What gets called mental disorder or illness, mild or severe, shows itself as a misplaced fear of others. Personal relationships break down, followed by an inability to form and maintain new ones. The sufferer becomes progressively more emotionally and cognitively isolated. Madness results from our failure to constantly update and modify our mental map of the world. If we do not ‘test’ our predictions, beliefs, dreams, thoughts, internal dialogue, fantasies, hypotheses, plans, ideas about how the world is, and what the people within it think and feel, our map becomes rapidly out of date. If we act with an out of date model of the world - we will look mad to others, and they will treat us as mad. If others don’t share a large part of our model of reality we are emotionally and cognitively isolated. We need an accurate map; by sharing we come to have a more complete understanding than we could ever achieve alone. The ability to doubt and live with uncertainty, and hence know that we must constantly test our vision of the world - is sanity. To control and fix our view is the first step on the road to disaster and the way an unchanging outlook is maintained is by isolating oneself from any evidence that might contradict it. An unmodified and out of date model of the world is one where our thoughts and feelings are anchored in the past, hence our predictions of the future may be hopelessly wrong.



Tuesday 12 January 2010

That 'alternative' CV (updated 2020)

One of the things which provoked me to 'out' myself some years ago as a long-term user of mental health services was the advice I received from an employment adviser to 'hide' my lack of employment and periods of sickness from my CV. Not only did she suggest omissions, but a little creative use of dates.

(photos by Nick Hewling)
Now I know lots of people do massage the facts of their careers, but the idea of hiding an important part of myself incensed me. So in a mood of indignation I produced a CV which charted my 'career' as a mental patient. Once it was completed it had a surprise pay-off - it helped me make sense of my life, to myself.

Here's the main body of the current version, it begins conventionally enough;

1970-75 Vincent Thompson High School, Exeter: CSE grade 1’s in English,
Maths, Geography, Art, Design Studies; ‘O’ level English Language grade C.
1975-77 Exeter College, Exeter: ‘A’ level grade C in Photography, ‘O’ level
Geology grade C.
1978-80 Devon Area Health Authority, Exeter: Clerical Officer; banking and
management accounting, salaries and wages.
1980-82 Exeter College, Exeter: ‘A’ level Communication Studies grade C,
Business Studies grade D; BEC National Certificate in Business Studies, with
Distinction.
1982 (six months unemployed)
1983 Chateau Brandeau, Castillon, France: viticulture and animal husbandry.
1983-86 University of Bath: B.Sc (Hons) First Class in Sociology with Industrial
Relations.
1986-87 University of Bath: postgraduate research into Small Businesses.
1987 (first admission to a psychiatric hospital, nine months unemployed)
1988 Stourbridge College of Technology: introduction to teaching in Further
Education.
1988-89 Solihull College of Technology: part-time Lecturer; ‘A’ level Sociology, GCSE Business Studies.
1989 (nine months unemployed)
1989-90 Birmingham MIND: Volunteer; day-centre for long term mentally ill.
1990-91 North Birmingham Health Authority: Student Mental Nurse.
1991 (second and third admissions to psychiatric hospital)
1991-94 (unemployed)
1994 (fourth and fifth admissions to psychiatric hospital; diagnosed with Manic
Depression [Bipolar Affective Disorder])
1995 - 2011 (living on Income Support and disability benefits)
2005 (sixth admission to psychiatric hospital)
2006 - undertaking STR (support, time and recovery) Worker training (Devon Partnership NHS Trust/Community Care Trust)
2007 MDF: The Bi-polar Organisation; recovery, self management and life skills
course.
2007 - co-author of Making A Change (booklet on Involvement for NHS South
West PPI Learning and Development Project).
2007-10 University of Plymouth: M.Sc programme in Mental Health.
2007-10 member of Contract and Performance Review committee of Community Care Trust.
2008 - involved in the development of Broadhempston Community Woodland as a social enterprise.
2008-9 - member of Torbay, South and West Devon, Recovery and Independent Living Functional Implementation Group for Devon Partnership NHS Trust.
2008-9 - member of the Mental Health Network of the NIACE/LSC Partnership Programme
2011 (seventh admission to a psychiatric hospital)
2011- (no longer in receipt of state benefits, living off savings following death of older relatives)
2012 (eighth admission to a psychiatric hospital)
2014 (ninth admission to a psychiatric hospital)
2016 (tenth admission to a psychiatric hospital)

 Current activity;

Mental health peer support and people watcher.

Ongoing writing in addition to blogs;

 I Know, Because I Was There; an essay comparing my recall of hospitalisation during a ‘psychotic episode’, with my health records obtained under the Data Protection Act.

Challenging Expertise - my misadventures in mental health education; which charts my experience of being a service user in education, undertaking training in mental health work, and on how academia (at all levels) trains its workforce and researches its subject.

Ways Of Being With - rethinking expertise in mental health; an extended essay using the concept of tacit knowledge to rethink skill and expertise in mental health practice.

The Sound Of Water – towards an ecotherapy. This piece is a critical exploration of the idea that there can be an ecopsychology and by extension, ecotherapy. It will include an application of the principles of Ways Of Being With.
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