PPlog

I knew St Clements very well. In the early 1990s I was work based in Woodbridge covering that part of rural Suffolk roughly between Ipswich and Waveney. In particular the East Suffolk Advocacy Network (ESAN) originated there and had an office base in the hospital. Sadly for me at the time the service users working at ESAN (quite approriately) kept me at arms length as my employment was as a 'mental health professional' with Suffolk County Council. I say sadly because I was firmly on their side, and indeed, one of 'them.' I find it hard now to count the times I got in trouble with my managers for advocating with a service user - I was even hauled over the coals once for giving a service user the address of a local councillor and 'enabling' her to write to him! The closure of St Clement's follows on from the merger of Suffollk and Norfolk mental health trusts into one organisation. I'm now wondering what happens to users compulsorily admitted to hospital...

The THE SURVIVORS HISTORY GROUP , of which I'm a keen member has asked me if this blog can be used as an eastern outpost for news and comment for the group and the forum (survivor-history@googlegroups.com). I'm only too pleased to be a vehicle for this important project so here's the first entry. From: Andrew Roberts Secretary Survivors History Group http://studymore.org.uk/ studymore@studymore.org.uk telephone: 020 8 986 5251 home address: 177 Glenarm Road, London, E5 ONB The next meeting of the Survivors History Group will be held on Wednesday 30.5.2012 from 1pm to 5pm at Together, 12 Old Street, London. Everybody is welcome and refreshments will be provided. Minutes for the last meeting (largely written by Peter McGeary) follow on news of other issues. The agenda for the meeting will be drawn up at the beginning of the meeting, but will include Peter Campbell's regular report back on the research he is leading on the history of Survivors Speak Out. ...

Norfolk Coalition of Disabled People (a chewy mouthful!) is run by Service Users - and their Independent Living Groups and their Expert Personalisation Group make people feel good by peer support all the time. Those elements of support, like laughter or friendship for instance, experienced with one another or in our meetings - including online meetings, continue to work when we are alone. We are also - importantly, debating what to do with the ‘disabled’ label for we recognise that: we believe we are not 'disabled'  people  but we are  people who are disabled by attitudes, barriers and practices by society in general - like the bus that bars wheelchair users from entry; like the employer who says we are, because of a loss of hearing, not competent to work; like the psychiatrist who labels us as ‘schizophrenic’ and stigmatises us; like the mental health professionals who say we are ‘wasters’ (yes, I’ve heard them). there are, nonetheless, quite a lot of people, ...

“I can’t watch anymore of this.” I said, hauling myself out of my chair and stumbling out of our living room - very low in mood and close to tears. Kathy had chosen the documentary TV programme based in Guy’s Hospital and what they were showing was harrowing in the extreme. “Why the hell do people want to watch something like this - is this entertainment? Is it in the interests of ‘the people’ it should be shown?” Have we turned into a society of ghouls? I thought to myself, sitting glowering in our conservatory. A young girl, 7 - 8 years old or younger. was shown having most of a growth removed from her brain. She, bemused, and her anguished parents were interviewed a week later by a consultant and told it was cancer - cancer of the most aggressive kind and they would have to start an aggressive treatment of chemotherapy and radiotherapy called the Milan therapy. Mostly unaware of her fate, this poor little girl would be having to...

What is the mind? This is a perennial question going back to the ancient Greeks and beyond. Closely associated with this is: what are the twists of our minds that our civilisation calls illnesses of our minds? In the last century, the medical fraternity have increasingly decided, consolidating in the late 1950s, there is ‘scientific’ evidence that what they call mental illness is rooted in our physical nervous systems, e.i. in simplistic terms, ‘depression’ is a result of a chemical imbalance in the brain. So now, the vast incidence of ‘psychiatric treatment’ consists of dishing out pills acting on the nervous system - many of which bring their own unique penalties. Conversely, their are many of the people labelled (and sometimes incarcerated for it) mentally ill who have used the psychiatric services and have survived their ‘treatments.’ Some have effectively managed their own ‘treatment’ for stopping the pills they...