Showing posts with label #mentalhealthweek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #mentalhealthweek. Show all posts

Friday, July 12, 2019

Jesse Morgan #rcmentalhealth

Jesse Morgan

Back from break [six minutes at the top of the next hour after Cuff]

“Jesse Morgan” states his name.

He swears by Almighty God.

You have made a statement with the assistance of lawyers.

“In an official role and unofficial role”.

In 2015 he commenced an official role.

Who was in the home when you were growing up as a teenager?

Jesse; mum; brother.

Unofficial role: my mum had significant mental and physical health issues including agoraphobia - she stayed in the house and would stay in her room.

It meant that he had to step up and be more mature than he was and do stuff.

14 years at the time he described - the younger brother was 8 years old.

Jesse had a job and worked 6 days a week to provide for his family while going to school and extracurricular activities while trying to be responsible for himself and his mum and brother.

He ate a lot of pesto pasta - he had the same rotation - now pasta is banned in his household [very funny]!

He didn’t know a lot so he stuck to what he knew - easy things which are cheap because he didn’t have a lot of money.

Jesse didn’t have much support. Mum had case managers and people she would interact with.

Jesse and brother didn’t interact with support - couple fo reasons for that. He didn’t like talking to people.

He had a bad experience with a counsellor when he was younger and he didn’t like sharing emotions and didn’t know whether to deal with them - he decided not to.

The other reason: the constant fear of being separated from each other.

DHS [Department of Human Services] hung over as a fear and if they knew the extent of how they were living and the issues - brother and mother and Jesse would be separated and taken into foster care.

Engaging - he felt that telling people - that threat would be realised.

Practical things he did - another aspect is that you had to take turns to leave the house [Jesse and brother].

Jesse’s turn would be outside of high school and help around the house and when the brother got home took over.

They would end up fighting often - who had to stay home.

Many Friday nights the brothers would have plans - one of them needed to be home.

2015: Jesse’s Mum’s condition. What happened?

Halfway through 2015 something came to a head at the end of the year - she was being poisoned by the medication she was on - she was having hallucinations auditory and visual.

She could feel things in her and on her skin that were there - command hallucinations - brothers have lots of stories about what happened

As a carer he helped her in the bathroom and showering in case she was falling over and other reasons.

She came home from something and had fallen over in the yard. Jesse was sleep and his mum was screaming and she was on the ground.

“I am on fire,” said the mother - she felt like she was on fire.

Jesse needed to call the ambulance but he had a conservation in his head - she doesn’t want to be taken away to the psychiatric ward.

He had a battle inside his head - had he betrayed his Mum’s trust? Did he call the ambulance?

She was admitted to hospital - to Box Hill. She was put on an involuntary order or involuntary hold in the psychiatric ward.

They tried to wean her off her medication. She was put onto a different medication.

Christmas Day 2015 - brothers went to see the Mum at Maroondah - travelled by public transport - the round trip was 5 hours by public transport.

Brother didn’t go because he didn’t want to see Mum in that state - mother didn’t recognise Jesse who did go on.

He spent five minutes in the room. WE went back to have a frozen meal for Christmas.

She spent until March 2016 from admission to being discharged. It was tough for the brothers.

Jesse had to look after his brother and he was almost an adult by 2016. “We were trying our best”.

Mum came off her medication [the majority]. She was treated in a way that was inhumane and like she was almost comatose by the medication.

The boys didn’t recognise her either - she wasn’t our mother.

She was determined not to go back or get in a position where this could happen again.

Now she is empowered and she created and maintained a support network for herself that allows her to get better and better. It was self-driven.

She needs assistance for shopping and lifting heavy objects.

For Jesse is easier - less around physical help and more around emotional support and championing Mum and trying to keep her going and how she is doing a good job.

Commissioner asks about the Carers’ Allowance: he started receiving it in 2015-16 - before he didn’t know he could get it. He was on Youth Allowance and looking for a job that he knew he wasn’t going to take because he was caring.

