A patient from Broadmoor Hospital, Mr Albert Haines, who had been diagnosed with a personality disorder, has become the first psychiatric patient at the institution to have his mental health tribunal ruling made in public.
Read the story here
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Mobile library in Alcossebre – #Biblioteca a la fresca 2011 (placa Vista Alegre)
Reply
Biblioteca a la fresca 2011
How nice to enjoy wifi and newspapers in the Med evening air thanks to a free mobile literary. It is such a cool idea and is staffed by volunteers. Kids and grannies alike read periodicals, books as well as newspapers until 1130 in the night.
Posted from WordPress for Android
Images of Spain
I have just had a fish dish which was drowned in oil and the scallops were overdone. Still, the ice cream was nice. We have had the mobile library in Spain with the free wifi and the biker festival at the weekend. All great stuff. Now the scene is being set for the local bull fighting “fun” (see pic). Spectator blood sport is not a nice vibe. It is only when you see all the family queueing up to indulge in the fun that you realise how distasteful the whole thing is. Of course this is the country where black players playing for England receive monkey chants from the paying Spanish public. So perhaps I should not be surprised. I just am surprised that such barbaric past times are part of civil society. By the way Spain is going through some dire economic times. In some areas youth unemployment is close to 50%.
Posted from WordPress for Android
Access to information for all
I am sitting on the beach in a coastal town in the east of Spain availing of free wifi and newspapers courtesy of a local council mobile library. How pleasant (if you can cope with the screeching from the kids at a nearby play area – it seems every Spanish kid’s right is to be as loud and wild as possible). It strikes me that free broadband access should be the norm across Europe. I recall plans by Westminster Council for free local broadband hubs but am not sure what came of them. Information is power?
Posted from WordPress for Android
Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”
I read the amazing “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl this weekend. There has been lots written already about life in concentration camps but somehow this account proved captivating as I sat reading in a Central London bookstore on Saturday. What is remarkable is his continuing account of the psychological impact of the experience.
Before Frankl begins describing his experiences within the concentration camp, he talks about man’s relationship with himself. Here, it is possible he is talking about the intense discipline one’s mind requires in order to successfully detach. Detach too much and you risk accepting a deterministic mindset, detach too little and you risk living miles away from reality. He also correctly acknowledges that it is only the person in the epidermis or the ghost in the machine that can make honest and valuable judgements on himself.
Setting the stage for the chronological psychological telling of his experience:
Three phases of the inmate’s mental reactions to camp life become apparent: the period following his admission; the period when he is well entrenched in camp routine; and the period following his release and liberation. The engine’s whistle had an uncanny sound, like a cry for help sent out in commiseration for the unhappy load which it was destined to lead into perdition.
Frankl comments on the thoughts circling in their brains as they begin going through the registration at the camp:
In psychiatry there is a certain condition known as delusion of reprieve. The condemned man, immediately before his execution, gets the illusion that he might be reprieved at the very last minute. No one could yet grasp the fact that everything would be taken away. all we possessed, literally, was our naked existence. On entering camp a change took place in the minds of the men. With the end of uncertainty there came the uncertainty of the end. It was impossible to foresee whether or when, if at all, this form of existence would end.
Once they are all processed, they move into getting used to their new environment:
Cold curiosity predominated even in Auschwitz, somehow detaching the mind from its surroundings, which came to be regarded with a kind of objectivity. I think it was Lessing who once said, “There are things which must cause you to lose your reason or you have none to lose.”
A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth-that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.
Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.
Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.
What does Spinoza say in his Ethics? -’Affectus, qui passio est, desinit esse passio simulatque eius claram et distinctam formamus ideam. Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.
As we said before, any attempt to restore a man’s inner strength in the camp had first to succeed in showing him some future goal. Nietzsche’s words, “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how,”
Before Frankl begins describing his experiences within the concentration camp, he talks about man’s relationship with himself. Here, it is possible he is talking about the intense discipline one’s mind requires in order to successfully detach. Detach too much and you risk accepting a deterministic mindset, detach too little and you risk living miles away from reality. He also correctly acknowledges that it is only the person in the epidermis or the ghost in the machine that can make honest and valuable judgements on himself.
Setting the stage for the chronological psychological telling of his experience:
Three phases of the inmate’s mental reactions to camp life become apparent: the period following his admission; the period when he is well entrenched in camp routine; and the period following his release and liberation. The engine’s whistle had an uncanny sound, like a cry for help sent out in commiseration for the unhappy load which it was destined to lead into perdition.
