The drought is over...

It doesn't seem like that long since I logged in and started writing about what had been happening. It is really feels like only a few days since I last wrote about what I was doing but it’s about a month. I've been pleased on the whole with the last few weeks of my life - I haven't achieved anything special but I have at least stopped drinking and this has left me in a position where I can stop smoking, as the major problem was always having a few drinks and then smoking again when I didn't intend to.

Controlled alcohol intake has been rather new for me to say the least, I've had about 30 dry days of the last 35. This hasn't led to what I class as meaningful changes in my life but I have stopped doing something that was really just boring me shitless. Drinking wasn't really bringing me any pleasure - or at least hadn't for the last few years. I was doing it to reduce anxiety and to regain some feelings of normality. I wasn't doing it to completely feel normal, I have had some experience of drinkers who do that - there was one occasion when I was out drinking in Manchester when I was a student there when I noticed that I had started to feel 'normal' after about three or four pints, so I can relate to people who have to drink in order to feel this way. This only happened on one or two occasions over twelve years ago now.

Being on the verge of becoming teetotal does almost appeal to me in a way that I didn't think it would. I did waste a lot of time in the state of being so hungover that I couldn't function, but as someone who didn't relax in a normal fashion and largely couldn't put down the list of things to do that always grew at a faster rate than jobs were being ticked off: I did find myself being stressed by what I didn't have to do but was putting myself under pressure to complete, so hangovers provided at least some means of stopping myself, forcing a rest from the chores I had. They could be very painful affairs, leaving me in a state when I would want to sleep through the haze in order to avoid the pain that I had caused myself. What I've found interesting is that I tend to have a headache when I get up on a Saturday morning irrespective of whether I've drunk or not and I have had half days over the last few weeks while I haven't been drinking that I've had general feelings of being unwell, headaches and a lack of being alert enough to do what I want to do with myself. I had previously related this to alcohol consumption as there was a very strong correlation between having been out for a drink on an evening and then feeling very hungover the next day. One would assume perhaps very safely that there were no grounds to question this any further but I have felt drowsy, had headaches, been unable to concentrate and not been in the best of spirits on a few days while I've been free of alcohol when I would ordinarily have attributed these problems to alcohol consumption. It appears that alcohol is not the cause if this is continuing. Or may be my body is just tuned to alcohol consumption in a big way that I just have hangovers automatically.

One of the major feats I've achieved is to scan in many of the pictures I've ammassed while I've been dabbling in photography since my teens. I've mananged to get most of them online on my flickr site and there are some gems in amongst the dross that are worth checking out. For instance, there are shots of the round the world trip (1996-7) [the first 325 shots have some good landscapes amongst them - don't forget to use the full screen option click the box in the bottom right corner with the arrows pointing away from the centre of the box]. There's also a few nice shots of Aveiro where I attended a PhD workshop in 1998, and things like Masshouse Memories which just aren't good enough as photographs in some respects but still worth seeing. There are some great shots of the trip I took to France with Ian W in the France and Plymouth collection that have some great scenery in amongst the daft shots of Ian and me. Likewise, see the shots of Skye are okay for the period they were taken.

It feels like a great many of the shots are too good in terms of the quality that I achieved with an Olympus XA2 that I had for the bulk of the period that these photographs cover. I don't know if I was just lucky or I've been given someone else's photographs for the majority of the time I've been getting stuff developed. Maybe I've just had very good quality results from the places that I've had my photos developed - I used to pay more to get my film developed and printed by Jessops and generally speaking they do produce better results. The shots of Tiger Leaping Gorge in amongst the round the world photographs of Cambodia, Vietnam and China are the most breathtaking in terms of scenery and I am very pleased with what is in amongst some of the weaker stuff.

There is also the photo-essay that I worked on, which I assume made me look a little like the main character from Memento, the Guy Pearce film. Every time I have stated to a clinician that I have had no short term memory and I've been unable to function as a result I assume I've looked like someone mimicking Memento's lead. I think I've made the point before that there could be attempts to get some 'cultural products' into mainstream culture, including film characters and storylines, in order to use this as a mechanism of classing someone with mental health problems of mimicking fictional characters in order to get more attention when reporting symptoms should they relate their life to a fictional character's experience. I don't know how well founded this is as a principle however there could be problems for mental health practitioners who are subject to looking for confirmation of the theories they have rather than explore the alternatives. I assume it's more likely that the experience of being mentally ill can sometimes be so strange that there's a greater tendency to draw from the arts when explaining what type of experience an individual has had because there doesn't seem to be anything that similar reported in the media or that the sufferer would have heard of elsewhere.

As a result of how the individual with mental health issues is dealt with in contemporary society the experience I've had is that there is a tendency to engage in a certain amount of prejudice and disregard an individual with mental health issues as drawing from the arts when certain artistic or cultural products may be put in place to serve a purpose of rejecting the experience of some individuals - that they appear to be drawing from the arts rather than the arts have been manipulated in order to assist with disregarding some individuals so society can continue to be managed in the way that it has been for the last few centuries. Anyway the photo-essay Stormy Weather is online - which I think was shot before I saw any of Memento - there are other films that leave me with just a hint of this conspiracy - there's Dracula, Men in Black, Dr Jekyl & Mr Hyde, Manchurian Candidate, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and a few others that figure alongside Memento. I don't think I've really drawn from a single one, I've only recognised something similar in my experience and related it to what I had seen on the screen as it was the closest portrayal of the experience I'd had by far.

Whether certain cultural products are dropped into society because of their capacity to provide support to people with mental health problems or because there is a tendency for the storylines or characters to provide a means to later dismiss the individual because they have drawn from the arts when explaining their life experience, remains open to question - perhaps there could be clearer guidance on this matter from bodies that can guide the arts in future.

