Time Travel...

Wow that year or so went very quickly...

Close to the dissertation stage of my Masters and have re-applied to Manchester for the PhD.

If all goes it will be a September 2009 start.

'You can't build up a reputation on what you are going to do.'
-Henry Ford

Madchester!

The irony is not lost on me that after all the challenges with London Met's creaking bureaucracy, Manchester University emailed me to say that they had made me an offer of working towards a doctorate with them. Unfortunately the letter got lost in the post - they originally wrote to me in February '08! Manchester's process time 6 weeks - London Met's 6 months and counting...

I am delighted for the acknowledgement of the work I put into the proposal but in the meantime I registered with über (as in the modern use ‘super’ in a good way) efficient Sheffield to partake in their Masters in Psychotherapy. I have created a Master Madness blogspot to track my progress at Sheffield:

http://mastermadness.blogspot.com/

See you back here in a few years?!

'Young men more interested in making loud music, enjoying success and getting fucked rather than making existential statements about being fucked'
Blackmore on Joy Division

Take Two

So I finally got the proposal through the system and received the feedback...area of research sound but proposal a bit radical for standard academia. I was given some great steers on recent policy and legislation with a caveat to re-write a more focused and significantly shorter proposal. Oh yes and to get my head out of the anti-psychiatry movement i.e. the 60s, Laing and BigPharma :(

Well I am happy to say I completed it today and emailed it. So I wait with bated breath for the result.

The whole process has been demanding but extremely exciting as I try and raise my personal bar as high as I can for the benefit of others or at least that's the theory.

Going to read the McDonaldization of Social Work and Crime and Punishment as I head back to UK for a few weeks...

‘They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me’

Mickey Gives You a Dustin...

In an effort to avoid this all getting a bit dusty I thought an update was in order. Eventually after practically stalking the research department and finally getting on the same page as the research director, the proposal has been read and is in the system somewhere?!

In the meantime I sent the proposal to Dr Pat Bracken, co-originator of the concept of Postpsychiatry. He was very encouraging, which gave me a little emergency fuel for my flagging rocket.

Also Donna Dustin from London Met has been like Mickey from Rocky - in my corner - which has been invaluable!

So as we approach March I still await news of the next stage...I am in London in April so it would be a tad useful to have things moving before then.

Robert F. Kennedy: 'Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.'

Still in the Bardo...

Still waiting to hear from university about the PhD. The waiting is hard as the creative juices and enthusiasm are bubbling away...just don't want to peak! ...in the meantime I have continued reading - everything. Finished the Brothers, what a masterpiece, feel a better person for having had the good fortune to come across it and finish it. Clearly a late developer, in my early 20s I had only read a handful of books from start to finish.

Also completed the initial phase of the psychosocial programme including major draft of methodology and a range of training materials. Also managed to conduct some initial research on people in Malaysia's view of mental health - fascinating.

There is a spectrum of experience on this planet that is infinite...from the horrors of war and torture to the unknown heroes trying to make a little bit of difference through kindness and compassion. If one is brave enough not to label, the mass of what is makes total sense in no sense other than the non dualistic manifestation of what is...

In the Meantime...

So the PhD proposal has been received and it is working its way through the system...

...in the meantime I have begun a new project working for a Malaysian NGO offering medical and humanitarian relief to disaster zones. They have retained me to develop and implement a psychosocial programme.

So far I have presented a successful project plan, implementation rationale and timeline to create and implement an internal and external psychosocial strategy and training. This will include a methodology, field manual, filed work and extensive training of staff and volunteers. I haven’t quite figured how this will fit with my PhD.

May have to either a. adjust the PhD focus, b. Put a limit on the project time. Need to give it all careful consideration as it could potentially affect quite a lot of people.

Mission Impossible

Or not...for the proposal is complete and couriering its way across the air to London. Hopefully to be received this week with a view to a decision in about four weeks.

Regardless of the outcome, the satisfaction of completing it was wonderful. I was able to consolidate many years of thinking and study linking Dharma and Cognitive Behavioural theory, Laing and Cooper and even mentioned Tom's scary friends at the CCHR.

So now I am enjoying the luxury of not having to write for a while and reading for sport.

If I go ahead with the PhD then I may continue this blog...for now I will leave you with some words of wisdom from Ronnie:

‘The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds’