The Perpetual Treadmill: Encased Within the Bureaucratic Machinery of Homelessness, Mental Health, Criminal Justice and Substance Use Services Trying to Find an Exit Point.

By Dean Whittington

The Perpetual Treadmill is a care pathway devised to ensnare the poor within a never ending treatment system for their own good, after they have been labelled with their designated malaise. Once caught within it, similar to Kafkas Trial and Castle, they are wedged within its corridors where they are forever signposted between services. This book draws on the analogies of knights and knaves by building on Bath of Steel to focus on how this system has been constructed and then maintained.

To depict its shortcomings, it has been ranged against a psychologically informed perspective (PSIP) to show how those entrapped can eventually exit the perpetual treadmill. But there are numerous vested interests which militate against those clients, duly labelled from ever emotionally recovering. The interplay between politicians, bureaucrats, academics, practitioners and clients is explored to detail how the poor have become a raw material which feeds this machine.

This book is relevant to psychotherapists, addiction specialists, psychologists, sociologists, criminologists, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, social policy experts and nurses.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Sep 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496985699

Dean Whittington

Dr Dean Whittington previously worked for 16 years as a psychotherapist within the addictions/self-medication field, initially based in Deptford SE London, and then latterly working across South London. In the process he devised the first BAME, Women and Men’s therapeutic drug services along with support for young people at school. This therapeutic work unearthed issues relating to trauma in childhood during the 1990’s, dynamics that later shaped adolescence and adulthood often hidden from mainstream services. Therapeutic insight became a way of understanding the young people’s behaviour as opposed to imposing labels, idealisations and projections upon them. In the therapeutic work undertaken with the homeless from 2006-2011, underlying traumatic issues were unearthed. This discovery provided the basis for the launch of psychologically informed environments, later used by the Dept of Communities and Local Government in a more truncated form. The basis of LIFE is a return to the more expansive holistic and phenomenological foundations of PIE; erased within the current ideations. This expansiveness is highlighted here: Emotional recovery and positive interventions require building on key individual strengths whilst working towards a life vision. All of this necessitates working through trauma whilst requiring constant reflexivity when entering the bath of steel. The impetus for the service is grounded upon praxis drawing from both theory and practice to think about how best to support everyone. As someone who is mixed ethnicity and grew up in various environments where I faced several predicaments, I eventually undertook a reflection on my experiences. I became aware for example that the people around me had assisted me with my emotional growth and from this reflection I began to see how other young people can also be assisted to embark on a similar trajectory: although no two journeys are ever the same. In thinking about how best to support young people I can see that working through early trauma and building a positive sense of the future are essential. As someone who is involved in setting up the service, my role is in building the container where the staff team can innovate whilst working with the young people to enhance their creativity. It requires working through their defences, needing significant patience in both building, and then sustaining trust. It also entails thinking about the long-term impact of inter-generational trauma, in particular, how this shapes the present-day worlds of individuals: providing the basis to reflect on how to change the young people’s internal scripts.

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part 1 Players and Designations

Chapter 1 The machine tenderers: Politicians, Academia, Bureaucracies, Practitioners and Clients

Chapter 2 Politicians

Chapter 3 Academia

Chapter 4 Bureaucracies

Chapter 5 Practitioners

Chapter 6 Clients

Part 2 The Iron Cages where the Practitioners Dwell

Chapter 7 Thought Silos

Chapter 8 Homeless Hostels

Chapter 9 Drug and Alcohol Agencies

Chapter 10 Mental Health

Chapter 11 Criminal Justice

Chapter 12 Conclusion

References

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

I was particularly grateful for the way in which my noble friend the Minister introduced the debate, and the manner in which he spent considerable time on the Bill to be introduced on domestic violence. That is a watershed, as the issue has been discussed for many years and is at the core of our society. As we have heard, a quarter of all violent crime comes under that category. Domestic violence does not only harm the perpetrators or the direct victim, who is usually the woman in the home, but affects the children. Children who observe their mothers being battered quite often turn into adults who batter their own wives—and so the treadmill goes on.

