Summer update & lack of posts

Well, hello! It seems I haven’t written a post in absolutely ages. I have many ideas brewing, but thought I would post a quick update in the meantime.

My time has been quite occupied recently with moving house. I’m now all unpacked, put my prints up on the walls and have settled in. Amongst the luxuries of the new place are a table to eat at, and a desk that isn’t in the same room as the bedroom. It’s pretty lovely and has a small garden that’s just big enough for a BBQ. This afternoon I saw a kitten roaming around in it, I hope he returns.

After much dilly-dallying, I have made a website for my photography. It’s pretty simple, an online portfolio of some of my work to date. I’m quite pleased with it, and it’s motivated me to do some more and add more content. You can check it out here.

What else have I been doing? Mostly quiet, sedentary pursuits. Playing Skyrim (goodbye, academic career…) curling up on the sofa to watch Game of Thrones, that type of thing. I’ve been watching Sky’s Hannibal series, which is pretty good despite presenting a rather unlikely and unboundaried relationship between a psychiatrist and client (ok he’s a killer so maybe it’s the least of the concerns, but that kind of thing really annoys me!). I just finished reading sex-blogger Girl On The Net’s memoir, which is funny, insightful and really rather rude. It certainly brightened up my commute.

Hannibal: Taking on a colleague as a therapy client – generally an awful idea

I’m on a learning disability placement and I’ve been helping facilitate a sex-ed group (must post about this soon, very interesting). I’m also learning to do narrative therapy and discourse analysis, so I am pretty much de-constructing everything all the time. It’s a little tiring. I just read Valerie Sinason’s ‘Mental Handicap and the Human Condition’, which is a really brilliant book on psychodynamic perspectives on intellectual disability, full of really interesting case-studies and thoughts. I’ve been engaging in debate and generally grumbling about the new DSM. But that’s nothing especially new.

I’m currently writing a piece for my university’s blog on psychologists working with transgender clients and embracing gender diversity, and a couple of guest posts for other blogs. I have a holiday planned in a few weeks and I look forward to some time to catch up on sleep, lie on a lounger and read and type on my laptop. So there will be more content very very soon… So that is me for now. Blog posts shall follow, sharpish.

Exploring Borderline Personality Disorder in Photography

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a controversial diagnosis. While some doubt the validity of the label (see Susanna Kasen’s ‘Girl, Interrupted’), it’s a psychiatric diagnosis that is not well-known by the general public and often viewed negatively by professionals. The condition is often characterised by a pervasive problems in relationships, difficulties regulating mood and an unstable and often fragmented sense of self, which may seriously impact on an individual’s functioning and quality of life. Individuals diagnosed with the condition may engage in a range of impulsive and often dangerous behaviours, such as self-harm, heavy drinking, drug-use and aggressive behaviour towards other that may bring them to the attention of services. They may go to frantic efforts to deal with difficult emotions and feelings of loneliness and abandonment, and this can leave them characterised as manipulative and attention-seeking by professionals and those around them.

Personally I’m sceptical of the concept of a ‘disordered personality’ as a whole, but this is a cluster of symptoms (although there is a very wide range of different things than can come under the umbrella of BPD) and pattern on relating to the self and others that is often seen in mental health services. Many of these individuals have had difficult, chaotic and often traumatic experiences as they were growing up and throughout their lives, and with this in mind, the way in which they behave can make a lot of sense.

I was drawn to Daniel Regan’s ‘Type B’ Project, which I think may get people to think about the experiences and classification of those who get given the BPD label. In this series of photos Daniel expresses some of the difference characteristics associated with the disorder. Often the behaviour of someone with BPD baffles and frustrates the people around them, and I think these images might offer a different way to think about and understand the person’s perspective. The images seem to bring feelings of aloneness, being overwhelmed and bombarded, disconnected. Emptiness and extremity. Using the same model throughout, I think Daniel captures something of the fluctuating moods and volatile sense of being that might be a part of the life of someone with this disorder.

See the whole project on Daniel’s website here.

Stop-Motion: Tim Andrews’ ‘Over The Hill’ Photo Project

Rosie Hardy

I’m often drawn to art that draws on ideas about the brain, mind and mental health, and the combination of these. Tim Andrews’ ‘Over The Hill’ project is one that I’ve followed for some time and I feel it speaks a lot about identity and illness, as well as creativity and pushing the boundaries of portrait photography. Tim was diagnosed with Parkinsons in 2005, when he was 54. A couple of years later, he answered an advert in Time Out from a professional photographer looking for people to pose for nude pictures. The experience was enlightening and prompted him to respond to other adverts, and he took to Gumtree to find other photographers to capture him. Now his project includes a couple of hundred different photographers, from students and amateur hobbyists to well-known professionals such as Rankin, who have all photographed Tim in their unique way. The pictures range from candid portraits to monochrome nudes, vibrantly styled pictures and more surreal and bizarre imagery. I was already familiar with some of the photographers Tim has worked with and I like seeing how they incorporated him into their signature-style.  As a photographer myself, the images offer me inspiration for the myriad of different things one could create with a model (as well as thinking about getting in front of the lens!).