He didn’t care about the result of it and he just kept looking for jobs.

Social workers pointed it out - Why aren’t you on the Carers’ Allowance?

Jesse’s own mental health issues - his father was abusive from 0 to 6 years old.

It had significant impacts on the brothers and Mum - different mental illnesses for them all.

As a result of the impact of the father - until he was 20 he was an angry person. He was physically violent and verbally abusive - that was the role modelling he received.

How you are meant to deal with your emotions and relate to other people.

That was part of it, and as he got into his teens he started dealing with undiagnosed depression.

He had never got a formal diagnosis - having been around depression and did his research - that is how he felt.

When he had lots on his plate he dropped out of year 12 because of his depression and caring was even harder. He felt like instead of going to school he would focus on one thing that was stressful enough [and that makes a difference when school often doesn’t].

He would often stay in his room because he didn’t want to deal with anything.

What needs to change with the system?

  1. Firstly, in terms of caring, as a young carer, he was listening to Rose and Jesse would like to echo a lot of it. “Everything was hard; I didn’t know what I was doing; deal with own emotions and help Mum and be a crutch for my brother”. The threat of separation hung over. If one thing can change people can look into that and set up support which is not threatening. Peer support would have been great. Mum said “You could have been engaged with peer support - it would have been less scary”. Mum had lots of supports - Jesse and the brother didn’t. Someone to interact with if he didn’t know what to do - having your own case manager.
  2. Statistics into young mens’ mental health is atrocious - suciide is then cause of death in young men - three times more than women. Young men don’t know how to share. His lived experience and his brother’s lived experience and the groups experience - suggests it’s hard to share and tell them that life sucks sometimes. Early intervention into that - and telling guys what being masculine isn’t being tough. Having the ability to say I’m not OK - that’s a hundred times better. [Jesse is crying here]. The Mancave is an organisation he mentions that goes into schools. Emotions for guys to recognise.
OK, Jesse.

Do the Commissioners have any questions?


Jesse is excused.

Rose Cuff #rcmentalhealth #satellite #families #fapmi #spaceforus #my.spot

Rose Cuff

“The next witness to be called is Rose Cuff” [four minutes at the top of the hour].

“I sincerely declare” …

She is trained in brief therapy and occupational therapy.

1995 is where she began her work with children and families.

The parent has a mental illness - in particular she was part fo the development of

Strategy of FPHNE - 2007.

She is the Statewide Co-ordinator.

Blueberry Centre - integrated practice research centre in La Trobe University.

Her role is: “oversee implementation of the programme across the adult mental health services and partners in Victoria”. [6 minutes at the top of the hour]

Separately she is a voluntary holder of Satellite Foundation.

NGO organisation - voice and creative space for children and young people who have a mentally ill parents or parents.

It exists in adult mental health too - Rose explains:

it is an endeavour supported by the State Government to identify the parents as they go through the service - employment and mental health services of senior commissions - experience and shape the way services are shaped - how parents children and family members interact.

A powerful preventative opportunity - parents and children identified more routinely so there is less risk.

1: identification
2: validation
3: comprehensive assistance through understanding. [eight minutes at the top of the hour]

Strength and Vulnerability Framework versus a risk/deficit one.

A large number of people are seeking service, Cuff says. When children are involved it becomes very risk-oriented/orientated.

Children are necessarily at a risk [it is thought so].

Satellite tries to understand a more balanced view and passes it on to the services involved.

Upskilling the workforce through conversational work.

Strengthen support and resources - responding to risk when necessary. Services do need to know!

The co-ordinators support key support programmes for young people [like key worker types?]

Specific programmes young people can attend and participate in.

Targeted services for primary school children; teenagers and parents. Bringing children and parents together - bringing it into that family.

Hard to talk about within families and communities - children in particular struggle to understand.

Connected to other young people and children and then reach out to community supports which they connect with. [eleven minutes at the top of the hour].

