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...

Last night BBC1 showed a fact-based drama called "The C Word". It was based on the book and blog by Lisa Lynch, a woman who received a diagnosis of breast cancer at the devastatingly young age of 28. Tragically Lisa eventually lost her struggle against the terrible disease, but not before touching the hearts and minds of many with her witty, insightful and moving writing. So I must make it clear that it's not my intention in this post to decry a young woman who was so clearly inspirational. However, it is a source of sometime consternation to me that the words used to describe the plight of Lisa and others like her - words like "tragic", "brave", "inspiring" and "heroic" come to mind - seem to trip off the tongue so easily, whereas when one speaks of those battling with mental illness they are used sparsely, if at all. Why is this? Using my own experience as an example, I have to make many efforts to stay well. Getting enough sleep...

"In the context of our present pervasive madness that we call normality, sanity, freedom, all our frames  of reference are ambiguous and equivocal. A man who prefers to be dead rather than Red is normal. A man who says he has lost his soul is mad. A man who says that men are machines may be a great scientist. A man who says he is a machine is 'depersonalized' in psychiatric jargon. A man who says that Negroes are an inferior race may be widely respected. A man who says his whiteness is a form of cancer is certifiable... ... our 'normal' 'adjusted' state is too often the abdication of ecstasy, the betrayal of our true potentialities... many of us are only too successful in acquiring a false self to adapt to false realities." R. D. Laing , The Divided Self, Preface to the Pelican Edition.   On 16th March it was reported in the press that a man in Telford had committed suicide by jumping from the top of a multi-storey car park. Apparently a ...

Not so long ago, I wrote a blog post entitled "The Latest Victim", which relayed the plight of Mark Wood, a man who had had his sickness benefits withdrawn despite, by all accounts, being incapable of work. The final upshot of this was that Mark very sadly passed away. Whoever, or whatever, was ultimately responsible for this cannot, I suppose, be precisely calculated, although doctors said that the traits of his mental illness became worse along with the strain of having his money withdrawn. In a recent edition of "Dispatches" on Channel 4, it was revealed that 49 such deaths have been recorded by the DWP. All, it seems, in some way connected to the changes being wrought in the benefits system. The programme highlighted the plight of another man, severely physically disabled, who had had his Employment and Support Allowance sanctioned and who also had to pay the so-called "bedroom tax", and was therefore living on virtually zero income. What finally happ...

Firstly, apologies to my hordes of adoring fans for not posting anything over the Christmas and New Year period. I'm afraid, once again, that putting finger to keyboard seemed to become a burdensome task, fraught with anxieties about what to, or what not to, write. So, this time, instead of writing about writing, as I've done before when inspiration failed me, I thought I'd talk about... talking; for talking, particularly in terms of mental health, seems a matter of extreme importance. For instance, I can personally attest to the therapeutic value of opening up and talking about one's feelings, instead of locking them away and allowing them to fester. After many years of failing to communicate my thoughts and feelings successfully, I think I finally began to express my frustrations in a more productive way, simply by saying what was on my mind. I don't think it's any mystery or mistake that the condition of my mind significantly improved as I did this. Indeed,...

Unusually for the issue of mental health, it found its way into the headlines twice this week. In the first instance, the Royal College of Nursing revealed that staff cuts and bed shortages were leaving mental health services "under unprecedented strain", with 3,300 fewer posts in mental health nursing than in 2010 and a total of 2,179 beds cut since April 2011. At the same time, they said, demand had increased by 30%. Even in wards that remain, there is the problem of over-occupancy, with adult acute admission wards running at an average monthly occupancy level of 101% for the last two years. The Royal College of Psychiatrists say that the occupancy level should be 85%. Dr. Peter Carter, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, said that such cuts risk making previous good work obsolete, and went on to say: "if staffing levels and services are cut back further, then services will continue to crumble, which would be a tragedy for us all, to s...