Miss Aneila

On his blog Tim documents his experiences with each of the photographers. What comes across is his real passion for art and how much he enjoys getting to know the different artists and being a part of their work. It’s fascinating seeing the many different ways that they have represented him, sometimes in a very intimate manner, sometimes more fantastical. One of the most noticeable features of Parkinson’s is the motor tremor that individuals develop. Given this, it’s interesting how the images often give such a picture of stillness and of peace. They’re static representations, frozen micro-second captures of someone who’s life must be rippled with hard to control motion. Parkinson’s is unfortunately a neuro-degenerative condition for which there is no cure, and given the subject matter you could imagine that the project could be quite depressing, charting the body’s decline. However, as Tim takes encounters a wider range of photographers, travels to further locations and creates ever more striking images, he tells a story of someone pushing to get the most out of life.

Justyna Neyring

Rekha Garton

Interview with Tim in the Times here

Fascinating Histology-Print Plates

Another one for lovers of anatomical-themed treasures. Medical illustrator Emily Evans has created these beautiful plates printed with images taken under the microscope of human tissue. They’ve been stained in pretty pastel colours, and you could eat your dinner off a section of the testicle, oesophagus, thyroid or five other designs. They’re selling out quickly, get them while you can! I’d seen Emily’s work before, and I love how she combines in-depth knowledge of anatomical science (she teaches dissection in addition to her illustration work) with art.

Thoughts and reflections on working in CAMHS

So I noticed I haven’t posted in over a month. Most of the reason for my latest episode of blog-neglect has been completing my work placement in a CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) team, as well as a bunch of deadlines. Now the placement is over and I’m trying to arrange my thoughts before I move on to try working in a new area.

• Children aren’t terrifying. Nor are adolescents. Ok, the adolescents can sometimes be a little scary. They’re different from adults. But they’re not that different. (Deep, huh?)
• Children can be hard work. But more often, the parents are harder work. Often there’s at least one adult in the family who you really think could do with their own support and therapy. But you’re treating the kid, so you work with what you’ve got and try and feed little titbits to their parents, hoping they’ll take the initiative to get help themselves.
• You can’t just have a chat with a young child about their thoughts and feelings. Sometimes working with them involves playing games or drawing pictures for an hour. Great fun.
• Sometimes teenagers tell you what’s on their mind straight out, and it’s not very nice. But it can be refreshing, it’s not stuck under layers of social acceptability and adult repression.
• Teenagers can be completely pre-occupied with seemingly minor details of social interactions, who spoke to whom, text messages sent, who passed out and got a cock drawn on their face. This is normal. A whole hour of it can be a little tedious though.
• Children need their parents to be consistent and put boundaries in place. That’s pretty hard to do in practice, especially if you have two parents with very different approaches, or are rushed on time and stressed. Sometimes when the children come in to the clinic, it’s the only time when that stability is maintained.
• Professionals seem to have a lot of hope in child services. Maybe because we can’t see people spending decades in and out of treatment. There seems to be less focus on psychiatric labels and a lot of positivity and thinking about growth and recovery.
• Being a parent is a hard job, there are so many different demands. I don’t have children and I’m impressed by the parents I see, even the ones that make mistakes. Although I know parents can’t get it right all the time and only need to be ‘good enough‘, I’m still scared of having children!
• It’s hard to be a parent when you didn’t have a good experience of being parented yourself.
• Parents can be difficult, sometimes treating you like a kind of expert-saviour, and sometimes as a punitive figure who continually withholds and disappoints them. Some parents try to play me off other professionals, in my team and in other services. It’s hard not to get swept up in it, and to take a step back and think about why they might be doing it, or how I might be encouraging it.
• Many little boys are boisterous and energetic. A lot of children don’t get much attention unless they’re badly behaved. Quite a few of these kids will get a diagnosis of ADHD.
• Teenagers can be ambivalent about attending, and not turn up rather than let you know. Parents do this more than I expected also.
• Most parents are scared of social services, being blamed for their child’s problems and attending a group with other parents.
• Children say fascinating and hilarious things. They have such interesting theories about the world.
• It’s hard to know how much responsibility to encourage a young person to take for their own treatment, when they’re not in a position to take on much responsibility in their life.
• I feel quite young, but to a child or adolescent, I’m part of the grown-up world, and I’m old.
• Before young people come to CAMHS, they’ve often seen a school counsellor or two first. Often this has been a religious counsellor, someone prone to lighting incense and wearing long patchwork cardigans. Understandably, they are a bit wary when they come to meet yet another therapist.
• CAMHS is staffed by a bunch of mums and they’re continually leaving to go have babies.
• I’ve been continually worried that I’m either being patronising or talking to young people like they’re adults, and it’s going over their heads. But so far there seems to have been no ill consequence.
• I would consider working with children and young people again. I’d probably still prefer adults, but I’m not as opposed to it as I once perhaps was.