IMPACT: is not a linear thing.

It is a bi-directional impact - nature; episodic?; developmental ages and stages of children

Should be viewed in a systemic whole-family way.

The impact - extremely traumatic for families to experience mental illness in a family member.

High rates of separation; divorce; family breakdown - especially if it is later-onset and happens when they are a parent.

Children can struggle to understand what is happening to their family - statistically they are at risk of significant mental health issues - twice as likely - without intervention / support.

Reducing the risk with early intervention.

Risk of cumulative harm - not always. [I think of a set of rocks and water].

Day-to-day parenting without adequately supported - no access to the things that young people need to help and develop.

Effective early intervention - explain this further - there aren’t easy-to-access programmes to assist.

For C and YP if you have a family with MI - C struggle with Issues - they don’t qualify for those three programmes - there is nothing.

Ongoing services - schools are very well provided - falling through the gaps - primary-school age children. 

The perinatal period too [peri- and post-natal depression].

Flying under the radar - becoming invisible.

Children become carers for many reasons.

  1. A term which is used extensively in the service system - I wonder if many people relate to it. They don’t see themselves - they see themselves DOING THE WORK. IN the absence of any other adult - single parent. Taking on the roles of cooking and shopping; paying bills; giving medication
  2. Because they have just always done it - normal? second nature? Rose has talked to many children who do extensive amounts of work and they miss school - nothing is wrong with this - ordinary children doing extraordinary things
  3. An absence of other social support and networks - invisiblilty is a big experience here. A “code of silence” - parents are very chary and fearful of reaching out for support for fear of judgement - THE BIGGEST BARRIER to help-seeking

Yes, help seeking is a big barrier for the children. It looks like there is food in the cupboard - there may not be.

This is the way children protect their parents. Reluctant to speak up with schools and with friends.

[schools and friends find out anyway].

And Rose talks about cultural backgrounds.
  1. Cultural families and norms - how caring is perceived within - caring for/caring about. Step up and it is just done in some families.
  2. Cultural background is enormously significant. When we talk about mental illness and cultural roles - the language is often very different - seek a listening and timerich space which is not currently in the Victorian system.
How it is understood and experienced by different

Mental illness is not often a term used by families. [twenty minutes at the top of the hour]

ATSI families would not talk about this - they don’t use the word - they speak their own language and terminologies - emotional wellbeing might be one of them.

Does it have the same family or YP understanding?

Talk about things that resonates with the family, not just with you lot [Satellite/Blueberry].

How is the system of support operating? Do they want or need support - what might that look like in the community?

Main challenges: struggling to go to school and access to school-based services.

Access to services for young children - many families are struggling with multiple challenges - running a car - public transport - parents interaction

Children benefit form social interaction - those are immensely challenging for parents. Young people and children don’t get to those things - those important social places tat provide protective factors.

Paid-for transport or community support. They can’t even volunteer transport - not legal for children to travel by themselves.

[What about Uber; Lyft and so on - it’s legal in SanFran and positively encouraged].

They miss out on not just education and work - friendships and social connections.

More at risk of being bullied for not getting to school or doing other things that children think children do.

Ostracised by their peers - looking different the parents.

Many stories of children finding school very lonely.

Children in caring roles experience a wide range of emotions like concern and anxiety.

Resentment and anger are big ones too - losing out on being different - peers and people.

Where do they take these things?

If a parent - if you can accept they can take on responsibility through the home - they feel valued in the role.

If a parent is receiving treatment in a intake facility - creates conflict within the family.

No way of that being communicated - service which can facilitated conversations around parental and child family roles. [twenty-five minutes into the hour]

Hopes and dreams for the future - [foreshortened future? moratorium?] Isolation doesn’t hope or dream it seems. You become used to managing things on your own.

Their trajectory is one of their parent perhaps not recovering - how do we discuss recovery and recovery-oriented approaches?

