Equilibrium Magazine

EONLINE QUILIBRIUM Magazine for Wellbeing

32 e

FREE

Pag e lin On ial c Spe

Cool Creatives

Coping Strategies

ECT - New Research

Tizzy & Polly Volunteer

Thomas - A Personal Journey

2011

SPRING

ISSUE 40

FREE

Epigenetics - latest science

Patron: Dr Liz Miller (Mind Champion 2008)

Web alerts:

If you know anyone who would like to be on our mailing list and get the magazine four times a year (no spam!) please email: equilibriumteam@hotmail.co.uk (www.haringey.gov.uk/equilibrium).

Front cover image: Anthony Equilibrium is devised, created, and produced entirely by team members with experience of the mental health system.

Photo copyright remains with all individual artists and Equilibrium.

All rights reserved. 2011

Design: www.parkegraphics.co.uk

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contents

editorial

4 -5 Lynn Featherstone writes; Black History Month - Sisters in Spirit.

Our second online only edition hits the back of the Net with a

6-7 Sandra Robinson: Art saved my Bacon.

first person account of his individual journey, coping strategies

8-9 Volunteering Tales: Tizzy and Polly.

poetry, Equilibrium members stories underpinning the European

10-11 Studio 306: cool ceramix.

12-13 Epigenetics special.

14-15 Coping strategies: Angela’s investigations. Bookspot.

16-17 Thomas to Jesus.

18-19 ECT latest; V&A narrative in embroidery.

20-21 Mahalia Amartey poem.

22-23 Fishtank review, Mental Health in the Media awards.

24-25 Smoking: Ian’s advice.

26-27 Mongolia pictures, High Society exhibition, mood mapping workshops.

28-29 Big Society - con or pro?

Food hygiene; Michael’s wait for CBT. New £ for talking therapies...

30-31 Cafe in the woods.

A Peculiar night.

wham! Fizzing issue and issues - Ian’s smoking story, Thomas’

for wellbeing, latest evidence based findings on ECT, powerful

Year of the Volunteer 2011 and lots of other treats. Enjoy!

contributions Wanted: contributions to Equilibrium! Please email us with your news, views, poems, photos, plus articles. Anonymity guaranteed if required.

contact us Equilibrium, Clarendon Centre, Clarendon Road, London, N8 ODJ. 02084894860, equilibriumteam@hotmail.co.uk. We are in the office on Wednesday mornings 9.45-11.45, but you can leave a message at other times and we’ll get back to you.

the team Facilitator: Polly Mortimer. Editorial team: Pumla Kisosonkole, Angela, Siham Beleh, Ian Stewart, Michael O’Connell, Tizzy McKenzie. Graphic design: Anthony Parké. The views expressed in Equilibrium are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editorial team.

advertisement If you wish to advertise in Equilibrium email us using the contact details above.

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3

news

i Black History Month Art exhibition

rate Resources stating concerns that the magazine had become online only ‘potentially limiting the readership and leaving vulnerable people without the support of the magazine’.

So far the appeal has been unsuccessful but watch this space…..

i Hillcroft College Proud mama by Melanie LaRocque

An art exhibition for Black History Month took place in Hornsey library - Crouch End last October. The art exhibition was done by 11 artists called Sisters in Spirit.

There were paintings of the same black women. The pictures were nice and very colourful, but there was very little represent black culture, in comparison to previous black art exhibitions that I have reviewed.

However there was one picture of a black lady with chains only on one arm. To me this represents the end of slavery. (Both my parents come from Jamaica). You cannot see which part of the world the artist originates from.

There were images of a black lady coming out of a flower this was unusual but and pretty.

This was a nice exhibition with lots of colour, but lacked culture.

Angela

i Stop Press

Lynn Featherstone, our local MP, has intervened on our behalf to see if we can get Equilibrium printed again in the future. She wrote to Haringey’s Corpo-

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Hillcroft College Celebration of Achievement June 2010- 90th year Anniversary

Carole Spiers, a BBC broadcaster and author who talked about growth within people and gave us a taster of her work. Also, Julian Smith, 2009 Finalist from Britain’s Got Talent made an appearance. Finally, a previous student at Hillcroft, Praise Asemota spoke about her successful career and how she became a Talk show Host on Faith TV Sky Channel. I enjoyed the event throughout and was pleased to have attended. Lunch and refreshments were provided.

Principal, June Ireton and Colleges’ Governors

Hillcroft is a National Residential College for women. It has been founded in 1920 and set in a Victorian house in Surbiton.The college offers a range of short, weekend and various courses, It can enable women to gain new skills or update some skills they already have, build their confidence and meet new people whilst learning.

Last year in June, I was invited to Hillcroft 90th year Anniversary Celebration. The Principal June Ireton introduced herself and gave a short speech welcoming everyone present.

She highlighted that most importantly priorities were given to students’ success and achievement and all of the staff were very proud. Also I found it quite remarkable and moving when June Ireton shared an important moment with everybody stating “A 97 year old previous student wrote me a letter as she couldn’t attend...” She read the letter to us with a smile on her face, it was incredible!

The Worshipful Mayor of the Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames, Councillor Chrissie Hitchcock praised Hillcroft and everyone’s hard work.

It was followed later on that day by

Siham with Praise Asemota (right)

For further information about the college and If you are interested in any of the courses that are available, please contact Hillcroft on: 0208 399 2688 or visit their website on www.hillcroft.ac.uk

i HUN

Haringey User Network in its 11th issue has short succinct articles with news past and present, as well as general information, so that its usefulness lies in the fact that at a glance of this 4 page leaflet one can choose to let go or to be involved without first ploughing through highly specialised articles wishing to see , for instance, where one can get “support for people exploring ways of expressing how they are feeling” etc, walks, activities etc.

Pumla

Summer/ Issue 38

news

i Loop London Outer Orbital Park

Do apply by email, writing or fax if you would like to use the service, enclosing name, address, borough, date of birth, phone number and language spoken.

There is no drop-in service – access is by appointment only.

i Radio 3: More Writing

Admin@nafsiyat.org.uk Fax:02075611884 T:02072636947 www.nafsiyat.org.uk

LOOP has a 2 page guide for walks around the capital with as much practical guide as any given group desires/ requires. Discussion/community meetings - these are monthly on a middle Wednesday of the month. Activities and opportunities for service users/ survivors are discussed. Meetings are at Excel House on the High Road opposite the Bus Garage in Tottenham.

i Charity Spotlight

Nafsiyat – Intercultural therapy centre Nafsiyat provides intercultural psychotherapy and counselling for clients from diverse backgrounds. The therapists themselves come from a wide range of ethnic, cultural and linguistic backgrounds. It offers services to people from ethnic and cultural minorities, for people in mixed cultural relationships as well as anyone for whom cultural matters are an issue. Training is offered inhouse and bespoke to individuals and agencies in order to enhance professional competence.