Doctors stole my baby! The curious phenomena of the phantom pregnancy

This morning newspapers carried the story of a young Brazilian woman who is taking legal action against a hospital, claiming they have stolen her baby, or covered up its death. She entered the hospital visibly pregnant, complaining of abdominal pain and vaginal bleeding. She was anaesthetised for an emergency c-section, but woke up without a baby. The hospital are claiming that this was a case of ‘phantom pregnancy‘.

V.S. Ramachandran describes the bizarre phenomena of pseudocyesis or ‘hysterical pregnancy’ in his book ‘Phantoms In The Brain‘. The body develops many of the physical signs of pregnancy, accompanied by a strong belief that the individual truly is pregnant. Individuals may experience swelling in the abdomen, changes in menstruation, depositing of fat around the belly and lactation, amongst other symptoms. Often it will only take an in-depth examination from a medical professional to discern that a foetus is not present.

In some mammals such as cats and dogs, pseudo-pregnancy is more common and has been linked to the continued presence of the corpus luteum, which causes the signs of pregnancy. In humans the condition is believed to be psychological in origin and to relate to an overwhelming desire to have a child. Pseudocyesis is however, rare today. In the late 1700s, one in 200 pregnancies were believed to be ‘phantoms’. Now the incidence is closer to one in 10,000. This has been linked to changes over time in the pressures on women to conceive and give offspring, as well as advances in scanning techniques. In the modern age, an ultrasound can easy confirm a pregnancy. In previous centuries women might receive little education on pregnancy and childbirth and would have had little way of confirming a pregnancy other than going on outward physical signs. Many would have had little contact with a midwife prior to the birth. Indeed, often presenting the women with the ‘evidence’ of her (un)pregnancy is enough to resolve the condition. The pregnancy is not staged by the woman (though many people have lied about a pregnancy for secondary gain, few are actually capable of manipulating their own hormonal levels or altering the position of their spine). Men too have been seen to develop some phsyical symptoms in a ‘sympathic pregnancy’ (otherwise known as Couvade Syndrome), although this tends not to be accompanied with the same strong belief of pregnancy.

Pseudocyesis appears quite strange, although it has some similarities with the better known ‘placebo effect’ (when individuals’ health improves when they believe they are receiving treatment, regardless of whether the treatment is active), offers a fascinating insight into the way our minds can control our bodies, seemingly beyond our conscious awareness.

Layane Santos displays her visibly swollen belly

So what is happening in the case of Layane Santos? If, as she states, she had previously had an ultrasound that confirmed the birth, this would be convincing evidence that she really was pregnant.The hospital claims to have run tests before the ‘delivery’ that showed she was not carrying a baby. It is therefore a little questionable as to why they are not revealing these results, or why indeed they chose to anaesthetise Santos at all. If she was indeed not pregnant, the evidence of such should be straight-forward.

Undoubtedly the couple very much wanted a child and were quite invested in the pregnancy (as many couples are). A Brazilian newspaper claims that they had “already named their daughter Sofia, moved to a bigger house and had spent $3000 on clothes and furniture for their first child“. In pseudocyesis, although the pregnancy is not ‘real’, the news that one will not have a baby is obviously very distressing and there may be disbelief, given the many physical symptoms, that they were not pregnant.

It seems unlikely that a hospital would ‘steal’ a child, but while the hospital withhold details of their tests, it cannot be confirmed that Ms Santos was not pregnant. I shall be watching this case with interest…

(Images from GoogleImages)

Layane Santos

EDAW’13: Now that I don’t have an eating disorder…

Cake: Much tastier without a side of guilt and self-loathing.

So today’s the last day of this year’s Eating Disorder Awareness Week. I’ve read the blog-posts, the newspaper articles and watched the campaign videos – there’s been some fantastic stuff this year. And I’ve spent quite a bit of the week thinking about what my offering would be. Last year I wrote this post about how difficult it is to spot someone suffering from an eating disorder.