The sense of hopelessness - they wouldn’t go on to achieve in their own right or make friends.

They might not be able to leave their families - and feel or be like their parents.

You inherit this thing - it is a very common fear. Uncertainty about the future.

FAPMI - and Satellite.

Really working to improve the way that mental health services and respond and work with parents in the adult system.

Equip services + clinicians with conversation and the whole family. The parent comes into the service and they feel welcomed and less judged and discriminated against.

Mechanism are set up early on. Consultation and training and role-modelling with the conversations of the clinician and parent and child sometimes.

Satellite: fill a gap that harnesses the potential and strength and resources of young people and individuate and realise their hopes and dreams and do the things children and young people need to do.

Art and creativity taps into and gives them a voice. Children’s voices get lost in this narrative - they are hard to be heard and invisible.

In peer support - people get heard and seen and listened to.

The programmes aren’t routinely available across the whole state - some under FAPMI - not implemented state-wide as yet.

CHANCE programme was developed in the 1990s? 2000s? 8-12 year olds who have parents with mental illness - key component - peer support facilitated space for children to come together with a psychoeducation component.

They learn about self-care and self-compassion and share stories and have fun.

The programme has a parent component now because of a review. The children come in as the same time as their families [grandparnets; families; uncles; aunts; parents].

Much more open communication where they come home - most of the conversations are at home and within the family.

SPACE for US is for 13-18 year olds. A similar core aim have teenagers meet other teenagers.

Peer leader - young person with Lived Experience - co-lead the programme - they talk about their story.

Holiday programmes and a camp - after school-programmes of 8 weeks.

Schiz - Supporting Kids in Primary Schools - mental health promotion - not currently running because of funding - goes into primary schools 5 and 6 - teachers and parents and a person with Lived Experience and a young carer.

Spectrum of mental health - things children might notice - equip teachers - be more attuned to a student to whom this is happening. Children were able to approach teacheers.

MY.SPOT is a new online intervention - proof of concept stage - online 6-week programme for young adults 18-25 years. It runs online and has different topics each week with a chat facility.

Purpose of my spot - seeing they’re not alone - they have a core of “we’re not alone”/“you’re not responsible for your parents’ mental illness”/“there’s information you can get about what’s happening to you and your family”.

Programmes that might not be happening at present - routine identification [thirty-four minutes at the bottom of the hour]

Rose Cuff’s key message - Endeavour program - system change takes time.

Be on the look out to understand vulnerable parents - important to take time to engage with vulnerable parents and children - break that cycle of intergenerational trauma and vulnerability.

Planned respite used to be readily available - this idea is of key planning.

Families do bushfire plans. Family caring not so much! Everyone contributes to that care plan - children are part of it - they know very well what to do and attuned to the warning signs.

Going to stay with a family member; case manager; family meeting.

Less reactive; less crisis-driven. Stretched and reactive is the system at the moment.

Act early; plan better.

A lot of stigma around respite - it should be a strength - a parent made a decision to put things into place when they need to be put into place.

The next area she speaks of: potential area of change - clear access to services

When we talk about services - spaces and places in between which are not available for children young people and families.

“It takes a village”. Where do young people and children go? Where do they go to get information? How do they get practical support? Like shopping and cleaning.

Not just online support - younger children have a voice here and their families too.

Improving the online supports and Kids’ Helpline is not targeted enough for young carers - Rose encourages people to ring KH - could be enhanced.

Comes up in evidence - universal messages of recovery and possibility for children.

The fragmentation of the system in earlier statements - if we have community public health messages where people go routinely and they are up for these conversations with children and families about wellbeing.

Through to where there is serious and recurring - so many elephants in the room. Getting messages to young people - it’s OK to talk about it

Wherever you go you can talk about it.

Thank you RC.

Questions from the Commissioners

This one is about “powerful recollections” about challenges and resilience and determination and love - how do you navigate the triage system?

Adults coach others in how to use the right language. What is the advocacy involved that young people can access? Their families?

