On Becoming Human Index

My beefs are about emotional environments in which we are inhibited and in which, by default, we sell ourselves short, try too hard, take on too much and probably put a brave face on it.

Understanding our predicament we can find new friends and new ideas and start the long haul to becoming essentially human.

Preface to 2nd edition

Chapter 1. Emotional labour

Debbie Mazhindu whose thesis started this witch hunt

Question: what in your judgement makes a good child, an ideal nurse and possibly a tyrannical manager?

Chapter 2. Emotional labour - the scope of it.

Katy Howkins; on cleaning up the mess

Janis Daniels and her wedding dressses

Linden West and his research into emotional labour

on hurt feelings and emotional labour, of resentment and not letting it show

Chapter 3. Emotional labour - another perspective

Karen Messing, a Canadian academic authority on emotional labour

Michael Shooter, on human resilience and the healing power of friends and family

Chapter 4. Chilling out, and talking it through

Orly Benjamin, to help us to negotiate

The value of a crisis if we want to make good

Chapter 5. Market research in an A&E

Donald Winnicot whose good enough is an antidote to the ideal

Chapter 6. Spoiled child.

Max Weber opened my eyes to what he calls the spirit of capitalism

Alieu N 'Jai, an Islamic friend who made such sense

On saying no when it's particularly difficult to do so

Chapter 7. "Thy will be done"

Madeleine Bunting, that the work ethic makes us emotional pygmies

Andrew Daniels, a salutary reminder of missing the point

Dot and Jim, Eastenders of Albert Square. Ask how did it happen?

Chapter 8. Permission to speak, Sir.

When I was a number, 2740559.

Luigi Menchini, mi amigo, and larger than life

Irving Goffman on being kept in our place

Chapter 9. Pause to invite anyone to join in. It's never too late

Willis Harman and our fears

Running through my bleak experience we see

* tyrants and control freaks lurking, devouring who they can

* the irrationality of trying to do what simply cannot be done

* ordinary people stigmatised to become invisible

* of going through life unaware of our own valid feelings.

Chapter 10. Some who've helped me move away from arid zones

Trevor Pateman and his essay on the matter of unlearning

Dostoevesky and his stigmatisation of Jesus

Adam Phillips who says there's nothing wrong with us

Michael Eraut, who gave me emotional labour

Richard Wilkinson, who helped me off the status hook

Chris Freeman, a wise man who encouraged me

Graham Davey who helped me with the catastrophic

Charles Abrahams, a social psychologist

Dipak Patel, a good friend

John Mackinnon Jardine, who loved me

Carlos Casoni, a passionate artist who gave me so much

Chapter 11.Other people, other ideas

Jennifer Nedelsky on shifting, if we can from a fearful individual to a social sense of autonomy.

Stacey Slater who never did an unstupid thing in her life

Shirrk, another gift from Islam

James Fleck an innovator whose ideas work in family life.

Management - a novel bottom up approach derived from Fleck's innovative model

and reference back to secrets and lies, and what can't be said

Chapter 12. Rehumanising, becoming essentially human.

Philip Larkin on parents and fucked up children

Alice Munro with her possibility that we might be forgiven

Manfred Max-Neef, a bottom up economist who makes a difference

and his depressing yet liberating idea of qualified satisfaction of fundamental human needs

Moving to a Connexion

Chapter 13. that relating is connecting with each other.

Katy's installation

Meeting Tui in a safe place.

Chapter 14 becoming human; doing a Connexion

what becoming human might mean; compare your ideas with those we've come up with

Suspend judgement with a slide show

Play video max_new.mpg

Print out Appendix A, the map

Apply that map to any situation that's on your mind

Use it to identify any suspect aspect of that troublesome situation;

And where possible identify the evident emotional labour

Go round the rehumanising process again, starting at chapter 9

Bibliography

 

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