I will return to the meaning of life in the future.
Resources:
Viktor E. Frankl Quotes – BrainyQuote
Viktor Frankl: Why to believe in others | Video on TED.com
Viktor Frankl - Holocaust Survivor and Famous Author/Psychoanalyst
VIKTOR FRANKL INSTITUT. Biography of Viktor Frankl
Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy
Man’s search for meaning: Google Books
See http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/frankl.html
Viktor Frankl was born in Vienna on March 26, 1905. His father, Gabriel Frankl, was a strong, disciplined man from Moravia who worked his way from government stenographer to become the director of the Ministry of Social Service. His mother, Elsa Frankl (née Lion), was more tenderhearted, a pious woman from Prague.
The middle of three children, young Viktor was precocious and intensely curious. Even at the tender age of four, he already knew that he wanted to be a physician.
In high school, Viktor was actively involved in the local Young Socialist Workers organization. His interest in people turned him towards the study of psychology. He finished his high school years with a psychoanalytic essay on the philosopher Schopenhauer, a publication in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, and the beginning of a rather intense correspondence with the great Sigmund Freud.
In 1925, a year after graduating and on his way towards his medical degree, he met Freud in person. Alfred Adler’s theory was more to Frankl’s liking, though, and that year he published an article – “Psychotherapy and Weltanschauung” – in Adler’s International Journal of Individual Psychology. The next year, Frankl used the term logotherapy in a public lecture for the first time, and began to refine his particular brand of Viennese psychology.
In the years 1928 and 1929, Frankl organized free counseling centers for teenagers in Vienna and six other cities, and began working at the Psychiatric University Clinic. In 1930, he earned his doctorate in medicine, and was promoted to assistant. In the next few years, Frankl continued his training in neurology.
In 1933, He was put in charge of the ward for suicidal women at the Psychiatric Hospital, with many thousands of patients each year. In 1937, Frankl opened his own practice in neurology and psychiatry. One year later, Hitler’s troops invade Austria. He obtained a visa to the U.S. in 1939, but, concerned for his elderly parents, he let it expire.
In 1940, Frankl was made head of the neurological department of Rothschild Hospital, the only hospital for Jews in Vienna during the Nazi regime. He made many false diagnoses of his patients in order to circumvent the new policies requiring euthanasia of the mentally ill. It was during this period that he began his manuscript, Ärztliche Seelsorge - in English, The Doctor and the Soul.
Frankl married in 1942, but in September of that year, he, his wife, his father, mother, and brother, were all arrested and brought to the concentration camp at Theresienstadt in Bohemia. His father died there of starvation. His mother and brother were killed at Auschwitz in 1944. His wife died at Bergen-Belsen in 1945. Only his sister Stella would survive, having managed to emigrate to Australia a short while earlier.
When he was moved to Auschwitz, his manuscript for The Doctor and the Soul was discovered and destroyed. His desire to complete his work, and his hopes that he would be reunited with his wife and family someday, remained optimistic by hoping what seemed otherwise a hopeless situation.
After two more moves to two more camps, Frankl finally succumbed to typhoid fever. He kept himself awake by reconstructing his manuscript on stolen slips of paper. In April of 1945, Frankl’s camp was liberated, and he returned to Vienna, only to discover the deaths of his loved ones. Although nearly broken and very much alone in the world, he was given the position of director of the Vienna Neurological Policlinic — a position he would hold for 25 years.
Domestic violence and rape – some facts
I am attending a domestic violence awareness course as part of training for a Victim Support placement.
Some interesting stats’ that have emerged from the course:
- 50% of children will also be victims in a household where the parent is suffering from abuse.
- 75% of victims will suffer further abuse following reporting of the crime.
- 13 year old children (and older) are not allowed stay in refuge centres.
- Pregnancy is a major trigger for perpetrators of domestic abuse.
- Perpetrators mainly hit at the torso of the victims.
- 65% of rape is committed by current or ex partners.
- The age group 16 – 24 is the most vulnerable.
- 75% of rape victims know the perpetrator.
- The law does not distinguish on the length of penetration.
- Research undertaken on rapists indicates that the gender of the victim is immaterial for 50% of rapists. This of course does not mean that 50% of victims are male but might indicate that the incidence of male rape is far higher than is reported.
- Rapists look for victims with long hair, carrying bags and wearing high heels. The hour after 6pm is the most vulnerable time for victims.
- Erection and ejaculation can be absent in rape cases.
- False accusations of rape account for only 2% of cases.
- The attractiveness of rape victims is not the issue for rapists. Power and control is the dominant motivation as it is for the incidence of rape in prison.
Some resources
http://www.aest.org.uk/survivors/male/myths_about_male_rape.htm
http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/meet-the-predators/
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/38/2/217/
http://www.springerlink.com/content/q108k28040221861/
http://fap.sagepub.com/content/11/1/11.abstract
http://www.truthaboutrape.co.uk/4898.html
http://192.87.209.9/pdf/2364.pdf
http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/jhamlin/3925/myths.html
http://www.csvr.org.za/wits/papers/paprapel.htm
- domestic violence facts
- domestic violence stories
- effects of domestic violence
- domestic violence statistics
- domestic violence definition
- domestic violence children
- domestic violence helpline
- domestic violence jobs
Domestic Violence End the Domestic Abuse and Save Your Marriage/Relationship www.enddomesticabuse.org Domestic violence Report it anonymously. Call us or use our online form. Find out more. www.crimestoppers-uk.org Prevent Domestic Violence Free: Personal Safety Skills Can Stop Relationship Violence www.kidpower.org
Posted from WordPress for Android
10 tips for using social media mindfully
For the last two years, Lori Deschene provided a daily wisdom quote through a Twitter account called Tiny Buddha. Since the follower count has grown by leaps and bounds, people have suggested she tweet more often throughout the day. In a time when connections can seem like commodities and online interactions can become casually inauthentic, mindfulness is not just a matter of fostering increased awareness. It’s about relating meaningfully to other people and ourselves. With this goal in mind, she compiled a list of 10 tips for using social media mindfully.
1. Know your intentions.
Doug Firebaugh of SocialMediaBlogster.com has identified seven psychological needs we may be looking to meet when we log on: acknowledgment, attention, approval, appreciation, acclaim, assurance, and inclusion. Before you post, ask yourself: Am I looking to be seen or validated? Is there something more constructive I could do to meet that need?
2. Be your authentic self.
In the age of personal branding, most of us have a persona we’d like to develop or maintain. Ego-driven tweets focus on an agenda; authenticity communicates from the heart. Talk about the things that really matter to you. If you need advice or support, ask for it. It’s easier to be present when you’re being true to yourself.
3. If you propose to tweet, always ask yourself: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?
Sometimes we post thoughts without considering how they might impact our entire audience. It’s easy to forget how many friends are reading. Two hundred people make a crowd in person, but online that number can seem insignificant. Before you share, ask yourself: is there anyone this might harm?
4. Offer random tweets of kindness.
Every now and then I ask on Twitter, “Is there anything I can do to help or support you today?” It’s a simple way to use social media to give without expectations of anything in return. By reaching out to help a stranger, you create the possibility of connecting personally with followers you may have otherwise known only peripherally.
5. Experience now, share later.
It’s common to snap a picture with your phone and upload it to Facebook or email it to a friend. This overlaps the experience of being in a moment and sharing it. It also minimizes intimacy, since your entire audience joins your date or gathering in real time. Just as we aim to reduce our internal monologues to be present, we can do the same with our digital narration.
6. Be active, not reactive.
You may receive email updates whenever there is activity on one of your social media accounts, or you might have your cell phone set to give you these types of alerts. This forces you to decide many times throughout the day whether you want or need to respond. Another approach is to choose when to join the conversation, and to use your offline time to decide what value you have to offer.
7. Respond with your full attention.
People often share links without actually reading them, or comment on posts after only scanning them. If the greatest gift we can give someone is our attention, then social media allows us to be endlessly generous. We may not be able to reply to everyone, but responding thoughtfully when we can makes a difference.
8. Use mobile social media sparingly.
In 2009, Pew Research found that 43 percent of cell phone users access the Web on their devices several times a day. It’s what former Microsoft employee Linda Stone refers to as continuous partial attention—when you frequently sign on to be sure you don’t miss out anything. If you choose to limit your cell phone access, you may miss out online, but youwon’t miss what’s in front of you.
9. Practice letting go.
It may feel unkind to disregard certain updates or tweets, but we need downtime to be kind to ourselves. Give yourself permission to let yesterday’s stream go. This way you won’t need to “catch up” on updates that have passed but instead can be part of today’s conversation.
10. Enjoy social media!
These are merely suggestions to feel present and purposeful when utilizing social media, but they aren’t hard-and-fast rules. Follow your own instincts and have fun with it. If you’re mindful when you’re disconnected from technology, you have all the tools you need to be mindful when you go online.
