On Being Proud of The Pathways Group, or, It's a Bit Like Life Really.
In this blog, I have sometimes mentioned the group which I attend once a week. It is often referred to as The Pathways Group, although I think its full title was originally "Pathways to Recovery." Going even further back than that, I have been led to believe that groups like it were once known by the somewhat less positive-sounding moniker, "Group for those with severe and enduring mental ill health." The group has been meeting since around 2007, and during that time has achieved a great deal. At one point we even made a short film, funded by Stoke-on-Trent City Council, about what it is like to experience a long-term mental health problem, and which was eventually screened, along with other health-related films, at our local museum in Hanley. The process of the making of that film was documented in these pages (see my blog posts, "Hollywood Here I Come", parts 1, 2 and 3). The group has, of course, done many other things, but to me this was perhaps its m