The discourse switch - to what extent does this take place across professions in the UK?

Over the past few years I have raised a number of issues with public sector staff including parliamentarians, voluntary advice workers and crime and disorder staff. What I've experienced is a general refusal to acknowledge the issues I've put forward which are classed as conspiratorial, paranoid or delusional despite the fact that academic articles have been used to support the arguments made. There seems to be a tendency to cite works of literature or else where from the arts as the basis for conspiracy, for example the China Syndrome, 1984, Brave New World, Jacobs Ladder etc. despite the fact that the arguments offered have a relatively strong academic foundation. The point of concern is that it has not been easy to challenge what may be prejudiced action on the part of several professional groups or bodies in the UK and there could be scope for professional development around these issues. Scientific argument in some situations has not been dealt with rationally but rejected on the basis of an assumption that people who may have had mental health problems would willingly draw from the arts and that this is an acceptable culturally embedded framework to use to dismiss what could be significant information to provide for public safety.

I am considering writing an academic article on the issue of 'the discourse switch' and how the willingness to engage in discussion on the likelihood of conspiracy theories for want of a broad general term may tend to vary according to institutional factors which shape professional conduct. I am considering writing an academic article on the issue of argument styles and responses to ‘paranoid conspiracy’, which may be attributable to training, government guidance or ill conceived prejudice which has become institutionalised in several professions in the UK, if not more broadly throughout the world. The purpose of this would be to identify the extent to which the phenomenon does take place, to more clearly identify reasons why this does take place, if it does, and the to suggest how the problem may be construed in order to generate a number of solutions which require political action.

This may involve accessing information through the freedom of information act from a number of organisations. The possible prejudice involved in the discourse switch – ensure that the home office are responsible for the interpretation and democratically elected politicians are clearly indicating that it is definite policy to disregard conspiracy theories and this is not done unprofessionally by the police or other professionals who may be accused of exercising unnecessary prejudice or bias.

I don't know if there are academics that could be identified in the UK who may be interested in collaborating on this as a potential project or through responding to the blog but I would be very pleased to hear back if there are. The issue as a matter which could affect the quality of service delivery for several professional groups may prove fruitful to explore for a few reasons. I don't know how well this is dealt with within existing literature and to what extent the questions raised may already have been answered as I haven't had opportunity to undertake a literature review at present - this too would be interesting to hear back from people on.

Perhaps as an aside that will lead to me not being taking seriously in the least, there is some interesting cultural data on the biases in policing that may be taking place in the UK if you click The Goodies - the baddies part one, part two and part three. Watching the Goodies in El Salvador provides a certain amount of balance to my life. Oh, and the picture above, how can you not like a country like El Salvador when it has signs on the doors of banks indicating that you can't bring in guns....

Final day of Spanish Lessons.

Finally, I've finished the Spanish tuition I started over two weeks ago. I don't feel like I can converse though I do recognise about 50% of what I hear. It's really been an ordeal being sat and taught in quite a traditional method though apparently my accent is quite good. Not really any compensation when your vocabulary is about ten words. Tomorrow, off to Quetzaltenango or something like that at least.

Something crossed my mind when I was about to leave India when I was reading Madness and Civilisation by Foucault and it crossed my mind earlier today again. It related to the fact that there was a 'cure' for leprosy in the 1960s-80s that appeared to have finally assisted with the irradication of the disease. This appeared to happen shortly after the publishing of Madness and Civilisation and for me personally it did spawn a conspiracy theory. Personally, I think certain families are subject to more covert regime action than others, most of which would not be of a criminal nature, and thus not be investigated, and to a degree I think that the concepts of mental illness are in place largely to discredit the sufferer from stating what may or may not have happened to them. I think the issues of citizenship are dealt with using bolder lip-service than most and there are significant improvements to be made in the developed world. The reason I state that in relation to leprosy is that Foucault states that the asylum was to a degree born from the forms of segregation that were used for lepers and even the same buildings then were used to house the mentally ill. What struck me as a possibility was that there could have just been a programme of genetic cleansing in Europe, a realisation that disease was a good form of regime management, so why not continue to use the asylum.

I didn't do any research of any note into the possibilities that I was considering and while I would state that facilitated leprosy or mental illness for the purposes of regime management could be a possibility, apparently leprosy only affects about 5% of the population which makes the chance of there having been one of Europe's first genocides - could this have taken place? If the 5% statistic from the unreliable wikipedia are correct then perhaps this could be a real possibility. May be if I was Israeli I would have learnt pretty much everything there is to know about genocide, I can't say. It is pretty much a twentieth century term for extermination of a religious or ethnic group although the longer history of mass extermination may reveal more telling aspects of humanity.

For some time this struck me as being rather unusual in relation to Foucault and I don't imagine that the paranoid thought of leprosy being used for regime management purposes is ever going to gain any credibility - it's most likely the 5% with the susceptible genes sunk towards the bottom of the caste system and in some respects may have remained there. May be the Christian action in South India to release those who still experience the problems related to caste is under-rated in terms of it's importance - could there be more? Perhaps there could be greater appreciation of Indian culture for not irradicating leprosy as it was in Europe - through extermination?