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde (2003) Hansard,

"An image that springs to mind in describing the personal history of the law-breaker is that of a conveyor belt on which the individual passes through successive stages: neglected or abused child, disruptive pupil, anti-social teenager, young offender, first-time prisoner, repeat offender, hardened criminal.

At each stage, the individual has the option of stepping off the conveyor belt. But it cannot be expected that this choice will be made unless society finds ways of providing for the individual not only easily accessible exit points off the conveyor belt to crime, but also a hand helping him to those exits."

(Oliver Letwin in 2002 in a speech given to the Conservative Conference)

Prison Reform Trust (2012) Old Enough to Know Better,

Increasing penalties for offenders will do little to stop the next generation of prisoners and unlock the cycle of deprivation which so many young people are trapped in, unless it is accompanied by an attempt to tackle underlying drivers of crime.

(Ian Duncan Smith quoted)

Prison Reform Trust (2012) Old Enough to Know Better,

Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

Nietzsche F. (1886) Beyond Good and Evil. N156

Dedicated to the future

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Nick, Anthony, and Patsy plus all the people at the project who put in the hours to provide the support from 2006-2011.

Thanks especially to Dr. Chris Maddox and Laishan for their direction and also to Tony and Natalie for their support.

People who gave a helping hand to this project were Jane Jonson, Mark McQuinn, Mark Seow, Mike Shiner, Patricia and Dirk Belau. I would also like to thank Mike from the White Bear Theatre and Mike from the County of Bedfordshire. And of course my wife who supported me during the writing of this book throughout the whole process.

Ideas were also gleaned from the Bowlby Centre, Erich Fromm Society, Southbank University, Mosaic Training, Interface, Centralcare, WPF and the Adlerian Society.

INTRODUCTION

This book is based upon Bath of Steel (Whittington 2012) and those who sought a way forward. Everyone has been hamstrung by academia, policy makers, bureaucratic constraints and the organisational dynamics they work within. This was documented in the work of Hood (2006) who looked at gaming, seeing service provision as an endless game to win contracts. Gone was any desire to undertake the work with clients as everything had devolved to the psychology of knavery (Le Grand 2006a).

Within the structure there are like-minded few with an x-ray vision; practitioners, civil servants and academics. Many individuals have instilled a connection visualising a world beyond the current presentation. There are academics who are striving to overturn the dead weight of the past. One key example is the vision depicted by Mearns and Cooper (2005) who worked in Glasgow with young people. They speak about the relationship being the crux to recovery. There are numerous others who are mentioned throughout.

However whirling around in an institutional slow motion were numerous individual catastrophes. Within the system were the marginalised who were trapped within the various iron cages (Weber M. 1904) composed of bureaucratic processes which administered them as objects. The systems were put in place due to the scotoma’s or blind spots of those who oversaw them. Operating as blinkers they inhibited any ability to see and visualise an emotional reality. However this did not mean this reality was not in existence. The opening quotes from Hansard (2003) and The Prison Reform Trust (2012) illuminate the fact the major political parties were aware of the barriers inherent within the existing structure. It was a conveyor belt or a perpetual treadmill which offered nothing of note. The question is why it was never dismantled? To answer this I look at its purpose.

Neither of the two main political parties had the administrative will to disassemble the structure which consumed so many resources, yet destroyed so many lives. There are a number of reasons why it continues in its present form. The first issue are the levels of emotional literacy (Steiner 2003) within the higher echelons of parliament and the civil service. The second issue is the poor levels of emotional literacy within the electorate. They clamour for more violent forms of punishment unaware this exacerbates the problems they wish to resolve. These two dynamics operate in symbiosis. It is apparent there is a vocal clamour for more state violence to be enacted on children, adolescents and young people. This satisfies a sense of vengeance, shift from a sense of inferiority (Adler 1956) to superiority. Another key issue is there are few exit points within the current system for anyone to undertake a root and branch overhaul. There are too many vested interests in keeping the structure within its present format. As such it operates as a money go round, overseen and staffed by knaves (Le Grand 2006a).

