Psychology around the OU
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Latest news, views, comment, debate and useful links for those studying, working in or with an interest in Psychology, what makes people tick, and how they think, act and interact with others
Relationship rules book is finalist in Erotic Awards
The book explores the complicated and contradictory rules we are subjected to in 21st century relationships. It has been shortlisted for an Erotic Award in the Academic category.
The Erotic Awards are an annual 'celebration of sexual creativity and diversity' with the goal of helping society become more open about sex and more accepting of sexual diversity.
The winners will be announced at an event in London on 17 May.
(3 votes)
OU psychology lecturer and Society Matters blogger Meg Barker is a finalist in the Erotic Awards 2013 for her recent book Rewriting the Rules. The book explores the complicated and contradictory rules we are subjected to in 21st century relationships. It has been shortlisted for an Erotic Award in the Academic category. The Erotic Awards are an ...
access to success in psychology starting 1st June 2013
Hey :)
Is anyone else starting this in June? (: Will be good to have a study buddy. :)
Hey :) Is anyone else starting this in June? (: Will be good to have a study buddy. :)
Sports student prepares for seven days of pain
Self-confessed fitness fanatic Danny Curtis has taken on a challenge of literally staggering proportions.
His challenge begins with the Tough Mudder, a 13-mile assault course incorporating electric shocks and barbed wire, on Saturday May 4 and ends on Saturday 11 May with the Rat Race Dirty weekend, another assault course, this time of 20 miles.
In between he plans to run Milton Keynes Marathon (26.2 miles) and the 10-kilometre Silverstone Grand Prix.
Danny turns 30 in December and wanted to push himself to tackle something new in the last year of his twenties.
“It’s a huge challenge as the furthest I’ve run before is a half marathon, 13.1 miles," says Danny, who has a sedentary job as a curriculum management assistant at the OU.
“I’m not worrying about target times, as long as I make it to the finish line. I’m just going to put one foot in front of another and eventually I’ll get to where I want to be."
Danny's training regime includes Brazilian jiu-jitsu, weight-lifting and the high-intensity exercise programme known as CrossFit.
He says studying Introduction to sport, fitness and management E112 has helped him improve his training.
"It's helped me gain the knowledge to train correctly and eat correctly and understand the theory behind what I do. Prior to starting the module I was just going on hearsay information and things I read on the internet."
Danny was originally aiming to do the foundation degree in Sport and Fitness, but says that now the OU has launched a full Honours degree in that area he hopes to do this "eventually”.
To help Danny reach his target of £1000 for Willen Hospice in Milton Keynes, you can sponsor him at 7 Days of Pain.
More information
- BSc Honours Sport, Fitness and Coaching
- Foundation degree in Sport and Fitness
- Introduction to sport, fitness and management E112
(5 votes)
Self-confessed fitness fanatic Danny Curtis has taken on a challenge of literally staggering proportions. Danny, who’s working towards an OU degree in Sport Fitness and Coaching, is planning to run more than 60 miles competing in four races to raise money for his local hospice – all within a single week. His challenge begins with the Tough Mudder, a ...
Please help our dad is missing .
My dad is missing and it is very important we find him . He was in intensive care just over a month ago and has also suffered 3 serious seizers in which he has had to have his head stapled .He really is not him slef and we are desperate for some news . He is missing form poole but could be anywhere . My family dont often ask for help of strangers but we are begging you please if you see him contact the police .
My dad is missing and it is very important we find him . He was in intensive care just over a month ago and has also suffered 3 serious seizers in which he has had to have his head stapled .He really is not him slef and we are desperate for some news . He is missing form poole but could be anywhere . My family dont often ask for help of strangers but we are begging you please if you see him ...
Starting DSE141 and DD131 in Oct 2013
Hi i will be starting DSE141 and DD131 in Oct 2013 and am wondering if anyone can offer any advice on books it would be worth reading before the start of the course, your help will be greatly recieved.
Thanks in advance
Hi i will be starting DSE141 and DD131 in Oct 2013 and am wondering if anyone can offer any advice on books it would be worth reading before the start of the course, your help will be greatly recieved. Thanks in advance
How philosophy and psychotherapy meet in existential counselling
Philosophy and counselling may sound like unlikely bedfellows, but they have come together in a novel form of therapy called existential counselling.