I guess this genocide may have permeated the culture having been seen as a 'popular move' and led to other programmes of genetic cleansing across Europe which let me sadly say, may have had quite a significant level of support. Perhaps this should be one of the issues that is raised within Yad Vashem, Israel's holocaust museum of what may have been the most unjust interpretation of evidence that has taken place in the history of humanity - that genetic cleansing was a positive process. It is perhaps a failing of contemporary journalism that programmes of genetic cleansing may be in place, however, we tend not to state that this may also have taken place in the UK and been a significant part of our history. If monuments to the dead are so important in our culture should we have some monuments to those who were possibly killed for the health of present populations? I guess this is some form of conspiracy that will not gain any support and while I think there could be some form of nominal process and perhaps I should only dedicate the two oak trees near the centre of Sarehole Mill Recreation ground in Hall Green Birmingham - because to be quite honest journalists don't seem to give a f**k about informing the public adequately and politicians seem content to leave us disconnected from our history and culture. I can't imagine anyone would care.....

On the subject of leprosy-like activity being used to manage regimes, I've found some classic 80s fashion on youtube - Did Daryl Hall and John Oates look good to you at the time? Oh, you wish not to be a leper too, eh?

Earlsdon Chronicles: Social ecology, norms and adjusting to south Coventry.

Having done a miniscule amount of reporting for the Earlsdon ECHO (if you fancy trying community journalism then this really isn't a bad place to start) I did wonder why everyone in the organisation did appear to look a little or a lot like people I already know, which connected to feelings of paranoia. It did surprise me until I started a closer comparison of individuals and realised that they only bear a superficial resemblance to each. As this was the case I imagine that there was nothing really to have been concerned about. There was no real conspiracy they were involved in.

If someone is paranoid it may be the type of thing that they would suggest and it should be challenged - norms should be set by a group and we are social animals who would normally function better when we have agreed to work collectively in a particular way, including discussing issues which may appear to be of a particular relevance to one individual and of no importance to anyone else. This 'functioning correctly' by modifying and respecting social norms is I guess partly what social ecological perspectives may suggest as being appropriate. If this is the case, bearing in mind the processes that could lead to greater stability, and reduced chances of schizophrenia, it would make sense to outline how people adjust to asylum seekers and within processes of citizenship and with anyone who may be in an especially high risk category of developing mental health problems.

This aside for a moment – do they look alike to you? Do individuals who don’t ask quite basic questions to establish trust end up feeling paranoid? Where do most people’s social norms stop on this – should we allow this to take place if it doesn’t take an excessive amount of time? Also, I find that there are issues which may be relevant to asylum seekers which have parallel the issues that may underlie the mental health problems that asylum seekers and immigrants may experience. For a while language didn’t feel fully connected to the purposes that it is intended for one becomes at sea with the community around. If this is the case then it will become a question of connecting to language to the same degree that everyone else in the social groups that you are part of to normalise – along with other forms of communication. This really does require some development as a research area, but there could be greater awareness of what means of communication are used and what degree of allowance can be made for the differences in language use that individuals have, that leave them accepted within social groups. This may contribute to the development of qualifications which may have health promoting benefits.

Call centres and how to survive them.

I’ve worked in call-centres for a couple of well established companies over a number of years and I’ve dealt with a significant number of callers and been trained in various means of ‘call handling‘. If anything what surprises me about the quality of the information that is generally offered in the media about call centres is how one-sided it is in relation to the nature of what is desirable to get from a call: without considering how call centres are organised these press-articles are not necessarily going to be of any benefit to the reader. To understand how to deal with call centres you need to understand how the call centre is run and the objectives that the management have - unless you understand this then you are likely to be kept hanging on…..

There are some key issues that need to be addressed in order to deal with the ‘call centre hell’ without being too frustrated by the experience. Largely many of the problems that customers experience are due to the fact that costs can be cut when offering a service that will help one company become more competitive than others in the same market and one means of doing this is by paying staff a low rate of pay. Consequently there can be little incentive to stay within a company’s call centre and the staff turnover tends to be high. High staff turnover tends to be a major issue in call centres and it is largely because of the highly target oriented environment that can lead to very low levels of job satisfaction due to the pressured environment. As a result of high staff turn over, staff then will tend only to be trained on specific issue-areas and can only deal with a narrow range of issues - increased competitiveness – or savings for the company leads to staffing that is less able to deal with the overall business of a company. For a national newspaper to aim to offer systems of ‘getting through to a person as soon as possible’ is a little misleading as the person that you get through to may not be able to assist with your enquiry, for instance, it may get you through to a team leader or floor manager who can not deal with your enquiry who then only has to transfer you to another queue.

One of the most ridiculous areas for the mass media to criticise call centre staff on is the way that call centre staff ‘interrupt’. Most call centres that are ‘outsourced’ that are staffed by personnel that are not employed directly by the company whose enquiries they are dealing with are subject to contract review and they may lose a contract if they are not dealing with calls in a manner that the client company desires. Consequently, there can be a strong regime of call management that demands calls are generally dealt with in a structured manner making a key issue for anyone in the call centre who wishes to keep their jobs - they deal with calls in a structured and systematic manner to the satisfaction of the client. If this also involves keeping calls short then it is inevitable that calls will involve interruptions. To consider staff as being rude who are aiming largely at keeping their jobs when they are instructed to deal with a call structure and time limits that demand that interruptions are used is senseless. Call-centre staff could well be Britain’s factory workforce with low-autonomy jobs - they have little interest in interrupting or being party to a rudeness in a call and may prefer the open discussion.

I’ll offer some advice on how to deal with call centres as I see as appropriate – I hope it is of some use to the reader. I should also state what I mean by call centre. I am referring to an office or section that deals almost entirely with telephone calls incoming and outgoing ensuring other staff are free of interruptions. This can include 'outsourced' call centres which are located outside of the mother organisation and based often in another country.

