Thursday, October 25, 2007

Freud would be pleased!

Started reading Dostoevsky’s, the Brothers Karamazov, it is very hard to put down. If ever there was an award for pretentious displacement activity, other than keeping a blog, then this would be it!

For the proposal, I have been reading cognitive formulations of psychosis (extremely convincing) and Laing. Actually, Laing is now on my top 3 people I would like to meet, I think he was misunderstood and feared due to what he pointed at and represented one of the great thinkers of the last 50 years. I do not agree with everything he says but he seems more relevant to psychiatry today than ever.

Been on fire today viz a viz writing really starting get there and really enjoying the reading around it. Set myself a deadline of next Friday, 2 November 2007. Eeeek!

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

A united voice

I visited a NGO, self-advocacy group for people with learning disabilities today. Their approach is state of the art compared to mental health practice in Malaysia. It is an organisation run by serves users and the non-service user staff report to the ‘bosses’ it is soaked in empowerment and anti-oppressive practice. They follow the strategy ‘nothing for us without us’ – extremely inspiring!

And so to the writing. Today I further developed my thinking on the rise of CBT and the implications for social work and the service user. All roads lead back to Laing as a defence against the rational-scientific reduction of the human being by the expert.

Received the Oxford Textbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry (thank Ganesha for Amazon), which included all additional reading on a CD, fuelling the temptation to study the MA...

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

The desert of the real itself...

...or for the unconscious Baudrillard fan, hoofing their popcorn to the words of ‘welcome to the desert of the real’. The blue pill has been swallowed and Alice is running for the door unfortunately only to bang her head as she is too large to fit and thankfully, this isn’t a blog about writing a PhD. No nothing as grand, it’s simply about endeavouring to submit an initial proposal. Desperate I know but I am trying to write it whilst in Malaysia so not many virtual colleagues to share my wining with.

Ah, the blessed PhD. Don’t tell me you have never thought about it? That oasis of academic prestige, a wonderwall of egotistic contribution to the endless avalanche of knowledge as a vain attempt to receive a father’s long lost approval. Finally a way to out fox the shrink on the team by becoming a real doctor. Not some time traveller of pseudo psychotic ramblings but a Pertwee, a Baker a Craig. Actually Craig was a double ‘0’ but that’s a whole other proposal!

So far through a haze of self-doubt and insecurity I have put together around 4,500 words. The question is are they worth the paper? The paper is based on the concept of postpsychiatry and the importance of social work when interacting and listening to the experts by experience of people labelled ‘schizophrenic’...