One of the leading exponents of the British school of existential counselling is Dr Darren Langdridge, head of the OU's department of Psychology. He's just published a new book, Existential Counselling and Psychotherapy.
So what is existential counselling? "It's about bringing together a particular type of philosophy – existentialism – with a particular approach to counselling and psychotherapy," says Darren.
"Existentialism is a practical philosophy which looks at how we can live better lives. In existential counselling we draw on their ideas of how to live well, and apply them to therapy."
One well-known name who was an early exponent of existential therapy was RD Laing, the 'anti-psychiatry psychiatrist'. At a time when people suffering mental distress were being heavily medicated or locked away in mental institutions, Laing argued that therapists should be trying to connect with their patients as fellow human beings.
The key principles for an existential counsellor are: to try and understand how the person you are counselling sees the world, not to impose your world view on them; and to treat them as a unique human being. "We don't treat a person for 'depression'," says Darren. "We see a person who is having a low mood but we don't approach this as though they have a pathology.
"We have a dialogue with our clients. It is very engaged and active. The point about existentialism is that it wants to change the world."
Darren says his book is an introduction to existential counselling and psychotherapy but for those who are already well-informed in the subject, it also pushes the boundaries.
For those not so well informed, there is also an introduction to existential counselling authored by Darren in D240 Exploring fear and sadness, a course which looks at a range of therapies.
Darren has also contributed material to DD307 Social Psychology: critical perspectives on self and others on phenomenological psychology. Phenomenology is a branch of philosophy linked to existentialism, and the phenomenological method is used to understand what the world is like from the point of view of others.
If you want to learn more about how philosophy can inform counselling there's no need to be put off by any unfamiliar philosophical terms. These are all translated into practice in the book and course material on existential counselling, says Darren. "You don't need any background in philosophy to understand them."
Find out more
For those completely new to counselling, the OU offers a 15-point, 12-week introductory course Introduction to counselling (D171).
(4 votes)
Philosophy and counselling may sound like unlikely bedfellows, but they have come together in a novel form of therapy called existential counselling. One of the leading exponents of the British school of existential counselling is Dr Darren Langdridge, head of the OU's department of Psychology. He's just published a new book, Existential Counselling and Psychotherapy. So what is ...
The top 20 most wanted professions in the world
Around the world there are a number of professions in high demand. The BBC Business website has compiled a list of the top 20 most wanted professions internationally, and the countries that want them.
The list includes psychologists, physiotherapists and chefs, and there are case studies.
Is your profession there? Check it out on Global migrants: Which is the most wanted profession?
(11 votes)
Around the world there are a number of professions in high demand. The BBC Business website has compiled a list of the top 20 most wanted professions internationally, and the countries that want them. The list includes psychologists, physiotherapists and chefs, and there are case studies. Is your profession there? Check it out on Global migrants: Which is the most wanted profession? ...
Participants needed for OCD study
The research is investigating whether the brains of people with OCD function differently to those without OCD.
Preliminary findings suggest some systematic and interesting differences between brain activity in people with OCD, and non-OCD controls, even in a relaxed state. However, to obtain a more detailed picture researchers need to find more participants with OCD.
They are looking for people between 18 and 60 years of age, who have been diagnosed with OCD and have no learning disabilities.
If you decide to participate, they will need four hours of your time. The timing of these sessions can be flexible and scheduled according to your convenience.
During this time, your brain activity will be recorded using a safe, non-invasive and painless technique known as Quantitative Electroencephalography, or QEEG. You will also be interviewed and asked to fill in a questionnaire.
The study generally takes place at the OU in Milton Keynes or in Camden in London. Travel costs will be reimbursed. In some cases researchers will be able to come to your town or a town near you to perform the scans and interviews.
By participating in this study, you will be contributing to scientific advancements in OCD research. Additionally, you will gain interesting insights about how your brain may have been affected by OCD.
You can get more information from the QEEG and Brain Research Lab project page. If you wish to take part, or have any enquiries, please contact Loes Koorenhof by calling 01908 659 472, or email loes.koorenhof@open.ac.uk
(9 votes)
The Open University is recruiting people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) to take part in an ongoing research project. The research is investigating whether the brains of people with OCD function differently to those without OCD. Preliminary findings suggest some systematic and interesting differences between brain activity in people with OCD, and ...
