Personal Blogs

All my blogs: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551

  mental health

[ 18 minute read ]

I like to play mind-chess with unsolicited visitors to my home

Sometimes, a person on my doorstep, tries to sell me Broadband or something, and because I don't respond to marketing or sales techniques at all, rather than just poke them in the chest with a broom and shoo them away, I give them the time of day and allow them to practice their elevator-pitch (an opening spiel that is intended to open a door of curiousity). I ask questions and let them respond. Eventually, the conversation peters out and they quietly go, at least a little rejuvenated and not immediately shunned.

Every now and then, a pair of people knock on my door to talk to me about Jesus and God. I thoroughly enjoy these moments because I have a deep belief in the spiritual world, so I am not afraid of any witchcraft or hypnotism they might try to trap me with. Some time ago, I came to understand that 'omnipresent' means, in the past, present and the future. That means that, theoretically, we can pray in the future for our sins in the past and God, being in the future, hears those prayers and prevents us being spoiled by sin, or even committing sin. I use this as a universal truth with the evangelists on my doorstep, and we play mind-chess for a while. If, towards the very end of the conversation, I mention that 'omniscient' means knowing what will happens in the past, present, and future, it shows that planning to pray in the future to cover a sin we are about to commit, is useless because it is not sincere. God and I have a good laugh at this over a brandy and a cigar. Neither of us smoke or drink so we just laugh.

I created James and Brian, two characters to show how foolish most of us are, and especially me. At the end, you can hear God laugh at me, as I cheer James when he leaves.

Mind Chess

The allotment was empty when James got there. The gate was open but there were no delusional would-be market-gardeners to be seen. The exposed dry soil made James think of water. It even smelt dusty today; humidity levels were low, and it hadn’t rained for over five weeks. His own plot was green and abundant with fresh growth but everywhere else was a scene of abandonment. Bare soil with random segregated weeds moping in the sun made James contemptuous of the absent hobbyists and pretenders. Only gooseberry bushes seemed to be growing; gooseberries bushes scattered across arid plots surrounded by congregating weeds vying for position. 

Nobody, it seemed, was concerned with neatness or order, yet farmers, James thought, with all the land they cultivate were tidier than these lazy losers. Some things came easy for James. Knowing that having self-propagating flowering plants with lots of ground-covering foliage that prevented the soil drying out in early Spring was just the obvious thing to do, allowed him spare time. He had long ago concluded that if he hadn’t expended any energy sowing these seeds or tending the plants he really didn’t mind digging them up to plant other preferred seedlings. Some things were difficult for James. Compassion and empathy were alien to him, so much so that he was ruthless even with himself. He had had his turn at suffering and avoided any circumstance that had a probability of happiness, as he saw it. Happiness, he felt, could be taken from him, by accident or by someone’s will. He was disappointed with life and lived a life of asceticism, with no expectation of joy. You might expect him to be in fine physical shape but he was lazy, preferring to use his brain to find ways to alleviate or avoid the toil of hard work. He was also young; not even sixty-two yet.

Pushing his bicycle with day-glow green handlebars and front forks, he went further in, hoping for something stimulating that was emotionally free, but finding nothing of interest. His own plot, he saw, was just as he had left it, green and luscious with its covering of Limnanthes douglasii, or Poached Egg plant. This was safe for him; no emotion or effort put in and free aesthetic value taken out. His mental cost – benefit analysis said ‘win – win’. He was about to leave when he spied a man painting a tiny shed, going just beyond scumbling and changing its colour from grey to duck-egg blue.

James quickly learned that Brian used to be a secondary school teacher, because Brian wanted him to know that he used to be useful. By association with his career, Brian hoped that everyone he told would continue to think that he was a hero, a modern day crusader in driving forward decades of young minds into a bright future but was realistically a voracious and gaping maw of banality in the North East of England, that would swallow up even the sharpest of students. James, on the other hand was an unqualified educator; a corrector of intellectual mistakes, and a ruthless and unfeeling man who had dedicated himself to proving everyone he met, wrong, stupid, a waste of space, or obsolete. 

James had strong views and knew the far-reaching extent of his mind outstripped most others. Where others relied on heuristics, James experimented; where others got information from newspapers, television and social media, James parasitically sucked dry selected information he found in the people he met; though never the information that the host thought valuable and had gleaned from their favourite media sources. James was instead searching for tiny connecting pieces to complete his collection of finished thinking. He needed to understand his world in fine detail, so he could eventually show the rest of the world that he was right to be a loner all along.

There are two types of people according to James; sublime people of high spiritual, moral, or intellectual worth who were beneficial to him; and the rest of the world. James categorised Brian to be obsolete and a drain on public learning. However, Brian, innocently holding his small tin of paint in one hand and a brush in the other, and comfortable in his fug of accumulated miscomprehension had roused James’ interest. Mental stimulation was the drug that kept him alive. He never showed his true colours when he first met someone. Instead, he let them rudely promote themselves and then gave them reasons to go away and think about how they might wake from the weary slumber that was home to their comforting insensibility. James thought himself special. Conversely, he knew this and that is why he hated himself. Self-flagellation had eaten away at James’ confidence and left only a paradigm of behaviour almost completely devoid of compassion.

Initially Brian was friendly and not alarmed and after general conversation on plants and how he had moved his shed Brian suddenly swerved onto a blustering, and clearly unrefined, path with an outburst on people dumping their rubbish in the Birmingham streets. Brian wasn’t quite ranting and James knew that he wasn’t crazy by the standards of the time. He recognised a man that spent at least a couple of hours with a pint in his hand at the bar of his local pub on Sundays. Like everyone else, talking was almost entirely only mental exercise.

‘They just dump their rubbish in the streets’, cried Brian indignantly. ‘I mean their mattresses and things. They should take it all to the tip.’

James, calm in his thinking, knew that not everyone had access to a van or trailer in Birmingham, and there was a rubbish removal-person strike in Birmingham, so no-one could arrange for a mattress or old cupboard to be taken away either. To James, Brian was certainly, by the standards of the day, completely average in his thinking; clearly insane. James, however, was charitable in classing it as ‘lazy and crust coated thinking’. He recognised the patina on Brian’s thinking; patina that was a result of poor maintenance and a reactive exposure to lazy thinkers. ‘Get your thoughts out, use them, Brian, and embellish them with facts and fresh ideas. Where is your inventiveness, Brian?’ he thought. He could almost ‘see’ extraneous bits of thoughts being sheared off in Brian’s head as they were shaped to fit with other similarly corroded thoughts, and cobbled together, to quickly throw up a feeble scaffold so flimsy that only a minor test would knock it down, but sufficient enough for him to formulate his own opinion to use as a remedial buttress; an opinion that once it had reached his fore-brain and left his mouth would be his long-standing fall-back position because it was the only one he had. It would be the next scaffold. Now that it had been recently and neatly placed on the wobbly shelves in the library of Brian’s mind, he would be attracted to its shiny newness. The attendant analogue library filing card for where it was stored, would, with its crisp corners and uncreased facade, for a long while be more attractive than its dog-eared, mis-filed, and stained neighbours. Brian had made his relatable experiences obsolete. Thinking stalled.

James felt compelled to help Brian restart his donkey-engine, cement-mixer type mind; a mind that needed to first be pulled free from a bog of mistreatment.

Unfortunately, the mind is not hermetically sealed from the outside world and the gatekeepers in charge of inward-bound information in Brian’s mind were now baffled by newly installed governors that came in a box-set with a belief that his education was completed when he achieved a recognised teaching qualification.

Brian’s source thought was, ‘I know my subject and the University has told me that I can adequately teach it. I have experience of teaching in secondary schools as part of my degree, so I now know everything I need to bend young minds to think like me. They really should, you know, because I am right. No! More than that, because I care, I am a hero!’

He had, a long time ago, consciously thought, ‘I am so excited. I want to help young people. I really care.’

Any observer could, in retrospect, suggest that the demons were ready and waiting to leap into him to corrupt his valiant hope while he fervently clutched his University approbation, but already they were in him, part of his core, inherited from his parents, and encouraged by his friends and peers.

‘No new information is needed. Don’t explore. You have all the information you need to teach empty heads. Relax.’

‘Well done!’ to Brian meant, ‘You have done enough. You can stop now.’

