So what can we do, concretely, to help take forward the psychology-informed progressive principles developed in the previous chapter? Without doubt, much progressive activism – and, when in power, policymaking and implementation – is already oriented towards such goals. As discussed in the previous chapter, for instance, a society that maximises benefit for all needs equality of opportunity, and progressives already fight for this on many fronts. There is, for instance, the promotion of equality for minoritised and disempowered groups (such as people of colour, women, children, people with disabilities, refugees, people of minoritised sexual orientations, and animals), and the promotion of financial equality (by, for instance, fairer systems of taxation, tackling poverty, and the establishment of a universal basic income). Similarly, promotion of universally owned public services (in, for instance, health, education, housing, and social care) helps to ensure that resources are shared equally across citizens; while the decentralisation of decision-making to local groups helps to empower at the community level of organisation. International and overseas work – tackling, for instance, child poverty or disease – helps to promote greater equality across nations. There is also the critical work of tackling the climate emergency: building, for instance, renewable and low carbon energy sources that can help to ensure we thrive within our planetary doughnut. At the same time, the establishment and dissemination of state-funded mental health services – such as England's Improving Access to Psychological Therapies service and mental health services for children and young people – can help to support greater psychological wellbeing for all.

This chapter focuses on five further areas for activism and policy work that may be key levers to the implementation of a psychology-informed progressivism: positive parenting, social and emotional learning, adopting a language of nonviolent communication, emotionally intelligent politics, and developing a wellbeing economy. These are concrete, psychology-based ways of implementing the intra-and interpersonal principles discussed in Chapter 6, such as ‘communicate’, ‘be assertive’, and ‘trust’. This is not to suggest that these areas of activism and policy work are of greater importance to progressivism than the ones that progressives are already involved in. However, to date, such psychology-based practices have been less prominent on progressive agendas.