Menu systems - if you feel that the menu systems are totally unsuitable for the enquiry and don’t get you through to anyone quick enough then you need to state this briefly. If the call-centre is low budget they will have staff trained on a narrow range of issues consequently consider using a different company if the one that you go are using don’t administer things in a way that suits you - if enough people complain then menu systems may be changed. Quite often, especially for small organisations, it is possible to get straight through to the reception by pressing zero: '0'. This may also throw you out of the system as well.

Allow enough time - call centres tend to be managed on the basis that there will be peak times and low demand times that will leave the call centre with nothing to do. They aim to have enough staff available for different scenarios and they are not perfect in their predictions.

Ask when the low demand periods are - ask what the call forecasts are like for early in the morning and late in the day before the call centre closes. If there are periods when there are lower levels of calls to deal with then it may be better to call at these times.

Have an interruptable task to do while you are waiting in the call queue - drink tea, do the crossword, write a shopping list or list of things you’ll need to do, or anything that may be stopped while you are waiting. I generally won’t call an 0870 number without something to do whilst I am on hold waiting for someone to answer. Even if you are calling at a low demand period there could be a sudden unpredicted influx of calls owing to an unforeseen event and this could be a reason that you hang on without knowing why. Be relaxed and be ready not to get through immediately, this rarely happens. Don’t get left feeling that you’re hanging on….

Have all supporting information relating to the call with you - most people would prefer to call a call centre again having made a booking or made an order than to read the paperwork that they have been sent. Consequently, more calls are made to the call centre than is necessary and the impact that this makes is to increase call volume and then reduce the chances of someone else getting through. The time taken to get through to some call centres at peak periods tends to be less than the time it would take to read the information that has been sent that could answer your enquiry - it makes sense to look through what you’ve been sent, especially if you are holding on waiting to speak to a member of staff. If you think the information is unclear inform the company that you think it’s badly written and why. Consider if it could be in clearer English and if so ask them if they have would consider a link with ‘the Plain English Society’.

Take the name, extension number or team details of the call centre agent - without this most information from the call can not be checked at a later date. Frequently, this is the most significant information to have on a call and is often more important than any other information. If you hear information stating all calls are recorded then it is likely that this is going to be to your advantage - only if you have made a note of who you spoke to. Someone may refuse to give their name, frequently staff will be informed that they are not expected to give their surname when asked. In this case ask for an extension number - for an agent not to give their name and extension number or name and team so they can be easily identified should be classed as highly unprofessional. If a person slurs their name or refuses to give it call back immediately to make a complaint as the information that you’ve been given doesn’t really have much validity unless you can link it to a member of staff. Most call centre staff should state their name at the start of the call - if they don’t it’s generally unprofessional not to do this.

Take the time of the call - any tracing of calls that are made where there is a dispute over the information that has been stated will usually require at least a rough time of the time a call was made within five or ten minutes. Calls are logged in a computer system usually under the extension number of the agent who made the call and the time it was recorded. If an average call centre agent deals with eighty calls per day and there are thirty staff then that is two thousand four hundred calls per day. Obviously, if staff are willing to take your side over being misinformed, and it will happen if there are that many calls being dealt with, then they will want to trace a call as soon as possible - it is imperative to have a record of the time of a call if you want to use the digital record of it to your advantage.

Deal with interruptions - if you feel that you are being led along certain routes that you don’t want to go down then state clearly and categorically the reason that you called and emphasise that you don’t wish for any other services to be offered. State that you wish to control the call and that you only want to ask a few things. The staff should be able to co-operate with you.

Offering advice to 'the paranoid' – being on the other side of the adviceworkers desk.

It is fourteen years since I worked at the Devonport CAB with the other individuals who had the drive to deliver a service that would help the Devonport locals deal with the problems they had. It may help to characterise the period by describing the political context of the time before discussing the issues that I wanted to raise. There was an almost nonchalant right wing government that may have been possibly so little concerned with the bottom 10% of earners in the public that they damaged Conservatism irreparably. There were the major events of the Poll Tax riots and the riots at the protests over the end of student grants. And, although there was the launch of Heseltine’s urban regeneration initiative there were strong signals from central government that the areas that experienced multiple-deprivation somehow didn’t matter. I was influenced to undertake the role of CAB advice worker because of the Maoist philosopher & Newcastle Brown Ale drinker – Tim Moss, who encouraged the action of voluntary work in deprived urban areas which isn’t quite as dramatic an undertaking as doing voluntary work overseas in some far off land to most people, though need may be great in deprived urban Britain. There was a tendency back then to elect left wing local councils as a reaction to the right wing central government as perhaps there may currently be a tendency to elect right wing councils in order to give a message to left-wing central government.

It wasn’t my first job but delivering CAB Advice Work was the first work I made a serious attempt at engaging in employment since I’d graduated a year or so before. Before that I’d been involved in various service delivery jobs and not been able to do what any of my education was geared towards. I did find it quite a difficult transition to make - I guess I’d spent too much of my teens loafing. There was a degree of conviction that is not uncommon in the voluntary sector all over the UK within Devonport CAB’s team. Ironically, I had ongoing issues with depression and no real diagnosis which attempted to deal with the matters which underlie the swift changes in mood that left me occasionally feeling very typically helpless.

The reason I write this blog relates to the experience I had when I saw at least two of clients who appeared to be reporting conspiratorial matters. I didn’t really know how to take them in relation to the issues they were raising - if anything I would have to offer some form of apology to the people I assumed only to have suffered from what appeared to be organically generated mental health problems. They appeared superficially at least to have completely unfounded allegations to make against the state, government, establishment or whatever forces of action may be present in the UK and I, rather than completely dismiss what they were stating, just escalated the case enquiry to a supervisor. I don’t think there was an aim to reduce the person making these allegations to a point where they felt that we weren’t willing to believe them but I don’t really feel that we did offer any major service on the matters that were likely to limit their lives.