Rose Cuff: it should be part of the work at every level. C and YP in the Families should have consent and supported these skills of how to navigate systems. Taught how to get the right language for the right help.

Independent Mental Health Advocacy services - coaching not to be afraid and to take on those skills.

This is part of the Mental Health Act!

It can be quite confronting - maybe they feel they’re too young - maybe it’s the only way a young person can have agency.

The Family Health programme can advocate and support.

That would be good to have an advanced statement. [forty-three minutes at the bottom of the hour]

[There is a lot of rain and I cannot hear so well - I turned up the two bars].

May asked these questions and Rose can be excused.

There is morning break.

I think Jesse Morgan will be next and I will get his file up. During the break I will read the Cuff file.


I think witnesses also speak for 35 minutes and then there are questions that Commissioners may ask.

“This has incredible value” ... something every family member and carer should know

Prologue here:

Dictee is important. Yes; even if you're deaf or dyslexic. It's an element of the French and Francophone system which doesn't ever seem to go away. It was particularly helpful for me today this Bastille Day weekend - if nothing else it keeps a student or a person occupied, and thus in good mental health and occupational therapy.

I have been working on oral histories like Alexievich's Secondhand Time [2016] and Recording Oral History: a guide for the humanities and social sciences ed3 from Raleigh Yow [2015].

You’re not just there to supplement or replace the Government.

“Struggle without their presence - or significant contribution”.

What matters to carers? this is what today is about.

How to recognise and support the contribution.

Planning for the future - growing and ageing population.

Diminishing presence in lives and communities a difficult question for many to consider.

The role of young carers - how will they be best supported?

The impact will be profound.

I wonder if Rebecca Thomas is just such a young carer? Or is she a more traditional one?

Carers spoke about the rewards of their caring roles - sharing a deep personal bond.

How hard it can be - relentless and ongoing.

The need to be recognised; respected; assessment; treatment.

Requirements in legislation and the value of sharing information.

Connection to supports and services which respond to the breadth of loved ones’ needs.

Repeating information - justice; education; housing; health services.

Supports for carers too specifically to help.

Excessive expectations from a pressured system - their loved one is home too soon.

A range of different prospects: Rebecca Thomas has a family with multi-generational issues.

She cared for her mother first. Teenage and adult years - later on she cared for her two brothers - one brother died from suicide earlier in 2019.

She is part of the support network for her family and other people.

RT is under a RPO.

Rose Cuff - state-wide co-ordinator for parents with a mental illness - FAPNE - how people come to be carers for their parents.

Jessie Morgan - carer for his mum. He is 25 years old - has been caring for mother since 14 - cooking; shopping; part-time work; going to school. He had no supports or help with those things. Consequences for schooling - set him back.

His caring role was always his priority. He has his own mental

Mary Pershall - she will talk about Anna. Anna needed a lot of help when she was very young - she did get a stable treatment environment even if she was imprisoned for it. 17-year sentence for manslaughter

Margaret Leggatt - Wellways Australia - we fight to get their e-mails. She talks about schizophrenia [like Anna has - she probably has schizoaffective disorder].


John Murray and Kate - parents of a daughter who had an eating disorder. Speak of their joint experiences. Journey from teenager to adult. Pen-name RPO [restricted publication order].

Sunday, October 15, 2017

#31for21 #mentalhealthweek Symphonies Slowly down the Ganges and into Hokkaido/Kyoto with Dvorak; Kats-Chernin; Mendelssohn; Beethoven; Tom Petty

Elena Kats-Chernin made Macquarie's Castle: Saxophone Concerto. She has also done a lot of work for cellos and horns and especially clarinets.

There was Dvorak and Mendelssohn as well as the Eighth Symphony of Beethoven.