This necrotic stagnancy was starkly evident to James in the rest of their discussion. Brian had opinions on Government handouts; criminal records preventing people from ever working in their whole lives; and who might attend and be an appropriate recipient at Food Banks. James, with a robust understanding of these social issues through diligent research and empirical knowledge threw in ‘Shame on them!’ as the conversation segued from benefit cheats to habitual scroungers. This left-over salty seasoning of the stew of Brian’s opinion on righteously moaning benefits recipients was too much for Brian’s palate. But James had carefully measured that condiment into his hand to check its volume and supposed effect, and smiled at Brian’s donkey engine mind chewing on old slime and chunks of debris from the his socially-conscious 1990s, when it balked at the jet-wash of fresh briny thinking.

Brian, with his self-assurance, had already made his first mistake with James; thinking that everyone watches television and have similarly long straws that are permanently thrust into the same soup of Orwellian nonsense and thus everyone is supplied with the same delectable but mentally-hostile nourishment. One of the reasons why James did not eat media-cake was because it tastes delicious but is hostile to the body. It satisfies a want, yet secretly poisons a need.

Subconsciously, Brian was reconnoitering for people to add to his group of confirmation-bias addicts; searching for another stumbling mess of a person who prefers an easy route through a jungle of information; a route that was crudely cut by a man with a machete following an animal track, that became a track for illegal loggers. A path that is there by dint of its availability. The more people use it, the more easily it is found, due to its wide and trampled aspect. Brian was used to following the pack. His younger self would have wept.

‘They just dump their rubbish outside other people’s homes in Birmingham.’ Brian remarked, alluding to, though not saying outright, people leaving their rubbish outside the homes of people of colour, and not instead gently placing it outside white people’s homes. James was aware of that happening. He suspected that Brian thought he would jump on his band-wagon of aggrieved righteousness because James was closer in colour to Indians and Middle-Eastern people than the old-school notion of what a European should look like; Scandinavian and Danish Vikings from 1000 years ago. In any case, James didn’t bite. He went the other way in thinking and held one idea back for the shock value, if it was needed.

In his head he went with an idea that, in a lawless environment there is no infrastructure to guide someone towards making mutually beneficial decisions, which came out as, ‘Why not, everyone else is; and where else is there to put it?’ James had now set himself up to fatally fail in his mission to destroy the canker in Brian’s mind. He would never recover from this outward attitude of simplistic laissez-faire.

It was not the first time James had been mistaken for an Asian or Middle-Eastern man. He spent a lot of time outside and grew tanned even by the winter sun. Certainly, he wasn’t going to, without question, be waving a flag for a brown ethnic minority people he did not belong to, and crying foul at every mistake made by a Viking, which Brian, it seems, thought he would.

Neither was he about to run around shouting ‘Up the Vikings!’

‘Is that what you think happens, Brian?’ James thought, ‘Brown people will always have opinions that support only brown people?’ He never said it, though, because he still believed he held the central position in the game of chess, that was, to him, their conversation. He knew that attack would cause Brian to defend, and then there would only be a game of attrition; Brian would never have a confident gambit if he was forced to defend himself. It was his opponents’ gambits that James liked to publicly dissemble.

Brian still believed that James was from the same economic background as himself and maintained his ‘friendly pontificating over a Sunday pint in the village local’ attitude. He breached the subject of criminality and having a criminal record forever preventing young adults from getting jobs. As a teacher, he’d had an enhanced criminal record check because he was working with vulnerable people. He presumed that everyone has the same check; James knew they don’t.

‘On application forms, hopeful people, in the UK, must confess to any convictions within the last ten years. After ten years, their records are deleted, and they are considered reformed and no longer a threat to themselves, the shop-keepers’ sweets, or other people. Actually’, James continued, ‘the records are not deleted. Convictions for most offences are simply not revealed when requested by a potential employer, except for certain crimes.’

Brian looked uncomfortable at this, inconveniently sure that young criminals were eternally doomed and condemned to be forever unemployed by their foolish earlier actions. By this time in the conversation, James knew that Brian, the ex-teacher, still foolishly believed that education universally solves unemployment in all environments, and is the sole and absolute requirement for opportunities for success to emerge. Brian, born in the North East of England has lived in the south of England for too long, and, in James’ mind had forgotten his home. When James added that as an employer, he had worked closely with recruitment agencies to get people at very short notice for some of his contracts, Brian’s spluttering, pollution-spreading engine of a mind encountering a steep incline in the road to progress, switched on the automatic choke because its core temperature still remained too low, and so more stale fuel from his tank of denial was sucked in, at the expense of fresh air. He refused to learn something new or believe that he was wrong. He did not recognise that he needed to purge his system.

Brian shifted back to talking about food banks, believing that it was, in fact, James who was clearly exhibiting signs of mental disorder, and he tried to link education, criminality, and poverty with a circumstance he had read about and seen on the news. From his self-imposed, though much supported by his peers, elevated position of superiority over mentally aberrant individuals, such as this moron before him, he thought that James would agree with his confused and blind belief that all visitors to food banks are food-poor. ‘How can he not see the truth? It is in the newspapers, for goodness sake!’, he irately pondered.

However, when Brian demonstrated this fabricated empathy for peasants living on bread and water, James had to make sure Brian knew that many of them indeed eat cake. He had attended a food bank perhaps five times over as many years. Extra money went out as a larger direct debit than he was anticipating and five more times because he was ineffective in temporarily saving money by switching utility providers.

‘As someone interested in social enterprises, I spent a lot of hours talking to the organisers of local food banks and hubs.’ James explained. ‘All of them complained about rising numbers and how to tax people with a set ‘donation’ of around five pounds for each visit. My input with them was, as a general rule, to not allow people to attend if their benefit is paid that same week.’

James was now beginning to reveal his ruthlessness, but he knew that the same people week after week were getting free food so they could buy luxuries such as eating out and expensive day-trips with the money they saved. This at the expense of both the needy and the food-hubs which spent money on food to accommodate the greedy as well as the hungry.

‘Shame on them’, he said again.

Brian, in his turn, was irritated by James’ arrogance and finally ended the conversation when James tried to explain how needs and wants change as people mature, so financial income has a different utility for different age groups.

‘I really must get on with painting this shed. My wife will kill me if I waste this paint.’

James turned his bike around. A duck in the pond laughed when a jackdaw who had delightedly watched the whole thing called, ‘Hear! Hear!’.

Brian blinked and stared, confounded, and watched, paint pot in one hand and brush in the other, while James pushed his bicycle away, towards the gate at the edge of the allotment and back to the road.More cars were parked at the gate.

James, alone with his thoughts again, was convinced that he had proved himself right. Students really are held back by coasting teachers. Yet, blindly, he had corrupted himself because he had no evidence to back this up. It was still supposition. Nonetheless, he closed his thought-experiment examination of teacher and pupil interaction, and added one more theory to his collection of completed thoughts.

The duck, unable to keep the smile off its face, put its head beneath the water, then needing air, withdrew it,  shook it, and laughed again when the jackdaw flew away.

Blog address for all the posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551

[14 minute read]

Agency or agency? Part One

 Mental Health issues

Roget’s Thesaurus and dictionary, or the Internet?

From the 1962 edition, Roget’s Thesaurus has five entries for possible noun meanings;

agency; instrumentality; action; management; commission.

Eight diversions including ‘action’ which splits off into nine branches and management which splits off into 8 branches and commission which has ten relevant near synonyms, ostensibly under authority, as in ‘to have authority’. And it is perhaps this that I am most interested in alongside, under ‘instrumentality’, ‘effectiveness’. When combined, I am considering someone who has agency in their lives, for the purposes of maintaining their life to a level of that which meets their satisfaction, to have ’authority to be effective’ in their life. However, when someone downloads an app on their phone, have they given over agency to a third party technology firm?

The Oxford English Dictionary website largely reflects my understanding of how we miss out on peripheral information which could be useful to us later or immediately. The page mentions that ‘there are eight meanings listed in OED’s entry for the noun agency’. Impressively, it also gives nearby entries, which would be the words you would see on one of their pages in a book-type dictionary.

https://www.oed.com/dictionary/agency_n?tl=true

And yes, you can log in with your local UK library card, under Institutional Access.