The oddity of the situation, what I think feels very ironic is that I then several years later, is that I too entered a CAB regarding a matter which I think was, to them, wholly attributable to the likelihood that I was suffering with mental health problems. On the other side of the desk, what appears to be the case seems to be that there could be programmes of action against some members of the public that may not be part of the action of some longstanding tradition but because there are no clear links, evidence or motives they appear totally irrational, a reflection of illness. What can happen is that advice services are not strongly geared to do a great deal to assist people in this position and as a result even if there are intention to ensure that each member of the public is treated reasonably there isn’t a great deal that advice services can offer to someone who is in this position.

I may have been slightly honed by the influence of psychology and psychologists. Professionalism within psychology tends to mean not challenging the general assumptions within theory that the psychological professions have generated especially in relation to the notion that society may ‘cause’ some forms of mental illness – mental illness is the disease of the individual. There was always a suggestion from people in psychiatric training and who were linked to clinical psychology that it was not an area to question Policing as this is a professional group that may be called upon with exceptional cases with patients. Whilst this is not the type of matter that is challenged within academic psychology there are routes into this area. There is a journal of political psychology which is concerned more with the impacts upon politics of psychology rather than vice versa – and this is a matter which is regularly discussed by students and patients alike, however, there does not seem to be a strong enough debate on these matters within practitioner journals. Laid on top of that there is not

This and other ‘paranoid’ thoughts are in some ways easy to dismiss, though this can only appear to incriminate the advice service – maybe the politically correct response to someone who, to many may obviously have mental health problems, could be that we don’t have the facility to assist you, and that medical and legal frameworks do not appear to be suitable to address the matters that you’re raising. This of course could lead to greater dissatisfaction with the service that is available. There does seem to be a loophole that for instance the types of antics that go on in the film ‘Changing Lanes’ that could lead to a great deal of paranoia may not be that illegal, certainly not something that the Police would class as criminal harassment, and is not presently legislated against. Providing evidence of this type of action may be difficult to do as well considering the Police as servants of the ruling class actually investigating malpractice within workplaces that may otherwise not be considered as worthy of investigation. Perhaps a few well chosen cases to explore may result in costly delays to a business and result in such a deterrent to other businesses that there could be an incredibly strong counter culture against this type of instance occurring again. Paranoia may be worth reconceptualising from a number of professional perspectives considering the action that a service could take may shape what is or isn’t worth as conceptualising into a definition of paranoia.

It seemed that there weren’t necessarily matters that were related the thoughts of persistent risk and persecution only feeling that people were potentially threats – it consideration of these as being unlinked to data, theory or rationale which normally rings someone’s alarm bells that a person is really and truly mad. There is scope to assess risk and perhaps we have much stronger drives genetically to assess risk collectively and to form a culture to act on this than we acknowledge. When we lose this from our culture we maybe then start to malfunction – what a healthy individual has is access to this form of process and a meaningful link with it. This is evolutionary psychology in a form which is very closely linked to the foundations of the Ottawa Charter for health promotion. There could be very individual forms of risk assessment that are prevalent in our culture which may remain relatively healthy processes such as perceiving all motorists as a potential risk when motorcycling. When past the risk it is generally forgotten about, or at least no longer central in the mind of the rider. For someone with a mental heath problem their general perception of events becomes very unbalanced and recent risk events stay in the mind and are not left behind leaving clear focus. This is going a little Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but there does tend to be a need to continually assess risk more often than not alone. When dealing with the issues that cluster together that may be presented someone with a mental health problem may not able to prioritise, forget about issues which are likely to be fruitless and then deal methodically with those that are worth pursuing. They may also find that they can not interpret what someone is saying when trying to assist them and may continually become difficult to deal with. To a large extent I would imagine advocacy services may be expensive but necessary for people with this condition and I would hope that there would be services made available.

There are other features of the condition which are probably worth indicating but maybe are well covered elsewhere in the sites linked to support for people with mental health problems. I don’t think that I can really sum up much of what the condition has been like other than to state that it’s possible to cover up what feels like a living hell quite easily. I wish to describe the living details of what the mood disorder has been like – I do class people as being very lucky in some respects that they are connected to what is going on in their lives and that they are experiencing moods which are connected to the social events which are going on around them.

The general trend of reducing funding to psychiatric services and increasing police services may shift some responsibility onto Police Forces and PCSOs to deal more effectively with the preventative role they have in dealing with the situation. It becomes increasingly more and more important to consider the role of the Police along with other services in the prevention of mental illness. This may become an area for housing and policing officials to determine a research agenda for if current trends in service provision continue. There will be members of the public coming into advice service centres and stating that they think there are all manner of actions being undertaken against them – a proportion of which may be relatively accurate appraisals of influence which may limit someone’s quality of life. What advice are they likely to receive as part of conventional practice under the guidance of Mr. Brown will remain to be seen.

It was only a very few people that were subject to this type of allegation against the state government or of corruption although I don't know if that was NACABs classification or other reasons including avoiding staff dwelling on the illness state of the client group who were largely local. Having said that I have what appears to be very fractured recall of seeing several staff that I worked with during this period being grabbed and injected which is a little Jacobs Ladder but it’s unusual what I do seem to recall. I don’t know if this is highly creative memory but there does seem to be something that took place I can’t recall. I guess a major difference between being problematically mentally ill and having made a recovery is that I can at least get on with my life despite having unresolved recall of events.

