In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

Category: General

  • Mental Health Witness – services must co-operate in listening to the people they serve

    Posted:

    This proposal has been put together in the light, not just of the recent changes in NHS service commissioning, following the present government’s determination to impose yet another revolution on the NHS, but of developments generally over the past several years. It coincides too with my own pending departure from the scene after more than…

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

    Posted:

    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

    Posted:

    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

    Posted:

    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…

  • Fable 10 – The Pernicious Appeal of the “Strong Model”

    Posted:

    “The Pernicious Appeal of the Strong Model“ explores the power and attraction of different forms of idolatry, or fundamentalism, for people in disarray or under unusual stress. But this is not a piece about “true faith” as opposed to “false faith”. Idolatry/fundamentalism is not restricted to the religious ; it extends to anyone who accepts…

  • Shahada

    Posted:

    I have recently imagined myself standing before a man of good sense, deep learning and positive engagement with humanity, and professing to that person my basic beliefs. A profession of faith. A sort of Shahada. Once, in a much less comfortable public situation than mine, Martin Luther found himself setting out his position in similar…

  • Fable 9 – The Ark One Hour Long

    Posted:

    “The ark one hour long” explores the ubiquity in modern life of only partial and manipulative human contact, person to person. Most of our encounters through the day are with people who only see our outward edge, our mask, or just a passing glimpse, and anyway do not want to see us true ; we…

  • Mental Health Witness – Marketing “Recovery”

    Posted:

    In the mental health services, the “Recovery Model” has achieved good sales in recent years. Good pitch, good branding. Upwardly-mobile managers and organisations able to lay claim to being passionate about “recovery” win brownie-points and funding. We function in that sort of climate these days, in the care services. But this seems more than just…