In fact, the OED does not reflect, concur with, or mirror my understanding or sentiment. For me to believe otherwise would be madness. I am not the first to have an understanding that some avenues of seeking information are fraught with danger (There be dragons in uncharted waters) or, following the water theme, there is only a puddle of facts, or there may be a cascade or a fountain, of information. Determining where we get information should not be just about getting information; it should be from sources that allow us to make links to other seas of knowledge. When I say ‘links’ I do not mean canals or even rivers (though these are more organic). ‘links’, is not a modern word and it has been used as a verb for a long time, and today means, clicking an onscreen icon or text to open a new page on a device with a screen. I don’t even mean that. No! I mean how a tide ebbs on a beach and leaves rockpools that invite exploration and scrutiny. I mean a pastime of discovery, of hope and disappointment; a hunt for answers (or crabs).

Read a map or use SatNav?

So many of us use SatNav to guide us in our journeys from one place to another. I was once a professional driver. I can tell you that a SatNav should only be used for the final mile of travel. The whole of the rest of the journey should be by way of following a map and an A-Z of the city you are to visit. We should take back our decisions to go where we choose to avoid traffic and delays. The best use of a SatNav is to get you out of trouble. Follow the A-Z until there is a police incident right before you and then because the SatNav is on, do a U-turn and follow the SatNav to a safe place to stop and look at the map and A-Z again. Knowing where you are is both reassuring and interesting. I will give you an example of lazy driving; my own. I have always wanted to visit Chartes Cathedral, in France. I had to drive to Madrid, in Spain having set off from the south of England. Foolishly, I did not look at a map of France to see the alternatives routes I could take. Suddenly, I entered Chartes and there was the Cathedral. Two things then happened. My experience as a multi-drop driver told me to never stop unless it is for fuel or a breakdown, and my fatigue and reliance on the SatNav had sent me into a passive role. In effect, the ex-multi-drop driver was in control and driving, and the owner of an International Relocation business, me, was asleep at the wheel. I saw it there, only a couple of hundred metres away, but drove right past Chartes Cathedral. I was switched off; stupefied; semi-conscious; a passenger in my own life; dulled; blunted; unalert and boring. Effectively, the plan to get to Madrid overrode the formation of any new ad hoc plan to enjoy the journey.

Back to the reality of taking away the mundane task of being awake in England.

‘York Way is a major road in the London Borough of Islington, running north for one mile from the junction of Pentonville Road and Euston Road, adjacent to King's Cross railway station towards Kentish Town and Holloway.’ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York_Way

You don't need to understand the route I am describing or even know London, England at all. You only need to look at a map.

York Way runs parallel to the A1 (Upper Street, Pentonville), which is to the east. The cars on the single-carriageway A1 during evening rush-hour are practically stationary. A SatNav will direct drivers to take this part of the A1 to go North from the major East-West road, the A501, City Road. Need I go on? Okay; at 5pm during the week, York Way is so empty that I have driven at 40mph for over a mile, taken a right turn on Fortess Road, at Tufnell Park, and driven at 30mph until I joined the A1 in Upper Holloway where the A1 is a dual carriageway. Any London A-Z will show this as a good route, just as is Caledonian Road, which is between York Way and Upper Street (A1). Never mind, just go to sleep and be a passenger behind the steering wheel. You never wanted to have agency over your lives anyway; you just didn’t want your parents to have it.

From the book of Joel (in the Bible) Joel 1:v5:

‘Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.’

Joel goes on to mention a nation that has come upon his land, strong and without number. This invasion has destroyed the vines from which new wine is made. Make what you will of that. Just picture an idyllic life in a rural setting in the sun and then take away the light from the sun and use only LED lights during the day. Take away the warmth of the sun and the fresh air and enclose the garden so the air-conditioner, dehumidifier, and heater are not wasted. Take away the smells of the flowers and rinse the air free from scent. Then you have my concept of blindly using a SatNav.

Bus timetable or phone app?

I worked in The Netherlands for a while and would catch the bus to Leiden, a major university town, in Holland. It is pronounced Ly-Den. I would wait for the bus without knowing when it would come, content in watching the Dutch world pass by. When the bus came, I would say, ‘Leiden alstublieft’ (alstublieft means please). The bus driver would say ‘Leide?’ (Ly-Der), and I would say, ‘Yes’. If I asked to go to Leide, the driver would say, ‘Leiden?’ (Ly-Den), and I would say ‘Yes’. This is an amusing quirk of catching a bus that could occur in any country, including our own. Catching a bus is not a dull, uneventful, journey of no value. Yet, so many of us use phone apps to see where the bus is and when it will arrive. I suspect this is because there is no recognition of an opportunity to engage with a moment in time that is significantly different to other times and has so much potential for activities that other times do not hold.

I had a new girlfriend of just a few months. I had booked tickets for a play in Plymouth; she lived in Devon. I had agency over the evolution of the day effectively. Of course, she would also share decision-making and she was a strong woman, and could end her participation in events at any time; of course. 

While we were still in her home, she instructed me to phone for details on train arrivals.

     'Are you going to phone, or do I have to?', she said, stridently annoyed at my relaxed attitude towards chaos.

I already had a printed timetable in my pocket; of course I did. I duly phoned and told her train times. To her, it seemed the world, with me in it, had obediently returned to a state of control. Within the same breath I ended our relationship. By this time, I had recognised that she didn’t want to live her life; she wanted to have lived it. She didn’t want to be going somewhere; she wanted to have already arrived. I reasoned the end of the relationship thus: When would we be able to explore the train station with our eyes while sitting on a worn bench eating an expensive stale sausage roll and pulling faces at  the rancid coffee bought on the platform? When would we have a moment to idle and meld into the ebb and flow of the station? When would we be able to smile at the other waiting passengers? Never. We would forever waste time in our homes, twiddling our thumbs while we wait for the taxi that will drop us off with just a minute or two before we would be whisked off on a silent train. You might think that all the fun things we could have done on the platform could be done now, on the train. There is one problem though, we cannot get off the train; we cannot change our destiny; we have given agency of our lives over to the taxi-driver and then to the inevitability of the train movement and arrival. Caught in a tide over which we have no control we won’t find the moment to just softly say, with any real and overwhelming conviction or sentiment, ‘I love you’, or ‘You make me smile’, or something. Our lives together would always be on the clock; segmented into episodes of how to best give our freedom away. It would be fettered by preparing for the moment when we must act; when we must march over to another ‘fairground ride’ over which we have no control and have paid handsomely for.

My, now ex-girlfriend, wouldn’t get on the London Underground; she preferred the buses. I love the Underground and Metro systems across the world. There is a growing sense of anticipation on the London Underground of the arrival of the train that announces its imminent appearance with a whoosh of warm and humid air just before it leaves the tunnel and meets the platform. I love that nobody looks at each other in the eye. I love that teenage girls who are friends sit on opposite sides of the carriage and signal to each other which of the young men standing between them have the best bum or bulge, with little head nods directed towards the winner of their secret competition. I love that they think it is fine to objectify men and judge them on their physical attributes because it is only a looking game for them, which they will grow out of. I love that they are not looking at their Smartphones. I hate that they are not looking at their Smartphones because they are safely tucked away so no-one will steal them. I love that they are forced to play little games that connect them to each other and their environment. I know that they can't get a signal for their Smartphones.

If I catch a bus to work each day, I know when the bus arrives; I don’t need an app on my phone because the discovery has already been made. If I am to only catch a bus once, let’s say to get somewhere in a city I don’t know, I don’t need an app on my phone; I will simply look at a bus timetable or swear because there is none, or ask someone who might know something. You never know, perhaps that elderly person at the bus stop will not get to speak to another person for the rest of the day. In any case, I will experience catching a bus and riding the bus or a train. If I love it, am bored by it, cramped because I have long legs, or just hate it; at least I will be alive and not be someone who just wanted to have lived, but never understood how to.

Cook now or cook later? Smart Meters

Some time ago I shared a house with someone who did not believe that chips could be made at home. I also shared a house with someone else who did not believe me when I told him that mashed potatoes is made with potatoes. He thought mashed potato comes out of a packet, and to actually boil and mash potatoes was the wrong thing to do in a kitchen. I had to show both of them what to do with potatoes.

I like making chips (strips of potatoes deep-fried in oil); sometimes I make crisps (very thinly sliced potatoes deep-fried in oil). I also live in an area which has no gas supply. Good restaurants have gas cookers or naked flames because control of heat is essential for cooking well. Cooking on an electric cooker is much, much harder than on a gas cooker. This may be a contributory factor in determining whether people eat healthily at home. Learning to cook with electric WILL give poor results.