As a final aside I vaguely recall there being some incidents with, I think, the group of grebos from the Cooperage. I assume that one of them was tipped off about some potential corruption and there was a low key attempt to ensure that people were informed about this years before the event – the event being the tsunami in 2004. In about 1993 or 1994, there was an attempt at low key publicity which was carried out, which appeared to be led by one of the grebos. On cardboard signage the terms ‘2004’ and ‘tsunami’ appeared at the bottom of Royal Parade outside petrol station for a couple of days. I don’t know if this was in relation to a computer which was named a ‘tsunami’ which was on the market before the South-East Asian tsunami of boxing day 2004 or not. Just because there was a tsunami in 2004 does not mean that it was linked to a corrupt process and there could have been a large number of predictions made of this nature which don’t appear to have any form of consolidating information to support them. I don’t know if anyone in Stonehouse witnessed this or made a record of what was on these rather odd cardboard signs, however, it would be interesting to find out exactly what was going on....this was the issue I was ignored by CAB staff in Birmingham over and it would be interesting if there were any records in Plymouth of what happened in the early 1990's

Redefining 'political correctness': should the British use a less politicised term of ‘common humility’?

There is more than a slight backlash against the movement of political correctness within the UK media as a whole and this is one area where the media seem in tune with the British public at large – what tends to be accepted in the UK is that there is no apparent alternative to the movement that ‘political correctness’ has become, when it may just be the beginning of a revitalised approach to human relations and how they are termed in everyday language use.

There may not be a single source, of course, of political correctness as a movement, though as the history of the situation gets formed, it may be possible to assume that there was a need for a perhaps international common framework to discuss and describe number of forms of disadvantage that resulted in lower social and economic status for an individual. This may as a result be an example of the process of globalisation of culture which marks the interchange between Britain and the US socially and economically. This may of course not be the case, there doesn’t seem to be an exponent from the US who would argue that the same terminology should be adopted in the UK or elsewhere in Europe that may have been seen to be suitable in the USA.

The backlash against global processes may reflect a resistance to the processes of globalisation as a whole, which may not be visible but is taking place in a great many forms through the discussion groups which were used to select appropriate terms to use within an organisation to avoid discriminatory action. Arguably, those who have disliked the new terminology of political correctness have not been connected to the processes of selecting the most appropriate language for an organisational context. There may be solid grounds to reject the use of terms of courtesy based upon language which does not connect with the social history of the users of the terminology. The process of managing this form of social change and ensuring that there were positive impacts all round are considerable. All of this creates a position where there may be a need to reject elements of the globalisation of culture and seek a national, regional or more local solution that are part of a more prominent movement which helps get those who feel resentment to the ‘politically correct’ on board.

Deconstructions of political correctness may include a more complex picture of competing interests that incorporate what I am stating. Would they indicate that it were a movement that it provides a means of avoiding discriminatory language which can not only restrict the development of the person that it is being used to describe but also to ensure that any one who is working with them may not be accused of discriminating against them? This also could be in the interests of an employer who may not wish to be involved in either providing substandard working conditions where harassment may take place but also may avoid the risk of prosecution through negligence over not addressing this type of matter. In whose interests does political correctness take place as a process may also be worth asking as there may be some benefits for the vulnerable groups who are not discriminated against, although perhaps there is a greater benefit for those who get to grips with how the terminology can be used so they can progress in their careers.

There may be good reason to question the beneficiaries of political correctness – as a movement political correctness may not have addressed any unequal power relations but only offered window dressing to those who were looking to absolve themselves from engaging in any meaningful form of social change. This type of change in language use is little more than a lubricant to capitalism and maintains distinct power relations rather than challenges them in any way. It would be interesting to examine who the major beneficiaries of political correctness have been so far. It does assist in some ways with the sense of a meritocracy and sense of social and economic freedoms.

The meritocratic nature of Blair’s Britain may be subject to further analysis at an appropriate point. We may then find that there are ‘relationally challenged’ individuals that are those who do not have a great opportunity through extended family or others who are ‘aesthetically challenged’ when looks are fully recognised as being a particularly significant issue in the preferences of employers. Maybe one day….

If social and economic power relations are not being challenged and there is an aversion to the US approach of political correctness which may be due to financial and public image reasons being central to undertaking the process of cultural change then there may be scope to undertake a more British approach. Finance and public image may not be matters necessarily central to British culture and there could be reason, despite common ground with the US, to separate and form a more British movement. This has been undertaken by the left wing councils of the 1980'S and not respected for what it was - maybe it is time to review this.

Mental illness – How heavily gendered should the diagnostic frameworks be?

Following a brief discussion with a psychiatrist who refused to put anger into a diagnostic framework I have considered exactly how the mechanisms operate which lead us to see women report more mental illness and men die younger, statistically speaking because of alcohol related diseases. It was a point made continually through the M.Sc. course I did that women may tend to get depressed, report symptoms and then get diagnosed with depression, thus elevating the statistics of women and mental illness – probably to a level they may be classed as accurate. While on the other hand, men presumably during medical examinations, may report that they have been drinking heavily and this not necessarily be converted to a statistic in relation to mental health. It will be a rather clumsy discussion to deal with such a nebulous terms as mental health, especially in relation to gender; while it may almost not be worthwhile raising these points, I do think some generalisations need to be questioned.

The frequency of reported mental illness does almost invariably indicate more frequent reporting than with men which may reflect how gender appropriate it is to report the symptoms of depression etc within the consulting room of a GP. If the information on the increase in male suicide in the UK is also considered – especially with regard to the increase in rate of suicide for young men. It is approximately twice as high as for women despite the implication that men have better mental health than women by the less frequent reporting of mental health problems.