Is there an OU Mastermind out there?
BBC's Mastermind is looking for contestants now.
For more information, or to book a place on one of the nationwide auditions, visit the Mastermind website and click on Audition Information; or call 0161 836 0315; or email mastermind@bbc.co.uk
Posted 25 March 2013
(8 votes)
Do you fancy yourself as a bit of a quizzer? BBC's Mastermind is looking for contestants now. For more information, or to book a place on one of the nationwide auditions, visit the Mastermind website and click on Audition Information; or call 0161 836 0315; or email mastermind@bbc.co.uk Posted 25 March 2013 1.625 Average: 1.6 (8 votes)
Stranger than fiction: why people cough at public performances
I once played Albert the Horse in Alan Bennett's lovely adaptation of The Wind in the Willows and during every matinee I was forced to neigh disapprovingly at children whooping loudly every time my wise old talking horse was about to save Toad from another disaster. Rumour has it that the cast of The Sound of Music referred to the show as The Sound of Mucus, so deafening were the coughs and sneezes coming from the auditorium during every performance. The concert hall too is notorious for audience participation, sometimes of the wrong kind. Alfred Brendel, the pianist, once chastised his audience: 'either you stop coughing or I stop playing.'
Now we might know why people cough in auditoriums. In a new report entitled Why do people (not) cough in concerts? The economics of concert etiquette, (see story here) Professor Andreas Wagner of the University of Hannover claims that coughing is 'excessive and non random'. Coughing is seen as an acceptable form of audience participation by many participants. Coughing is a 'wilful action'.
The research revealed that the average concertgoer coughs at 0.025 times a minute, a rate double the normal average of 18 coughs a day.
I am sure we all have sympathy with Downton Abbey author and screenwriter Julian Fellowes who famously, last year, explosively rebuked a fellow audience member who was coughing persistently in the next row at the Royal Court in London. 'You must stop coughing', he barked. After the outburst you could not hear a pin drop, only the actors on the stage.
Dick Skellington 22 March 2013
The views expressed in this post, as in all posts on Society Matters, are the views of the author, not The Open University.
Cartoon by Gary Edwards
(12 votes)
Ever had your enjoyment at a live performance spoilt by collective coughing fits from the audience? The theatre critic James Agate once reflected: 'Long experience has taught me that in England nobody goes to the theatre unless he or she has bronchitis.' I once played Albert the Horse in Alan Bennett's lovely adaptation of The Wind in the Willows and during every ...
- Yvonne Cook's blog
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Big Money Test - the results
The OU’s Professor Mark Fenton-O’Creevy, together with fellow academics Professor Adrian Furnham and Dr Sophie von Stumm, reveal what they learned from the results. It's clear that there is far more to managing your money than just financial know-how.
Key discoveries:
• While financial knowledge is important, our emotions play a big part in how well we manage our money
• Money makes many people feel worried, guilty and anxious
• Impulse shopping can lead to disastrous financial problems
• If money makes you feel powerful you are more likely to encounter money problems, but if money makes you feel secure you are less likely to
• Being able to make ends meet is crucial for us to be able to manage our money well, more so than financial knowledge
• Attitude to money and financial success tend to improve with age, even more so for men than women
Read the results in full.
Find out more:
- Check out OpenLearn's You and your money
- Read Professor Fenton-O'Creevy's blog on emotional finance
- Professor Mark Fenton-O’Creevy
Posted: 20 March 2013
(6 votes)
More than 109,000 people have taken part in the BBC Lab UK’s Big Money Test which was launched in April 2011 by money saving expert Martin Lewis. The OU’s Professor Mark Fenton-O’Creevy, together with fellow academics Professor Adrian Furnham and Dr Sophie von Stumm, reveal what they learned from the results. It's clear that there is far ...