There are seminar series and workshops and a yearly conference. Services are free or low cost to residents of Camden, Islington, Enfield and Haringey.

www.haringey.gov.uk/equilibrium

i Listen out: Radio 4:

Out of the vortex: Poet Matthew Sweeney claims that poets are more likely to undergo a depressive illness than others – he says 30 times more likely (I don’t know where he got this figure). ‘It’s because the unconscious drives poetry’…Poetry is all about ‘ the jumps and sudden lurches that forge new connections, new ways of seeing.’ His exploration of this terrain, which he called a ‘ wild country’ was done through poems. He read one of his poems, referring to his experience of depression, and there were readings of John Clare’s last poem and Emily Dickinson’s Could it be Madness – this?

Jean Binta Breeze performed Riddym Ravings. She talked of living with schizophrenia since her early 20s and the impact of recurrent breakdowns.

She can no longer read: ‘Since the last six or seven breakdowns, I can’t do more that a paragraph.’ She can only write when well,weaving her experience of illness into her poems. Riddym Ravings was influenced by times when she ‘used to listen to radio and do anything the radio said’.

When David Foster Wallace died in 2008, at the age of 46, he was considered by many to be the most gifted and linguistically exuberant American novelist and short story writer of his generation. His books include the 1,000page Infinite Jest, a novel of grand ambition and stylistic experiment that came complete with 388 endnotes.

(Footnotes, digressions, constant second guessing of every thought are features of Wallace’s signature style).

In April The Pale King, Wallace’s final, unfinished novel will be published. Few literary novels have been more eagerly anticipated in recent years. Its great subject is Boredom.

i Comedy

Warning: May Contain Nuts was performed as a cabaret night at the Brighton Comedy Festival in late 2010.

Users of mental health services in Berkshire and Sussex were invited by Company Paradiso, an arts charity, to try standup. Seaneen Molloy, a blogger (Secret Life of a Manic Depressive) took part after being initially sceptical.

‘Mental illness in comedy is usually confined to hideous caricature on sketch shows. You’ll get a madcap old lady or a drooling imbecile’. She also feared it would have a ‘care-in-the-community feel. People would be like ‘as look at those mental people, how brave they are.’’ Her routine offers a user’s guide to psychiatric appointments (‘rule one: look like shit’).

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arts

“THE FIRST SOLO EXHIBITION BY JEWISH artist Sandra Robinson, Art Saved My Bacon, was on show at Our Space Gallery , Old Street. Life-size sculptures plus paintings and poems map Sandra’s journey through her childhood, cultural heritage, and periods of mental illness, to recovery and happiness.

The title of Sandra’s exhibition is lifted from a featured work in which building block style letters are laid out to form the sentence, ‘As a Jewish woman art saved my bacon’. The letters in the piece group together in odd combinations that make it difficult to decipher meaning, suggesting that it is art rather than words or doctrines that communicate who she is to the world. Sandra comments: ‘After all these years of being unwell I’m finally able to come out with my first solo exhibition and say: this is me, this is who I am.’

she was diagnosed as being bipolar. Following a referral from the day hospital she was attending, Sandra was supported to regain belief in her art by Community Link, a department at Barnet College providing support to adult learners. It is this that has given her the confidence to finally put on her own exhibition, with the support of Together Our Space.

Much of the work on display in this exhibition is humorous and powerfully After showing much promise and hopeful as it emerges from painful being accepted to art-college a and difficult periods in Sandra’s life, year early (age 17), Sandra dropped to eventual wellbeing. In Dreaming out due to periods of depression.

Decades later, which included a pain- of Cream Cakes, the striking image used on the poster for the exhibiful 13 year creative block where she tion, the colours and tone remain was unable to produce any work, stubbornly bright, however Sandra describes the image as, ‘an expression of my low self-esteem, and the angry feelings I had toward myself at a certain point in my life.

My psychiatrist at the time said I was an ‘entertainer’. Like many people I often use humour and jokes to survive bad times.’”

From: Campaign for Independent Living/ Disability Reveiw

i

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B

art saved my

Bacon

y

arts

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charity

Rags, bags & old mags...

Tizzy McKenzie Charity shop volunteer

donated objects are and we have to try and guess. If there are games you have to open them up to check all

I volunteer in an animal charity shop in north London. When I first come in I tidy the shop which also allows me to get an idea of what is in the shop, if people ask me for this and that. Then I either go on the till or I work in the store room downstairs. The till work is quite a challenge as I sometimes panic if I get a complicated run of prices to plug in to the till. However I’m usually fine.

I love the job because we take everything and anything in the way of donations and it’s exciting because you never know what you are going to get out of the bags people bring in.

Sometimes we don’t even know what

EQUILIBRIUM8 EQUILIBRIUM

the pieces are there. Antiques have to be valued. I tag clothes and price them. You have to be able to recognise which are designer labels and put a value on them. Toys and electrical items have to be tested for safety.

We also dress the window and have a different display each week. The theme of the display depends on the type of donations we have been receiving (for example if we have been receiving a lot of toys or games) When you throw things in the bin you have to completely destroy them to stop people going through our rubbish bags.

I also had to attend a talk about what to do if there is a robbery. I was taught how to look out for potential suspicious characters and and the best way to act during and after a robbery.

The atmosphere in the shop is very friendly. For some reason it is mainly women who work there and more women come in the shop then men.

People always think they can barter in a charity shop but we are not allowed to bring down the price of any item.

We do chat to the customers a lot and we are all animal lovers. Lots of our conversations are about animals.

I find it very rewarding working in a charity shop. It really boosts your confidence meeting and talking to the general public. Sometimes you get a stroppy customer which really stretches

Summer/ Issue 38

i

charity

image: Anthony

your assertiveness skills, and it is all for a good cause. It is also a stepping stone for going back to paid work eventually.

I’ve volunteered on and off for OXFAM books and music, Crouch End, and before that, years ago, I worked in a Scope shop at the Angel ( then called the Spastics Society).

one day to meet Scruff and Happy , a brilliant couple – ex-boxer and shop manager – who drove a vintage taxi.

They took me on without a murmur and I worked one day a week, serving a clientele as diverse as city gents on the hunt for polo helmets and teenagers looking for baby clothes. It was a dark cavern of a shop , and was soon knocked down to make way for the huge new Angel station development, but it served me well.

The Angel shop was a great therapeutic experience. Having tottered through a lot of my twenties in a combo of disorder and prescribed knockout drugs, it was very hard to contemplate a 9-5 professional graduate-style job. I wandered over the road

OXFAM is a cave of delights. Yards of desirable and non desirable books pour in , and the volunteers sift through, sending some on to other stores, some for recycling and la crème goes out in the shop. A trove of old postcards came in before Christmas and I have been

Polly Mortimer Charity shop volunteer

sorting those into the pre-first world war (very valuable) to the seaside PC of the 70s. Vinyl goes like hot pies to the connoisseurs – who crowd in on a Thursday, and the occasional visitor. There are events like poetry readings, flashmobs, the visit of a Dalek, carols and more. The manager, Chris, is endlessly patient and open to new ideas, good with volunteers and runs a brilliant shop.

They raise thousands for OXFAM and provide North London with an Elysium of gifts, stories, beautiful illustrated art books, maps, comics, airport fiction, nonfiction, lifestyle books, cookbooks, travel books and records as well as a friendly atmosphere.

