Friday 14 October 2011

Ian Springham - Portrait of a talented artist

One of the great pluses of working for a mainstream organisation like 'Imagine' is the opportunity it gives to meet and work with a diverse range of talented people.  The artist and painter Ian Springham has tutored in mixed media for Imagine.  He also co-organised an exhibition at Wimbledon Library gallery.  This is Ian's story:

'In my 30s, I experienced a series of breakdowns far beyond anything thitherto experienced. It felt as though the entire Universe had exploded, the echoes of which long reverberated in my psyche.

Whilst trying to find appropriate help, I had to deal with an ever-more bewildering set of diagnoses, as I revealed more of my inner world. My labelling starting with Panic Disorder and went through to Borderline Personality Disorder and beyond ..

Despite this admirable list, there seemed to be little means of help available and whilst awaiting therapy, as well as researching and joining groups online such as BorderlineUK and PersonalityPlus, I joined the Service Users Network. However, what I really needed was one-on-one psychotherapy. After incessant badgering from my wife, 13 psychotherapeutic sessions became available. Despite confirming many of my worst fears, they were over before I could start to stuff the released demons back into their respective bottles.

Further pressures from my wife brought about a 40-week series of sessions with an esteemed psychotherapist - such was the complexity of the presenting disorders. Having reached a greater understanding and acceptance of myself, there also being no more therapy available on the NHS, I set upon a haphazard course through Alcoholics Anonymous, Croydon College, and Merton Adult Education’s art classes for people similarly troubled.

There was no stopping me. I blossomed through art and Imagine Mental Health eventually invited me to run their art sessions. This was the outwardly visible start of rebuilding my life, as I found I could use my previously untapped empathy and experiences to help others. Classes and exhibitions of artwork followed, giving confidence in both mine and others’ recovery. Finally I’d found a way through.

Later the MACS drug & alcohol project further extended belief in my artistic and mentoring skills, and lead to me volunteering for the online forum that Rethink Mental Illness provides. I put longstanding IT skills and online experience developed as coping mechanisms, to better and wider use. RethinkTalk is an online community for everyone affected by severe mental illness to exchange ideas, opinions, artwork, and support. My roles there as moderator, guide, advocate, activist, friend, mordant artist, and occasional wit, have hopefully also helped others explore their situations in a safer, more supportive environment.'
Ian Springham

Monday 3 October 2011

Exposure to mainstream life

Mental health service users who live in residential care settings are often in danger of never being able to realise mainstream goals.  For various reasons it turns out that the initial exposure to mainstream life is the key factor in determining an individual's further progress into that milieu.

Residential care covers a range of bases.  It could be a residential home or a family setting, even the setting of a marriage or a personal relationship.  Carers and support workers do not always have their charges' independence as a key priority.  Sometimes carers or family members derive more support for themselves by living or being with the 'cared-for' member than vice versa.  Even staff within the clinical teams are often geared to providing support at the expense of encouraging mainstream development. What this can lead to is a form of unnecessary and intrusive over-protectiveness.

The results of enabling people to access mainstream are frequently nothing short of amazing. When this access is based entirely on clients' own choices the results can become formidable.    

Obliquity and mental health

Formulated by economic theorist and author John Kay, obliquity is the notion that complex goals are often best achieved indirectly. As Kay puts it 'happiness is the product of fulfilment in work and private life, not the repetition of pleasurable actions, so happiness is not achieved by pursuing it'.

Kay is hailed widely as a perceptive business and organisational guru, but his ideas have a great deal of relevance in the mental health field.

Kay is very strong on the question of goals and defining business and personal objectives. However his take is interesting as he does not have a straightforward linear viewpoint.

'We find out about the real nature of our goals in the process of accomplishing them, and our understanding of the complex structures of personal relationships or business organisations is necessarily incomplete', Kay writes.

John Kay underlines the importance of goals and goal-setting, which is commonplace in most business and personal development thinking. But he emphasises that even when we set clear goals, we only 'find out about the real nature of our goals in the process of accomplishing them'.

Nothing could be more true when this perception is applied to mental health, recovery and mainstream.As a social inclusion bridge builder, I am employed to help enable clients set clear goals and prioritise a personal route into and through the mainstream environment. But even when a client has prioritised one specific pathway, it can sometimes be the case that this will not be the area of mainstream that he or she will end up pursuing.

I have clients who have prioritised music or the arts but who soon find a place elsewhere - in sports, volunteering or employment, for example.

It used to be somewhat discouraging to find that clients were not engaging in their originally prioritised mainstream domains. Now I check with other members of the bridge building team and find that many of my original referrals are now active in other areas.

Obliquity in action!

As John Kay puts it: 'the paradox of obliquity is all around us'.