Starting psychology Y183
I am starting module Y183 in June any advise would be useful can anyone help
I am starting module Y183 in June any advise would be useful can anyone help
Stranger than fiction: United footballers beat PhD students in intelligence tests
Now research undertaken at the University of Montreal shatters the stereotype. Jocelyn Faubert has worked with Manchester United squads over the last three years. She found that they interpreted visual scenes quickly and made better decisions about them than amateur athletes and non-athletes. She found they had a greater ability to, in her words, 'hyper focus', a facility which enhanced their learning abilities. The research compared 51 Premier League footballers, 21 Canadian ice hockey players, and France's top 14 club rugby players with 173 elite athletes and remarkably, a group of 33 PhD students from the University of Montreal.
Jocelyn concluded that the footballer's brain adapts to information much more quickly, and insight is matched by increased speed of thought. The research backs up a Swedish study which correlated high scoring footballers with high scores in cognitive tests (see this story).
So let's rejoice in the roll-call of bright footballers. Here are some for starters. The late Brazilian world cup winner Socrates was a doctor of medicine and philosophy, while the former Ipswich, Watford, QPR and MK Dons defender Steve Palmer has a degree from Cambridge. He is believed to be the only footballer of the modern era to study at Cambridge. Other bright sparks include Steve Heighway (Economics), Slaven Bilic (Law), Shaka Hislop (Mechanical Engineering), Iain Dowie (Masters in Engineering), Steve Coppell (Economics), Arsène Wenger (Economics), Gudni Bergsson (Law) and Oliver Bierhoff (Economics). One of the players of the 2013 Premiership season, Chelsea's Juan Mata, is studying for two degrees at the same time!
And The Open University? Our most recent graduate was Richard Hinds. The Sheffield Wednesday footballer achieved a first class honours degree in Law from the OU. Glen Johnson, the current English right back, will soon complete an OU Mathematics degree. Former Manchester United footballer, and the club's assistant academy director Tony Whelan was awarded a Bachelors degree in Humanities from the OU, and has since gone on to complete a Masters degree. Former footballer and Scotland manager Craig Brown has a BA Open. So let's put an end to those stereotypes.
Dick Skellington 15 March 2013
The views expressed in this post, as in all posts on Society Matters, are the views of the author, not The Open University.
Cartoon by Gary Edwards
(13 votes)
Forget the stereotype of the modern British footballer. The one that goes he can barely articulate in his own language, is susceptible to profanities, and keeps his brains in his feet. David Beckham may come out with the humorous one-liner littered with monosyllabic 'you knows'. ('I definitely want Brooklyn to be christened but I don't know into what religion yet,' he once ...
- Yvonne Cook's blog
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Time to turn a critical eye on the self-help industry?
Meg Barker looks a little deeper at what can be done to alleviate human suffering
Self-help history: empowerment or victimisation
Examining the history of self-help we can see that books in this genre have tended to be of two types. The first type – empowerment self-help – emerged in America after the great depression and drew on the New Thought movement which believed in the power of positive thinking. Such books held out the promise that by imagining good things and striking the right attitude people could bring what they wanted to themselves: wealth, friends, success, etc. The second type of self-help became popular in the late sixties and seventies. Know as victimisation self-help, books in this category tend to blame the wider world for any problems that individuals have. Akin to the twelve step programmes for addiction, these books are concerned with reassuring readers that their difficulties are not their fault but down to something beyond their control like having toxic parents or a disorder or disease of some kind. Power is located outside the individual.
In the 1980s and 1990s there was a backlash against victimisation self-help and a return to an extreme form of empowerment self-help which argued that any problems were down to the individual and could be fixed by positive thinking. For example, a quote in the bestseller The Secret by the author's fellow self-help writer, Bob Proctor, says: “Why do you think that 1 percent of the population earns around 96 percent of all the money that’s being earned? Do you think that’s an accident? It’s designed that way. They understand something. They understand The Secret, and now you are being introduced to The Secret.” The Secret in question is the New Thought law of attraction, that successful people bring positive things to themselves merely by thinking about them.
Both these forms of self-help are problematic, and together they set up a false binary around human struggles, which is similar to the either/or view of mental health which I've discussed elsewhere. It seems that we have to believe either that we are personally responsible for all our problems but that we can fix them by changing ourselves, or that the world is responsible for all our problems but that we are powerless then to do anything about them. If we buy into the empowerment way of seeing things then it easily slips into victim blame, whereby we regard everyone, including ourselves, as to blame for any problems in life. If we buy into the victimisation way of seeing things then we have to believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with us and give up any sense that we could do anything about our difficulties.
