Hi Michael,
 
Sorry this is just a little point but I have no idea if you are the only service user and carer member of a UK Community Psychology discussion group.  I doubt you are the only service user and carer here, although there is no way to tell if that is the case for two reasons - people do not need say if they are a service user, carer or psychologist in order to join the list - and secondly, sometimes people may be one of these things, two, or all three. 
 
It is great to see an opportunity to talk about community psychology in this publication.
 
Rebekah
 
 

From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Michael Swindlehurst
Sent: 28 July 2006 12:51
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Promoting Community Psychology at local level

To all,
        Sorry to keep butting in and taking up far more than my fair share of list space. An opportunity has just arisen for me to submit an article for a local 'mental health carers' publication to promote your vital work. It must appear to most of you that I am using this list as some kind of personal ego trip but I can assure you such work mostly results in further self pain and humiliation. Copy of submission as follows.
Mike S
 

Gateway to progress.

As a young boy back in the 1940's, a group of us children were discussing what to do that day. One suggested we go to a local 'loony bin' to make fun of the patients. He explained that he had done it before with other children and that it was great fun standing outside the large iron gates of the hospital taunting the poor suffering souls on the other side. Growing up in a medical family and turning to the arts as a career, I eventually had good reasons to be grateful I never joined such a thrilling expedition. Always confident I could never 'lose my mind', many years later I was on the other side of those iron gates as a patient.

 

Since those days, unrecovered after forty five years of CBT etc treatment, and as carer for my OCD suffering wife, fate has conspired to prevent me from returning to the colouful world of the arts and to spend the last forty years mostly engaged in dealing with health and social welfare issues - now from our gratefully acquired social housing home. Among the many avenues for trying to do our bit in the common cause, my wife Dawn is member of a pioneering psychology service users advisory group at Exeter University and, through this, I am currently the only service user and carer member of a UK Community Psychology discussion group.

 

From this perspective, I would urge sufferers and carers to be wary of of those who try to convince us that we have some kind of personal weakness and natural obligation to account for our situations. Community psychology researches and understands that compilers and readers of the Carers News are so because of the world we live in, controlled by people behind golden gates who appear to have little in the way of minds or feelings for others. Emotional/nervous 'disorders' are a natural and healthy response to the increasingly dangerous world we live in. Those in high places who make it so, are those who most need to be reconditioned behind iron gates before it is too late for all of us.

Love to all,

Mike Swindlehurst

___________________________________ COMMUNITYPSYCHUK - The discussion list for community psychology in the UK. To unsubscribe or to change your details visit the website: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/COMMUNITYPSYCHUK.HTML For any problems or queries, contact the list moderator at [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask] ___________________________________ COMMUNITYPSYCHUK - The discussion list for community psychology in the UK. To unsubscribe or to change your details visit the website: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/COMMUNITYPSYCHUK.HTML For any problems or queries, contact the list moderator at [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask]