Psychiatry, psychology, mental, mind matters

Interesting. Will look it up. I hope you get something out of it :) x

Thread dredge, but my colleagues are putting on an interesting open debate forum with UCL and The Mental Elf on preventable harm. Open to all to attend, and free, just need to reserve a space.

http://www.nationalelfservice.net/mental-health/self-harm/preventableharm-debate-20716-can-risk-assessment-in-mental-health-be-evidence-based/

“Failed by mental health services” is an all too familiar newspaper headline.

Can mental health services use new research into risks of self-harm, harm to others, and violence from others to make better decisions? Or is risk assessment simply a box-ticking exercise, and might overemphasis on risk damage patient care?

We are organising a live debate in London on Wednesday 20th July at 6-8pm to discuss this subject and we want you to get involved!

What’s the plan?

These questions and more will be addressed in a 90-minute ‘question-time’ style conversation featuring a panel of experts from a range of backgrounds: health professionals, researchers, and service users. There will be ample opportunity to share your views and drive the discussion.

The debate will take in a room in London but also on Twitter, so if you can’t join us in person, please participate in the conversation at #PreventableHarm.

The meeting will be live streamed on YouTube and made available afterwards on The Lancet Psychiatry podcast.

On that note...

http://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/esteem.htm

It really helps I find to have a councillor or a friend/family to do them with you, but the pages are sound. And you can do them by yourself too.

Thanks for that JW. Have put it in my folder of mental health resources and will use it.

We have a situation brewing at home. Me and the missus bought our first flat 2 years ago. Dude upstairs had two broken legs/ was housebound from what we now think was a suicide attempt.
We have since found out from the freeholder his sister that he has mental health issues. He is pretty nocturnal, seems to take a lot of drugs as a dealer comes round regularly and seems to hook up with random dudes most weekends. Peoples lifestyle choices are there own but the effect of this is there are lots of strangers coming and going in our communal hallway mostly at antisocial hours. Also he basically never ever goes out.
For a while a really creepy guy moved in, they ended up having a fight which resulted in us Calling the police then another fight which spilled out into the street. Another neighbour called the police and the creepy dude never came back.
The front door was left open all night a couple of times so Mrs sacred mentioned it to upstairs neighbour in passing, his response was that it was ok as there were loads of invisible cctv cameras in the hall. He then went on to say that the cameras were no use if someone broke in and stabbed us. This was apparently said in a light hearted way but still slightly unsettling.
Next thing is we left a note asking for access to his flat this weekend to remove a redundant water pipe that runs between the flats. When I left for work this morn he had left a response saying that was no problem but when mrsSacred left an hour later this has been replaced with a note saying we would not be allowed access. It then went on to allege several untrue and odd things the last one being that we had accused him of being a 'paedo rapist' and signing off with 'merry Christmas'.
I called the freeholder this morning and told them all the above ( we have previously tried to stay out of things ). They were apologetic and offered to try and contact his key worker but also said there probably wasn't much they could do and that he isn't any threat to anyone but himself.

I feel something needs to happen now, we are planning to have a baby and the late night dealer/ grindr calls plus the increasingly unhinged behaviours don't seem conducive to a happy family home. I don't really want to move as apart from this it's ideal. I also don't want to take responsibility for this person or make them more negative towards us by being the one who involves the authorities.

Writing an email to the sister/ freeholder (who never ever comes round it seems) to try and gee them into doing something but I get the impression the family is happy to have this guy living far away from them so they don't have to deal with him. I feel sorry for this dude and his situation and he is obviously venerable/ requires some help but it's starting to affect our lives now.

Sorry for the mega post.

You need to watch Roman Polanski's 'The Tennant'
In all seriousness though having this kind of thing on your doorstep can't be much fun. We were forced out of our home a few years back by our neighbors. Some people are beyond help, I certainly wouldn't get involved as he sounds like he is suffering from delusions at the very least and could well be a paranoid schizophrenic

Our old downstairs neighbour (elderly woman) was eventually sectioned after years of piling-up rotting bin bags in her flat/hoarding things, living in squalor and occasionally standing at our door in the hallway with a meat cleaver threatening to kill us. And talking to God through a set of keys.

She was about 4 feet tall so wasn't an actual threat to anyone other than being a fire risk.

It can be tricky dealing with neighbours like this.