A third way? Oliver Burkeman
In recent years it seems that a few authors have been looking for a kind of third way of doing self-help: a way that involves breaking out of this problematic binary. What I have called anti-self-help self-help starts from a criticism of the assumptions of the self-help movement in general. It asks questions about whether it is actually good to strive for the things that self-help suggests that we strive for: happiness, wealth, success, a romantic relationship, etc. Are these good things to have and, even if they are, is striving for them the best way of going about it? Anti-self-help self-help locates any problems that we have in the wider society that surrounds us, the messages we receive from it, and how we relate to these, rather than seeing us as isolated individuals responsible for everything that happens to us. But, at the same time, it sees us as actively engaged with this wider world and able to engage with it in different ways, rather than as powerless.
A great example of such anti-self-help self-help is the writing of Oliver Burkeman. Like his Guardian newspaper column, This Column Will Change Your Life, his first book Help! presented an analysis of existing self-help books, attempting to pull out actually useful suggestions from the overwhelming mass of contradictory messages that he found. His second book, The Antidote, builds on the criticisms of self-help that he came to when writing Help! and suggests a radically different approach.
Positive thinking, argues Burkeman, actually makes us suffer. The empowerment self-help movement has got it completely wrong. What he offers in its place refuses the disempowering position of victimisation self-help, but instead embraces the potentials of what he calls a 'negative path'. This draws on a cluster of approaches taken from philosophies from Buddhism to Eckhart Tolle, the Stoics of Ancient Greece to the Mexican Day of the Dead. What these have in common is that they all do the opposite of 'positive thinking', instead turning to face the difficult stuff of life.
Thus Burkeman argues for the benefits of meditating on the inevitable fact of our own mortality. He critically evaluates the way in which we tend to react to 'bad things' in our day-to-day life, and considers alternatives where we recognise our own role in categorising what is good and bad and trying to get all of the former and none of the latter. He explores meditation and building the capacity to be with difficult feelings, turning towards the things that scare us rather than away from them. He considers the power of just getting on with tasks we are avoiding, rather than assuming that we have to 'find our passion' or 'get motivated' before we can do anything. He explores the value in considering the worst that could happen (and whether what is happening is 'just bad' or 'absolutely terrible') as well as asking yourself whether you have a problem right now, in the present moment. He questions who this self is that we are trying to improve through self-help, and wonders whether it might be more useful to reflect on whether such a thing really exists in any meaningful sense, rather than assuming that it does and engaging in a futile quest to make it better.
I loved The Antidote because it resonates so well with the answers (and – perhaps more usefully – questions) that I have come to through my own journey through the ways in which psychology, psychotherapy, philosophy, and sociology have understood human suffering and what can be done about it. Like my work, the book is particularly rooted in Buddhist philosophy and it is very nice to see that engaged with so thoughtfully, rather than just being offered as another set of techniques to make people happier.
The anti-self-help self-help manifesto
Where to from here? I would like to see many more anti-self-help self-help books which start from a critical stance towards the self-help industry and offer something more valuable to people who want to think about how they are living and how they might do it differently. Such work would, I think, share some of the following things in common:
• A critical stance towards conventional self-help
• A critical stance towards normative taken-for-granted ideas about what makes a good person and a successful life, and whether happiness and wealth are the best things to be striving for
• An informed understanding of the problems with telling people that they are flawed in some way and need to change by striving after something different
• Drawing on research evidence from psychology and sociology, as well as philosophical understandings from across the globe (not just the 'west'), in order to suggest what might be helpful to people
• Locating people's problems in the inter-relation between them and the world around them rather than entirely internally or entirely external – regarding people as biopsychosocial beings rather than focusing on one of those aspects (bio, psycho, social) to the exclusion of the others
• Suggesting ways forward which involve engaging with the world differently, and recognising how difficult this can be and arguing for wider social change, rather than putting all responsibility on the individual
• An ethical commitment to putting something different 'out there' even though the publishing industry conservatively continues to try to publish the same kinds of messages as before
I'd be very interested to hear from others who are trying to write blogs, books, articles, etc. in this vein, and to continue to discuss whether a 'negative path' or 'anti-self-help' does present a valuable third way.
