareness about the issue, etc.

·       MASS ACTION

·       SMS/email/social media bombing: Using text messaging, email, or social media functions to send messages en masse to a target

·       Forwarding information, retweeting, re-posting, sharing: Sharing information and raising awareness through social media or other messaging systems

·       Trend a hashtag: Using a social media platform’s hashtag feature to call attention to an issue or event (#)

·       Influencing Internet search engines: Changing the results of a search engine for a specific term/person 

·       “Nonviolently ‘hijacking’ social media”: Hacking, posting on, exposing, and/or disabling the social media accounts of an opponent

·       Social media “challenges”: Using social media to call others to action on a mass scale

·       Solidarity telethon: Mass calls to spread information and solidarity 

·       Product review hijacking: Negatively or positively mass-reviewing a product

One perspective of all these ways to participate in democracy is that if there are hundreds of ways to do so and many more waiting some creative innovative activist to develop, it negates the entire Just War Doctrine because one of the criteria for engaging in war is that it must be the last resort. No war in human history was preceded by 198 different attempts to resolve a conflict or defend a people, let alone more than 300 of them. Peace, nonviolence, and democracy are all woven together much more advantageously than violence and democracy. In effect, creative, strategic nonviolence is the new arsenal of democracy.

References

Beer, Michael A. (2021). Civil resistance tactics in the 21st century. ICNC. 

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[1] https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/resource/198-methods-of-nonviolent-action/

[2] https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/resource/civil-resistance-tactics-in-the-21st-century/

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #49: Be a citizen journalist

 The young woman who is independently streaming video at a public event is a citizen journalist. Is she an effective influencer? Sometimes. The idea that the quality of a citizen journalist's output is 100 percent quantifiable is clearly not true when one photo changes public policy. 

Mid-19th century photos of Yellowstone drove the votes in Congress, for example, to create the first United States National Park in 1871 and all the protections it afforded so Americans could enjoy the park in perpetuity. 

Even earlier, says the Save the Redwoods League[1]:

Photographers and painters began connecting people to redwoods decades earlier, beginning with Carleton Watkins’ giant sequoia photographs from the 1850s. At the height of the Civil War, these photos helped inspire President Lincoln and the U.S. Congress to protect Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove, in part as an antidote to the war’s horrors.

Whatever the social media platform, there are elements that are participatory in democracy, whether it's documentation, opinion, or simply sharing what inspires you to make society a better place. 

Ask Wael Ghonim, an Egyptian who, in 2010, saw a horrific photo of a fellow countryman beaten to death by Egyptian police. He started a FaceBook page and it went massively viral, helping to launch the Egyptian Arab Spring on the heels of the first Arab Spring uprising, in Tunisia. 

Citizen journalism is a challenge to mainstream journalism, though it can helpfully supplement it when both are well done. Like all the tools we have with which to participate in democracy, it can be used to build or to harm.

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[1] https://www.savetheredwoods.org/blog/forest/the-power-of-photography-connection-and-conservation/

There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #48: Work for a think tank

Yeah, like most other ways to participate in democracy, this could hurt democracy, and it has. Far rightwing, well-funded think tanks such as the white nationalist, racist, anti-democracy Claremont Institute have been doing that for decades (Stewart, 2023). 

So we need think tanks from the pro-democracy, peace and justice perspective. Indeed, arguably, that needs to happen more broadly more urgently because once a government becomes autocratic, the range of think tank orientation shifts, as it exists, for instance, in Russia, where think tanks either assume a decidedly pro-Russian government stance or they tend to geopoliticize issues rather than acknowledge domestic problems (Axyonova, 2024).

Think tanks generally do not produce much honestly peer-reviewed material since most have a more serious drive toward publishing white papers and monographs exploring the issues in their mission, and the issues that funders prefer explored. This doesn't invalidate their output, but it tends to set a perspective that should inform anyone studying and citing their research findings. 

Most valuable are the innovative ideas created and explained by think tank researchers. For example, the studies funded in total or in part by the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) have been and continue to be instrumental in disseminating and proliferating usable knowledge on strategic nonviolent methods of effective political action, institutional policy challenges, and corporate accountability. They have translated select resources--documentary films, webinars, monographs, and more into the languages that can benefit democracy and nonviolent change. Their resource library[1], freely available online, is peerless. 

A serious problem about think tanks is that they are frequently funded by wealthy family foundations and those family foundations may tend to be quite right-leaning, politically. The exceptions are wonderful but in the end, the intellectual labor toward peace, democracy, nonviolence, and justice is most frequently done on a pro bono basis or tiny royalty-based supplemental income. Like so many other pro-democracy initiatives, we have to learn to do more and more with less and less until we can achieve almost anything with practically nothing. Freedom is a labor of love.

References

Axyonova, V. (2024). Responding to crises in authoritarian environments: Russian think tanks between policy evaluation and state endorsement. Review of Policy Research, 41(6), 941–960. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.1111/ropr.12601

Stewart, K. (2023). The Anti-Democracy Think Tank. New Republic, 254(9), 10–21.

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[1] https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/resource-library/