I’m moving to a new home at a new blog, The Not So Big Society. I’m being joined over there by my chum Ermintrude2. Together we’ll be chronicling the struggle to deliver health and social care services as the cuts bite harder and deeper.
My existing Twitter account will remain active, and I’ve set up a feed so posts on the new blog will be tweeted on @verucasalt2011 as well as @notsobigsociety.
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The news footage from the Conservative Party conference seems to be building up my anger levels. Here, have some therapeutic anger.
They say that anger produces creativity, and I’m certainly feeling some creative vibes coming my way. A new project is in the pipeline, but I shall wait until it’s a bit more fully-formed before announcing it.
People with mental health problems being tossed to the wolves by welfare reform.
The NHS hurtling into a cash crisis.
Social care services slashed in Kent.
A thousand Navy personnel handed their P45s.
Maternity units are becoming even more understaffed than they already are.
But at least the government is making sure bins get emptied weekly instead of fortnightly.
Glad to hear that priorities still matter.
We hear the talk in the corridors and in team meetings. From speaking to colleagues in other NHS trusts, they’re hearing the same talk in their own workplaces.
Talk of recruitment freezes, of posts being deleted when people quit, constant memos offering voluntary early retirement schemes, offers to “buy” extra annual leave in exchange for a pay cut. No talk of actual redundancies…yet.
In the run-up to the general election we heard lots of nice-sounding manifesto pledges to protect the NHS from the public sector cuts. In reality, “protect” seems to mean “a bit less awful”.
Social services? They’re being hit worse than we are. Ditto voluntary agencies. Likewise education.
There’s a real sense at the moment that the cuts are starting to kick in. We’re going from hearing the headlines about it to actually seeing services shrinking or disappearing. My guess is that this is just the start.
Expect to see more headlines in the coming months of lengthening waiting lists for treatment. Of services that just aren’t there any more. Maybe the odd Baby P or two that got missed by already-overstretched child protection services being stretched even further.
We’re in for a bumpy ride.
This week’s Sunday Soundtrack is in honour of the news that some particles have travelled faster than the speed of light. Which is exciting, if you’re as geekish as I am.
Wooo, This Week in Mentalists let me guest-edit this week’s edition. Go read. 🙂
While reading the always-entertaining Another Angry Woman blog, I came across a post about the psychology of right-wing authoritarianism.
Right wing authoritarianism (RWA) is a personality trait, conceived by psychologist Bob Altemeyer. The right wing authoritarian personality consists of three attributes:
Authoritarian submission: submissiveness and acceptance of authorities which are perceived to be legitimate and established in society, such as government or the police.
Authoritarian aggression: aggression against outgroups and “deviants”–people who the established authority mark as targets. Examples of this includes travellers, immigrants, Muslims and other kinds of scapegoats.
Conventialism: high adherence to traditions and established social norms. This can manifest in a respect for “traditional family values”, for example.
RWA is measured using a scale consisting of 20 items, with a score ranging from 20 (no RWA) to 180 (high RWA). I scored 22; try it for yourself. Depending upon the sample, university students often score around 75, while a large-scale American study found the average about 90.
I scored 47, which apparently makes me only 17% of the way to being a RWA.
Of course, the right can play at this game too. Indeed, a couple of years ago an American psychiatrist, Lyle Rossiter, tried to claim that liberalism is a mental disorder.
Dr. Rossiter says the liberal agenda preys on weakness and feelings of inferiority in the population by:
- creating and reinforcing perceptions of victimization;
- satisfying infantile claims to entitlement, indulgence and compensation;
- augmenting primitive feelings of envy;
- rejecting the sovereignty of the individual, subordinating him to the will of the government.
“The roots of liberalism – and its associated madness – can be clearly identified by understanding how children develop from infancy to adulthood and how distorted development produces the irrational beliefs of the liberal mind,” he says. “When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious.”
Yeah, yeah, whatever. But then I’m a liberal, so I’m probably just in denial.
I’m not in favour of labelling this or that political viewpoint – whether left or right – as a form of psychopathology. That sort of thing has an ugly historical pedigree.
But if one shouldn’t think of the ideas themselves as part of a mental health problem, might there be something to be said for looking at the people attracted to this or that political stance? I’m not so much thinking of the mainstream here. More of the extremes of left and right.
Back in my university days, I remember quite a few unhappy, alienated people who seemed to gravitate towards Trotskyist groups such as the Socialist Workers Party. It might be interesting to survey the rates of, say, depression among such groups.
While we’re on the subject of politics and mental disorder, I can’t help thinking of a certain breed of politician. Of the variety that seems to spend an inordinate amount of time furthering their media career, appearing on crass reality-TV shows and engaging in public feuds, all at the expense of actually spending time with their constituents.