Find out more
There is more about self-help with useful links to other work here.
Meg Barker 7 March 2013
Meg Barker is an Open University lecturer teaching mainly on counselling modules, and is also a therapist specialising in relationships. Find her other blogs here.
The views expressed in this post, as in all posts on Society Matters, are the views of the author, not The Open University.
Cartoon by Catherine Pain
(13 votes)
Meg Barker looks a little deeper at what can be done to alleviate human suffering I gave a talk recently at the University of East Anglia on the history of self help books. I wanted to understand far more about why they came to be the way they are. I also managed to chart one potential future trajectory of self-help, building on this criticism. For this I particularly ...
- Yvonne Cook's blog
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Criminology and Psychology
I anyone going to be studying this in 2013?
I anyone going to be studying this in 2013?
DSE212 and SDK228
Hey everyone. My name is Aisha, 23 years old and currently studying DSE212 and SDk228. I moved to London from Canada 1.5 years ago and transferred my credits from there to OU. This is my first year studying but I started at level 2. Would love to get to know some Of you guys, especially on the same courses. I'm pursuing a BSc in psychology so my next course is exploring psychology project at residential school
Hey everyone. My name is Aisha, 23 years old and currently studying DSE212 and SDk228. I moved to London from Canada 1.5 years ago and transferred my credits from there to OU. This is my first year studying but I started at level 2. Would love to get to know some Of you guys, especially on the same courses. I'm pursuing a BSc in psychology so my next course is exploring psychology ...
Sex and relationship therapy: fiction and fact
Watching a Hollywood movie that explores relationships in late middle age, Meg Barker reflects on fact and fiction in our depictions of the sexual.
On one level I loved the movie. The performances were all astonishingly good, the comedy was pitched perfectly and had me laughing out loud, and I shed a tear or two in the darkest hour before the dawn because it was such a good depiction of how lonely it is possible to be in a relationship.
However, as soon as the final credits had rolled, I started to reflect on the messages about sex and relationships in the film and found some of them pretty problematic. Here's my assessment:
Fiction: Relationships are tough. Fact: Relationships are tough
One of the best things about the movie is that it doesn't present a totally Hollywoodised version of relationships as some perfect happily-ever-after. The couple, Kay and Arnold, have not found that the love and sex that were present at the start of their relationship have stayed constant all the way through. They have changed over time, as all people do, and they have found they can't communicate very well and don't feel close any more. Kay captures a common experience well: 'It shouldn’t be hard to touch a person that you love. But it is.
Fiction: Older people can still want sex. Fact: Older people still want sex
Another big plus was the depiction of people in their sixties as just as sexual beings as the people in their twenties and thirties whom we are more used to seeing in films. This includes a number of realistic sex scenes which are a rarity in mainstream cinema – it is often assumed that people cease being sexual as they age, with a great deal of prejudice and ridicule around sex between older people, so it was nice to see this challenged. The therapist in the movie did not make the assumption that the couple should stop caring about sex, which many professionals do when confronted with older people, or people with disabilities or health problems.
Fiction: It's good to communicate in relationships. Fact: It's good to communicate in relationships
The relationship between the main characters does improve and this seems to be due to the fact that they've started communicating with each other during therapy. However I did have some sympathy with Tommy Lee Jones' character when he questioned whether blurting out all of the resentments that had developed over the relationship was really a good idea. In the early weeks of relationship therapy I often see clients individually (alternating weeks) so they can have a free space to talk about how the relationship is for them and think about the ways in which they might kindly communicate this to their partners.
Secrets and lies are not a great idea in relationships, but it is also valuable to learn what each other's vulnerabilities are and to tread gently around these. Having some empathy for how what we say might be received makes it easier for the other person to hear it.
Fiction: Space can help a lot. Fact: Space can help a lot
One key moment in the movie was when both characters went off and had a day on their own. This seemed to enable them to become closer and take more of a risk with each other. This was a nice portrayal of how valuable space is for a relationship. Time apart helps to remind us of who we are with other people as well as with our partner, so we are less focused just upon the relationship and how difficult it is. We can also get some fulfillment from ourselves and from other people, so that we aren't expecting the relationship to be everything for us. For example, Kay got the reassurance she wanted from people she met in a bar and that took the pressure off Arnold. Arnold was able to calm down and to stop lashing out. Time apart also often means that we are able to see our partners more fully rather than fixing them as just one side of who they are (boring or difficult, for example).