Arguably, there could be more gendered concepts of mental illness relating to male and female forms of anxiety, depression and other well-being states which increase service use to a suitable degree. At present the diagnostic frameworks may make additional problems emerge and as a nation we could look towards more gendered and more appealing concepts of well being and mental health problems which encourage greater participation in health services that everyone in Britain is paying towards.

At present the use of existing concepts tends to continue an element within our culture which ensures that we are operating in the rules of the asylum and other institutions that we have not been able to make a clean break from over several centuries. There are possibly methods of social management that may be nearing an end in the next few decades which would require – it may simply be a change in nomenclature and make minimal difference but if managed across the whole of society as a significant period of change it could alter things for the next generation.

Whilst there may be some significant differences between Britain and Europe there could be adequate common ground in order to make this a European wide movement coordinated by the EU – this I think is wishful thinking but it could be an area for possible development – would most young men prefer different terminology applied to their life experience which puts them in a position to alter the way they live so they feel better? It may also be a particularly important step for the improvements that could take place for women and reduction in problems with their mental health as well.

This actually arose out of a discussion I had with someone who I knew who worked in the psychiatric profession. She tended to degrade some very intense feelings that had been reported to her of anger because they were not clinically relevant and wanted to home in on issues that were in the diagnostic manual. It strikes me as interesting that anger does not figure as part of the diagnoses that are made when it is to a degree expressed as being a socially appropriate emotion that men may express – are there other instances of men reporting feelings and these being ignored by clinical staff because they aren’t adequately stated in diagnostic manuals? It would be wholly unwise to suggest this outside of a blog in a more formal context as this is not based on a great deal of qualitative information, however, it may be interesting to form a corpus as is termed by Fairclough and to examine the discursive practice around this particular issue.

Whilst staff in mental health services may be committed to what they do, be willing to endure certain maltreatment which most people would be wholly intimidated and offended by there does need to be a strong commitment to the frameworks that psychiatric professional works within. There is a strong belief that the actions of staff who participate in such systems are going to result in significant improvements in the well-being of the patient. Unfortunately, the standards theoretically and procedurally that psychiatric professionals work to are not high and there isn’t a very strong explanatory framework for exactly why interventions work when they do. This is beyond the control of the vast majority of psychiatric staff – contributing further to the difficulties that they have by offering inadequate conceptualisations of how mental illness may be experienced within a culture only may serve to restrict the ability of the staff.

There are a great many concepts within the realms of mental illness, psychiatry and well being that may require significant review at present and while there are so called random attacks that mental health services appear to lack any understanding of why they take place this may be one area that could prove pivotal. Many of the diagnostic categories that are used to tend to exacerbate the mental distress that an individual may experience – for instance if there were action taken against an individual and they were classed as being paranoid for reporting it within mental health services many people would acknowledge that this could cause frustration and lead to anger, especially if there were a willingness only to employ mental health services as a result as a means of protecting the public at large, when there are individuals in the public who were causing such problems. This action of mental health services to have a negative and damaging effect upon the well being of the person reporting ‘mental illness’ could be classed as psychiatric iatrogenesis. It will be a long time until the staff within health services, politics and relevant sections of the Police acknowledge this term and its significance in terms of reducing the so called random and violent attacks.

What other methods of facilitation of mental illness could take place?

I assume that most people would consider it to be entirely plausible that there is likely to be a natural progression of mental illness following say offensive behaviour or criminal activity someone may reasonably be excluded and subject to a reduction in self esteem which then plausibly leads into depression reduced self care, disconnection from the same norms as others and become socially isolated etc. Then lacking the reinforcement and incentive through lack of appropriate social contact there will be a reduction biologically in various chemicals within an individual who may then require chemical support in order to normalise after this has manifested itself through anxiety, depression or other symptoms.
I assume again maybe rightly or wrongly there could be a great many alternate explanations bubbling under which may partially support this type of bio-psycho-social model of the development of mental illness which requires a medical intervention to rectify problems. I am really sceptical about this and have had no real joy in getting this type of matter addressed – mainstream political parties seem to disregard this as a matter of course and have a strong desire to marginalise anyone who may have experienced mental ill health and there seems total willingness to disregard the type of allegations that someone may make on the basis that they are paranoid and for example ‘look or appear mentally ill’. My own experience leads me to believe that there could be a great many problems linked together that would be difficult to separate and certainly this type of explanation should not be disregarded. If alternate explanations are dismissed as paranoid speculation then this could take place without investigation or concern from the authorities, who resemble something like the cast of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Whether it’s worth speculating on this or not I can’t say – I think it’s likely that there are various forms of medication that have been developed for ‘state’ purposes that could involve medication which has been specifically developed for degrading mental health. The CIA probably possesses drugs that can entirely melt your brains. They’re probably used in the USA for prisoners in Guantanamo Bay to ensure that they breakdown just a little bit and while the US government can deny they exist, as representatives of the British government would also do. The theory behind them is probably not that sophisticated. Depression lifts for the 50 million or so who are taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) ensure that there is an increased level of serotonin around the neurons the brain – what could be simpler but to have a drug which could do the opposite of the SSRIs an unselective serotonin reuptake facilitator? You’d feel like death warmed up having the most impossible low that would be imaginable. What’s interesting about this is that there is the theory in place and technology to develop this, however, governments across the world would continue to deny their existence. Will anything give?

Yoof culture....are young people rejecting social values in a way which damages them?

So we've all been there, hit the teens, considered rebellion and gone through from there but why engage in this rather facile process that seems to mean so much at the time and so little later? Is youth culture and the potential to explore and integrate different cultures wasted on the young like youth itself? Youth culture and rebellion tend to go together hand in hand but what they reflect is a need to define self through separation from others largely by age - age seems to be the key factor in defining identity. Rejection of the fashions of the last era defines many attributes of the fashions of the current era.

