Where my head is at now

For my most recent mental health writing see Natural Mental Health. Everything else promised on this site is coming, and more besides, eventually!

New header photo 2019 (photo by Nick Hewling)

An imagined spiritual journey

The first scene always begins when I walk into a railway booking office and ask: ‘Please could you tell me the price of a single ticket from Penzance to Berwick-upon-Tweed?’

The journey begins when I am nineteen years old and ends, well, whenever it ends. The staging for the journey is England in the late 1920’s.

The journey is the walk from the actual start to Penzance station; by railway to Birmingham Snow Hill, from Birmingham New Street to Leeds, Leeds to York, from York to Berwick-upon-Tweed, and the walk to my final resting place.

Readers familiar with the early English church will know the actual start and finish points, plus the ‘stations’ on the journey, but may be surprised that the route appears to be being taken in the ‘wrong’ direction - but then, I am a left-handed person in a right-handed world!

In reality the route passes within fifty feet of my present home, within a quarter of a mile of my second childhood home, within two miles of one of my adult homes, within ten miles of my birthplace, within two miles of my father’s birthplace, within a few hundred yards of my paternal grandfather’s workplace, and within four miles of my first childhood home. Physically knowing the route from the late twentieth century, and having a knowledge of railway history, allows the staging to appear real in my mind.

Throughout the journey I carry a copy of Q’s anthology (soft leather cover, printed on India paper with gold edging). It is open at John Clare’s ‘I Am!’

It’s a journey through a constantly changing landscape; speed (the measure of time) also changes, but I for the most part, remain stationary.
The journey begins with the going down of the sun on one day, but ends with the dawn of another.

(At the time of writing I appear to be starting the journey for the fourth time. I am forty-eight years old.)

Nick Hewling 12.8.07

Bipolar - bi-lateral? (Kipling said it...

Although I rejected psychiatric diagnostic labels some years ago, I did once unearth a study claiming a statistical association that may just point the way to something. (Alas I didn’t record the reference at the time, or I’d give it to you now). The claim was that if you have received a diagnosis of Bipolar Affective Disorder, you are three times more likely to be left-handed than the general population! There’s a poem of Kipling’s which has been a favourite of mine for thirty years.

The Two-Sided Man

Much I owe to the hands that grew -
More to the Lives that fed -
But most to Allah Who gave me two
Separate sides to my head

Much I reflect on the Good and the True
In the Faiths beneath the sun,
But most upon Allah Who gave me two
Sides to my head, not one.

Wesley’s following, Calvin’s flock,
White or yellow or bronze,
Shaman, Ju-ju or Angekok,
Minister, Mukamuk, Bonze -

Here is a health, my brothers, to you,
However your prayers are said,
And praised be Allah Who gave me two
Separate sides to my head!

I would go without shirt or shoe,
Friend, tobacco or bread,
Sooner than lose for a minute the two
Separate sides of my head!

Kipling, R (1993) Selected Poems (Penguin: London)

For all things asymmetrical go to http://www.righthandlefthand.com/ and McManus, C (2003) Right Hand, Left Hand: The of Asymmetry in Brains, Bodies, Atoms and Cultures Phoenix: London

Religion and mental health

Traditionally mental health services have been pretty bad at addressing the spiritual or religious needs of their clients. The problem can be very simply stated - a majority of workers don’t have strong religious convictions, whilst most of their clients do.

Until recently the strategy of most workers was avoidance, but that often came across as disrespect because so many clients describe their problems, and see the world at large, in religious terms. Establishing any kind of rapport requires some suspension of disbelief.

The ridiculous situations that can arise are well illustrated by a recent example from general nursing where a nurse from Somerset was suspended for praying for a patient! (I should state at this point - given the content of the rest of this site - that although I consider the psychologist Sue Blackmore, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and philosopher Dan Dennett as intellectual mentors - I do not follow them in considering religious beliefs to be ‘dangerous memes').

Those of us without religious beliefs should also acknowledge the obvious truth, that local churches often provide a level of support and sense of belonging (social inclusion) which mental health services have never come close to! A great friend and peer of mine is learning to read and write by studying the Bible, he’s almost sixty and has undergone in the last four years the most rapid and fundamental turnaround in his mental health I’ve ever seen in any client.

In the last three years or so various leaflets and documents have been produced for mental health workers, clients and their supporters about mental health and religious beliefs. From the Royal College of Psychiatrists the leaflet Spirituality and Mental Health. From the Mental Health Foundation, Making Space For Spirituality - how to support service users plus their full report. Finally a video of theologian Karen Armstrong on the possibilities of transcendence through practical acts - do unto others, as you would have them do unto you!