A case in point: Most of the UK homes, I think have SmartMeters for the electric supply. They told us that we would save money because we could see how much electric we use. It is very rare that the power used by an electric device is not displayed somewhere on the exterior of an electric appliance. For example, a typical kettle, in the UK, uses between 1700 Watts and 2200 Watts (2200W). Do you need a counter-top device to tell you that you are using, say, 2200W per hour to boil water for your cup of tea? Of course not. Do you need a counter-top device to tell you that if you watch a television that uses 230W per hour, for four hours and twenty minutes you will have used 1kW, or one unit of electricity that has a known price attached to it? Of course not. SmartMeters have not been installed for your benefit; they were installed to notify the electric supplier of your usage and the overall usage of the area in which you live. 

Power supply is fraught with immense difficulty. Electric is difficult to store in large quantity. This means that the actual power generating stations must be agile and adapt extremely quickly to demand and just as importantly, reduce the supply when it is not required. Take for example a major sports event shown on the telly. If there are advertisements many people will get up and boil their kettle; not for the fun of it or to release tension, but for making tea and coffee. This puts an enormous strain on the power grid. SmartMeters have the capability of baffling the amount of power they supply at any given time and are controllable by the power suppliers; you know, the ones who send you a bill for your electric. 

SmartMeters can both limit the quantity of power that passes through them and the rate at which power passes through them. So, it may be that no more than 11kW per hour can ever pass through a SmartMeter, or during the times I want to make chips and need a good supply of unfettered excellent quality electric to make them crispy (usually tea-time) the rate of electric for my whole area is slightly reduced by the power suppliers because everyone else’s SmartMeters told the suppliers that there is usually a very high demand of electric at that time. 

The problem for the power generators (power stations) and controllers of the national grid is that they cannot just press a switch to reduce supply when everyone suddenly finishes cooking for themselves and their families. Oh Boy! Do the power suppliers want us to use microwave ovens that use 750W to 1200W for short periods of times; power usage that would be staggered over time within a regional area? Oh Yes. This is very much a lecture on whoever has knowledge has control over others.

So, do I make my chips now, or when no-one in my village is hungry? I have no agency on when I can make good chips at tea-times. Except that I do; I have a camping stove that uses gas canisters. Not only can I accurately control the heat, I can do it independently of everyone else’s predilection to all eat at the same time. WooHoo! I can control my life a little bit with cooking gas on a camping stove.

To make UK crisps at home you need to salt very thinly sliced potato slices (one of the grater type things that slices works well) and leave for a hour or so for the water to run out of the potato slices, and then deep-fry them in small batches at less than the highest temperature, to make sure the rest of the moisture evaporates off. They do need to be carefully watched because they go from soggy to golden very quickly. Also, they need to be taken from the oil still a bit soggy, to cool, which will allow them to brown a little more as they go crispy.

Blog address for all the posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551

[ 11 minute read ]

Some of this might be historically true

Mental Health issues

People once had money........

Long ago, when humans were sane and had control over their own lives, they were happy. They had agency over their lives. They were a people who made decisions for themselves. ‘Ah ha!’, you cry, ‘Children had decisions made by their parents for them!’. You’re right; until they grew up, moved out, and experimented with the world under their own terms and then discovered that they were actually really rubbish at being responsible. That is when they made friends with their parents, instead of resenting them for interfering in (and ruining) their lives. Once these clueless teens realised that they needed help, they looked around for it and found it in their parents. They then respected their parents. They didn’t realise it, but they respected them. Advice was given to them, along with options that were available to them, and then they navigated the problems and nasty bits of life and got on with their lives. Mum and Dad didn’t fix it for them and so they gained respect for themselves. Because they respected themselves, they looked after themselves and then died; usually naturally, in old age, with money.

Then the world was given home computers, but not before Atari gave some of the adventurous people, ‘Pong’, an on-screen tennis game. ‘Pong’ was fine, it wasn’t addictive; it was only played when they were bored. Boredom meant they had not done enough to entertain themselves. Boredom was a punishment for not leaving their homes and socialising through exercise.

Granted, for some in the halcyon days of long ago, exercise was only given to the right arm that went from waist to chin height, waist to chin height, waist to chin height; with single repetitions of, perhaps, twelve to fifteen per hour, for four hours; and during, and between, this arm-exercise plenty of fluids were taken on-board, while a great deal of socialising took place. Scattered among these mostly male fitness-freaks were a few women. For most, that exercise was restricted to Friday and Saturday nights only; unless a religious holiday, or the last day of the year fell during the week. The reason the weekday restriction was in place was for two reasons only; it was expensive exercise; and this kind of exercise, conversely, impaired work capability. People were greatly respected for this self-imposed responsibility. Arriving at work on a Monday was much celebrated among work-colleagues.

However, for many people, lifting an ever-decreasing weight, twelve to twenty-four times per hour for four to five hours per night was so enjoyable that they did not restrict it to only two days each week, and were so keen to feel the burn the next day that they took no nights off. These people had lots of money! Their work was well paid, and there were whole packs of them with well-fed spouses and children in their warm homes. The only drawback for these people was that too much of this kind of exercise impaired their judgement and they made decisions that they regretted the next day. However, this recognition of making a mistake meant that they were continuing to learn and they were pleasing themselves in making resolutions to improve; in effect, much like their recently ‘left-home’ offspring. Everyone was happy.

Sensible people in the same industries, however, stayed at home during the weeknights. They had other harmless ideas that would never lead to harm. Many of us, today, fondly remember the grandparents of the presently afflicted. Bless them, they could never have known what they had harboured in their safe homes, while their raucous peers eshewed the three channels on the TV, in the UK.

The digital two-player Atari ‘Pong’ game, played through a television set with a home-owned console, was as harmless as tilting a little glass-covered square to manouver a ball-bearing through a maze. Yet, the analogue ball-bearing in maze game was better; Oh, far better! There was a building sense of anticipation that had rising waves and falling troughs of achievement, that if the maze was completed, resulted in such satisfaction and attendant cascading dopamine, that it took many seconds to recover from it; and a sibilant ‘Yes' was commonly heard, at this time. The point is, that people mostly had agency over their lives. They could put the gadgets down.

Then, after a fascinating period of new gadgets; which came about through the invention of the magic transistor; a digital switch (current on – current off) and other arcane digital discoveries and manifestations; a small fraction of the world’s population were told that they could have their own little spooky box that would not only replace their home typewriter, but allow them to make endless copies of their carefully scripted letters to their Councils and Bank-Managers, AND they had real-time editing of those letters. Many homes were cleared from rubbish, both on the floor and in the air; scrunched up balls of paper frustratingly hurled at a bin that didn’t respect their aim, and ‘Dammit!’ vanished. Not only was the typewrite gone but with one of these new digital typing machines that strangely also allowed home accounts to be digitally kept, the bin became nervous from lack of use, and miserably and quietly kept to heel. The kids liked this replacement box and keyboard too, because for a vast amount of treasure (that realistically materialised only two times a year - one being a religious holiday) the games that were played in the amusements arcades, the ones that had bred from the fecundity of new supplicants to the digital games, and moved from the periphery of small nations surrounded by sand and salty water, into the medium sized conurbations, were now available a the flick of a switch. Nobody, however, could afford ALL the games in the palaces of flickering lights and digitally created ‘clangs and dings’, for their home use. The electronic section of a sea-side transported to a town stayed for a while longer next to cinema, without the sea gulls and fish and chips.

Initially though, it was only the serious adults who wanted to appear ‘mentally contained’ to their bosses, and bank managers who bought this home office. They wondered what else to do with it, and separated themselves from their, by now, dreary spouses, to instead push around some digital letters. The strongest mental exercisers found that they could produce digital images and psuedo-presentations. It was, at least, better than the telly, and since they almost never exercised only one arm and never the other arm, found that they could get some separation from their mindlessly raving peers, and a smidgeon of relaxation, not least through silence, unless you discount the music, (with rubbish sound reproduction) they keep on them. Their kids were a bit disappointed as well, because the anticipation of winning a reward of tiny financial wealth by inserting a two pence piece into a glass covered electric machine with a reciprocating wall that may serendipitously push their money into a pool of hundreds of other coins to make them move towards a edge of a precipice that had an access hole to the outside for players to collect their reward, still remained quite firmly at the edges of small countries and in large conurbations, next to the cinema. So, anticipation of a positive reward, lasting for only a few fleeting seconds, was still absent in their homes. Things, however, were about to change.