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arts

THE COOL CREATIVES

STUDIO ROCKS THE HOUSE

‘306 is a brilliant creative space, and they take commissions! So far I have bought a handmade bag, earrings and a quillt worthy of a medieval potentate. Lately they made me numbers for our house, and these stunning tiles as a splashback. So if you need expertly crafted textiles, pottery, jewellery or clothes, get in touch! Thoroughly recommended.’ Polly They offer a professionally equipped arts and crafts studio space for people who are recovering from severe and enduring mental illness and who are able to work independently, as well as provide a space for contemporary artists. They have facilities for textiles, printmaking, ceramics and jewellery making.

Studio 306 is part of the Chocolate Factory complex, a thriving creative arts business environment in Wood Green. Artwork can be commissioned by the public.

If you require interpreting services or information in a different language we will be happy to arrange it.

EQUILIBRIUM 10

arts

306 studio shots Top: Creating cool ceramics Middle: The results speak for themselves Bottom: The screen pririnters tools of the trade

How to access their services To use Studio 306, you need to be a member of either Clarendon Centre or Six8four Centre. The centres will refer you to us. Your tutor at the centres will assess you to confirm that you have the necessary skills and that you are able to work unsupervised.

Where to find us Studio 306, The Chocolate Factory Clarendon Road Wood Green N22 6XJ Tel 020 8365 8477 We are open Monday to Friday 10am - 6pm. Please note that the service does not have disabled access. Although we have a lift to the 3rd floor, there are two steps up to the studio.

COMMISSIONS TAKEN

Opposite page: A commision of bathroom tiles for Polly Mortimer by the Clarendon ceramics group

Images: Ian Stewart

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research

epi enetics g EQUILIBRIUM 12

Summer/Autumn Summer Issue 38Issue 38

research

CAN OUR RESPONSES TO STRESS BE SHAPED IN THE WOMB?

RACHEL YEHUDA A DIRECTOR OF THE TRAUMATIC STRESS Studies Division of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City is “one of a growing number of researchers who think that our response to stress is shaped early in life, sometimes even in the womb” so says an article by Laura Spinney in the New Scientist (27 Nov. 2010) So called “epigenetic mechanisms “can alter the activity of the genes we inherit-though not the genes themselves-and could affect our mental health later in life.

Behavioural or neuro epigenetics works on investigating the influence of the environment on our development helping to “tease out the molecular mechanisms responsible” The area of research entailed in epigenetics is whether or not genes lie dormant in our system or whether they are “active” or “turned on”, or if in fact they occur in an individuals lifetime or are passed on from one generation to the next.

The science is focused on our responses to stress including post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the chemicals released into the brain. Yehuda’s study involved holocaust survivors and pregnant women who had been involved in the 9/11 attacks.

The research is of interest to those who seek to understand mental illness and its causes and possibly depression and anxiety etc too .Breaking down the fundamental causes of such illnesses in this way can help to understand the body’s chemistry which in turn can facilitate the development of treatments to combat such illnesses. We have to learn to understand the processes in which we don’t water the leaves of a tree to produce results but instead tend to the roots in order to encourage the healthy growth of the whole tree. The research of today can become the solutions of tomorrow.

words: Ian Stewart Image: Anthony

www.haringey.gov.uk/equilibrium

EQUILIBRIUM 13

COPING STRATEGIES IN MENTAL HEALTH

Mental Health is treated with medication, occupational therapy and counselling. However people from the mental health system have some of their own coping strategies with this complex illness.

Here are some accounts from different people with mental health issues.

ANGELA I have been a mental health service user for a long time. I have not been admitted to the mental hospital for 13 years.

My medication has changed at the beginning of this time and has contributed to my well being.

MARCO LANZAROTE Some kind of structure to the day e.g Equilibrium, contact with friends, taking medication regularly on time, family support/contact, GP support/contact, reading/Writing/ meditation

I find keeping busy and always being in company with family and friends beneficial. I would not take an overdose in front of other people. I like exercising. I do one aerobic class a week, 2 hours walking a week in the morning ( I like to hear the birds singing) and I swim twice week. I eat healthily, ie meat and two veg, and five a day, and I keep alcohol down to a minimum. I did Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in 2006 which is a form of counselling. I found it helped me to stop procrastinating and it helped me to carry out my responsibilities.

TIZZY Ever since I came out of hospital, I take myself out at least once a day for about 5 minutes. This is so I connect to the rest of society.

I have been with Equilibrium Magazine since 2005. I find it stimulating and interesting. I get work satisfaction for writing for this magazine. I find doing the housework therapeutic.

Cleanliness is next to godliness.

I used to have a very stressful life, which put me in a negative mode and made me focus on negative things all the time. I became pessimistic. To change this pattern I approached life in a more balanced way. If I spoke to a friend about a problem, I made the decision to talk about the problem also when it was sorted out. When something good happened I would make the effort to call her about something good aswell. I found this useful and I see life a more positive way.

OLIVE FROST Completely recovered, medication free for 25 years from severe psychosis. Things that have helped: love of my children and partner,stability in home life / relationship etc, more or less alcohol free and giving up smoking 20 years ago, employment, lots of relaxation, long baths, listening to music, getting to the country, long walks, swimming in the sea, reading and craft.

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NIGEL PRESTATYN My most obvious coping strategy is Transcendental Meditation, which I’ve been doing for a couple of years now.

When feeling stressed, I can take 20 minutes out, meditate, and find myself in a far better place. Sometimes it works better than other times. I try to exercise away tension by taking a brisk walk each day, for 30 minutes or so, and usually first thing after the school run. Instead of driving to my studio, I now walk the 45 minutes through woodlands, which is refreshing and far more enjoyable than negotiating traffic. I also go to the gym once a week, where I do a little strength work, and listen to the latest whacky podcasts

PAMELA KAY Level of care away from clinical, being treated as a person, and individual not a number – yet another case, eliciting what matters to PEOPLE – as suppose to statistics, future planning i.e control in one’s life, not being imposed on by outside influences, learning to be appreciative, look for positive rather than negatives e.g you stub a toe: pain worse, would be a broken limb! Minimum medication.

MICHAEL I believe constructive activities are the best way to achieve a mental balance. To focus on something positive helps to keep away the negative thoughts, anything from reading, walking, talking, swimming, or any other sport that makes you happy. Being happy is the best oping strategy of all :-)

Summer/ Issue 38

reviews

BOOKS The woman that thought too much

by Joanne Limburg Reviewed: Siham Beleh Very honest memoir of one woman’s life as a sufferer of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Joanne Limburg suffers from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: she thinks things she doesn’t want to think, and she does things she doesn’t want to do.

As a small child, she would chew her hair all day; a few years later, when she should have been doing her homework, she was pacing her bedroom, worrying about the unfairness of life as a woman, and the shortness of her legs.

By the time she was an adult, obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviours had come to control her life.

She knew that something was wrong with her, but it would take many years before she understood what that something was.