Fiction: Relationships must be sexual. Fact: Relationships can be sexual or not
Perhaps the main problem with the movie is that it reinforces the common myth that the romantic relationships must be sexual all the way through and that not being sexual is a sign that there is a problem. This is a big ask, given how long relationships last, and Esther Perel has written very well on the difficulties of sustaining relationships that are both warm and hot. Many relationships go through long periods of not being sexual, some are never sexual, some cease being sexual at a certain point, and some involve partners who get their sexual desires met in other ways (e.g. with other people or with pornography, erotic, fantasy and/or solo sex). Interestingly, any form of open relationship is twice presented as a big joke in the movie. Of course this might not be the thing for Kay and Arnold, but they do work for many people so it is a shame to ridicule them.
Asexual communities are currently raising awareness of the fact that it is perfectly possible to not experience sexual attraction. The therapist in Hope Springs seemed to assume that Kay and Arnold had to recapture their sexual relationship, rather than really exploring whether this was something they wanted and, if so, why it was important, and the different ways of doing this.
Fiction: People should sleep together. Fact: It is fine to sleep apart
Another common myth reproduced in the film is that sleeping in separate beds/bedrooms is a sign of relationship problems. This is not necessarily the case at all. Some people love sleeping together and some hate it, and it may well change over a relationship (for example if people develop different sleeping routines or if one person snores or moves a lot in their sleep). Indeed having separate rooms to retreat to when partners want to could be a very helpful way of getting the kind of space that can be so valuable to relationships.
Fiction: There is one thing called intimacy. Fact: There are many different kinds of intimacy
Carrell's therapist also seems to equate sexual, physical and emotional intimacy and focuses on getting Kay and Arnold to be physically and sexually close. Personally I would have focused more upon their relationship in general rather than forcing physical/sexual closeness before they were communicating well. And, as mentioned above, it is perfectly possible to have each of these kinds of intimacy without the others.
Fiction: Sex is penis-in-vagina intercourse. Fact: There are many different kinds of sex
There is a moment in the movie where the couple are about to have sex and Arnold loses his erection. Kay is very unhappy after this and nearly leaves because she assumes that it means that he doesn't find her attractive. Everything is better when they manage to have 'successful' penis-in-vagina intercourse. There are a whole load of sex myths in here. Clearly penis-in-vagina intercourse is represented as 'real', 'proper' sex, and sex is seen as requiring an erect penis and ending in ejaculation. There isn't, for example, the possibility of sex which is focused on Kay's pleasure, or the possibility of Kay and Arnold enjoying less genitally-focused forms of pleasure. Also erections are equated with attraction when these things may, or may not, be related (there are many other reasons why somebody might lose an erection).
Fiction: It is okay to go ahead with sex without much communication. Fact: Communication first is vital
When Carrell asks Kay and Arnold what they fantasise about sexually Kay struggles to come up with anything, and Arnold manages a couple of possibilities (oral sex and threesomes). The conversation is left there rather than pursuing Kay's desires or really checking out whether she shares any of Arnold's desires (teasing apart the cultural views of these activities from her own feelings). The real danger of this is that people will then feel forced into having sex that they don't want. At the end of the film Kay seems to be so relieved that she and Arnold are finally having sex that what she might enjoy sexually seems to have disappeared (she has been vague about whether missionary position sex is pleasurable or orgasmic for her).
If people don't communicate about their sexual desires there is a significant risk that the sex they have will not really be something that they have consented to. It can be very painful to be a person who ends up having sex that they really don't enjoy (like Kay when she attempts oral sex in the movie theatre because she thinks this is what Arnold wants). It can also be very difficult to be a person who realises that the person they are having sex with isn't enjoying it (as Arnold speaks about as a key reason why he stopped having sex with Kay).
