A Day in the Life

At a meeting on 29th November, 2012, it was revealed that my local mental health resource unit, The Bennett Centre, is going to close on 21st December, 2012. The meeting was held by staff in order to attempt to reassure service users that the service they have relied on for many years will not be being completely dismantled, but simply restructured. We were told that care plans would not be being changed, but that the care co-ordinators who meet with us to arrange care plans might be replaced by other staff, due to the rearrangements which have resulted in the loss of 35 jobs. New venues within the community now might be used for service users to meet with staff, and we were told that the reason the Bennett Centre had been chosen for closure rather than other units was that such venues were more readily available within the Bennett Centre catchment area. Letters would be sent out to all service users to tell them of any changes. The overall feeling at the meeting was one of a...

How outcomes for people with schizophrenia and psychosis can be improved has been reviewed in a new report by the Schizophrenia Commission. The Commission was established by the charity Rethink Mental Illness and headed by Professor Sir Robin Murray. The report, entitled "The Abandoned Illness", states in no uncertain terms that the many who suffer with psychotic illness (some 220,000 in England alone) are being let down by, in the words of Robin Murray, "a broken and demoralised system that does not deliver the quality of treatment that is needed for people to recover". Among the many shortcomings of the system, Murray highlights psychiatric hospitals, which he states have become "frightening places where overwhelmed nurses are unable to provide basic care and support", and where "medication is prioritised at the expense of the psychological and social rehabilitation which are also necessary." Such is the condition of the hospitals that when pe...

Having now been looking for work opportunities for a while, something has finally come my way. It is a voluntary position at a local publishing company, and would seem to be exactly what I have been looking for in that it is something different to my usual work in mental health and would also make use of the qualifications and skills I have. As some of you who read this blog will know, for instance, I had a book of my poetry published back in 2004. However, there is a dark spectre hanging over me at the moment in terms of the benefits I currently receive. I was recently sent the form regarding my reassessment for Incapacity Benefit, which is being changed to Employment and Support Allowance. The fact that I am able to do voluntary work, I think, may go against me in my reassessment. The form contains such questions as, "can you lift a litre of milk using one hand?", and "can you set an alarm clock?" Hardly demanding tasks. For someone who seems t...

So, my love of the movies continues, and I just thought that it might be nice to explore some of the great lines of dialogue that we are all, perhaps, familiar with. Who could forget, for instance, Humphrey Bogart saying, "Play it again, Sam", in "Casablanca" (a line which, by the way, I believe was never actually spoken in the film, and what Bogart actually says is, simply, "Play it, Sam").  Or what about Jimmy Cagney saying, "You dirty rat", but again, it is thought that Cagney never actually said that. Perhaps better then to concentrate on lines that do actually appear in movies, and returning to Cagney, I believe that he does say the line, "Top of the world, ma", before being blown to smithereens in the film, "White Heat". Or what about Robert DeNiro in "Taxi Driver", holding a gun while looking in a full-length mirror and saying, ominously, "Are you talkin' to me?". Or perhaps Robert Duval in ...

So, it's finally happened. The changes which are currently being wrought in the benefits system which have caused so much unease amongst those who are ill or disabled, and which I have written about in this blog, are now going to affect me. I received a letter through the post last Friday telling me that I am going to be reassessed for the benefits I receive. Of course, Incapacity Benefit is being phased out by the government, with a new benefit, Employment and Support Allowance, replacing it. The new benefit is described in the letter as something which "helps people with an illness or disability move into work and provides people with the support they need". I will first have to fill in a "Limited Capability for Work" questionnaire, in which I will be asked to describe how my illness affects me from day to day. Later, I may be asked to attend a Work Capability Assessment, a prospect I am none too keen on given the appalling reputation of Atos, the co...

I have often said in this blog how I think the problem of stigma is gradually improving. The national anti-stigma campaign Time to Change has itself reported a reduction in discriminatory behaviour, and an improvement in the knowledge and attitudes surrounding mental ill health. However, according to a recent survey by the mental health charity, Mind, the problem of stigma and also issues with mental health services seem to be very much alive and well. In the survey people were asked to tell the charity what they thought the major issues surrounding mental ill health were. What emerged was a really quite disturbing picture of the state of both stigma and mental health services. In terms of work, the survey reported that 1 in 4 people who tell their boss that they have a mental health problem end up either being sacked or forced to leave. 6 in 10 employers say that they wouldn't take on an employee with a mental health problem...

"All art is quite useless". Oscar Wilde, The Preface to "The Picture of Dorian Gray". It seems to me that the more books I read, the more films I watch, the more paintings I see, I come to the conclusion that, as Oscar Wilde said, "all art is quite useless". Art, in all its forms, it appears, has no practical utility. Wilde remarked, then, that "the only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely". However, by saying that art was useless, I don't think Wilde meant that it is also worthless. In fact, the very opposite might be true. To me, a great work of art, whether it be a book, a film, a painting, or a poem, always has a significant power - the power to inform, provoke, make social comment, civilise and redeem. Keats wrote in his "Ode to a Grecian Urn", that "beauty is truth, truth beauty - that is all / Ye know on this earth, and all ye need to know". There has been a significant amount...