The days ticked on. And I realised that maybe the reason I’m struggling to engage with this topic is that, really, I don’t have an eating disorder.

I used to. I had an eating disorder for 6 years and recovery, like the onset, has snuck insidiously into my life. At first it was all big steps, exceptions and firsts. Challenges and a lot of tears. But slowly, it started becoming more and more everyday until I reached a point where I don’t really remember the last time I engaged in some typically ‘eating disordered’ behaviour. Every time I eat a typical meal or don’t beat myself up about gaining a couple of pounds, it’s not ‘a step in recovery‘, it’s just ‘living‘.

It’s taken a long time and a lot of work to get here, and I don’t want to lose track of that. I’ve done a whole lot of treatment (thank you NHS!) and I’ve had some brilliant support from my long-suffering friends, family and partners. It didn’t ‘just happen’, but then, suddenly, here I am. I have off-days and times when I get down about my body, but they’re not extreme and they don’t restrict my life. So I thought this year I’d reflect on some of the quiet achievements of recovery and living in (relative) balance with food and my body. I’d like to encourage others still stuck in ED-hell that recovery, though not easy, really is possible. And life on the other side is rather good.

Now that I don’t have an eating disorder…

• I go out to dinner, to parties and events. I don’t have to live in fear of a buffet being suddenly sprung on me! And these events don’t revolve around the food, I can focus on being together with others.

• I have no ‘forbidden’ foods. I eat all sorts of food. Sometimes I go for a very indulgent meal or eat a whole packet of biscuits and I don’t really care because everyone does that and one day of indulgence will not make me balloon-out. 

• I don’t cry when I go clothes shopping. I go get another size. Or just shop online.

• Sometimes I gain weight. And sometimes I lose weight. It doesn’t have a huge impact on my day/week/month. I actually rarely weigh myself.

• There are things about my appearance I’m not so keen on. I still have hang-ups and insecurities. But I don’t think anyone has a 100% positive body-image. However, looking in the mirror and not liking how I look doesn’t stop me going out and doing the things I want to do.

• When someone tells me I look ‘well’ or ‘healthy’ I don’t automatically assume that they mean I’ve put on weight. I can actually take a compliment now!

• I don’t get into ‘diet talks’. They really bore me. Diets have had enough of my life already.

• I can think about things other than food, weight, body sizes and the massive long lists of numbers (calories, time in the gym, km run, inches round the waist) that an eating disorder can involve. There’s so much space inside my head now to think so many different things.

So well done to everyone involved in the week raising awareness, there’s still so much more to do but every year I feel like people are becoming more sensitive and understanding of eating disorders.

Strong & Beautiful Style at MAC

I’m currently loving the current MAC ‘Strength’ campaign, featuring fitness model and female body-builder, Jelena Abbou. I’m a long-term fan of MAC make-up and they’re known for employing eye-catching concepts and styling for their photo-shoots, but it’s really refreshing to see a mainstream advertisement that celebrates some diversity in female beauty. Other than rather tokenistic (and often insulting) ‘real women have curves’ shots, a particular standard of young, waifish (and usually white) beauty is very much the published norm. Though being fit and exercising has never exactly been unfashionable, often it seems to be marketed only as a means to losing weight and becoming a particular shape. See this rather depressing article about a New York-based trainer who helps agency models get down to sample size with a very particular exercise regime “Push-ups are out — developing the chest is bad news — as are squats and lunges, which make the derrière too round to fit into the clothes”. When muscular women have featured in ad campaigns and editorials, they’re often portrayed as something of a freak-show attraction, or in a rather masculine manner. It’s nice so see that this campaign celebrates Abbou as a feminine woman as well as an athlete, whose body is a testament to her power and dedication. Strength indeed.

Shop the collection here.

Upcoming Wonder Season and the Brainwaves Weekender @ The Barbican

 

Personally, I’m rather keen on brains and brain-related things. So it’ll probably come as no surprise that I’m rather excited about the Barbican’s upcoming Wonder Festival devoted to the mind, including a weekend (March 2nd-3rd)  focused on all things brainy. Ahead of the British Neuroscience Association’s festival at the Barbican in April, this season throughout March and April looks to explore the much intertwined relationship between neuroscience and the arts, through a series of talks, workshops, film showings, comedy, theatre and music events. It’s a collaboration with the Wellcome Trust, who were also behind that rather brilliant Brains exhibition last year.