Or, for that matter, of a certain kind of media pundit. The kind that’s required to be utterly outraged about something with each print deadline.
I wonder what would happen if one surveyed the rates of narcissistic or histrionic personality disorder for that kind of politician or pundit.
I won’t name any names for libel reasons, but you know the kind of public figures I’m talking about.
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Tagged personality, personality disorders, politics, psychopathology
For this week’s Sunday Soundtrack, here’s an offering by a all-girl band I’ve been listening to a lot recently.
I was lucky enough to catch them live at Glastonbury this year, and they were excellent.
Speaking of girl stuff (how’s this for a tenuous link?), I’ve been amused this week by the kerfuffle on various feminist blogs about a lawsuit by a guy named Tom Martin. He signed up for a masters in gender studies with the London School of Economics, but left after 6 weeks. Now he’s suing the LSE because….wait for it…he thinks there’s too much feminism in gender studies. He’s arguing that the course is sexist because it doesn’t talk enough about men.
Funny, I always thought that academics were supposed to love neglected areas of study or gaps in research, because that means they can write about it themselves and make their reputation. I might be missing the point though, as various people have pointed out that his action has more than a whiff of a publicity stunt about it.
Mr Martin is currently in fundraising mode if anyone fancies donating to his campaign. Personally though, I’d suggest to him that the money might be better spent on some tuition fees for a new masters course. If he thinks his arguments are so robust, then actually writing them down and publishing them in academic journals would be more productive (and a hell of a lot cheaper) than filing a frivolous lawsuit.
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Tagged academentia, feminism, gender, sunday soundtrack, warpaint
Mind Uncut (no relation to the charity Mind) asked me to comment on the effect of the public sector cuts on CAMHS, so here goes.
As I mentioned last week, the most vulnerable jobs for the chop are those that are seen as highly specialist. Say, a systemic and family psychotherapist or an eating disorders nurse specialist. It’s more attractive to hire a jack-of-all-trades generalist – say, a CPN or a clinical psychologist. Patients can still be seen by those clinicians, but obviously there’s a drop in the level of expertise available. Remember, that’s not just expertise in terms of what can be offered to patients and their families, but also of who the generalists can turn to for advice if they get stuck.
When people leave their jobs, there’s a nervous wait to see whether the post will be re-advertised, or just disappear into the ether. If it is re-advertised, sometimes it will be at a lower pay band – say, band 6 instead of band 7. Sometimes this can result in the post not being filled because those with the skills to apply for the job have no incentive to do so. Why take on more responsibility if they’re not going to pay you any more?
As the cuts bite deeper, there’s more pressure to stick to a narrower definition of who CAMHS can offer a service to, and to do more signposting to other services. A child has a mentally ill mother – could they be seen by a young carers service instead? Somebody just wants talking therapies – why not point them to a school counsellor? Which is fine until you remember that all those other services are also dealing with shrinking budgets.
With increasing pressure to do more signposting, there’s more risk of services playing pass-the-parcel with their clients. This tends to happen regularly between CAMHS and social services. CAMHS insist it’s a child-in-need issue. Social services say no it’s not, it’s a mental health issue. The two services argue, letters go back and forth, and the child is left waiting for somebody to provide an actual service.
Occasionally we hear that we’re supposed to do more with less. I suspect in reality we may well just wind up doing less.
I was tempted to have a PJ Harvey track as this week’s Sunday Soundtrack. Certainly I think she was a well-deserved winner of the Mercury Prize this week. Let England Shake was one of my favourite albums of the year so far.
However, given the acres of media coverage she’s received as a result of winning, I thought I’d instead give a shout-out to one of the more obscure Mercury nominees.
Ghostpoet intrigues me. There’s a thoughtfulness to his work that I find quite alluring.
Speaking of highlighting the non-obvious, I’ve also been reading this article on the other, forgotten 9/11 tragedy. The one that happened in Chile in 1973. I can’t say I’m a fan of Atrocity Top Trumps, but it did make me think about how, horrific as 9/11 was, it certainly wasn’t the unique event it’s sometimes portrayed as.
Also this week I’ve been reading the blog of Laurie Penny, a feminist writer who both intrigues and infuriates me in equal measure. Just recently she turned down an offer to appear on Celebrity Big Brother. Just yesterday she announced she’s on board a ship heading to the Arctic Circle.
Sounds like a wise choice. I think I’d rather be trapped on an ice floe with a rampaging polar bear than stuck in a house with Jedward and Kerry Katona.
Veruca Salt 