It's a tricky situaiton but there are a couple of things you can do. Use of the phrase key worker suggests that this person is being supported by adult social care.

I'd advise doing the following. Divide the activities down into three categories; criminal, mental and abusive.

If you think there is criminal activity then call it in on either 999 or 101 as appropriate.
If you think he is exhibiting worrying or dangerous mental behaviour then report it to the appropriate adult social care team..
If you think he is being abused by another person (any kind of abuse; physical, emotional, exploitative, etc) then report it to the adult safeguarding team.

Numbers for adult social care and adult safeguarding (often two different teams) can be obtained from your local authority. If he has a key worker, it may be worth trying to identify and get in touch with them directly as, being immediate neighbours, you could be a good source of information for them.

I realise you want avoid negativity by involving the authorities, however they are in the best position to help you deal with the issues you have with him and support you in your interactions with him. If you don't involve them, there is a greater risk that his behaviour towards you will escalate anyway.

We're running a foundation course in Personal Construct Psychology later this year if anyone wants a grounding in this meta-theory that can lead to a Psychotherapy diploma

Details here: https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/292601/

Thankyou for your reply thats very clear and helpful.

Things have chilled out again so we are keeping a diary of any noise/ weird behavior.

Anyone interested in attending a course in a creative approach to understanding behaviour change please check out this thread.

A charming attitude from Piers Morgan and a good article about it:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/15/piers-morgan-ptsd-lady-gaga-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-soldiers

https://nyti.ms/2jOD8lE

Construing the ‘ten meter tower’
Working with Personal Construct Psychology, I am regularly asked what we mean by ‘construing’. I also hear comments that it is all about ‘how people think’, and that it is a cognitive theory. In fact, PCP makes no particular distinction between thinking and feeling, believing that these things are not easily distinguished from each other, or from other processes such as intuiting, or sensing in the body.

I respond to these questions and comments in a variety of ways, but often leave the conversation feeling that I haven’t been able to adequately describe the subtlety and complexity of what what we mean when we talk about personal construing.

And now I have found this little film.  ‘Ten Meter Tower’ is a short documentary (about 15 minutes) by Maximilien Van Aertryck and Axel Danielson. With the purpose of exploring the theme of doubt, they invited people who had never been on a 10-meter diving tower before to climb, and jump.

We see a series of volunteers on the platform, living through their moment of choice, and grappling with the meanings of jumping, or not. Yes, there is a lot of thinking, there is calculation, and deliberation about logistics, but this seems to be inextricably woven with strong feelings including fear, even terror, about the height and depth of the plunge, and a powerful experience of the aloneness of the self on the platform. They are anticipating what it might mean to jump or to back down, and it seems that core identity is at stake for many participants. Who are they, and who will they be?  if they jump, or if they don’t jump?  in their own eyes, and in the eyes of others? A few of the volunteers climb in pairs, and the continuous disruption and reconfiguration of their construing in relation to the other is extraordinary to witness.

As each person arrives on the platform, we see the shiver and the tremble, hear the self-talk, the breathing and the knuckle-cracking. We are witnessing the physical, emotional, cognitive, imaginative, instinctive, gut-flipping moment. This is anticipation, and this is meaning-making. Processes such as thinking or feeling are impossible to isolate from each other.

This is construing.

Mary Francis
http://www.constructivistconsulting.net/

Incredible little film, thanks for sharing.

Our upstairs neighbour totally flipped yesterday. Throwing stuff around, swearing, screaming etc

His sister (who is our freeholder) basically doesn't want to know and has just told us to call the police if needed.

Called the police (again) at 5pm. We were told 1hr. We asked to be anonymous as we don't want to aggravate tensions.

Police turned up at 11.30pm loudly banging on our shared front door. Ther were in there for 3 mins then left. As they came in we heard police say 'someone from this building has called the police' to our neighbour.

Fucking cheers. This is starting to do my head in, he is always always home so I never feel like We have full privacy, he's very odd and occasionally flips. I don't feel talking to him will sort anything as he is very delusional.

Sorry for the mega post. Guess we will try social services as per @The_Seldom_Killer a advice above. I don't have much faith though as is very sporadic, he seems to be able to be quite normal when needed, i have family working in this area in London and the shit they don't have time to deal with is scary. I think our neighbour would be fairly low ranking.