A bit before 1996, there was a tribe of Japanese technocrats who realised that kids wanted to keep digital pets in their pockets. Finally, anticipation of a dead pet hooked a generation. They gave us ‘The Tamagochi’. The End was Nigh. The Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Atari’s Pong just could not cut the mustard; they were ‘Marmite’, while Tamagochi was crack cocaine.

Today, everyone is an avatar extra in ‘Stepford Wives’ with a perfect life, despite living on a run-down UK Council Estate; or a blur of a person, more excitingly present in both the past and the present, simultaneously in multiple places, but not, consciously, at the breakfast table.

Just so you know, in early 1990s Britain, no-one was surprised to have to wait ninety days for a parcel to arrive; To even think of Just-in-Time supply chains was quite simply madness. Inventory costs, or keeping things in warehouses makes up about 25 per cent of the cost of supplying an item, so if someone ordered something, before Just-in-Time logistics, it had to be ordered from China, or Taiwan, or some other far-off manufacturing country. Unless, it was manufactured in one’s own country or the one next door.

‘We had joy, we had fun. We had seasons in the sun. But, the joy couldn’t last because the season’s went too fast.’ Lyrics in ‘Season’s in The Sun’ sung by Terry Jacks.

..........and then technology arrived.

 

This is the final installment of my humorous submission for gaining a level 3 certificate in Mental Health and Mental Health Advocacy in the Workplace.

Because so much time is lost to mental ill-health, there is a consequent negative effect on the productivity of an organisation. When problems arise in the workplace mentally healthy people are better able to deal with these situations. Having a mentally healthy work environment reduces absenteeism from mental ill-health by reducing the probability of its occurrence as a consequence of the work environment. The reputation of the organisation is enhanced when it is known that the organisation cares for and adequately assists its employees in dealing with mental ill-health, and particularly so when the organisation is proactive in preventing mental un-wellness. By having good mental health physical health is improved and vice-versa.

There are legal responsibilities that organisations must meet; having a mentally healthy workplace is one of them and so there is a compliance to regulations.

Sometimes, in order to define something a list is required to define how groupings are arrived at. However, I am not going to do that because it requires bullet points.

Every employee should have a ‘wellness action plan’ whether they need one or not. It is a confidential document that is shared between the employer and individual employees to whom it specifically pertains to. In it there should be identifying statements that describe, define or even list, what will protect the employee’s mental health and well-being at work. Presumably, this wellness action plan should be beneficially shaped around existing mental health issues for individuals, and is formed around a solid structure of action an employee should take, that is standard for the treatment of all the employees.

Conversations need to start somewhere and so this wellness action plan is an excellent opportunity for employers to probe into potential employees’ lives to ascertain how much work can be wrung out of them before they break. Looking at it in a more benign way, a setting for a conversation about the mental limitations an employee has, had, or is beginning to experience, is a decidedly good position to be in for the employee, as this setting is much formalised and therefore has the scope to be private and confidential. In this way it is a proactive approach to managing mental health in the workplace by anticipating what may go wrong and the effects it may have on certain individuals. It allows safeguards to be put in place and they help to prevent stress and mental ill-health. They also evidence the employer’s efforts and focus on the prevention and management of mental ill-health in the workplace.

Identify key components of a wellness action plan.

Identify – Give sufficient detail so that someone else can recognise your description. This is sometimes used instead of ‘list’ or ‘state’ so think what the question is asking for.

N.B. It is the conjunction of the words ‘identify’, ‘key’, and ‘components’ in the question that drives me to believe that a list with bullet points is appropriate, and allowable here. However, I am under instructions to not use bullet points unless there is a definite call for a list in the question. The advice is that the answer will be ignored where there are bullet points and the question does not ask for a list. Hmmm. I want to use bullet points because it is my aim to learn and not necessarily pass examinations. Certainly, I shall need to completely rewrite this whole assignment to include bullet points where they are most certainly necessary for easy understanding and for compartmentalising information. Altogether, this means that my learning will commence only after the submission of this final assignment and the complete rewriting of it, for my own understanding of the subject.

The key components of a wellness action plan should contain a list of approaches that an individual can use and adapt to support their own mental well-being. Bear in mind that it is recommended that everyone should have a wellness action plan whether they have mental illness or not. So, the frequency of reading or accessing the wellness action plan remains, so far, a less than fully constructed concept. This may mean that a correlation between degree of mental ill-health and frequency of accessing the wellness action plan is fomented. However, the signs and symptoms of stress or mental ill-health should alert the employer and the employee that there are are circumstances that can trigger a spiral of mental diminishment in the employee. This then requires that the wellness action plan is somewhat memorised, otherwise it should be attached to the individual in some way or reviewed in an office daily. There may be other triggers, such as a lack of communication, or feelings of loss of control, that impart a feeling of mental un-wellness in an employee; these should appear in the wellness action plan. The impacts of stresses should be recorded in the wellness action plan. These, of course, would be based on past observations, or levels of probability. An understanding of how the employer can ameliorate potential and real problems in the workplace that does, or will, impact negatively on the employee’s mental wellness, should be in the wellness action plan. Of course, regular reviews, as mentioned earlier, should be conducted to update and amend, where appropriate, the wellness action plan. The employer and employee are free to have any other additions to the wellness action plan wherein they see fit that further additions should be made.

Poverty is known to be a major contributor to mental illness and can seem so insurmountable that some poverty-stricken people decide to take drastic action to avoid the effects of poverty and its seemingly endless strain on the mind. Some people will make themselves homeless; some are made homeless against their will; and, some will end their lives.

Talk to someone, your friends, family, employer or tutor if you are affected by poverty. The goal is to come up with a solution. Even an imagined future can help make us feel better for a little while. That is the time to put a plan into practice.

Samaritans 116 123 (really kind people who listen)

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is a charity that both carries out research and funds third-party research into poverty and its effects. Its focus is on ending poverty in the UK. Its origins are from the philanthropic nature of a Quaker confectioner. It works with private, public and voluntary sectors, and impoverished people. It is politically neutral and has no affiliations with any UK political party. Its areas of work cover: (here come those wonderful semi-colons again) cities, towns and neighbourhoods; housing; income and benefits; people; society; and work. (Wikipedia)

Describe how policy can support the mental health of individuals, including the provision for health and well-being.

We have come a long way from when witches were drowned or burnt at the stake in the Middle Ages. Burnt or drowned simply because some men and women demonstrated behaviour, such as visions, that may, or may not, be indicative, to their peers, of evil possession by a demon, or suchlike. It is fairly well understood that there were more ‘witches’ in the damp late Summers than when Summer culminated in a dry period. Mould, and mildew, and particularly ergot (which grows on damp rye) were prevalent, and set in, in the prolonged damp and warm days. Ergot is an hallucinogenic. Now, in the modern world, we have killed most of the witches, and both men and women are only prone to mental ill-health instead.

Gall’s Law states that ‘A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.’ - John Gall, systems theorist.

Obviously, trying to see whether someone drowns when held underwater, or burn when tied to a stake surrounded by fire, is not a good system to ascertain whether they are merely unwell or spiritually overrun. But at least, they tried.

Making a single rule to apply where it works well is a good start to making a simple system. It is also a good idea to group any rules that work, and make sure they do not out-rule each other. Once a bundle of related rules can be grouped and consistently used, there only remains shaping, reviewing, and shaping again, before they can be the basis for a simple system. Unfortunately, there are no absolutes in our world so we cannot always use the same rules universally. In this case, we rely on making a reliable system by using benchmarks to use as comparisons and levels of achievement in a complex system. Without these benchmarks, we must rely, largely, on subjective guesswork. When benchmarks are reached, both being a point at which there is too much, and too little, of something or other, specific protocols, initiatives, and programmes are brought into play. However, there are rules on when to apply these protocols, initiatives, and programmes. This is known as a ‘policy’.

The Government has a Mental Health policy that is based on a vision of how they would like mental health and mental ill-health services to be delivered. It is perceived to be that, without this overall modern vision, and effective legislation that supports it, the delivery of programmes and services that deal with mental health and mental ill-health will be both fragmented and inadequate. The policy of the Government is to bring about better outcomes through legislation.

One of the Government’s priorities is to prevent mental ill-health and promote well-being. To improve health outcomes and reduce inequalities in health.

Legislation brings health and care professionals, and other attendant service providers into a position of responsibility to promote well-being and be vigilant in discovering mental ill-health. Further, these bodies become active in pursuing enquiries into an individual’s life, including home life, to determine and log the extent of any mental aberration and any deterioration of health therein, sometimes to the mental detriment of the reclusive individual.

