A Day in the Life

" Bond: Do you expect me to talk? Goldfinger: No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!"   A scene from the film, "Goldfinger".   With the impending release of "Spectre", which is, I believe, the 24th Eon-produced Bond film, it seems that my interest in the movies and mental health collide once again. But what, I hear you say, has a Bond movie got to do with mental health? Well, I won't be the first to suggest that the character of James Bond displays many of the signs of being a successful, socially functioning psychopath. Indeed, in a book by Oxford University psychology researcher Kevin Dutton, "The Wisdom of Psychopaths", the author lists what he calls "the seven deadly wins" of psychopathy, and they are all traits one could apply to Bond. They are: ruthlessness, charm, focus, mental toughness, fearlessness, mindfulness and action. Is it because Bond possesses such psychopathic traits that he's so good at what he does?

I have sometimes spoken in this blog about The Pathways Group, a group which I attend once a week and which is run for people with experience of psychosis. I have often commended it for its therapeutic value, its facilitation of social connections, and perhaps above all, its achievements. Indeed, it's perhaps a rarity for a group for people with conditions like ours to have such cohesion, and the fact that it has now been running for 8 years is testament to this in-group solidarity. As I've been a member of the group since its inception in 2007, I have a particular fondness for it and the individuals which make it up, and so have felt somewhat aggrieved by some of the things which have befallen our little gathering since the introduction of what are sometimes euphemistically called, "the changes" to our local mental health services. I tend to think that when people mention "the changes", what they really mean is, "the cuts". For if you can describ