The performance of the Dvorak op. 44 Serenade in D Minor for Wind Instruments is from the Romanian Federation for Excellence in Music. I read a very interesting PowerPoint presentation from the Lancaster Disability Studies Conference - am not a hundred percent sure whether it was from 2006 or 2010 - the conference is biennial and the very first one was in 2003. People like Larry Arnold and Sara Ryan have presented at it. The presentation was about the last 10 years in Romania and disability thinking in that country.

This is the piece Ornamental Air which Kats-Chernin had to compose for Michael Collins who plays the basset clarinet. I know that this clarinet is lower than the other clarinets in its keys and tones. He says: "There is a softer edge".

It is a big bravura performance for the clarinets too.

Someone who plays the basset horn is Lloyd van't Hoff. He has a series of videos from Booroondara.



Here is a German orchestra playing Mendelssohn's Konzertstuck opus 113.

And the Proms are always wonderful to try to listen to and be among.

Have loved Daniel Barenboim for quite a while now! And the drums and percussion are wild!




The energy and the dynamic involved was really something - the ensemble work was great.

In other musical lives and news, there was a Tom Petty tribute on the 8th October 2017 edition of RageAgain - I think it was the beginning of the first session.


And it does feel like the Ides of October around here.

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step" - Lao Tzu.

And Longfellow said something very poetic about sleep - no matter how it comes it is to be welcomed.

There was a good piece with Stevie Nicks and the Heartbreakers and the other one called You Wreck Me.

And was it, Petty, really, who sang MAKE IT BETTER? It is the last chapter in Falk's Stripping the gurus and it's intended to help people who have been through cults like Geoffrey had been with Yogadanda.

I am reading a thesis at the moment from the Open University which is about parental construction of attention deficit and hyperactivity from 2014.

The historical construction of a controversial category and other July 2014 highlights

And there was some good writing about AS and A2 levels of World Development as well, seeing what the students processed about it was interesting. The same author wrote about Finland and how people construct themselves.

There is that famous Petty song - I won't back down.

Thinking of this interesting Hokkaido town called Urakata which had Bethel House and these people who made an enterprise.

DownsTownMall - self-advocates do everything from gourmet pop corn to novelty sunglasses to modelling

There are at least 2 cardmaking businesses {Inspires2Aspire; Hailey's Card COmpany; Allie Art Designs} and a food truck which sells snow cones.

Partners [awareness + support] can fill in forms for the DownsTownMall, which require 25$ US for an ad or something similar.

It was good catching up with Kirsten Kirton's Mum and Cindy Anderson and finding out about Merryn's big Chip and JoJo party where the six-year-olds made their very own birdhouse out of papier-mache and joined in. I even saw the behaviour chart EN had made for the two younger sisters.

The Ethan Saylor Memorial Film Festival took place at the beginning of January 2017. And if you are in the film festivalling spirit and you are or have an actor with Trisomy 21 or someone in the crew or creating space...

And I was able to read the extracts from A special kind of hero by Chris Burke and JoBeth Williams, who had updated the book by 2001 and Burke's niece put in something special as an afterword which referred to all of Burke's travels. And somewhere there in 1981 he had been to Gdansk to see his sister Ellen - that is what I was given to understand by the illustrations.

That wasn't in my Reader's Digest article about Life goes on. Shortly after - this date 25 years ago - he made a film called Jonathan: the boy nobody wanted because Jonathan needed an organ transplant and his guardian who was played by JoBeth Williams went over sun, stars, moon and earth to get it.

There is a good advocacy kit about organ transplants.

Of course Burke was mentioned in Neurodiversity in the classroom which is by Thomas Armstrong in the chapter about Strengths of people with intellectual disability where there are poor niches and enriched niches. You have the same person in a different environment. And it's all linked to curriculum standards.

Might mention some other quick books I found while looking at the sponsors associated with A special kind of hero. [I think you can tell it was written in the 1990s for a religious press - Doubleday - which did lots of populist biographies].

Hour histories contain lots of US Presidents and I tried a President's quiz about Eisenhower on Homeschooling High School.