Describe strategies to promote well-being

There are strategies that are considered useful to promote well-being that do not have the permission of affected individuals, yet are nevertheless implemented by tacit agreement. One concern here is that some people have an ‘high uncertainty avoidance’ personality, while others a ‘low uncertainty avoidance’ personality, and there are situations in which many people feel uncomfortable, while the same situation allows other individuals to ‘run riot’ through the environment. This, of course, creates an inequality.

Strategies to promote well-being in the workplace or learning environment

Individuals can be given more control over their work or learning. Modern schooling in England has brutally used this strategy to create learning environments in schools that are more conducive to shared responsibility among pupils to study a subject as a group activity and to organise their own work, as opposed to direct lecturing directly from the tutor to the students. This has created a dissipated responsibility for learning in students and an attitude of diminished responsibility for their individual behaviour. Where lectures are absent there is a growing taste in individuals to become lazy in applying concentration to the task at hand, namely; listening to, and understanding any information that is being conveyed. Giving individuals greater control over their work, and the organisation of it, for an individual with an ‘high uncertainty avoidance’ personality is plain unfair. These people require rigid codes of behaviour and beliefs; are intolerant of unorthodox behaviour and ideas; appreciate explicit instructions; and rely on procedures and policies to reduce the chance of letting things getting out of control. However, the intent behind this strategy is to build self-esteem and self-confidence, which both contribute to well-being.

Another strategy to promote well-being in the workplace or learning environment is ‘involving individuals in decision making’. The intent behind this is to create stakeholders in the implementation and actioning of decisions thereby driving motivation towards a successful outcome. This raises morale and satisfaction. Some people, however, just like to pick up box ‘x’ from position ‘a’ and take it to position ‘b’ where they pick up box ‘y’ and take it to position ‘a’.

A useful strategy for assisting in the implementation of the previous two strategies is to train line managers and tutors to be certain that they support these strategies; to wit: delegating control and decision-making in the workplace. Realistically, line managers are either hired for the job or are promoted because they show signs of complying with this concept of leaving people to their own devices; this could reveal, if we look carefully, a lazy line-manager who really does not know what to do and how to plan properly, yet has been trained to accept particular strategies. Certainly, I have come across dozens of ill-equipped and poorly educated line-managers who are ‘fumbling in the dark for a light switch’.

Following on from the previous strategy is: promote good leadership and good relationships between leaders in the organisation and those guided by them or reporting to them. The intent behind this is to reduce conflict and build strong relationships which support well-being. Certainly, there is a sense of well-being among people of the same opinion. Yet, this opinion in the hands of jaded leaders once solidified, can become an, almost, absolute rule or protocol. It is very easy to use an idea that does not appeal to individuals in one arena and then have it verbally tested over and over again in an environment of agreement. Therefore, this strategy is a very dangerous tool indeed. It should only be used if the people who are subjected to the (almost absolute) ‘rule’ are stakeholders in the rule and can consequently vote on the implementation of the rule. This, of course, eliminates the need for personnel with controlling powers and places control in the hands of the individual – also not a good idea if anarchy is not the goal. So, the intent is good, yet the appointment of good leaders is not in the hands of the individuals who are to be subjected to a later concretion of an idea or concept held by the leader.

There is a prevailing strategy in the workplace to engage employees who readily accept the organisation’s goals. This is now considered to be, in many job interview scenarios, so fundamental that many job applicants are sidelined or dismissed as not useful, simply because they couldn’t care less about the aims or progress of a business because they use a disjunctive evaluation of the prospective role they might play in the business’ ambitions – “How much will you pay me?’. Yet, unfeeling AI or automation is ‘so de rigueur’ these days.

Wherein everyone is working towards the same goal there is shared success and a better promotion of well-being, through greater motivation.

People like routine. Routine in individuals’ lives is promoted by mental health teams to help alleviate stress and promote well-being. This next strategy is: Allow employees to have greater control over their work-life balance. Here, there is an idea that life does not include work and that work and life are entirely separated. With this strategy, there is a belief that the employee needs to have fun outside of the work environment to alleviate the dissatisfaction that accumulates in a work environment. There is a perception that a drift away from needing routine towards a compulsion to be in an environment that is slightly chaotic is required by an individual, in order for that individual to be stable.

Long work hours and irregular hours have been shown to be factors in the diminishment of mental health.

Another strategy to promote well-being in the workplace or learning environment is rewarding commitment and effort. This is because there is an understanding that it is important to show that commitment and effort is greater than doing a job well; “Good Job, Jane!”, is not as good as “Good effort, Jane”. 

Dr Carol Dweck, an American psychologist who holds the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professorship of Psychology at Stanford University, and is known for her work on motivation and mindset, considers that the former praise encourages a ‘fixed’ mind-set, while the latter praise encourages a ‘growth’ mind-set. Realistically, because Dr Dweck’s work is largely with learning children, we should be aware that encouraging a ‘growth’ mind-set is fine for young people practicing skills and attitudes, and not so fine for a brain surgeon finishing a job – “Good job, Susan!”, is probably better than, “Oh well, good effort, Sue”. However, there will be times when in the operating theatre any amount of effort will not be enough and encouragement for the expended effort will go a long way to alleviating any imagined guilt for not doing enough to save a life, and will certainly serve as a conduit for immediate support and a continuous stream of related support.

One avenue of early intervention which is an important factor in improving well-being is: reducing stress. Reducing stress has a consequence of reducing absences from work which prevents other workers from experiencing stress from added workloads. This ameliorates any dissatisfaction in the work place. Training programs and other initiatives help to prevent a rise in mental ill-health.

Workplace bullying can have a significant detrimental effect on mental health. Having a set standard of behaviour promulgated and proliferated throughout the work environment can prevent inappropriate controlling behaviour, mocking, and teasing.

1922 words

Return to work:

When people return to work from any kind of illness, there is a general conception that because the individual is back then they must be cured, or at least functional. However, someone in the organisation should make it their responsibility to welcome back the recently deteriorated person who has been restored to an acceptable level of capacity and capability to operate sufficiently in the work/learning environment. The newly rendered person needs to be updated with information that pertains to their responsibilities, changes in the work environment, its structure and policies, and any other details that may be considered to be initially confusing to the stripped-back individual. Customising of the individual needs to replace any details that were erroneously deleted during the recovery process while they were absent from the primary work operations they are to be assigned to. This may be a re-assignment in keeping with the level of deterioration and restoration of the individual that was previously required.

Like an old and restored car, if someone cannot pass an emissions test, it is best to make sure they are not in a room that does not allow the other workers to freely escape from. Vocal expressions from an individual, may not be quite finalised in their adjustment to a work environment that has been influenced by its conspicuous employees. An organisation should be aware that any new or absent employee will not be up to speed on conversation within a group and they should support the returning individual for a few days with conversation. Although not advisable for the self-respecting person, hiding in a toilet cubicle could assist an assigned supervisor or mentor in discovering whether the returning individual is soliloquising safely or quietly crying. Otherwise, monitoring could include conversations and an open-door policy for help. For the social media hungry people, asking to take selfies with them might make them feel either included or less weird than the mentor/supervisor making the requests. Social acceptance, however, does not yet allow sneaking around to gather information when one might actually be caught for it.

Define the term person-centred

A person-centred approach is directed attention on an individual, which takes an holistic method of application. This means that it is not just the results or outcome and its attendant difficulties of mental ill-health that are focused on. Rather, the whole of an individual’s life and current lifestyle is considered and there are drives into achieving positive changes in the individual’s life that are made to bring about a stable position which encompass personal security, sociability, work, and any other aspects of a person’s life. Advice on debt and finance is sometimes available.

Describe the importance of a person-centred approach for mental health

People feel that they are important and are thus self-centred (self-absorbed?). When mental health assistance is given with a person-centred approach the individual is given some control over their route to wellness. If they are dragged from their dwelling kicking and shouting and railing against mistreatment they will likely rebel against any indoctrination. However, if they are gently persuaded and given the opportunity to engage in mental reassignment they will embrace the concepts and new lifestyle as being through their own decisions and actions. 

Richard Thaler came up with ‘Nudge Theory’ some years ago. Nudge Theory is used by Governments to assist job-seekers to find their own way back into employment. Sometimes though, the reluctant job-seeker will find themselves on a mandatory program that extends from the DWP work coaches’ capacities yet gives the moaning job-seeker a chance to shape their job search and believe they have found a job to suit them.

A person-centred approach to mental health has the same result in satisfying the individual as to the degree of control they have over their mental health recovery and how to stabilise it to attain a plateau of wellness that can be reached through differing conduits while stopping and refreshing at different platforms along the route. It is important because the journey is a voluntary one that the individual, with a travel guide, can manipulate to suit their capacity to positively change.

Explain the importance of recognising one’s own responsibilities and limitations in relation to supporting the mental health of others

Managers with mental health training should follow the organisation’s policies for the reporting of mental ill-health and the support that should be given to the individual. This is important because any mishandling in this area can negatively impact on the individual, the position of the manager, and the organisation’s reputation. At this point, the manager has their own judgement and actions somewhat curtailed and a framework of assessment and action provides a guidance to the manager to alleviate the stress that the manager may experience on being responsible for support from their own, perhaps disjointed, approach. So, a good manager will have, in this way, realised the importance of recognising their own responsibilities and limitations.

Without a recognisance of limitations and an uneven or rugged approach to mental health support without following the organisation’s policies and procedures, respect and support of colleagues may be compromised and discrimination against individuals with mental ill-health may inadvertently occur. With this in mind (recognising one’s own responsibilities and limitations) it is important to know how to report a mental health issue in order that safeguards can be implemented and assistance from appropriate people and services can be sought and utilised.

Identify when it may be necessary to refer to others when supporting individuals with mental ill health. Include people you may refer to.

Without a recognisance of one’s own limitations and an uneven or rugged approach to mental health support without following the organisation’s policies and procedures, respect and support of colleagues may be compromised and discrimination against individuals with mental ill-health may inadvertently occur. With this in mind (recognising one’s own responsibilities and limitations) it is

important to know how to report a mental health issue in order that safeguards can be implemented and assistance from appropriate people and services can be sought and utilised.

Sometimes, mental ill-health has such control over an individual that psychosis will override the individual’s ‘normal’ perception of reality and will cause an individual to be unable to recognise their mental unruliness. In this case, this person would need to be persuaded to seek mental health adjustment services. Of course, this is not by injection, or by operant or classical conditioning (such as for Malcolm McDowell’s character in the film ‘A Clockwork Orange’, forced to watch gratuitous violence on a cinema screen while listening to music by Beethoven). 

This adjustment service is peopled with helpful and understanding persons. There is still, however, a mentality of ‘Keep Calm, and Carry on’ left over from wartime Britain in the 1940s that shrouds the prevalence of anxiety, stress, and other mental health issues. This is not helped by a sway among young people to move towards an attitude that has garnered the epithet ‘Snowflake’. Used in a derogatory way, it has, by dint of having a name, become a rallying point for people who are normally reasonable and fair-minded (a name being a shortcut or code for a whole person or concept). From which elevated position, a bit advanced from their normal resting position, they pour scorn on ‘weak’ people or people who perceive, rightly or wrongly, a bruised attitude in others. Hence. there is a concerted, though not necessarily co-ordinated, retreat from having mental ill-health brought up in a ‘normal’ conversation. By ‘normal’ I mean ‘safe’, or not complicated, such as not discussing religion and politics.

Referring someone to mental health services or persons may be the appropriate action where there is a failure in the individual to perceive their mental ill-health as treatable and especially when they seem to be a threat to themselves or others, notwithstanding that young people are in this group of people because they have unprotected sex, drink too much alcohol, and drive too fast.

Referral should be made when individuals present as psychotic and are not currently seeking mental health help or being seen by mental health persons, teams, or services; or are likely to harm themselves or others, including suicide (how can we know?); and doing something that could put someone else at risk through violence or aggression – but not, apparently, when they are drinking too much at a party, having unprotected sex with their friend’s girl/boy friend, and then driving home too fast full of bravado and high self-esteem that borders on delusional, with a subsequent drop into sorrow and anxiety the next morning when they remember what they did. (Sounds like this person should be arrested for being in possession of an offensive nature who is exhibiting three counts of self-harm, likely to endanger others through violent use of a car, and signs of a bi-polar mental health condition).

When to seek help in supporting an individual with mental ill-health largely depends on whether the manager or responding person is at work or is otherwise dealing with an employee of the organisation they work for. The organisation’s policies will guide the manager accordingly. Of course, if the manager encounters someone who does not work at their place or organisation they can ignore them and get on the nearest bus to escape – or just say ‘I don’t carry any change, sorry.’, or ‘While you are living under my roof you will do as I say. Get a job!’

Explain the importance of positive relationships and effective communication when supporting individuals with mental ill health. 

The importance of positive relationships:

People are fragile; fragile in their ability to believe in themselves. One of the ways that people affirm their relevance is by talking about other people when those people are absent. Because most of us are so fragile that we compare ourselves to other people in the hope of finding some kind of malfeasance or aberration in those other people which does not exist in us, we need to make announcements to friends, colleagues, and relatives of our brilliance by inferring the possession of opposite traits to the slurred persons. However, only the most crass person would make direct comparisons out loud. In diminishing other people during conversation (some would say gossip) we might say ‘She can’t keep a job’ and ‘She sponges off the Government’ to infer by suppressed premises that if one can say that about another in a disapproving manner, then one is not of the same ilk, or is better than that.

In order for this kind of conversation to take place, there must exist, at least, a perception in the speaker that the recipient of these treacherous statements is receptive to such atrocious postulation. In these situations there is a mutual bonding taking place, or a reaffirmation of a bond.

Sadly, it is the human condition to make comparisons to other people, past or present. Even in a religious group there should be a continuous and concerted striving to be a better person than one has been in the past or, in a fug of self-righteousness, better than the ‘nasty’ person they have just encountered in the shop or at the bus-stop. How then can we have a positive relationship with anyone if we are different to the norm that the individual is used to, without also ‘back-stabbing’? If we are different to the person we are trying to reach, will that person relax in our presence?

With this in mind, a positive relationship with an individual with mental ill health, when supporting them, must either be fully intertwined with an acceptance of their mental ill health which may present as them being part of the hegemony of talking about people behind their backs (which is plainly a sign of mental ill health - doubting themselves or feeling insecure or diminished); or completely refrain from mentioning their insipid perception of others and their characteristic of openly maligning other people. So, the dichotomy is whether to be mentally ill and join in, or ignore this widespread manifestation of mental ill health in others and be seen as ‘holier than thou’. It is not without purpose that many religions have an underlying current of advising the supplicant to be non-judgemental; In other words – don’t bring someone down in your estimation to make yourself feel better.

Here then, we can understand that making no judgement and refraining from making declarative statements is a good position to be in when preparing a figurative garden for positive relationships to grow. And, this is certainly where one should be when supporting someone with mental ill health.

Putting aside narcissism and its cousins as being aspects of mental ill health, and driving too fast, unprotected sex, and getting drunk at the weekends as being self-harm, perhaps we should focus on the blatant and most commonly perceived mental ill health manifestations and, more keenly, on vocally expressed mental angst or ill health as being the best grounds for positive relationships to be efficacious when in support of someone with mental ill-health; as in ‘I am the same as you’.

Many full time employees spend more time at work than at home with their families, or in the company of their friends and preferred acquaintances. This actually might not be true yet it is true that they may not be adequately engaged with their families – either they are asleep or lack fertile consciousness in a flagging relationship. If a fruitful engagement is lacking outside of work, then it is important that the individual is in a positive environment at work, if only as a bolt-hole. In a positive work environment, with positive relationships, there is a reduction of the chance of employees feeling isolated. Many isolated individuals can descend into an attitude of low motivation and low morale. Of course, these two traits, from the business’ position will negatively impact on productivity or the quality of the work effort.

However, where there are positive relationships, populated by trust, encouragement, empathy, and support, employees should feel more positive in their approach to problems, at work and outside of work, and even the banality of their work if their role involves repetitious effort or mundane tasks. With positive relationships at work, even though they may be superficial and conditional on being an employee at the same work site, there is good reason to believe that absenteeism is reduced and there is a better worker to output ratio.

The importance of communication, including having difficult conversations and active listening:

A question that arises here is: How far should Corporate Social Responsibility extend, and what should be included in the package?

Of course, company policies and procedures, Health & Safety Regulations, and hierarchical protocols need to be made clear to the inductee during an initial meeting at work. And, certainly, these aspects of being in work need to be re-iterated or, at least, available to the employees. Yet, how far should the employer reach into their employees personal lives?

