There have been a couple of Horizon programmes over the past 2 weeks (11th and 18th November 2008) revolving around an 'experiment' with mental health issues. I have written about them on the Mental Health Forum and reproduce a version of my

Very strange! My main - desktop - computer has just been taken away; it has been misbehaving for some time. I suspected that this was due to its' insides being absolutely filthy and therefore getting too hot and this is exactly what the technicia

 I am always ambivalent in my attitudes to Xmas. For me personally, as probably for most depressives, it is a difficult time because it demands jollity, cheerfulness and increased social interraction. I am often ill at Xmas ; indeed one year was

 October is, for me, the saddest month. I know this now by examing my 'mood chart' - the daily record I have been keeping for some three years now of my daily alterations in mood. A suggection of my psychiatrist it is, of course, far fro

 Linebaugh in The London Hanged (p14) writes..." new morality became triumphant among the cpaitalist class at the end of the seventeenth century. Christopher Hill contrasted it with the religious attitudes prvailing earlier: 'Labou

 I have been attending a local Mystery reading group - the Erdington Crime Fiction Reading Group - at my local library for a few months now. This is partly as a result of Mark (my therapist/analyst) encouraging me to participate in more 'rea

 I went to a meeting of an organisation called the Positive Mental Health Group yesterday, which is funded by the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Trust. As an experience this was quite an ordeal; any social interaction is, but thi

The serendipity of the past few weeks has been coming across a number of debates and discussions about blogging (well I have met a lot about depression and mental health too but I am probably attuned to see these even where they don't exist!) and

Another diary blog, covering in haphazard form the past few months. I have in fact at various times during these months felt capable of blogging, if only at a rudimentary level, but have desisted beause I have felt that any blog should reach a certai

I have decided from time to time to create what might be termed a Diary Blog. This is necessarily a somewhat self-indulgent exercise but since this blog is a form of therapy for me (indeed this may be its chief value!) this objection has little force

An appalling report in The Times on 15/12/05 (it has taken me a while to catch up!) on standards of cleanliness in English hospitals. To quote........ ''The six dirtiest hospitals were all NHS mental health hospitals......Worst of all was Barrow Ho

A brilliant article by Magnus Linklater in The Times (3/5/06) on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy... >>Freud-lite: the ideal modern cureMagnus Linklater “WHAT PROGRESS we are making!” said Sigmund Freud. “In the Middle Ages they

Here is another poem that was posted on the Women Writers list... Me from Myself -- to banish -- Had I Art -- Impregnable my Fortress Unto All Heart -- But since myself -- assault Me -- How have I peace Except by subjugating Consciousness

On a Yahoo list I am on someone posted this poem...Having it Out with Melancholy by Jane Kenyon1 FROM THE NURSERYWhen I was born, you waited behind a pile of linen in the nursery, and when we were alone, you lay down on top of me, pressingthe bile of

 I am a 48 year old man living in Birmingham, England. If forced to name the three most salient facts about me they would be.....1. I am left-wing. I hesitate to be more specific than this, as any precise political designation raises so many questio