1 Introducing four psychologies of unemploy- ment and their implications for interven- tion Kesi Mahendran Abstract The current ‘activity’ involved in active labour market polices, such as the UK’s New Deal, is focused on interventions to increase the ‘employability’ of the unemployed person in the belief that this will offset health problems. This chapter outlines a new conceptualisation of four psychologies of unemployment that underpin such interven- tions. A now classic agency-deprivation psychology of unemployment; an increasingly prevalent self-perception psychology of unemployment, a social perception psychology of unemployment and finally a dialogical psychology of unemployment. The concep- tualisation arose through 16 months of participatory action research between 1999 and 2001 in two organisations in Central Scotland providing training and guidance to unem- ployed people. This chapter uses three instances of interventions to illustrate how inter- vention narrowly focused on unemployed people’s self-perception can be successfully challenged and a dialogical solution achieved. It argues that interventions built on a dialogical approach can reduce the psychosocial impact of the social experience of being unemployed. 1 Introduction Much of the ‘activity’ involved in the active labour market policies (ALMP), which characterise the UK’s New Deal intervention programme, is focused on increasing the activation level, through regular attendance at training and guidance centres, in order to increase the ‘employability’ of the unemployed person. The New Deal was one strand of the flagship Welfare to Work policy of the New Labour government when it came to power in 1997. There was to be no option to live a life ‘inactive’ and in receipt of ben- efits for those who were able to be employed. The New Deal intervention was built on an international evidence base suggesting that increased ‘employability’ would lead to employment outcomes, reduce the ‘de- pendency culture’, create social inclusion and offset health problems. By the late 1990’s