“The Woman Who Thought Too Much” follows Limburg’s quest to understand her predicament and to manage her symptoms, taking the reader with her on a long, twisted journey through consulting rooms, libraries and internet sites, as she seeks to discover all she can about rumination, scrupulosity, avoidance, thoughtaction fusion, fixed-action patterns,

www.haringey.gov.uk/equilibrium

anal fixations, schemas, basal ganglia, tics and synapses.On the way, she encounters competing interpretations of her condition, as offered by psychoanalysts, neuropsychiatrists and cognitive psychologists, and does her best to come to terms with an illness which turns out to be both common, and even - sometimes - treatable. This honest, moving and beautifully written memoir is a sometimes shocking, often sad, and yet also humorous revelation of what it is like to live with so debilitating a condition. It is also an exploration of the inner world of a poet and an intense evocation of the persistence and courage of the human spirit in the face of mental illness.

Hector and the search for happiness

by Francois Lelord Reviewed: Siham Beleh François Lelord is a French psychiatrist, feeling depressed that he cannot make his patients happy; he embarks on a journey around the world to find the secret of true happiness. His encounters include conversations with distinguished professors and fascinating Chinese students. He travels to Africa and China then to the United States.

Hector’s lessons for life make sure to be good to your friends, be loved for who you are, take holidays in the sun and

many more. Hector and the Search for Happiness is an account of a young psychiatrist who finds he’s dissatisfied because, while he can help many of his patients, he finds he can’t make people happy. His small adventures and experiences teach him a thing or two about human happiness.

When Hector starts off heading to China He’d never been there before, and it seemed to him like a good place to think about happiness he brings along a little notebook and starts recording the lessons he learns: Lesson no. 1: Making comparisons can spoil your happiness.

Lesson no. 3: Many people see happiness only in their future.

Lesson no.12: Its harder to be happy in a country run by bad people.

He adds to them as he goes along and he repeats them as he goes along, listing the same ones repeatedly. Hector asks various people about happiness, and observes them finding that even when material comfort is given, happiness is not assured.

Although he has a girlfriend he also falls in love with an escort his friend sets him up with in China. The adventures are relatively minor: he visits a monk, faces his Chinese lovers’ employer, meets a drug dealer in Africa, gets kidnapped, has his brain scanned to see how it lights up under different conditions. Along the way he continuously reassesses what ‘happiness’ means, realising how very different it can be in different circumstances.

The book is easy to read and can be amusing. It has been a success and has so far sold over two million copies!

In addition, the author has a new book in the series “Hector & the Secrets of Love”.

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First Person

From Thomas to Jesus The story starts at a hotel

in Piccadilly Circus, London W1A. The year is 1951, and a middle thirtyish man from the former Gold Coast has just booked in to the hotel ...

First person account

THIS IS HIS FIRST EVER TRIP TO EUROPE, and he is excited with anticipation.

The room number is no longer known (records don’t go back to 1951), but the hotel is Regents Palace. It’s a pleasant hotel, very unassuming, and he is sure he is going to be comfortable here. The purpose of the visit is to discover new business opportunities.

He is successful. But before returning to the Gold Coast, there are social matters that need dealing with. He has never slept with a white girl before, and it would be almost unthinkable to return home and report that he had unsuccessful in that department. So he surveys the game.

It is May 30th 1952. A male child is born. He was successful. The boy is named Thomas by his mother, and for the moment at least she gives the boy her surname. He is a handsome boy, and he soon gets used to being spoilt.

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I’m sure his mother would have spoilt him also, but in these early days of his young life it is other women who spoil him. For Mum is a working mother, and she soon realizes that looking after young Thomas whilst working and also supporting her ageing parents is a task for the gods, not for her. So she hands him over to a Catholic charity, and from there he is fostered out to an English couple in Essex. He spends many happy years there, but his life doesn’t really begin until he is seventeen. Dad is back on the scene.

The year is 1968. My father has written to me and invited my mother and I to meet him in his home in Golders Green.

We both arrive and my father is the one to open the door to us. I am meeting him for the first time ever, and my mother is meeting him again for the first time in sixteen years.

My foster mother believed that I was

my fathers only child, so it came as a shock to discover I had six brothers and two sisters living in North London alone.

My father asked me if there was anything he could do for me. I said yes – please get me out of my foster home.

He agreed and set me up with a bank account, which I used to rent digs in Southend-on Sea where I was studying ‘O’ levels.

A revolution comes before family. So my last three years working for my dad were difficult. But he still trusted me and gave me responsibility after responsibility. Office Manager, Estate Manager, Retail Manager, Export Manager. I felt good, and delivered good on all my portfolios.

I’ve been a single man since my divorce. I’ve been in many relationships since 1987, but none of them

Image: Anthony

have resulted in a second marriage. I am not used to the single life now, and I am as sure as any man can be that I will not change my single status.

In October 1979 I had a revelation that I am Jesus. I was very excited, and immediately I told members of my family and fellow managers.

They informed my father who in turn arranged for me to see a good friend of his, who happened to be a psychiatrist.

I was admitted to Legon teaching hospital, a very pleasant hospital outside the city of Accra, Ghana. The usual injection and tablets, and I was discharged in two weeks.

I remember wanting to travel to Southend-on Sea in Essex to visit my foster mother who was dying of cancer. I was anxious about this. But once my father

realized how important the journey was to me he released the funds and I saw my foster mother for the last time in March 1980. I told a friend after my return to Ghana that I couldn’t have lived in peace, and my foster mother couldn’t have died in peace unless we had seen each other one last time.

psychosis can sometimes be instead a profound spiritual awakening. The symptoms can be very similar. The difference between ‘spiritual untoldment’ and mental illness is that with the former, people eventually return to normal, and can lead fulfilling lives, integrated once again with society.

My illness is called hypomania. It is a condition whereby the mind is over stimulated. I can’t sleep, I have a lot of energy, and I can come into conflict with the police. I have been admitted to psychiatric hospitals several times since 1985 in England. But I am glad I had my illness. It has made my life very exciting. I don’t even mind my stays in hospital. My experience of the mentally ill is that on the whole they are very nice people. I’ve had friends out of hospital. I read a book once on ‘spiritual unfoldment’, where the authors argued that what psychiatrists call

I believe that is what happened to me.

After discovering that I am Jesus my life was never going to be the same.

But thirty one years on I am well, and I haven’t been admitted to hospital in exactly ten years.

My name was made legal twenty years later on 8th October 1999. It is one of the most important decisions I have ever taken. The journey to this point has been long and difficult. But I don’t regret the journey at all.

EQUILIBRIUM EQUILIBRIUM 11 17

ECT latest

the treatment period. There are no placebo-controlled studies

based approach to the controversy

evaluating the hypothesis that ECT

about ECT it would be abandoned,

prevents suicide, and no robust

as have other treatments once

evidence from other kinds of studies

thought to be effective, such as

to support the hypothesis.”

rotating chairs, surprise baths and

“Given the strong evidence of Research review finds Electro-Shock Therapy ‘cannot be scientifically justified’.

A review of ‘The Effectiveness of Electroconvulsive Therapy’ in the December edition of the international scientific journal Epidemiologia e Psychiatria Sociale has found that: “Placebo controlled studies show minimal support for effectiveness with either depression or schizophrenia during the course of treatment (i.e. only for some patients, on some measures, sometimes perceived only by psychiatrists and not by other raters), and no evidence, for either diagnostic group, of any benefits beyond

“If we took a rational, evidence-

lobotomies.”

persistent and, for some, perma-

Professor Bentall: “The very

nent brain dysfunction, primarily

short- term benefit gained by a

evidenced in the form of retro-

small minority cannot justify the

grade and anterograde amnesia,

risks to which all ECT recipients are

and the evidence of a slight but

exposed. The use of ECT therefore

significant increased risk of death,

represents a failure to introduce the

the cost-benefit analysis for ECT is so

ideals of evidence-based medicine

poor that its use cannot be scientifi-

into psychiatry. It seems there is

cally justified”.

resistance to the research data in

The authors of the review, which cites 112 previous studies, are Dr

the ECT community, and perhaps in psychiatry in general.”

John Read, Psychology Dept., the

Professor Peter Kinderman, chair

University of Auckland and Profes-

of the British Psychological Society

sor Richard Bentall, University of

Division of Clinical Psychology said:

Bangor, Wales.

Dr Read: “The findings of this

“This review of the ineffectiveness of ECT is a very welcome focus on

review suggest that campaigns by

a rather worrying aspect of mental

ECT recipients all over the world to

health care. The British Psychology

ban ECT are supported by the lack

has, for a long time, expressed seri-

of scientific evidence that it is safe

ous reservations about the use of

or effective. Certainly the fears of

ECT, and this paper supports that

memory loss, so often dismissed as

position. People have a funda-

‘subjective memory loss’ by ECT

mental right to be protected from

proponents are, according to the

inhuman or degrading treatment.

research, well-founded in fact.”

This paper is, therefore, yet more

“The dwindling number of psychi-

support for an alternative rights-

atrists who still use this procedure,

based, evidence-based, humane

which sends 150 volts through brain

psychosocial approach to mental

cells equipped to deal with tiny

health care.”

fractions of one volt are, no doubt, well-intentioned, but the research

Full article available by emailing

just does not support them.”

equilibriumteam@hotmail.co.uk

image: karen oliver

EQUILIBRIUM EQUILIBRIUM 18

Summer/ Issue 38

Elizabeth Parker’s Square Cloth

V&A

I

saw this harrowing embroidered cloth in the V and A museum, South Kensington, just as their textile department was about to close and relocate for a while.

Along with Agnes’ jacket ( see Equilibriums passim) and Artur Bispo de Rosario’s life story coat (Equilibrium 2007 – Fabric of Myth exhibition), this small 19th century square cloth concentrates her life and the horrors within, and yet again illustrates the need to tell one’s own story.

This sampler by Elizabeth Parker reveals much more than her embroidery skills. It tells the story of the young woman who made it. She draws us in from the start. ‘As I cannot write I put this down simply and freely as I might speak to a person...I can fully ...trust...’. She tells us she was born in 1813 and lived with her parents and her ten brothers and sisters until the age of 13. She then left home to enter service as a nurserymaid. She describes how her employers treated her ‘with cruelty too horrible to mention’, and how she was tempted to kill herself. As the text continues her desperation increases, ‘...which way can I turn... wretch that I am … what will become of me...’.

The despair of her words is heightened by the way she has formed them, using tiny red cross stitches on a plain ground. She breaks off in mid-sentence ‘what will become of my soul’.

Polly

www.haringey.gov.uk/equilibrium

“then I went to Fairlight housemaid to Lieut G but there cruel usage soon made me curse my Disobedience to my parents wishing I had taken there advice and never left the Worthy Family of P but then alas to late they treated me with cruelty too horrible to mention for trying to avoid the wicked design of my master I was thrown down stairs but I very soon left them and came to my friends but being young and foolish I never told my friends what had happened to me they thinking I had a good place and good usage because I never told them to the contrary they blamed my temper. Then I went to live with Col P Catsfield kitchenmaid where I was well of but there my memory failed me and my reason was taken from me but the worthy Lady my Mistress took great care of me and placed me in the care of my parents ……’

From Elizabeth Parker’s sampler – born 1813. Died in an almshouse in Sussex having brought up her sister’s child.

EQUILIBRIUM EQUILIBRIUM 19

POEM Mahalia Amartey Image: Anthony

When I am not aching, when the pain won’t come back When I am sure that my safety, is solid won’t crack It won’t be a memory, but a new thing for (just) me A new thing, a good thing that they can not see No one will be angry because they will not know But I plan for that also I won’t fight I’ll let go No one will catch me I’ll soar or I’ll dive What ever the end point I know I’ll survive Survival as always but never a life Awake, and its endless, night after night I cry but in silence and vomit the pain I want it,I need it, just don’t know its name I’ll smile with my whole face, my eyes and my teeth I’ll give it away and not make them a theif I’ll be paid in my own coins that’s always the price Be a good girl, the best girl I am always so nice They come when I’m weary too tired to sleep As much as I want to the pain runs too deep I know they won’t chase me if I run away So I wait and I watch for them day after day

If they come back , fight , no giving in My words restored, maybe I’ll win As usual there’s violence followed by blood Its always just mine and flows like a flood

Lie down in the darkness and pretend that its lost Pretend that its okay no matter the cost Ill plan for a new day tomorrow will come The sun keeps on rising what ever I’ve done

But where is my ruler and where is my pen?

I will measure their hatred and then that is when I will write down the evidence and show to my God These people keep coming they steal and they rob

I will build on foundations of water and sand Design my new future, built with my bare hands I know as I’m building it’s not mine to keep Always in earnest but I am too weak

But who is the victim, who did the crime?

How did it happen time after time?

I know the answers, that fill me with dread The truth of the matter has never been said.

I will watch as my future is carried away And wait for tomorrow another new day My heart like thunder my tears like rain I send a silent message I can’t do it again

I am the lair and I am the thief But still search for refuge where I can just weep I stretch out my fingers and point out the blame I only seek justice and should feel no shame

Will someone just help me to get to my feet?

This time will be different I will not retreat If someone just helps me to stake my own claim I will stand on my own, this time I will gain

But why can’t I look at you or meet your eye Because I know the truth which I can not deny And if you were to ask me I would have to tell That I am the source of my own living hell.

EQUILIBRIUM 20

Exchanges at the Frontier A.C.Grayling with an audience of Londoners went to Broadmoor High Security Psychiatric Hospital where he talked to psychiatrist and forensic psychotherapist Dr Gwen Adshead.

For BBC World Service

She spoke of violence – Can you treat for violence? What do people who kill make of themselves as someone who has killed? There is a huge complexity around the subject.

It was a searing and profoundly moving exchange; both ACGrayling’s questions, which were extremely considered,

Polly was at the talk at Broadmoor

and Gwen Adshead’s responses, illuminating, full of meaning , careful and nonjudgmental.

Huge philosophical imponderables emerged: on the self , on recovery, ‘cure’, society and acceptability, fear, choice, control and compassion. ‘How do we treat the least of our brothers?’

Her language is eloquent, full of imagery and metaphor and literary allusion; maybe necessarily ‘laundered’ at times to create a kind of ‘distance’ or rendering of things that are very hard to speak of.

As a coda she added that clients spend 8 years on average in Broadmoor, the length of secondary school. Perhaps a time where they can grow up?

She quoted Shakespeare’s King Lear: man as a ‘ruined

©Donald Maclellan

piece of nature’. I could have listened for hours more.