One component of the current system which can ignite change, exists embryonically within academia. However mainstream academia only describes a world which is deemed to exist, and this emanates, I will argue from the subconscious and conscious realms of numerous social science researchers. Problems arise from an absence of any personal insight. Instead, as I noted when I attended an Adolescent Personal Violence Forum (APV), these unreflected subconscious thoughts are projected into objective research findings, to provide substance to the world. It is through the operation of power, these academic adherents impose their subconscious realms upon an external reality. When I pointed to the research findings in Bath of Steel (Whittington 2012) and Beaten into Violence (Whittington 2007a) those present recoiled. Research evidence was ignored because it did not fit into their schemata’s built to understand the world. Any research evidence which contradicts the power invested within academic fictions is ignored. So we are left with the tautology that loving parental families produce children who want to attack their parents. The ridiculous nature of a reified belief is then imposed upon the world, despite its inherent emotional flaws, because it stems from the projection of the child as a bad seed (March 1954). These researchers are still trapped within the Lamarckian mind-set of inherited traits, a view used to designate and label the other (Sartre 1943).

An emotional reality is dimly perceived through the lenses of the mainstream habitus (Bourdieu P. 1984). But these lenses are very similar to those worn by the vocal public who clamour for more state violence. They gaze onto young people, who become their sacrificial totems, forever surrendered to sooth this seething sea of frothing anger. Therefore the perpetual treadmill is grounded upon this constant sacrifice and an inter-generational desire for revenge, linked to the dynamics of a class based social system. As the various emotional feelings intermesh, I will explore their interaction to clarify their purpose. The aim is to begin the process of dissolving their impact, and to begin a rethink; how to dismantle the perpetual treadmill. However I recognised there are numerous vested interests which work to keep it intact and the issue of charities forever addicted to the drip feed of commissioning is acute.

The academic problem can be encapsulated within the work of J B Watson (1913) who viewed the secure base (Bowlby 1984), where mothers and fathers provided love for their children, as mal-adapting them. Watson (1913) is another example of the academic madness Nietzsche (1886) foresaw as entombed in the external world, where love is no longer valued. In effect this unreflected view is the dynamo of the perpetual machine. The a priori projections" (Fenichel 1945) beamed onto children, constantly feeds into sustaining a hallucination, which exists within the external world; that life is nasty, brutish and short. As it is a war of all against all, children need to be crushed and moulded to fit into it. Following this belief, the child-rearing patterns of those who are economically and politically successful, stem from a desire to seek recompense from a childhood sense of inferiority (Adler 1956), as they undergo this crushing.

Within academia the desire to assume an empirical stance to the world has sustained the machine analogy. Empiricism fuels the perpetual contraption. Unable to encapsulate the emotional being, academia views itself as above praxis (Freire P. 1970), action, reflection and transformation. Instead academics mimic their funders who want their scotoma sanctified. Reams of papers and research articles are written, but these offer nothing of note to the practitioner except a pair of existential handcuffs. Their written output fuels in effect fuels the perpetual treadmill trapped in their linear ABCDE dynamics (Rose G. 1982) of forever describing the world. Academics attend conferences and give speeches to the like-minded devotees of the habitus (Bourdieu 1984). Each indoctrinate operates in a distinct sphere divorced from an emotional reality. They lack any connection with those who are considered the objects. Firstly I will argue these people have severed themselves as children before they severed connection with the wider world as adults.

A key issue emerges from within the natural and social sciences. The academic mind has failed to conceptualise a phenomenological or relational view of the world. Instead everything is reduced to collating statistics to feed the perpetual treadmill. This in turn, has affected how we all view the world and subsequently react to it. Pseudo empiricism has fuelled the mechanical mind which stimulates the wounds within the inchoate public, who then demand ritual sacrifices.