There tends to be well marshalled boundaries that young people enforce with a result that almost everyone in their cohort is included or dropped for not participating in the group action - this has become a part of the make up of youth culture for over half a century. Are there the same derogatory terms applied to those who follow the values of their parents too rigidly as were in the 1950's such as 'square' etc? Do young people find a great deal about those who are moving straight towards capitalism and consumerism without any strong visible rejection of the values that hold society together rightly unsettling...? Are young people excluded for not engaging in fashions which are detrimental to their employment prospects and society in general...? How and why has this trend amongst young people to engage in youth cultures begun - has this speeded up social and economic change since the first teenage rebels hit the streets of Britain in the 1950's (because of anticipated change during one's lifetime)?

There are a multitude of ways teenage fashions including the rejection of the values of the previous generation could be healthy and improve social change in the West and a number of ways that social change could be unhealthy and create problems for people, including fragmenting family and community relations because of the need to define one's self and one's peers as 'different' from the previous generation and over engaging in this activity.

It is may be worth considering the values that may rejected in the light of social change over the period of a few centuries rather than a couple of decades as most youth culture often seems to be considered. Those values of the previous generation may only reflect a relatively minor blip in the transitions that are always taking place within human cultures and not of any great significance. Have the youth of the West been over sensitised to pick up on matters that they may wish to change because there are such major failings with the current establishment that they don't know where to begin? Maybe change and political action are not closely tied together within Britain at present - do the Labour Party have a significant role in shaping what matters to pick up on in terms of social change and lifestyle factors that the youth of the nation may be more interested in?

Have the 'youthful and dynamic' leaders of the major parties made any form of impact on youth culture and political engagement? Maybe they don't think as Aaron Antonovsky did that having a sense of coherence running through the life of an individual is that important and that life can be fragmented into different stages which may not naturally lead to a complete and whole individual? Are we in a post modern age where one's life may acceptably be classed as fragmented owing to the nature of opportunity and an individuals' well being not be questioned as part of this? Was Antonovskys' conceptualisation of a 'sense of coherence' taking place within a modernist perspective or not - health promoters please comment.

Gambling - is it a mugs game?

For years I’ve been really anti-gambling because I see it as being just a means of losing money. I guess if I was going to start I would wish to know that I had got an extremely good chance of winning and at present I don’t think the odds of any form of gambling are entirely geared towards what I class as being a means of damaging the working class population in a manner that they may enjoy. Interesting though it is to see the way that gambling is promoted as ‘part of our culture’ when a great many people don’t have the least interest in it as a social activity that involves potential financial loss.

I did wonder when I was considering how little interest I had in gambling that I may have other addictions which weren’t linked to the financial outlay that gambling entails. Maybe there could be some form of addictive personality which may be well documented in the academic literature but not have made it into mainstream culture at present. I state that and I think there is a strong chance that this will change with the forthcoming OCR Psychology A level in which addictive behaviours will make up a substantial part. The person who has advised OCR on this is Prof. Mark Griffiths who was a lecturer at University of Plymouth when I was an undergraduate there in the early 1990’s. I think he’s well positioned to ensure that the specification has wide appeal having won the awards he has over the last few years.

My actions that I now think have an element of addictiveness about them included writing nonsense letters to politicians, or at least what appeared to be nonsense letters. It is interesting what form of gambling this was – gambling of ‘public status’. This may act as a particularly unusual form of addiction to anyone who elects not to engage in such activity and has a calculated approach to life which entails low-medium risk and low-medium gain but stable likely outcomes: what I was doing was poorly planned social action based upon poorly calculated sums of social approval which didn’t lead to any significant growth in my social status. Perhaps this could lead to, if it has not already been represented in literature, a new layer of political correctness regarding what may be classed as the inappropriate behaviour of some – that they are conceptually challenged and lack the ability to plan and carry out a normal course of social activities.

Incidentally, this does create a sense of contradiction because this type of conduct would be classed as likely to be very costly financially as an individual may be far less employable – may be all forms of gambling involve some form of financial cost – maybe how antisocial behaviour could be considered. It is perhaps not that unusual a theory to present to excluded youth as a matter that they may gamble all their status in some respects or others by attempting to ‘win’ the approval of others, usually a small group or ‘in crowd’ – bullying may provide some form of example of this as a particularly badly calculated risk action. Wining in one currency, or with one group of people, may not be to the short-term advantage of an individual, but may make a substantial impact on an individuals’ wellbeing for a short time. If someone were to have undertaken such a longer term program of action and miscalculated through this period what risks were taking place and what wins were coming off there could be a sudden chance realisation of what was taking place to the majority. This may be a reasonable way of construing the sudden total loss of status that one may experience when having a nervous breakdown.

This approach also suggests that there is a means to define social behaviour that is non-addictive and of low risk which is likely to help establish an individual. Should social activity be defined in terms of the improvement of status by our politicians and should this involve means to control the population without their awareness of what social control is taking place? I guess a form of Marxist or Frierian conscientisation could be suitable to progress this agenda so healthily defined social action is carried out both bottom-up and top-down.

Maybe I should have been thinking more about the many forms that gambling may take and then recalculate what degree of cost I have incurred through avoiding placing a few pounds on the gee-gees. Maybe there is enough here to substantiate a slightly different approach to transactional analysis, which is not really being updated in the least here but perhaps a little refreshed. All transactions are potentially gambling and all addiction needs to be addressed. I wonder if this has great harmony with the current political elite?