I was very privileged to be at this event.’

Dr Gwen Adshead Her style is word painterly and full of frequent literary allusions. She quoted Marcus Aurelius: ‘any of us can be dangerous under certain circumstances’.

She stated that the risks of violence are raised by features of mental states: alcohol or drugs, a paranoid state of mind and a profoundly antisocial attitude. Rates of stranger homicide are low: ‘you are most at risk from people you are sleeping with’.

There is a huge need to tell one’s story – we are ‘homo narrans’. There is a duty to explain as well as contain. We desperately need to make meaning out of our experience.

She described those clients she worked with as ‘survivors of a disaster’ – they are the disaster. They have survived great traumas in their early life.;they are exploring tragic narratives. They are briefly monstrous.

Childhood histories are profoundly important; early childhood has a huge effect, both interpersonally and how the brain works.

She spoke of the rehabilitative structures , including improving literacy, and the regulation of emotions, which is

A.C.Grayling and Dr Gwen Adshead, ‘Gwen Adshead has devoted most of her working life to considering evil. How does one generalise. Is a Nazi commander equivalent ot a Broadmoor inmate?

Unlikely to be the same.

About remembering, she had a less ambivalent take:’People leave moral traces. You have to reorganise identity round those losses.’

KK : the ‘compassionate acuity of her approach.’ She describes her patients actions as ‘frightening’ = an unjudgmental adjective. She explained how her patients resemble the survivors of a disaster they need to overcome.

It is essential for all human beings to belong. Broadmoor emerged as a living contradiction: a ‘community of the excluded’.’

From a review by Kate Kellaway: The Guardian

treatable. There is a restorative aspect.

EQUILIBRIUM 21

news

i Prescriptions

Prescriptions for anti-psychotic drugs have more than doubled in the US over the past fifteen years, often given for conditions for which there is scant evidence they work. Expensive antispychotics were originally approved to treat schizophrenia. They are now prescribed for anxiety disorders, dementia and other conditions, even thought he Food and Drug administration has not approved these off-label uses. The side effects can include diabetes, weight gain and an increased risk of heart disease.

Prescriptions went from 6.2 million in 1995 to 16.7 million in 2006, then fell to 14.3 million in 2008.Off-label prescriptions doubled in this time.

Ways to combat the trend would include reducing heavy drug marketing and raising awareness of off-label prescribing.

i Mental Health Media Awards

The mental health charity Mind is pleased to announce the winners of this year’s Mind Mental Health Media Awards. Marcus Trescothick and the BBC Headroom campaign won “Making a Difference” awards, and the “Speaking Out” Award went to Danny Claricoates for Sky 1’s War Torn Warriors.

EQUILIBRIUM EQUILIBRIUM 22

Documentary Winner: Sectioned (BBC Four) Sectioned follows the experiences of Andrew, Richard and Anthony on their journey through the mental health system.

Drama Winner: Shameless: Series 7 (Channel 4) Manchester based comedy drama Shameless explores bipolar disorder as character Karen tries to deal with the death of her best friend Mandy.

New Media Winner: BBC Headroom BBC Headroom is a multi-platform campaign which aims to raise awareness of the importance of good mental health and de-stigmatise mental health problems.

News and Current Affairs programmes including the 6 o’clock news.

Winner: Global Mental Health Series (BBC World Service) BBC World Service news explores the impact, extent and outlook for mental health problems across the globe from the first ever Global Mental Health Summit in Athens.

Soaps Winner: EastEnders (BBC One) The ongoing storyline focusing on the Slater family’s experience of bipolar disorder sees Stacey stop taking her medication and becoming very unwell and her mother faced with the heartbreaking decision of having her sectioned Speech Radio Winner: Anatomy of a Mental Illness (BBC Radio 4) This programme follows the story of Angela Barnes, who was detained under the Mental Health Act after a psychotic episode in 2005.

i Art Spot: Mary Barnes

Popped into Space Gallery in Hackney before Xmas to see an exhibition about Mary Barnes – a woman who was made famous by RDLaing and Joseph Berke, pioneers of the 60s version of radical psychiatry. RD Laing an alcoholic Scot who had trained as a psychiatrist in the days of insulin shock, lobotomy, administering ECT and the ‘pads’ (padded cells) naturally took a very different path. Not necessarily highly commendable always, but broke from the status quo and got society thinking about those on the margins.

Mary Barnes was very disturbed, and ‘treated’ in a therapeutic community setting with observation, talk and art. Her art is the work of a very dislocated religious woman – not necessarily skilful, but urgent and desperate. Outsider art looking in. Titles such as The Fall of Man and Ascension draw heavily on her obsessions, and with her work Spider she claimed she was exorcising her mother and their troubled relationship. ‘Mary thought as long as the spider was outside her, it couldn’t be inside her’ said Joseph Berke, who coauthored a book with her.

The exhibition was laced with footage of those who lived in the therapeutic communities – cooking, eating, sleeping, hanging out and talking, often in rather grim surroundings. And footage of Laing himself, who from this distance seems a bit like a rather controlling fallen idol. Mary Barnes for him and Berke was essentially one of their experiments and I felt for her.

Polly

Summer/ Issue 38

news

i Fish Tank Review by Tizzy McKenzie

nings are sweltering and sweaty.

The film is also about Mia going through a rite of passage, her transformation from an innocent teenager to a fully developed, poised young woman.

i Every Little Thing Film by Nicholas Philibert Review by Siham Beleh

Nicholas Philibert interacts with the patients in a very friendly approach. Also, when speaking to the actor a patient calls him “Colas“. When interviewed, one of the patients explains that he first came to “La Borde” in 1969 to 1971 and that he performed in various plays such as” Moliere” and many more, although his favourite one was “the silk Drum” by Fujima because he says ”I killed myself and came back as a ghost”.

An amazing and quite moving documentary! The film reflects on the access of truth about life in a French institution and looking at what is normal and abnormal.

i A Little, Aloud 15 year old Mia lives on a council estate. She has fallen with her friends and aspires to be a dancer although she seems to dropped out of school.

Her family are her mother and sister and have to fight for what they want – there is anger in the family home. In Mia’s world it is normal to be hostile to everyone. One day her mother brings home a new boyfriend which alters the family dynamics. The boyfriend has a caring side and Mia doesn’t know how to react.

It is a film which takes risks. It doesn’t cover up violence or hide that children aged 10 are smoking and drinking these days, but shocks at every turn. It also doesn’t glamourise Mia, but she is very real and excellently acted by a novice (Katie Jarvis).

Fish Tank is beautifully filmed. It is arty but with a strong narrative. It is set during an English summer with contrasts between the gritty urban estate and beautiful countryside. Some of the story is shot by a remote section of the Thames in Essex. A summer so hot the grass has turned to hay. Even the eve-

www.haringey.gov.uk/equilibrium

Nicholas Philibert is a French film director and actor. He has directed nine films since 1978. His film “Être et avoir” was hugely acclaimed. The French Director received a number of awards in festivals and is the winner of a BAFTA. “Every little thing” is an incredible documentary about one of the world’s most highly regarded psychiatric institutions, where patients and staff live and work together. It was made in 1988 and it is set in the countryside.