A different stance is necessary to free the entrapped, other than a statistical objectification. Objectification reaffirms the prejudices and attempts to view the world as fixed, observable – nullifying any transcendence. What infuses change? Necessarily this involves rethinking what has previously been taken for granted. Stretching all the way from social care and health to artificial intelligence is an assumption, man is just a sophisticated machine comprehended by applying various mathematical theorems, to capture his corpus. It is enshrined within the work of both cognitive and behavioural sciences. This book outlines the essential falsity of that belief construct. By trying to categorise why people get into difficulties and remain trapped, it is obvious no escape route is offered. Blockages arise from the projections (Fenichel 1945) of those who have the power to define the world. I will argue these exist due to their unresolved childhood wounds (Berne 1961, 1964). Due to a perception, that an escape route cannot be built, the perpetual treadmill becomes an endless crank.

Upon this endless conveyor belt, the objectified miscreant trudges without ever getting off. Each individual is instructed that it is impossible to disembark, as they are stuck on this path due to their genetic inheritance (Leo J. and Lacasse J. 2007). They are predestined to undertake this endless trudge. Therefore they have to make the best of a bad constitution. Also they must accept the care they have been given and adapt to it, because it is being undertaken for their best interests. All of these sentiments provide a moral right, a soothing of the conscience for those who tend the machine. It legitimises (Weber 1922) the machine world.

Due to the rational world being filled with an empirical comprehension, utilising the positivistic divorce of the self from the object, these figments of belief (when viewed through Nietzsche’s reflections), have allowed an intelligentsia to delineate - those who are not of its kind, as alien beings. They are the Sartrean (1943) other. The ability to construct a world and live within it were outlined in 1873 in Nietzsche’s Truth and Lies in an Extra Moral Sense. Belief in this world is part of the hegemony of ideas constantly replicated within the social sciences. They are upheld as truth in itself.

The Perpetual Treadmill analyses a treatment system which operates to keep itself in operation. Through its unconscious narcissism it has failed to engender emotional recovery. Instead it functions according to the tenets of Max Weber’s (1922) concept of the iron cage of bureaucracy. Alternatively I focus on how making a human connection sparks a positive change in the person on the receiving end. By describing an alternative the current stasis becomes visible. I will provide a critique of the philosophy of the various rationalist, empirical and positivistic ideologies to detail how an academic investment has crushed those who are inspected.

The current treatment system reflects the scotoma’s or the blindspots operating within the social sciences, in particular sociology and criminology, psychology along with psychiatry. I will outline why radical changes within academia, bureaucracies and practitioners are required to enthuse emotional recovery within clients. This critique also extends to politics and how it is conducted. The leadership of each sector fails to ignite any vision. It also encompasses the work currently being undertaken on artificial intelligence, as the gaps which emerge are seismic. These are embedded in the philosophy which underpins science.

By positing the end goal of emotional recovery this insight aims to stimulate a reflection on the nature of scientific research in all its formations. A teleological belief is required that people who are marginalised can recover. But recover to do what? Who is to say there lifestyle is erroneous? However as the case histories in Bath of Steel (Whittington 2012) and Beaten into Violence (Whittington 2007a) detail, the angst ridden worlds where the marginalised populations inhabit are not just a lifestyle choice. These individual worlds have been constructed to fend off an Adlerian (1956) social interest because connecting to others is deemed painful. To be isolated and denigrated as Fromm (1950a) outlined in The Pathology of Normalcy is viewed as being less than human. However this is not just pushing recovery so that everyone can join the middle class throng. Every individual wants to eventually escape their current predicament, but what is offered to them does not allow them to shed the resonances of the past, only to camouflage it. Camouflage is integral to the middle class habitus (Bourdieu 1984); a world without emotions. This monistic state has been transmitted to the natural sciences as if it is an ideal rather than a sense of entrapment, again illuminating the madness (Nietzsche 1886) which is taken for granted as a social norm.

Working therapeutically with homeless men illuminates that the standard rote mechanistic perception of the world arises from a very human emotional amnesia. After being involved in praxis (Freire P. 1970) (action and reflection) I believe I haven an ability to stand back and critique the inertia which thwarts emotional recovery. By viewing a teleological end point, a world yet to be born and then working backwards a new vision can introduced. However this is no five year plan but a lived vision of a world yet to be ushered in.

It is not about starting in the here and now, but dreaming of what is about to become. It is through having a vision any individual can comprehend what has been inhibiting them. But to do this requires reflecting on those concepts and beliefs restricting an ability to achieve the future. It is not just about getting off the crutches and striding into a marathon, but slowly making changes which build incessantly to life a more vibrant life style. This is the biophilia which Erich Fromm (1973) depicts in "The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. It is the fulcrum of change; based upon have an idea.

But if we ask our clients’ about their future, they tell us they only want to die. This was an answer provided by a senior manager in a training session I under took in 2014. If we ask them what they want they will feed back their nihilism, and this will make their lives even worse. Therefore we do not ask them what they want, because we already know the answer; death. This tautology, based upon a workers presumption, all clients want to die, delineates the world turned upside down, where those who lack any emotional literacy (Steiner 2003) are handed power to oversee a scheme infused with knavery - engendered by tendering and commissioning (Le Grand 2006a) to oversee vulnerable populations. This details why emotional recovery is such a threat, it turns over the tables of these schemata’s which operate to halt clients from working towards a sense of recovery. This details how practitioners entrap the clients within their schemata’s of nihilism.

In the meantime there are numerous ways to respond to this sense of nihilism.

Firstly however, what is being offered? For the client the future occupies the same space as the past and the present. They can only envisage a future, based upon what they are currently experiencing and what they have endured within the past – an endless conveyor belt. Trapped on the perpetual treadmill they only see its linear momentum as never-ending. What is required is to provide them with a hand to step off it. Through small painful steps and rebuilding self-esteem and a will to live, the client can eventually, to move from a position of being self-absorbed to instilling a connection. As they are never asked for their views, they remain entrapped. This was the lesson clearly detailed in Bath of Steel (Whittington 2012).

Another key issue which keeps the perpetual treadmill in operation is a reduction of human beings to binary structures and labels (Becker 1963). In fact human beings operate on multi modes with many transcendental conceptual polarities. These are felt inside the body and mind rather than reduced to an objective equation avidly deduced by the scientists into a monistic isolated being. I am interested in how this autistic mind-set arose and has been sustained. By drawing on therapeutic perspectives and the work of Lloyd Demause (1974) I explore how the concept of psychological mechanisation gained such a supremacy. Then I reflect on the damage this view has caused over the twentieth century when put into practice, before analysing a way forward.

Each person exists in connection to their individual memories and feelings. These are transmitted as associated emotions to others, in social groups, rather than operating as individualistic reductionist mathematical constructs. Instead of biophilia (Fromm 1973) human behaviour is forever deduced from measuring synapses and chemical reactions to deduce difference, and then explain negative human attributes. The desire to grade people according to some fictional final goal of an isolated unique individual are concepts which exist within the elevated superior mechanical mind. It infuses neuroscience for example.

Derived from this ideal, evolving from socially constructed beliefs, there is a tacit agreement upon an independent social reality, but in reality it is man-made. But people then behave as if (Vaihinger 1924) this is reality is true. After an agreement is reached, a consensus, this view is reflected back to the social multitude. Those who fail to make the grade are assumed to have a chemical imbalance (Leo J. and Lacasse J. 2007): a continuous deficit akin to original sin. It is this fiction which the empiricists, positivists and rationalists then seek to discover and reaffirm. Scientists work to legitimise the group fiction and provide evidence to keep the hallucination sustained.

