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Full-time class teachers' emotional wellbeing in an Ofsted outstanding primary school. A grounded theory study
No full textThis research was undertaken to explore and explain the contexts and mechanisms influencing full-time class teachers’ emotional wellbeing (EWB) in a primary school rated ‘outstanding’ by the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted). Despite being associated with issues high on the national agenda including pupil wellbeing, pupil performance, teacher retention and teacher recruitment, the wellbeing of school staff is a cause for concern calling for supportive and positive measures. Previous findings often describe wellbeing in deficit terms: the impacts of stress and burnout; however, research on what promotes teachers’ EWB is relatively scarce or, in Ofsted outstanding primary schools, non-existent. The current qualitative study aims to address this gap by applying grounded theory (GT) methodology to data collection and analysis on what enhances and hinders teachers’ EWB in their professional role and what interventions could be implemented to produce desirable outcomes. Semi-structured interviews were employed to elicit the views of 5 full-time class teachers at a mainstream primary school in an outer London borough. Adopting a critical realist ontological and epistemological stance, a general, abstract theory grounded in the views of the participants was drawn and discussed in relation to existing literature on psychological theory and research. Findings provide evidence to inform professionals linked to the chosen setting on what teachers think ‘works’ for them and how this could be applied in practice. It is hoped that outcomes will also facilitate further research in similar settings
Where are we now? Further thoughts on Ways of Seeing
No full textJohn Berger, the influential art critic, essayist and novelist died in January 2017. His friend the theatre director and actor, Simon McBurney, said, ‘Listener, grinder of lenses, poet, painter, seer. My Guide. Philosopher. Friend. John Berger left us this morning. Now you are everywhere.’ Berger insisted that observation was key to the project of ‘seeing’ truly. Are we there now? Are these ideas indeed ‘everywhere’? The author examines this view in the light of current developments in observation, in the psychoanalytic field, while reaching out to other disciplines to make closer links. She uses observations from students, comments they have made about the process of observation, and a moving observation of an old lady with dementia. John Berger prided himself on being a ‘listener’ as well as an observer, listening with an ear for everything in the other, not only what was spoken, and I hope that we may indeed listen to one another in the service of moving forward across disciplinary lines
An examination of the ways in which power arises, and is managed, between systemic psychotherapists and parents working together in a social care context
Get PDFThis study aims to understand and describe some of the ways in which power arises, and is managed, between clinicians who are systemic psychotherapists and the parents they are working with in a social care context. Examining their interactions in detail, particularly their talk, aims to do this. Interest in the questions arose from my own practice as a systemic psychotherapist working in children's social care, with a focus on complex neglect, where I identified challenges to ef[ective practice that were related to that context. My initial ideas were about power being a particularly salient issue in each of these challenges in one way or another, and I wanted to examine and extend this area of interest using qualitative research methods. Conversation Analysis (CA) is used here to examine the power dynamics at the heart of therapeutic work in this social care context. The primary overall objective of the study is to understand how power dynamics are managed to enable interventions aimed at reducing risk in families to be effective, by answering the following questions: L What is happening in moment-by-moment interactions between parents and systemic psychotherapists talking together, when the talk is taking place because of issues regarding risk to children? How are power dynamics being spoken about, negotiated, or managed in this high-risk context? 2. What is happening in moment-by-moment interactions between parents and systemic psychotherapists when talk that may lead to change, and reduce the risk to children, can be identified and seems to be being mutually created, understood and agreed between them? How are power dynamics being spoken about, negotiated, or managed in this particular high risk context? I examine 3 sessions, with 3 different sets of parents and systemic psychotherapists, in detail. I argue that power can be made useful when it is arising as authority that is jointly created between parents and therapists. I contend that the findings show how systemic approaches and practice can uniquely contribute to safeguarding work in contexts where issues of power prevail. I consider how the systemic practitioners in the study show their ability to deal with the power differentials arising, and develop relationships, that lead to effective and ethical working. I show how combining systemic and CA frameworks allow these abilities to be seen, and identified. These abilities are reflective of the systemic theoretical base, and systemic techniques enable these theories to be put to use. I show how these elements of practice enable complex processes between people to be negotiated. I argue how systemic approaches could contribute to mentalization-based approaches more than they do presently, and specifically when working with 'hard to reach' families. I argue that other therapeutic approaches such as these would benefit from dealing with the concept of power more explicitly, and benefit from understanding and utilising systemic approaches and practices in more depth to do so. I also use this understanding of what is happening in the relational systemic approach to examine the often-used concept of 'disguised compliance'. I make an argument for a more relational use of the term than is sometimes suggested. All of the above areas have implications for practice, and for the training and supervision of systemic psychotherapists, and other practitioners working in a social care context
What can be done to tackle the youth mental health treatment gap? Too few children and young people are getting the care they need. A new commission at Birmingham university aims to address the problem
No full textBy 2020 one in three teenagers will have access to cancer treatment in England. Think about that: only one in three. There would be an outcry. It would be scandalous, horrifying, unacceptable.
It is not true, however. Unless you delete the word “cancer” and insert “mental health”, and then it is.
In medical terms, there is a treatment gap. The number of children and young people living with a diagnosable mental illness far exceeds the number who get any help. One in 10 children suffer a diagnosable mental illness, yet just one in four of them receive treatment. By 2020 the gap may close, a little, if plans in NHS England’s Five Year Forward View for Mental Health [pdf] are realised, but only a little.
Growing crisis in children and young people's mental health demands action
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Over half of lifelong mental illness and distress shows its first signs in adolescence. We have an opportunity to do something to change people’s lives for the better and dramatically reduce the number of adults living with entrenched mental health problems. This is a great prize
In the margins: Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic women’s narratives of recovering from an eating disorder
Get PDFEating disorders are associated with white Euro/American women and were initially thought of as a ‘culture bound’ condition; that is specific to a particular culture. However, research and clinical experience shows that Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) women in the United Kingdom and globally, experience the distress of disordered eating. There remains a debate about transferring diagnostic categories across cultures and how similar or different the experience of eating disorders is for BAME women compared with white women from the United Kingdom. This inquiry is a small scale qualitative inquiry asking questions of race and culture, of idioms of distress and intercultural meaning making explored through narratives of nine racially diverse women recovering from an eating disorder, drawing on a dialogical approach to narrative analysis. Recovering narratives are explored both to bring forth untold appreciative stories where personal stories of recovering is under researched, and to make transparent that research addressing BAME women and eating disorders is limited and where studies are undertaken, they remain invisible in mainstream clinical texts or journal articles.
Individual/cultural and collective stories are identified through the analytic process drawing on creative non fiction writing techniques, weaving both traditional and dialogical methods of narrative analysis. The dialogical method centres on ‘voice, embodiment and emotional volitional tone’ of the storytellers, every voice contains multiple voices. The researcher is ready and attuned to listen to the emotional volitional tone, an active, embodied talk that invites reflexivity of the researcher who embodies and emotionally engages with the material creatively, contributing to the co construction of dialogical stories. In foregrounding storytellers’ strengths, capabilities and talking back to the orthodoxy of biomedical narratives is a position or resistance.
Dominant discourses of eating disorders marginalise BAME women, and represent a challenge to clinicians and services. The lack of attention to diversity is shown to impede access to timely assessment and treatment. The ethnocentric narrative is further emboldened because racially diverse families are concerned about seeking help where services are seen as constructed for white persons leading to concerns about confidentiality and fear of stigma.
Key findings are summarised below: The first two findings concur with current, though marginalised knowledge; the remainder of the findings are unique to this inquiry.
• Eating disorders occur amongst BAME women and cause distress
• Help seeking remains problematic; when help is sought there are access to treatment issues
• Clinicians require training to challenge assumptions regarding BAME women and eating disorders
• Eating disorder experiences may appear similar to white females though clinicians should not presume the pathway to the condition is the same
• Migration, racism, colonisation, slavery, trauma, loss, bereavement, famine, war, starvation, the role of food, gender roles, family understanding of mental ill health and social change need to be taken into account in assessment and treatment
• BAME women are positive about their recovering from eating disorders
• BAME women co exist in individualistic and collectivist cultures and this may assist in recovering
• Culturally informed practice/training guides are produced to support clinicians in identification, assessment, treatment and training.
In concluding, this inquiry interrogates the dialectic between mainstream and subjugated narratives, contesting assumptions that it is only white women who experience eating disorders and brings forth marginalised narratives that resist, stand up and talk back to dominant narratives. BAME women experience the distress of eating disorders often without adequate support in our communities. As clinicians we are positioned now to consider our ethical responsibilities towards this visible/invisible heterogeneous group
Laverne Antrobus on 5 News Tonight. Anonymous criticism of parents. 06 December 2017, Channel 5
No full textParenting can be hard enough, without having
to deal with anonymous criticism from strangers.
But sadly, too many people just can’t resist having their say.
In the Latest example of mum-shaming to go viral,
a London mum got a Letter through her door from a woman
who signed herself just as Sheila, telling her off for taking her
child to nursery.
"It upsets me seeing your baby crying," the Letter said.
"You are always rushing to put it in the nursery.
You are not thinking about your baby, who doesn’t want to be there,
and it is far too early for your baby to wake up".
It ended, "There is no point in having kids
for someone else to bring up".
Editor-in-chief of Netmums, Anne-Marie O’Leary, and psychologist Laverne Antrobus discuss
Thinking psychoanalytically about mental health services for children, adolescents, and their parents
No full textThe oedipal wound in two stories by Kafka: The Metamorphosis and A Country Doctor
No full textKafka read Freud and was interested in psychoanalysis but believed there was no ‘cure’ for what was essentially the problem of living. As always with creative artists, the writer is his own psychoanalyst, and the actual process of writing is his means of self-revelation. The aim of this paper is to consider, in relation to two stories (The Metamorphosis and A Country Doctor), Kafka’s use of this background oedipal conflict with his father or received values (the ‘law’) as a springboard for the type of wound that results in creative writing. The wound for him became a kind of personal myth, and was also associated with other painful stimuli, including his tuberculosis and his troubled love affairs, but above all with his identity as a writer. The writing process and the ‘faith-value’ it demands is an underlying metaphor behind these narratives of Kafka’s ‘dream-like inner life’. There are parallels here with Bion’s psychoanalytic philosophy of ‘suffering’ and ‘psyche-lodgement’