The protagonists are the patients and staff at “La Borde” psychiatric clinic in France. Each summer they perform a play on a stage set in the grounds of the castle. The film follows the rehearsals for the play “Operette,” by Witold Gombrowicz.

At the beginning of the film, a woman speaks of her loss and sorrow by singing in the surroundings of the forest, perhaps a sense of freedom...She is a member of staff at the institution.

Life in “La Borde” engages patients by taking responsibilities in running the place; they take part in different tasks; from answering the phone to doing some gardening. During the filming

A new anthology of prose and poetry for reading aloud to someone you care for. Edited by Angela Macmillan.

We remember it from childhood. The unique comfort of being read to – at bedtime, when we were ill, as a salve for the bumps and bruises of life. We knew it, we felt it. And now, science is showing it to be true.

We are on the cusp of a reading revolution. Increasingly, research is uncovering an intimate connection between reading and wellbeing. The seemingly simple act of being read to brings remarkable health and happiness benefits. It stimulates thought and memory, encourages the sharing of ideas and feelings, hopes and fears. It enriches our lives and minds.

This unique book offers a selection of prose and poetry especially suitable for reading aloud – to your husband or wife, a sick parent or child, an elderly relative. It puts great books in the hands. More details from: www. thereader.org.uk

EQUILIBRIUM EQUILIBRIUM 23

health QUITTING SMOKING IS ONE OF THOSE things that are bound to bring with it the benefits that the health authorities are always telling us about. From the warnings on cigarette packs to the health professional at your surgery the appeal of becoming a non-smoker increases as the social pressure against it becomes more overwhelming. The only advertising left – on the packets themselves – looks like it will be the next for the chop as the powers that be discuss “plain packets”, which as a recent convert to the no-smoking cause, seems a good idea, even if it is only directed at youngsters.

Putting all the propaganda to one side, it is also easier to give up smoking nowadays. There are health professionals in the surgeries who now attach an importance to quitting that wasn’t there before. Obviously the cost to the NHS of smoking related diseases is enormous and a big factor, but also the health of the individual is a more pressing concern for them.

I noticed that the patches had become stronger, so the initial couple of weeks when the desire to smoke is at its strongest was not so bad when coupled with the inhalators (known as NRT or nicotine replacement therapy). The gradual reduction in

EQUILIBRIUM EQUILIBRIUM 24

strength of the patches worked well and although I am still using the inhalators I have completed the patch programme and haven’t touched a cigarette since my quit date.

Your health professional will tell you more if you go to see him/her at your GP’s surgery and the benefits you feel, particularly in my case my breathing, is well worth it.

Where the patches and the inhalator used together were particularly effective was when I was with people in a social context who smoked and the thought of not being able to join in caused me to continually put off my “Quit Smoking Day” again and again.

When I did finally give up however, the fact that I had been able to have a cup in the morning without a cigarette stood me in good stead and my looking forward to being able to blow into the CO2 reader at the surgery and register a low level in my bloodstream was also great.

Some tips I picked up on the way: See the health professional at your local surgery/medical centre and set a Quit Day. Eat fresh fruit and and notice how your taste buds feel. Ask your friends not to smoke in your home. Keep it smoke–free. Good luck and don’t give up trying to give up.

Summer/ Issue 38

habit

health

KILLING THE Words: Ian Stewart

www.haringey.gov.uk/equilibrium

EQUILIBRIUM EQUILIBRIUM 25

Mongolia

Photos of Mongolia By Will Wood and Ruby Hooper

arts

EQUILIBRIUM EQUILIBRIUM 26 www.haringey.gov.uk/equilibrium

i

17 Summer/ EQUILIBRIUM Issue 38

regulars

HIGH SOCIETY WELLCOME COLLECTION EXHIBITION

I found this fairly specious as an exhibition; bit too much ‘ooh ah’ old hippy about it. Slightly pointless psychedelic rooms of hazy fourwalled films, old paraphernalia for smoking, injecting, inhaling etc, black and white clips of doctors experimenting with LSD, and shocking footage of emaciated girls in a crack den, it felt rather trumped up.

The claim in the brochure is ‘the impulse to use drugs is a universal one…A substance accepted as a religious sacra ment in one culture can be seen as a public health problem in another’.

My confidence in the exhibition plummeted when I saw that one of the guides was one Lady Amanda Feilding , who self trepanned in her youth with an electric drill.

The history and implications of the British involvement with the corrupt opium trade (one result of which was the ceding of Hong Kong to the British in 1842) was all valid, and there were some extraordinary paintings on display, including ‘the Drug Bazaar, Constantinople’ which came from the Wellcome Library, and’An Opium Den in the East End of London’ by Gustave Dore. The statistics on the walls at the end of the exhibition made for stark reading too.

It threw up many questions, though, is the drug problem ‘ a sin, a crime, a vice or a disease’? We seemingly socially accept alcohol, yet it is the most damaging to society and the self of all the classified drugs, according to Professor David Nutt. What would legalization of street drugs bring?

Far less crime for one thing.

There was nothing about prescribed mind and mood altering drugs and their effects and many dangers, often remarkably similar to that of street drugs.

Polly

EQUILIBRIUM EQUILIBRIUM 18

MOOD MAPPING LIZ MILLER , PATRON OF EQUILIBRIUM

Liz Miller , patron of Equilibrium and author of Moodmapping is running workshops on how to manage moods successfully using techniques described in her book.

19th March, Saturday –

Procrastination and MOODMAPPING™ 2nd April, Saturday –

Bipolar and MOODMAPPING™ 12th April, Tuesday –

Teaching and MOODMAPPING™ 16th of April, Saturday –

Anxiety and MOODMAPPING™ 7th May, Saturday –

Creativity and MOODMAPPING™ 10th May, Tuesday –

Team and MOODMAPPING™ 21st May, Saturday –

Procrastination and MOODMAPPING™ Venue 38 HarwooR, Fulham London SW6 4PH Times 10.00 am - 4.30 pm details:lizzie.miller@btinternet.com Cost £20 Saturday courses £30 Tuesday courses Concessions available

Poem by C Suttle The days I have had are a moments spark of life and then they go to a blur and fade away.

As with the light of day

EQUILIBRIUM Summer Summer/Autumn Issue 38Issue 38 27

regulars

BIG SOCIETY –

What Do You Think?

between our thoughts and our moods and aims to change the way we think about things i.e. negative thoughts that affect the way we act such as nobody likes you or you have said something that may have unset someone and you worry about the consequences of your actions. This may will lead to anger and depression and can result in the need for more medication or a spell in hospital. I therefore would like to say to Haringey mental health less pill popping and more taking. It is definitely time to talk.

Michael The government has announced the selected partner who will deliver and train up to 5,000 Community Organisers.

Locality - a new nationwide network of community led organisations, formed through the merger of the Development Trusts Association (DTA) and bassac - has been chosen to carry out a range of work including developing a training framework, Code of Conduct for Community Organisers, and an Institute for Community Organising.

Community Organisers will be well-trained and committed individuals who will play a major role in delivering the Big Society. They will work closely with communities to identify local leaders, projects and opportunities, and empower the local community to improve their local area.