It commences with a hypothesis founded on a fiction, and then it runs relentlessly as a truth. So the scientists wishes to discover why people are feckless, forever founded upon grading people, according to some mythic norm. The habitus (Bourdieu P 1984) they inhabit, is taken for granted. In psychological and sociological research methodology, unlike psychotherapy, the researcher does no work on their own personal constructs or motivation. They learn to assume a role of the dispassionate researcher by attending university (Bourdieu 1996). Afterwards they click an internal switch which allegedly allows them to become neutral. In reality this is a philosophic impossibility, but it is sustained by a group fiction founded upon faith.

Arising from the insights within Beaten into Violence (Whittington D. 2007a), Bath of Steel (Whittington D. 2012) and now The Perpetual Treadmill there is an analysis on the key skills required from social care and health practitioners to bring about emotional recovery. By standing up against the accepted lore, currently operational within research departments, their paucity becomes apparent. The key function of all research should be how to initiate a transformation. To enthuse recovery an individual requires an immersion in their world, rather than an external contemplation of their malaise. To do this necessarily means adopting a phenomenological view (Sartre 1939, 1943, 1946). It means both practitioners and researchers voyaging into the emotional abyss, by making relational bonds (Mearns D. and Cooper M. 2005).

These bonds are explored throughout this book. It is by adopting an Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) a new form of human connection can be uncovered. Smith, Flowers and Larkin (2009) drew upon Ludwig Binswanger (1971) and Sartre (1943) to try and outline a new methodology based upon phenomenology. Their methodology shifts beyond labels and categories to try and connect to the person and their emotional resonances. However what emerges within their book, if the researcher lacks psychological insight or is devoid of therapeutic training, therefore these emotional resonances are missed. After reading their case history, outlined in the IPA book, a strong researcher detachment, particularly over riding in Syed’s case history comes to the fore. If his personal narrative cannot be trusted because he is in distress, then whose narrative can be trusted? Are the researchers more emotionally buoyant than the person being researched? How do they define this, if they have done no work on themselves?

Despite their notion that labels should be dispensed with, there appears to be a power discourse in operation. Would the same researchers discount a politician’s narrative? Another key feature is that this form of phenomenological research lacks a focus upon recovery and resilience. It also negates complex trauma (Courtois C. Ford J. 2013) narratives. If these did emerge for example, I wonder how the researchers would respond. It appears they wish to comprehend the life of the marginalised without entering the bath of steel. To gain trust with someone requires more than an hour of interaction. Within my case histories (Whittington 2007a, 2011, 2012) it took hours to build a trust based relationship. Eventually the front (Whittington 2007a) is dismantled and the person reveals aspects of themselves. However this phenomenological perspective is in its infancy and this foundation offers a way out of the current empirical malaise.

So as an alternative the following is required. Firstly the lost emotions of empathy, compassion and kindness (londonpathways.org 2011) are required. To do this services must be integrated rather than cast into silos. The issues for marginalised men and women are that they are excluded from standard services because they are labelled as hard to work with. They are not, it is just the skill base of the practitioner has to be enhanced to work with their resistance to being coerced. Formerly the behaviourist interventions of the standard practitioner led to no sense of rapport or recovery being built. This requires a person centred approach (Rogers 1961) first and foremost. It requires dropping the professional front (Whittington 2007a) and being friendly, working through the various projections (Fenichel 1945) and transferences within reflective practice (Knott and Scragg 2013). Firstly it entails a reflection upon Maslow’s (1968) hierarchy of needs and working with the client to formulate a secure base (Bowlby 1984).

This is derived the notion, that marginalised men and women are brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers and human beings first and foremost. Formerly as detailed in the case histories (Whittington 2007a, 2011, 2012) they suffered early horrendous lives and this cannot be glossed over with encompassing genetic explanations. It requires an entry into their bath of steel (Whittington 2012) to ascertain how they view the world and then begin to trust other people, particularly those in authority who previously betrayed them. The staff calibre to undertake this work has to be enhanced from its current low status to someone who is highly skilled and emotionally literate (Steiner 2003), someone who can work through seemingly intractable life problems to dissolve their impact and find resolution. It also requires reintegrating formerly marginalised people back into supporting others, but also training a cadre of professional skilled people to work in-depth rather than operate a surface skim just to win tendering contracts.

