In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

Category: Community

  • Fable 13 – Jason’s Sermon from a Ledge

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    This short piece examines the topic of ever-accelerating change which we as a race have brought upon ourselves with our science and ingenuity, creating whole new worlds in ever quicker succession. It questions whether this acceleration we have released is manageable, even survivable. A character called Jason is the speaker. He has appeared in some…

  • Lout Language as an Abuse of Power

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    This piece was mostly written in the second half of October 2013. The UK Privy Council (quaint relic of a powerful medieval institution, suddenly back on stage) had just turned down a recommendation for a new form of self-regulation put to them by various representatives of the Press, the vast majority of these of a…

  • Mental Health Witness – how to consult with people who have turned to you for help

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    Here is a version of a message just written to a mental health manager who recently sent me a draft-“user involvement strategy” being put together for the service where she works. I am soon to retire from a part-time post as free-lance consultant to a group of mental health service users. My task has been…

  • Mental Health Witness – malpractice in mental health consultation

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    Health and Social Services in the UK often run open meetings for people who use mental health services. Such meetings are seen as opportunities to give people information on new policy developments, as well as letting them “have their say.” By definition, an open meeting means anyone might come, in whatever state they are in.…

  • Cat vies with Hard Drive for my soul

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    A psychiatrist called Iain McGilchrist has written what in my opinion is an extraordinary and important book called “The Master and his Emissary – The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.”  I feel instantly at home with, and liberated by, its central thesis. Here is a quote from the blurb on the…

  • Mental Health Witness – Who’s a Skiver, then ?

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    George Osborne’s division of the nation into Us “Strivers”  and Them “Skivers” (but weren’t  we once “all in this together” ?) has reminded me of some nineteenth century history I learned at school. It provides some context for Osborne’s venomous jingle two centuries later, and a way of measuring its quality and pedigree. I still…

  • Word from Myanmar

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    Last week, I added six new poems to the bilingual collection called “Poems for…one world.” All the new poems were Burmese, our fifty-first language. Remember that Burmese is a language whose speakers are themselves presently learning to be free again, to speak freely. You can access the six poems here .  You can read the…

  • Mental Health Witness – are UK services getting worse ?

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    I was at an event at the Poetry Society in London the other night, celebrating the 21st anniversary of a small charity concerned with mental health and creativity. The charity’s Chair stood up and suggested that mental health services are actually worse now than they were when the charity was founded, all those years ago.…