Lori Deschene is the founder of @TinyBuddha on Twitter and tinybuddha.com, a multi-author blog that features wisdom and stories from people all over the world.
Jungian personality types part 2
Last night’s lecture was on Jungian personality typology part 2.
Intuitive (extroverted) – These types can feel imprisoned and trapped and are lacking in commitment. Thinking and feeling (auxiliary functions) are repressed. Fully repressed is sensation. This type gives priority to the vision rather than the reality on the ground. They can be immoral and can be perceived by others as inconsiderate. They are speculators, entrepreneurial, traders, publishers or art dealers. They can be paranoid, phobic and superstitious. Howard Hughes was supposed to have been this type. It can feel like depression but this won’t react to medication.
Intuitive (introverted) – This type can see the big picture but their attention is turned within. They are stimulated by the sensate function. They can run from one image to another but nothing quite satisfies. They are constantly looking for the buzz of new relationships. The images which get expressed are often archetypal. They are creative and artistic. Van Gough was considered this type. Images need releasing, not the feelings. They can be viewed as aloof, cool, calm and collected (as their inner life is taking precedence). Extroverted sensation is most repressed. They can be gurus but they get into trouble over money and sex. An approach in therapy with this type is to help them with artistic expression. they are not a good witness in court.
Sensate (extroverted) – The primary orientation with this type is towards objective reality. They pursue pleasure. They are the type that would make a good witness in court. They make good managers and know how to make money. They can be prone to phobias and can also become paranoid. Intuition is repressed (subjective realm). The approach with this type would be to get them to think, work out consequences and to “feel”. These types are always busy and feel like they need to press “reset” in order to get clarity. They can suffer from extreme OCD.
Sensate (introverted) – these types are primarily governed by subjective response to what is outwardly perceived. These types seek inner intensity from sex, drugs or dangerous sports. They can be patient types, and have an ability to be with people, they are carers, healers, and are good with children. But they are not worldly.
The important thing to remember is that most of us are carrying these types in us but the work is to decide what our preference is and what are the functions.
Topics related to Jung
- jung quotes
- george jung
- jung online
- jung knx
- jung personality types
- jung personality test
- carl jung theory
- jung theory
- carl gustav jung theories
- carl jung collective unconscious
- archetypes carl jung
- carl jung psychology
- carl jung personality types
- carl jung quotes
- carl jung personality test
- dr carl jung
Hitler or Einstein?
Clinical personality types
Last night’s lecture was part 2 of clinical personality types and it was fascinating. The previous week was all about the schizoid (fixated in the oral development) and the obsessive (hiding of feelings). Last night covered the depressive and hysterical types. The important thing to remember in all of this is that this is just a map, as nobody is a “pure” type. However, we do have preferences. Depressives and hystericals are more likely to turn up for therapy.
Depression
Depression can be endogenous, reactive and bi polar (manic). Endogenous depression is not type of depression rather it is biological depression. One of the main causes of endogenous depression is chemical imbalance in the brain. Endogenous depression appears to come from nowhere. Reactive depression specifies that depression from some event or some stress occurring. For example, problem in relationship, death of closed one, loss of love one, changing job or anything that directly affects one’s life. Bi polar depression is the toughest to live with and requires medication for chemical rebalancing.
Strategy
The purpose of therapy is to uncover the true feelings of the client. Depressives usually look for the script to confirm their feelings of worthlessness. There is no magic solution for the treatment of depression in therapy. The truth is before it gets better it will probably get worse. CBT interventions such as “to do lists” can be very useful. Depressives have a difficult time with boundaries. They get attached and want to extend the session and can want to see the therapist outside the therapeutic relationship.
Hysterical
In Freud’s day the hysterical type was seen as classically female. Hysterical types seek attention by whatever means. They can be manipulative, larger than life and have an egocentric craving for attention. There is always a drama going on with them. Hysterical types are prone to sexually provocative behaviour or to sexualizing nonsexual relationships. However, they may not really want a sexual relationship; rather, their seductive behavior often masks their wish to be dependent and protected. They make mountains out of mole hills. The proverb rings true: ”Empty vessels make most noise”.
Strategy
Psychotherapy is the cornerstone of most treatments and usually must continue for more than a year to change a person’s maladaptive behavior or interpersonal patterns. The therapy sessions must build a positive transference. The therapist is the stable core, providing accurate mirroring and allowing for reality checking.
A good book to read is the Art of Psychotherapy by Anthony Storr.