Up to five hundred senior Community Organisers will be trained and given bursaries of £20,000 for their first year, along with a further 4500 part-time and voluntary organisers who will support them.

The Community Organisers programme is about catalysing community action at a neighbourhood level – ‘igniting the impulse to act’. They will help their communities to take advantage of other key Big Society initiatives such as ‘Right to Buy’ community assets, and the ‘Right to Bid’ to run public services.

TIme To Talk!

Having been on a waiting list for 9 months I really think its time to talk. My name was put forward by my consultant for cognitive behavioural therapy (C.B.T.) and at the time of writing I have heard nothing back. I want to have therapy so I can have better relationship with other people and have a more balanced out look on life i.e. to put in a better perspective such as not taking things that my self and other people do and say so seriously when there is no need to. Taking to someone who is not involved in your day to day life is much better then a person you know as they have no agenda and can give a more honest appraisal on issues that you dwell on. Cognitive therapy works on the link

EQUILIBRIUM EQUILIBRIUM 28 www.haringey.gov.uk/equilibrium

Food Hygiene

Food hygiene is important to all groups of people young, old, rich or poor. It is also important in all locations restaurants, schools, hospitals, hotels and at home.

An employment agency called Reed in Partnership organises their own training courses in a variety of subjects, including food hygiene. I attended a food hygiene course at their Tower Hamlets branch.

All of the students were women and the majority has small children. They were interested in working as dinner ladies in schools because the hours suited them with taking their children to and from school.

Lot of catering organisations for example restaurants and hotels are now demanding food hygiene certificates, even if only part of your role is in catering for example care worker or nurse. The knowledge gained on the course can also be used at home, or when entertaining if there is a lot of food to be prepared.

This was a one day training course with a short film. We learned about temperature control, cross contamination for example not preparing cooked and raw meat in the same place. We discussed personal hygiene for example keeping wounds clean and covered with a blue plaster. We looked at infestations like rats and cockroaches.

The unborn child can be killed if the pregnant mother gets faeces into her mouth so it is very important for everybody to wash their hands with soap and water after going to the toilet. Sell-by-dates are also important.

At the end of the course we all had to sit a multiple choice exam. And I passed!

Angela

EQUILIBRIUM 15 Summer/ Issue 38

therapy

Children Offered Talking Therapies New Mental Health Review

Children to be offered talking

overhaul of mental healthcare for

therapies in mental health review

young people that will aim to stop them

for extending the adult programme

Mental health strategy to pledge

developing lifetime illnesses.

across England by 2015 and for devel-

£400m to extend therapies to adults

Introduction of cognitive behavioural

oping an equivalent treatment model

across England and help prevent chil-

therapy (CBT) and other psychological

for children.

dren developing illnesses.

therapies for children will be announced

Early intervention can prevent young people developing lifetime mental illnesses.

The new strategy will earmark £400m

“It makes a very clear statement

tomorrow in a new mental health strat-

that mental health is not about ‘them

egy for England being published by the

and us’; it’s about us,” says Burstow,

coalition government.

pointing out that one in four people

The move follows a five-year investment programme that has seen short-

will suffer a mental health problem of some sort.

term psychological therapies developed for adults across 60% of the country.

Good news addendum:

More than 70,000 people are said to

The 6 months sectioning rule has also

signs of anxiety and depression are to

have “recovered” from illness and 14,000

been removed (MPs who have been

be offered talking therapies in a major

have moved off sick pay and benefits.

sectioned).

Children and teenagers who show

EQUILIBRIUM www.haringey.gov.uk/equilibrium

EQUILIBRIUM EQUILIBRIUM 29 Summer/ Issue 38

peculiar What a

Creative Writing by: Mario Petrucci

‘T

night

he Cafe in the Woods’. 7pm (start time), no one there. 8pm - 25 people crushed into the proverbial sardine can. All Highgate types (brown shorts and sandals, blue shirts): amiable; peculiar gaits; either snatched from painting their houses or having just collected daughters from uni. An MC who thought that having a bald head, a multicoloured shirt and a funny moustache would do the trick (actually he wasn’t half bad). The maitre d’ bumbling around like a recently-sated bumblebee.

The poetry was a little unpromising - rhymed performance, jokey. Highgate concerns: fantasy sex in buses, ageing dads, first teenage fumbles, ‘having a go’ at (and within) a villanelle, etc.

One guy on the subject of his child daughter, though, had a few gorgeous moments (‘she asks: is my skeleton alive inside me’)? Something like a slightly overweight, happier Michael Caine with

EQUILIBRIUM 30

accent and a multicoloured shirt. Liked him.

The music: relatively competent, but mostly not particularly inspiring.

Decent instrumentalists, but lacking punch vocally - too many slightly wanky, thin voices. One old pony-tailed exhippie, though, did a very funny cover of the Chumbawamba song about Facebook, ‘Add Me’.

Then, just before the interval, a clean-cut guy on slide guitar doing deep south stuff a cut above the rest. Slick, well-oiled, ultra-cool; but with a touch of emotive brilliance. I could see him filling one-off slots in classy bars in hot, hot towns night after night for 60 bucks a go, with one precise drop of sweat running down past his ear.

So, they put me on after the interval (during which, as usual, a few of the poets who’d performed in the first half left - grrr - one of the most obnoxious habits at these things) and I offered love poems from i tulips plus a brace of heavier pieces from Heavy Water: a poem for Chernobyl. You could have heard an angel tapdancing on the head of her pin. The

From Survivors Poetry’s Magazine, Poetry Express, Issue 34. www.survivorspoetry.com.

image: voided3

an Irish

audience was wonderfully attentive and generous. If I was in any remaining doubt, it was dispelled (and sometimes we go to these things for reasons that aren’t apparent to us until afterwards) - I’m definitely onto something with i tulips... This was a crowd who’d admire the Romantics (well, Blake and Wordsworth at least) and would defer to the Armitages and Sophie Hannahs of our day they’d probably adore Wendy Cope, as an adoptee ‘one of their own’, perhaps.

Among themselves, I sensed, poetry is more or less a fun night out with a few serious moments they’re certainly not closed to. Putting it a little unkindly: a posh poems and pints. They do recognise quality, inasfar as they recognise it; and would be polite about something they didn’t like, and simply not comment or react. And yet, on the back of Olson, Creeley and (they’d just about heard of this guy ...) Ginsberg, they were taken to an entirely new space.

I could tell in their faces they hadn’t much been there before; but, to their credit, they were willing to go - if only for a while. The prolonged applause at the end wasn’t polite. Far from it. The event reminded me that, if we can tap into universal energies when we write, we can get most people on board - if not openly on deck, then at least into some less visible berth. I always doubt that hope, and am almost always proved wrong. In fact, it sometimes seems that those who turn their faces most steadfastly away from challenging poetry are often poets who’ve read widely but only to reject with ‘authority’ anything that isn’t what they themselves safely do.

If the above account sounds a bit self-regarding, it’s not meant to be! It comes from a place of detachment, I think. And I say it into this space to encourage all the fragmenters and re-inventors who may or may not overhear it (okay then, I say it to myself) that the game (let’s call it a game rather than a battle) isn’t over. Not quite.

Actually - not at all.

EQUILIBRIUM 31