One fascinating Hour History was about Brunel. And he came up in the LDSC.

And there are quotes for various jobs like artist and scientist and writer and entrepreneur. You can buy the whole set of 6 on Amazon.

History in an Hour seems to be good for people who don't like to read 400~ pages in a sitting.

History in an hour - everything from the First World War to the Afghan Wars

Saturday, October 14, 2017

#31for21 #mentalhealthweek : Rudi Webster's WINNING WAYS IN SEARCH OF YOUR BEST PERFORMANCE [1984]

Grief and ambition can do funny things.

In the 1980s we were so much more positivist than I believe tends to be the case today.

This is nowhere more evident when reading Rudi Webster's Winning ways: in search of your best performance which sportspeople read when they were old and young.

Webster reminds me of two of my favourite characters in Gordon Korman's I want to go home - Rudy Miller, who doesn't want to play any sport at his camp - and Mike Webster who is his foil and boon companion.

The reason I read that book in February 1995 was that I was home from my camp and Maman had had an accident because of my cat on the verandah. I picked it up at the auxiliary that day at the hospital. I also made a bond with Mrs Warry.

And I was introduced to the humour of Korman. He was a literary prodigy who was recognised, nurtured and encouraged in his native Canada.

A lot of sports science comes from Canada especially when Montreal and its Olympiad became the focus. A lot of nations wanted to learn from failure and foster success.

And it was recognised that the old sporting ways did not work.

Fast forward to 2017. Yours truly is tossing a ball and working on an overhead serve.

In the 1990s I had a lot of autoimmune stuff going on which made the conventional way quite dangerous and anxiety-provoking at the very least.

Webster points out that logic and analytical thinking was too much in the minds of the 1980s athlete and coach. So much so that it would inhibit performance.

Another thing which attracted me to Webster were the computer game characters standing on their blocks ready to go on the cover.

Obviously, the interviews with people like Ian and Greg Chappell [you get to learn some underarm secrets and what was happening to put them under pressure in 1981 - 82] were the drawcard as well. Raylene Boyle was interviewed; so was Greg Norman who was starting to be part of the United States Professional Golf Association tour.

Who would have thought that in 2 years Norman would have won the British Open?

Garfield Sobers was great to learn from.

There are Webster's ideas and instructions and then the interviews with fields like Motivation; Pressure; Concentration [this is an important chapter for me]; Self-Confidence [this came up with the view of a 23-year-old who has social anxiety as a big factor due to severe bullying in his school life] and Self-Talk.

I have a feeling that the team in Jane Harper's Force of nature had to work on all this to be who they could be and the best they could be in a family business situation.

Webster was involved in the 1980 Grand Final win of the Richmond Football Club. He was probably one of the few examples of leadership that Richmond players trusted. He was also deeply involved with the Melbourne Football Club.

Geoff Hunt - squash player - is another interesting athlete. His sport is squash, and he had a lot to say about motivation.

Penfield had a really good sketch of the cerebral cortex and everything which happens in it or that depends upon it. That book by that neurologist was made in 1975.

1. Improve skills.

2. Improve fitness

3. Select and execute.

4. Cope with demands

5. Control disruptions and distractions which destroy and limit performance standards

[Rudi Webster on Motivation].

Thinking patterns and self-talk were important.

Some experienced sportspeople in my life did not seem to understand about the importance and role of self-talk until I had mentioned it - before I had read the Webster book.

I am intimately familiar with self-talk.


  • Commands and Demands
  • Awfulizing and Catastrophising
  • Irrational Statements
  • Wanting to please [this of course is extrinsic motivation]
  • Self-damning and self-destructive
Webster used Rational and Emotive Therapy from Ellis - I did too in 2004-05. And, yes, this does help with the thinking part of anxiety and depression.

Webster was originally a Barbados boy and came to Australia somewhere in the 1970s. He studied to be a diagnostic radiologist.