With somebody like Kay who struggles to know what she desires I would want to work with her on this before doing anything (e.g. reading erotic fiction, exploring her own body). Also it would be useful to explore the menu of what is possible physically and sexually to see whether there was any common ground (rather than pushing them towards one, restrictive, version of sex). It would be useful for Kay and Arnold to make a 'yes, no, maybe' list of all the sexual and physical practices that they are aware of, and whether they are interested in them (one of the possibilities I discuss in the sex chapter of Rewriting the Rules).
Overall it is great to see movies depicting the challenges of romantic relationships and including sex and relationship therapy as a possibility. However it is about time that film-makers started to think a bit more critically about sex and about the diversity of possibilities for a good relationship.
Meg Barker 14 February 2013
Meg Barker will be talking live on the OU’s Facebook page today: follow the link here to join in from 1.30 to 2.30 pm. Or to watch Meg’s Valentine's Vox Pop in London’s Wardour Street click here.
Find out more:
You can find out more about how sex and relationship therapy works on the COSRT website which Meg helped to write.
Meg Barker is an Open University lecturer teaching mainly on counselling modules, and is also a therapist specialising in relationships.
The views expressed in this post, as in all posts on Society Matters, are the views of the author, not The Open University.
Cartoon by Catherine Pain
(10 votes)
Watching a Hollywood movie that explores relationships in late middle age, Meg Barker reflects on fact and fiction in our depictions of the sexual. I recently caught up with the romantic comedy movie Hope Springs. The movie is about a couple in their sixties (Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones) who go to intensive couple therapy (with Steve Carrell) because ...
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OES and OCAS - How on earth does this work?
Results:
OES: 81
OCAS: 36
I've just had a huge shock to find that I have failed my module overall. My "OCAS" result for my TMA01 and TMA02 was a pathetic 36 average. I was undergoing a lot of stress at the time (estranged from my father, hit by a car, lost my job) and the OU has been made aware of this. I was disappointed in my mark but made an extra effort in my iCMA and EMA to bring up my average, thinking that this would pull up my score and mean that I would pass the module.
I have just discovered this is not so as, although I recieved 81 for the "OES" result, because I only got 36 in the "OCAS" I have failed the module.
I thought all of the assignments added together and your module result was that average? Why is it split into two average as I would have passed with an average of 58.5 if this was not the case?
I am very confused!
Results: OES: 81 OCAS: 36 I've just had a huge shock to find that I have failed my module overall. My "OCAS" result for my TMA01 and TMA02 was a pathetic 36 average. I was undergoing a lot of stress at the time (estranged from my father, hit by a car, lost my job) and the OU has been made aware of this. I was disappointed in my mark but made an extra effort in my iCMA and EMA to ...
OES and OCAS - How on earth does this work?
Results:
OES: 81
OCAS: 36
I've just had a huge shock to find that I have failed my module overall. My "OCAS" result for my TMA01 and TMA02 was a pathetic 36 average. I was undergoing a lot of stress at the time (estranged from my father, hit by a car, lost my job) and the OU has been made aware of this. I was disappointed in my mark but made an extra effort in my iCMA and EMA to bring up my average, thinking that this would pull up my score and mean that I would pass the module.
I have just discovered this is not so as, although I recieved 81 for the "OES" result, because I only got 36 in the "OCAS" I have failed the module.
I thought all of the assignments added together and your module result was that average? Why is it split into two average as I would have passed with an average of 58.5 if this was not the case?
I am very confused!
Results: OES: 81 OCAS: 36 I've just had a huge shock to find that I have failed my module overall. My "OCAS" result for my TMA01 and TMA02 was a pathetic 36 average. I was undergoing a lot of stress at the time (estranged from my father, hit by a car, lost my job) and the OU has been made aware of this. I was disappointed in my mark but made an extra effort in my iCMA and EMA to ...
2013 Bedfordshire or nearby Students
Hi there,
I'm starting part time, modules DD131 and DSE141 in February and wondered if anyone else was too around the Bedfordshire area? Perhaps can set up study buddies/groups and just generally support each other through our studies.
Hope to hear from you
Verity
Hi there, I'm starting part time, modules DD131 and DSE141 in February and wondered if anyone else was too around the Bedfordshire area? Perhaps can set up study buddies/groups and just generally support each other through our studies. Hope to hear from you Verity Nymphyre.topaz@yahoo.co.uk
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