While, large organisations may have an HR department that can handle mental health issues, most of the UK’s economy is made up of SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises). In fact, according to businessadvice.co.uk, 99% of the nation’s business population is an SME, which together employ 60% of the country’s workforce. SMEs individually have less than 250 employees and an annual turnover of less than £50 million GBP.

Communication is so important that it is problematic when the content or direction of communication is inappropriate, or perceived to be invasive. As for difficult conversations, there must be at least one participant who has an even countenance and a large degree of equanimity. Where does a small business find someone like that?

Realistically, a good listener who can show empathy is most useful when difficult conversations are to be had or commence. Someone trained in Personal Sales, particularly Solution Sales, would be a good person to designate as the go-to mental health person. Let us never forget that any concerns that an employee has about their work conditions and environment is indicative of a risk factor for mental ill health. Work-related issues SHOULD therefore be dealt with, with one eye on preventing, diverting, or alleviating mental anxiety.

From a wide and wistful perspective, the two old chaps working together at jointly hand-sawing a log at a sawyers mill, who barely talk at all is a scene of connectedness, even communication; if this is a scene in ‘The Waltons’, the 1970s television series set somewhere on an American mountain. Today, the trust in a work colleague’s ability and capacity can be as reassuring to employees as when there is a fevered to-and-fro rap between a conversation’s participants. Inevitably though, someone with mental ill health will have a predilection towards using their SmartPhone to assuage their worries and their inability to ameliorate their perceived problems; the typical ‘Ostrich with its head in the sand’ syndrome.

In contrast, if we go back to ‘The Waltons’ scene there is a reassurance of stability, trust, and a well of sound advice waiting to quench any thirst when feeling uneasy. This lack of vocal conversation is the most valuable, and rarest, facet of good communication.

Postive relationships require communication, and communication that is intended to be effective as a platform for understanding an individual will likely be open to shared work concerns and reciprocal support. Participants in this type of communication might include managers, supervisors, work colleagues holding the same position, tutors, and welfare staff (including HR).

Back to SmartPhones: Active listening usually means showing the speaker that one is listening to them. Often, this is accomplished by paraphrasing their statements and sending it back to them. This assures the speaker that they are making sense and they are understood by an attentive and interested person. In the modern day, a dilemma arises on whether a SmartPhone in the meeting should be used during a conversation to access a website that pertains to mental health, or clarification on a legal aspect, or something else that is currently being discussed. We, commonly, believe that the use of a digital device during a conversation with a real person in the same room (analogue conversation) is indicative of diverted attention. It is, however, fine to use a pen and paper, in a 1970 / 80s film scene that is set in a psychiatrists office.

Whether to actually take notes is a bone of contention; many people would feel slighted if the listener did not take notes. It comes down to this: if the listener has never had any kind of therapy or attended a GP or A&E department at a hospital with any kind of serious problem then this listener would not be inclined to take notes because they might be following an idea that it shows a lack of concentration on the speaker’s words (diverted attention).

If the SPEAKER has had therapy or attended their GP or A&E with a serious condition they would be used to having notes taken as they speak. Consequently, this speaker would feel affronted and ignored if notes are not taken. Whether the speaker is talking nonsense or not, the words, disjointed sentences, and spoken references, are important to them at that time. Special attention MUST be shown to those words, and particularly any emphasis placed on them. We all know, though, that if you write your thoughts down when you come back from the pub on a Friday night, the next morning they make no sense. Nonetheless, they were important at the time. If the words are nonsense in listening circumstances then just doodle notes if you are listening, or even not listening.

The hazard here is that only one in four people will experience strong mental ill health; which means that three in four people believe they are normal and they use a misaligned form of thinking to deal with other people, more specifically the one person in four segment of the population. ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ Completely wrong when you are dealing with mental crisis or any kind of relationship – it takes no consideration of what the other person(s) actually feel and what THEY want to happen. The Biblical sense behind the statement is that one should not steal from; lie to; attack; talk about; take advantage of; another person. It makes no in-roads into deciding what personal preferences someone else has.

Certainly, CARES, one of many Customer Service protocols, has:

Communication as its first goal - clearly communicate the process and set expectations;

Accountability - taking responsibility for fixing the problem;

Responsiveness - don’t make the customer wait for for your communication or solution;

Empathy – acknowledge the impact that the situation has on the customer;

Solution – at the end of the day, make sure to solve the issue(s) or answer the question.

Continuing the theme of how I answered a level 3 Certificate in Mental Health at Work and Mental Health Advocacy. I passed, and I had the most fun testing the course material in its negative form; in Social Science this is called the null hypothesis. The intent is to prove the positive hypothesis. This particular subject is somewhat nebulous and the tutor remarked that she had to revise her own understanding of mental ill-health. The paragraph headings are the declarative statements in the course material. The rest are my answers.

Next will be: What is meant by the mental health continuum?

What can be a factor in mental ill-health?

Any condition that disrupts an individual's everyday life.

What can we make of this? A 'condition' can be a physical aspect of someone's life; it can be a necessity to work when everyday life includes survival; or weekends spent with one's family; or variants that might exist between these not unexpected scenarios. A condition of life might well be making long journeys to procure resources that are required for survival. How about a well is built close to the settlement, conurbation, or hut, or a change in the local climate that provides new opportunities for provision of individual and societal welfare? That would significantly disrupt the condition of the thirsty person who walks long distances for water.

Can we say that a condition of retirement from work must bring about a diminishment of mental health because everyday life for that person no longer consists of a work condition that exacerbates an existing health condition?

We might need to understand the difference between a disruption and an innovation to provide a coherent view on whether any condition that disrupts an individual's everyday life should be a factor that necessarily diminishes someone's mental stasis. A ‘Black Swan’ event is a disruption. A pandemic is a ‘Black Swan’ event. Consider this: All swans are white. This is an inherent belief because we keep seeing white swans - until we see a black swan swimming on the lake. Nobody expects to see a black swan. In this case, seeing a black swan permanently changes our belief that only white swans exist.

A disruption can be permanent when it presents itself in the form of an amputation of a limb. A disruption can also be a temporary change to what is locally considered to be normal, such as a electric power-cut. The invention of motorised vehicles is a disruption to the horse-trading industry and businesses associated with horses, such as saddlery and blacksmithing. An innovation is usually considered to be an improvement. Production of cars on a production line is innovative to cars being hand-built one at a time.

Kodak used to be the largest camera producer. They failed to see the innovation of digital photography as an improvement to how taking and storing photographs can be accomplished. For them, the outbreak of the discovery of digital cameras was a Black Swan event – a disruption. To the home photographer and industries using photographs it was a tremendous improvement – an innovation. Adding a camera to a mobile phone was an innovation. Both mobile phones and digital photography are innovations with mobile phones being a disruption to the home phone industries. People then wanted to take better pictures with their mobile phones.

The key point here is, that there is an intent by modern businesses to create a desire for an innovation that is not necessarily a positive direction for aspiration to travel in; it is merely a desire that might be temporally assuaged. In other words individuals have a condition in which they are delighted by an innovation and then want something better. This makes some innovations be be only disruptions, permanent disruptions – Delight rises and plateaus into acceptance which falls into disappointment – cognitive dissonance.

Artificial intelligence now provides solutions to the disappointment that the once highly valued ‘selfie’ is not good enough – it still has that ‘Best Friend Forever’ person in the photo, when we have now fallen out’. AI can crop the photo of its despised elements.

If a change is permanent it is a finalisation of a prior condition, spiritually, physically, or mentally.

We might ask whether someone in the 1950s would be as disrupted in their normal societal, work, and environmental scope of existence in our world of the 2020s, as would someone from the 2020s be disrupted when they are to live in the 1950s. Ultimately, the question is: with modern experience and shaped perception would we be happier in a different environment? If this might be possible then measurements can be made; then we can begin to measure mental ill-health by, how accessible is information about our environment and what comparison might we make to an alternative environment.

How happy are we now, compared to how happy would we be if we had married our first love? Would a change in partners necessarily be a disruption that would make someone unhappy. Of course, the rejected person might feel diminished in their societal acceptance. Now, we must ask whether mental wellness can be considered to be evident when someone is happy despite their societal position, if they even care about it or the environmental conditions they live in.

On this, finally, a change of conditions may bring about a perceived improvement, and for others on the other end of the scale that has just re-balanced, disaster, or ill-health.

We cannot safely state that a change of circumstances is a good guide to understanding mental health or ill-health.