Depression – the beating of a war drum

No one can say how much depression is a genetically determined condition and how much it is a response to lived experience. Whilst genetics cannot be ruled out, lived experience is something that must be ruled in because depression, like poverty, is a whole lot more than just a personal weakness, problem or failing. If […]

35,740,800 minutes

I have passed 35,740,800. Thankfully the clock is still ticking, but I am now 68 (in years), but over 35 million minutes old. To be honest, functioning for that many minutes means I am now pretty creaky in most of my body parts and I have definitely slowed down a lot. As a child, I […]

The Price of Disability and Mental Health

Yesterday I completed almost 2 year of Psycho-dynamic Therapy, and the best part of this slightly scary but exciting experience is, it was my decision to leave. This may seem odd, but after dedicating more that 100 Tuesday afternoons to an intense examination of my life, I am now well enough to stop. I have […]

Self sabotage

One of the reasons I am in therapy is my unfailing ability to sabotage myself. Three months ago I received my next oncology appointment for the 23 February 2017 at 10:40am. I have the paperwork, it’s written in my diary, I have lost count of the number of times I’ve checked it. On Monday (13th […]

For want of kindness

I missed a doctors appointment this week, it was entirely down to an oversight on my part for reasons that don’t matter. The next day I visited the health centre to apologise and to make another appointment. The receptionist was very gracious, not a trace of impatience or frustration that my oversight had put unnecessary […]

UK government £1 billion investment in coercive programming

A letter a day to number 10. No 1,355 Saturday 27 February 2016. Dear Mr Cameron, Let’s get one thing absolutely clear from the outset, therapy is only therapy if it is client led, if the practitioner has a pre-existing agenda it is ‘coercion’ and whatever practices employed to achieve that coercive agenda are ‘programming’. […]

Jobcentre mental health care, useless ministers and doughnuts

A letter a day to number 10. No 1,035 Saturday 21 March 2015. Dear Mr Cameron, The BBC reported today that Mental health trusts in England have seen their budgets fall by more than 8% in real terms under your government. Research by BBC News and the online journal Community Care reveals that the cuts […]

The policies of driving people into enforced helplessness

A letter a day to number 10. No 981 Wednesday 21 January 2015. Dear Mr Cameron, I have never been able to decide whether depression is down to nature or nurture. I suspect it’s both and I also suspect it is something for which there will never be a definitive answer. Even looking back to […]