Amongst the events on over the season are a few crafty sessions to help people get creative as they get to grips with a bit of neuroanatomy, including sessions where you can knit a neuron and dissect a jelly brain. I’m not sure if these events are more aimed at kids,  but they sound right up my street. Ruby Wax is doing a talk on her experiences of depression, there are showing suitably mind-related films (including Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind), amongst many other things. Another rather trusting looking event is ‘The Salon Project‘, an interactive theatrical experience where “You will be costumed in full period evening dress before emerging into a mirrored impression of a 19th-century Parisian salon. As you mingle with guests, pioneers in their fields will provoke discussion, speaking on subjects at the vanguard of 21st-century thought: science, politics, technology and the arts.” Which sounds wonderfully bizarre. I love this entire theme, involving science and art in a way that can get people to think (ha) about the brain and how they interact with their world, in new and creative ways.Watch this space for a report after I’ve been!

The Death of MSN Messenger (and the rise of pseudo-communication)

As someone who was a child in the 90s, I was part of a generation of early-adopters of the internet. I still remember well spending hours downloading a single album-track off Napster, being yelled at by my parents to get off the computer so that they could use the phone, and the ever-distinguishable cadent chime of the dial-up.

And there was MSN messenger (or just ‘MSN’, as we referred to it), the online instant-messenging service we were all hooked on. I remember spending many hours spent after school in impossible-to-follow group conversations (sometimes with 8+ members), gossiping and chattering. Picking out them the most appropriate morbid lyric to use as my screen-name and a high-contrast black and white photo of my face for an avatar. The next day much real-life conversation was devoted to the previous night’s MSN adventures.

As a shy teenager who often remained quiet in social gatherings, MSN gave me an opportunity to talk to others in a way I often didn’t have the chance to. I felt pretty proud of my long list of contacts (many of whom were people I’d never actually met).Online messaging certainly added an ease to staying in touch with further-away contacts and making plans, but the new technology also seemed to facilitate a particular kind of nastiness in people. Unknown before, it was now very possible to have a dramatic ‘fight’ online, and I remember groups of friends gathering around a computer, pretending to be someone else to get some personal and embarrassing information out of others.

Some things are admittedly easier to type than they are to say out loud. Embarrassing now, but I remember keeping an MSN transcript in which my then-boyfriend had come very close to saying he loved me. I cherished it, re-reading it frequently. However, this medium also lent an ease to saying the kind of things that social acceptability might prevent you from uttering IRL. Though I guess it has always been possible to send your thoughts to someone in a letter and every medium may be subject to abuse in the wrong hands, MSN meant it was possible to insult and reject someone, from a distance with veritable ease.

I remained an MSN-user into my university years. I no-longer had the lengthy group chats laced with moving GIFs and exclamation marks, but I still used it on a daily basis to chat to others. I frequently felt frustrated that these interactions, with their stilted structure and invented spellings, seemed to be replacing my real-life conversations. Whilst the IMs provided some contact with others, it just wasn’t satisfying. The final straw came when a rather cowardly ex-partner decided to use the medium to end our relationship. I felt humiliated that he hadn’t even felt I was worth telephoning and felt appalled at how easily and callously he could instigate the break-up. At that point I decided I was done with MSN. If I didn’t have a continual presence on these platforms, others would be forced to have conversations with me in real life. I was sick of people hiding behind their computers and delivering words they wouldn’t dare to say to my face. Uninstall.

I have been MSN-abstinent for over 4 years now, and I don’t miss it. When I saw that this March, Microsoft plans to close the platform for good, it made me wonder if others have shared my frustrations with instant messaging. I have Facebook and Skype and will use the IM-services on these, but like to keep them to a minimum. , I appreciate that my irritations lie more with the way others choose to use messenger services, rather than the service itself, and It’s quite possible that younger generations use these programs much in the way that mine used MSN. Others before me have lamented how, in an age where communication so is easily facilitated by the internet, we lose something of the depth and intimacy that a telephone call, hand-written letter or long face-to-face chat bestow. I think when it becomes so easy to ‘keep in touch’ with someone by posting on their wall, dropping them a chat message etc, you can build up a false sense of maintaining a relationship, when in reality it wilts in the absence of more genuine contact.

MSN gave me, and millions of other awkward teenagers, a platform to speak and reach out to others, and it shaped the relationships we formed with each other (though not always for the better). Undoubtedly there will be some who will mourn it’s loss, but there are still many methods (online and otherwise) to keep in touch. Newer programs such as Skype enable families spread across the globe to maintain more regular contact, so it could be argued that it is significantly adding to and improving relationships. Personally think online communication does have the capacity to be personal and meaningful, when it’s used thoughtfully and with due time and consideration, rather than in a lazier manner.