Key Concepts

I draw upon a number of key concepts. In order to provide an outline of my perspective. Here, some of the pivotal ideas will be explained. These will provide an insight into the philosophical and methodological background I drew upon to offer an alternative vista.

As if is fundamental to my critique. It is a way of viewing the world derived from the work of Hans Vaihinger, who wrote Philosophie des Als On later translated into English as The Philosophy As If (1924). Within the book he outlined that external reality can never be truly grasped independently of our individual minds. Instead we project our beliefs onto it, and external reality mirrors back our projections.

In order to exist, human beings construct ideologies and adhere to them as as if they were real, as if they operated as objective truths. However there is no objective proof these exist independent of our minds. Here, he has drawn upon Nietzsche’s sense of Truth and Lies in an Extra Moral Sense (1873), to ascertain how we construct a meaning about the world and communicate it. These constructs operate as convenient fictions for comprehending the world, constantly passed on through education. They become normative ways of perceiving reality. We, therefore assume the external world matches our internal reality, as we learn to adapt to it. This demarcates the process of socialisation. It outlines how people fit into what is deemed mutually acceptable; a social role which operates in a social world. Those who assume power seek to determine how a personality formation, an ideal social role, can be judged. This necessarily rests upon an assumed objective standard. Once it is agreed, then those who adhere to it can outline what is aberrant.

The nature of external reality is formed through a complex social negotiation. By tacit agreement this helps to define the world we inhabit. Then it defines ultimately how we feel about ourselves living in the world which exists around us. Within this construction are numerous contradictions (Adler A. 1956). However these flaws are erased from consciousness as people act regardless. The social construction of reality is founded upon faith. Whilst the Western World has become secular the same religious concepts still operate unconsciously, except minus god.

Some of the fictions are upheld even though they shorten the lifespan of the individuals concerned, such is the power of belief. These fictions are also inculcated into children as eternal proven truths (Lowen A. 1995). However when held up for an inspection they can be viewed as ideologies which provide a certain meaning to existence. Templates were drawn upon over the breadth of the twentieth century to offer a meaning to the mass suffering. These also offered redemption. Where the ideological power is extremely strong, people surrender their family relationships rather than let go of these abstractions. Science, I will argue, is one of these constructs, in particular when it is applied to human beings rather than objects. Following Nietzsche’s observation in On Truth and Lies in an Extra Moral Sense, (1873), people manufacture knowledge to sustain a habitable universe. This has no meaning beyond its social construction. However a belief in its everlasting tenets allows those who adhere to its basic ideology to function with a sense of positive attribution: as if they inhabited a world founded upon an eternal truth.

A belief can still be adhered to, despite its logical and emotional falsity, because it has a considerable social utility for those who cling to it. One such belief is the power of the market, a fiction invented by Adam Smith (1776) and detailed in his book Wealth of Nations.

This, along with the centrality of egoism and the robotic nature of human beings is sanctified. These are useful fictions within a late twentieth century and twenty first mind-set. But there are others: chemical imbalance, racial grades, intelligence tests, diagnosis of labels and the belief in the determinism of the genes. These grade differences and provide a moral right for a number of initiatives.

Each has been constructed to make sense of the world from a particular vantage or viewpoint. They allow the zealots to access power and then define superiority and inferiority. When finally unwrapped they appear as mere psychological projections. Often they are subconsciously based upon a desire to assume superiority (Adler 1956). They make specific claims about the world which are neutral, but in reality they are founded upon a Nietzschean (1968) will to power. Each is obscured from view by the independence of science. Science camouflages the intent of the scientist, the desire to impose themselves upon the world through the vehicle of their research.

Alfred Adler (1927, 1931, 1956, 2004) drew upon Hans Vaihinger (1924) to posit these neutral perspectives are far from independent. They stem from an inner fictional final goal or an absence of one. They arise from a desire to colonise and explain the world after god was dethroned from his previous seat of