Male Street Based Sex Workers In Manchester; A Hidden Population By Judith Vickers

This research was done by Judith Vickers, the operational manager of Lifeshare in Manchester – a project which supports Manchester’s finest as they try to find a place to live.  This work came out of her understandings of the hard sides of life which so many have to face and championing getting various supports in place for better health and wellbeing.  One of the main issues which she came up against was the idea that men who sell sex to men are involved through a “lifestyle choice” rather than through a poverty imperative, which meant that support services were not extended to them as individuals. Read more…

Cult Behaviours: Devaluing the Outsider – Reviewing Prof Arthur J. Deikman’s Work

This is the third part of a review and digest of the work of Professor Arthur Deikman who published on cult behaviours examining how they manifest in every day circumstances.  He likened the natural pull in everyone towards cult behaviour to the comfort of being a passenger of a car and being driven along without having to think about where the journey is going or how they are getting there. Read more…

Dear Batman…

I know you but you don’t know me, this is even so as you employ me but do not see me despite all the sophisticated surveillance [1] and information systems [2] that you and your family’s empire have created [3]. You think you are invisible and stealthy in your activities but you are not; you are keenly visible to all of us, people like me who are made to serve your beck and call invisibly, unquestioningly. Read more…

Cult Behaviours: Dependence on a Leader – Reviewing Prof Arthur J. Deikman’s Work

This is the second part of a review and digest of the work which Arthur Diekman published on cult behaviours manifest in every day life. As a professor of psychology he stressed how cult behaviours are intimately woven in the human’s psyche and actions arguing that for healthy, stable and constructive societies awareness of these facts was imperative.

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Giving Up The Smartphone and Gating Technology: Managing Information, Media and Technology

Over the last several years the number of conversations which I have had with people about smartphones and the effects of digital technology in our lives is numerous.  In particular, many conversations have oriented around giving up a smartphone and living without technology cemented into every part of your life.  After some time I decided to give it a try to see what it felt like not to have a phone with the purpose of discovering whether a phone is as important as it had come to feel to be. Read more…

Cult Behaviours: Compliance with the Group – Reviewing Prof Arthur J. Deikman’s Work

This is a study article which is a review of Prof Arthur J. Deikman‘s work on cult behaviours in everyday life.  Deikman was clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Franscisco and published ‘The Wrong Way Home; Uncovering the Patterns of Cult Behavior in American Society’ in 1990.  The book lays out his analyses of certain characteristics found in cults emphasising the point that, far from being unusual rarities of behaviour found in the easily led or weak minded, these ways of thinking and acting are widespread and nestled in the comfort of our own tendencies.
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