There was a really good weblink about self-acceptance and social anxiety.

https://plus.google.com/102294002018698376746/posts/casqviLmkm5

https://plus.google.com/102294002018698376746/posts/N4QVjX9zMzT [about acceptance and commitment therapy: Evelyn Lewin]

https://plus.google.com/102294002018698376746/posts/b7y4t16mxtT [Happy Maturity with Wendy Squires]

https://plus.google.com/102294002018698376746/posts/eUfPr5t7Dye

https://plus.google.com/102294002018698376746/posts/GBKeabfEE3Q

https://plus.google.com/102294002018698376746/posts/N9qWM5x7VR2 [support the accessible playground from Touched by Olivia and maybe buy a million scones - this is how kids should raise money]

https://plus.google.com/102294002018698376746/posts/UVjJ4xN5gXP

https://plus.google.com/102294002018698376746/posts/b6G71QW7xRj

Friday, October 13, 2017

#31for21 Who is #mentalhealthweek for? And Jane Harper's FORCE OF NATURE

Today is the #DisabilityThinking #linkup. Thank you Andrew Pulrang and everyone who contributes.
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Who is Mental Health Week for?

Mental Health Week is for workers. Writers. Artists. Scientists. Landscape designers. Singers. Songwriters. Theatre critics. Logisticians. Musicians. Cleaners. Cooks. Chefs. Food services personnel. Pensioners. Traders. Universal Basic Incomers. Gig economists.

It's for leaders. Managers. Executives. Activists. Advocates. Wise minds.

Mental Health Week is for followers. The people on Twitter. Facebook. WeChat. QChat. ICQ. Blogger. Google Plus. LiveJournal. VKontakt.

Mental Health Week is for psychologists. Psychiatrists. General practitioners. Specialists. Receptionists and administrative personnel.

Mental Health Week is for people in the street. Transient residents. Migrants. Refugees. Asylum seekers. Your street press vendor like The Big Issue.

Mental Health Week is for social workers. Independent living centre people. Peer supporters. Sex educators. Certified. Licensed.

Mental Health Week is for children. Teens. Tweens. Babies. The unborn and those yet to be born.

Mental Health Week is for senior citizens.

Mental Health Week is for survivors. Veterans. Travellers. Backpackers. People who have been through torture. People who have been through terrorism. People who endure through war and through peace.

Mental Health Week is for animals and plants. Service animals. Psychiatric service dogs. Trauma dogs. Hearing dogs. Guide Dogs and Seeing Eye dogs. Birds. Insects. Amoeba.

Mental Health Week is for sportspeople. Footballers. Tennis players. Mind sports people. Archers. Canoeists. Kayakers. Sailors. Rugby players. Wheelchair sports. Golfers.

Mental Health Week is for culturally and linguistically diverse people whether you speak the 800 languages and dialects of Papua New Guinea or a world language like Mandarin or Spanish or Portuguese or Arabic. It's for Africans. Melanesians. Polynesians. Micronesians. North and South Americans. Central Americans. Australians. Europeans. Asians.

Mental Health Week is for all the people who have died in the service of mental health or so that we may have life and lives.

Mental Health Week is for prisoners and criminals and those in the judicial systems.

Mental Health Week is for Freudians; Jungians; Adlerians; behaviourists; cognitivists; humanists; eclectics and those whose practises come under many names and none at all. It's for the agnostics and the gnostics; the intuitives and the sensors and even the censors.

Mental Health Week is for disabled people / people with disabilities.

Mental Health Week is for families. Cousins. Siblings. Great-grand-parents. Chosen families.

Mental Health Week is for friends.

Mental Health Week is for haters.

Mental Health Week is for past; present; future.

Mental Health Week is for people who are silent and people who speak out.

Mental Health Week is for all the feels: grief. shame. excitement. agitation. calmness.

If Mental Health Week can not be for everybody; then it is for nobody.

Mental Health Week is for you. It's for me. It's for us. It's for them. It's for they and she and he and sir and peer and ou.