June 2011 Archives

The Guardian has gone big today on an interview with the outgoing president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in which he says psychiatric wards are overcrowded and understaffed.

Professor Dinesh Bhugra said problems were partly down to the unwillingness of British doctors to train as psychiatrists. I wonder why this is - apparently psychiatry used to be a popular choice for doctors.

The Guardian is also looking for people's stories about in-patient care.

In a bizarre coincidence, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence is consulting on new guidance to improve the service user experience within adult mental health.

Psyhcology Today has assembled a whole series of articles on how to move on from traumatic events, in terms of developing resilience, what moving on actually means and whether opening up after a disaster is always a good thing.

Meanwhile, PsychCentral has a post on cultivating mindfulness within one's daily life which is particularly aimed at those in stressful jobs.

Finally, Community Care is building a virtual carers wall to mark Carers Week 2011. Contributors can suggest small things that would make a big difference to the lives of carers. It's going pretty well so far, with lots of interesting contributions - do feel free to submit your own suggestions.

To mark this year's Carers Week, Community Care is running an online "carers wall" - a compilation of your comments and suggestions on what would make life better for carers.

We're looking for small, achievable things if possible and you can email us your suggestions, or post them on twitter with the hashtag #carerswall. Please try to keep them to one sentence. We'll select our favourites and publish them throughout next week on our special carers wall page.

At the end of the week, we'll pull together all the comments and send them off to the government.

(Pic: Ali Burçin Titizel / Gti861)  

Regrettably, I've had another communication from Cardigan the Dog, who insisted he be given a right of reply to the entry I posted yesterday on Humphrey the therapy dog. Here is what he had to say:

There are a number of innacuracies and insubstantiated allegations about me in your blog post yesterday that cannot be allowed to stand without correction.

a) I do not eat Pedigree Chum. Ok... I do eat Pedigree Chum sometimes but I enjoy a healthy, balanced diet which also includes Pal, Tesco own-brand dog food and beef jerky.

b) The word 'pooch' is insulting and demeaning to dogs and I would not expect a respected publication such as Community Care to use it

c) I do not feel any rivalry with Humphrey. Indeed we were very good friends when we trained together at RADA (Royal Academy for Dog Advancement)

d) Unlike me, Humphrey is NOT ELIGIBLE TO BE CHIEF SOCIAL WORKER, AS HE'S NOT A QUALIFIED SOCIAL WORKER!!

Erm.. ok, thanks for that Cardigan. I think that clarifies things completely. 

There's a thought-provoking piece on Psychology Today about depression and why some people just don't feel like geting out of bed. The obvious response would be to suggest that they have a problem with motivation.

But the author suggests that the problem might be quite the opposite. Depression may be more to do with an inability to let go of aims which are proving impossible to achieve - an over-commitment rather than under-commitment. Worth pondering certainly.

Elsewhere, a survey of public mental health attitudes finds that they are improving on the whole. However, some unhelpful beliefs, such as that mental health is linked to a lack of self-discipline, do persist among a minority.

Finally, public sector workers should be careful what they tweet - as this piece suggests.

(Pic: jonnnnn on flickr)

It's enough to make Cardigan the Dog choke on his Pedigree Chum. For the opinionated social work dog might no longer be the premier pooch in social care. Step forward Humphrey, a therapy assistant for residents at Inchmarlo Care Home and Retirement Community in Banchory, Aberdeenshire.

Humphrey was recruited to offer companionship for residents in the care home, according to Charles Skene, chairman of the Skene Group which owns and operates the Inchmarlo Community.

He explains: "Humphrey offers comfort, companionship and friendship to those who sometimes cannot express themselves due to communication difficulties or illness. He has a fantastic ability to make people smile and it can be a very effective treatment."

Humphrey even has his own blog. Will he be challenging Cardigan for the chief social work post? From the look of his photo he already has more stars than a WW2 general. We'll have to wait and see.

A couple of items today:

• Research suggests childhood OCD is a risk factor for developing an eating disorder in later life
• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy may benefit patients in residential substance misuse programmes

For those who work in social work or or other care-related professions, finding a work-life balance can be difficult. Which is why it's worth checking out this nice selection of tips. I particularly like the idea of challenging society's work-obsessed standards and accepting that just because you can do something, doesn't mean you have to.

On a non-related note, there are lots of people (Daily Mail etc) who like to bang on about how everything is getting worse. Well apparently our collective mental health isn't getting worse. A pretty large scale study found little evidence that the incidence of common mental health problems is increasing.

(Pic: aeu40117 on flickr)