Visiting the hub of the universe

“Boston State-House is the hub of the solar system. You couldn't pry that out of a Boston man, if you had the tire of all creation straightened out for a crowbar.” Oliver Wendell Holmes The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table 1858

“Hear us”- State House Women’s Leadership Project 

“I come to present the strong claims of suffering humanity. I come to place before the Legislature of Massachusetts the condition of the miserable, the desolate, the outcast. I come as the advocate of helpless, forgotten, insane, and idiotic men and women; of beings sunk to a condition from which the most unconcerned would start with real horror; of beings wretched in our prisons, and more wretched in our almshouses”. Memorial to the legislature of Massachusetts 1843

“There is nothing men will not do, there is nothing they have not done, to recover their health and save their lives. They have submitted to be half-drowned in water, and half-choked with gases, to be buried up to their chins in earth, to be seared with hot irons like galley-slaves, to be crimped with knives, like cod-fish, to have needles thrust into their flesh, and bonfires kindled on their skin, to swallow all sorts of abominations, and to pay for all this, as if to be singed and scalded were a costly privilege, as if blisters were a blessing, and leeches were a luxury. What more can be asked to prove their honesty and sincerity?” Oliver Wendell Holmes [A valedictory address delivered to the graduating class of the Bellevue Hospital College] (1871). 

Ashes in Australia

The Ashes series has started (with 19 wickets falling on first day - see summary). Playing the Ashes series in Australia has a particular significance because it was on the 1882-3 tour in Australia that England first tried to regain the Ashes after English cricket had ‘died’ by losing for the first time to Australia at the Oval earlier in 1882 (see Wikipedia entry). 

I got carried away in the Covid period by posting an entry on this blog for each day of the first two tests of the last Ashes series in Australia (see previous post for last in the string). But enthusiasm for posting withered away with the continued poor England results. This situation eventually led to the Bazball revival over recent years. I won’t repeat my posting frenzy but hope that England can win in Australia for only the second time this century.

No longer part of institutional psychiatry

Following my voluntary erasure from the GMC register (see previous post) I have cancelled my membership of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych). I first expressed an interest in wanting to be a psychiatrist when asked what I wanted to do at University. In my naivety, I didn’t even know that I would need to train in medicine. Despite a medical student essay arguing that psychiatry should be non-medical, I came to accept that psychiatry is a medical speciality, a view with which not all members of the Critical Psychiatry Network (CPN) agree. 

Still, as a founding member of CPN, I’ve had my problems with institutional psychiatry. As I wrote in my first book chapter, “[T]here is an orthodox medical approach to the problems of interpreting and treating mental disorders”. I have been seen as unorthodox and in need of retraining. My efforts to change psychiatry have not been successful (see eg. previous post). The College controls training and fails to deal with its institutional corruption (see eg. post on my Thinking Differently About Mental Health blog). No longer needing to be a RCPsych member as I’m now retired clinically,  I can manage without the connection to the College. If the College ever genuinely becomes interested in reform I may rejoin.

The Rothesay 2025 county championship is complete. Ok, so Surrey are only runners up, but what do I do for the other half of the year?

No longer registered as a doctor

I have voluntarily erased myself from the GMC register (see my GMC entry). As I said in a previous post, when I first qualified I thought I would be able to practise medicine for life. Not sure, anyway, I can now listen easily enough to patients, which psychiatrists should be able to do, with my current level of senile deafness, even with hearing aids! I seem to have finally accepted I am fully retired, in the sense that I do not intend to return to paid work, having flirted with the idea of going back part-time, even re-acquiring my licence to practice last year but not being able to find any such work.

Working class aspirations

Despite my predominantly working class origins, I gained access to higher education at Trinity College Cambridge (see eg. previous post). My mother’s origins were working class; my father’s half working class. His mother (my grandmother) was the daughter of a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) who travelled by pony and trap from his home in Boxted to Colchester station to take the steam train to work in the Patent Office in London.

I benefitted from the expansion of higher education by the Wilson government and my mother’s encouragement of my ability to excel at school. Social class still affects social standing and identity.

Being a founding member of the Critical Psychiatry Network

The Critical Psychiatry Network (CPN), of which I am a founding member, was formed in 1999 (see eg. my article). The group was brought together by Pat Bracken and Phil Thomas (see eg. their guest post on my Thinking Differently about Mental Health blog). Joanna Moncrieff, who has been co-chair since CPN’s beginning, had formed a Critical Psychiatry group as a trainee at the Institute of Psychiatry (see her interview with Awais Aftab). 

I came to my critical position having given up my medical training for 8 years between pre-clinical and clinical training (see my Mad in America radio interview). I completed my psychiatric training as a lecturer at Sheffield University, where Alec Jenner was professor of psychiatry (see another past post). He had been a biomedical psychiatrist, although always retaining an interest in philosophy (see yet another past post), having been motivated to find the biochemical explanation for manic-depressive illness (see eg. his book chapter). His research unit lost its funding from the Medical Research Council, and he became interested in Italian democratic psychiatry (see eg. past post), becoming a friend of Franca Ongaro Basaglia, wife of Franco Basaglia. She represented the interests of the mentally ill in the Italian Senate.

I had started my critical psychiatry website (initially called the anti-psychiatry website - see eg. past post), so therefore welcomed the formation of the Critical Psychiatry Network. I organised three CPN annual conferences, leading to my edited Critical Psychiatry book (see eg. past post). I started my critical psychiatry blog (now called Thinking Differently about Mental Health and before that Relational Psychiatry - see past post) over sixteen years ago (see another past post).

My interview with Awais Aftab sums up my views about psychiatry (see past post). As I say in that interview, there is little evidence that critical psychiatry has really changed psychiatry (see eg. another past post). The difficulty of coping with indoctrination in psychiatric training has been compounded by the dysfunction and fragmentation of services. But psychiatry does need people who are prepared to lead the necessary change. I think that was how some of us saw the foundation of CPN but maybe we now need people to follow through on those intentions. 

Membership

My parents met at Eld Lane Baptist church, Colchester, as did my grandparents on my father’s side. I was baptised into the Baptist Church at Beechon Grove, Watford. But I gave up my Christian faith after University, which included a year in my Cambridge Tripos in Religious Studies (see eg. previous post). 

Nonetheless the membership of the Church provided an identity which it was difficult to give up. And the mystery of life which creates religion of course remains the same. I have tried to apply those limits to our knowledge to psychiatry, even though mainstream psychiatry promotes a wishful thinking to solutions to mental health problems (see eg. my Thinking Differently about Mental Health blog).

No longer a member of the Church of my origins, although recognising the value of social membership, I have been thinking about my current memberships. In retirement I have had time to become a member at the Oval (see eg. previous post). As a Watford grammar school boy, my membership of Trinity College, Cambridge, remains valuable (see eg. another previous post). I am still a member of the mental health Trust that I worked for despite its difficulties over recent years, from which it seems to be recovering (see eg. yet another previous post). I have always been motivated by the rights of people with mental health problems when I was working, as is Mind, of which I am also a member (see eg. see post on my Thinking Differently about Mental Health blog).

Gull Wing bridge

The Gull Wing bridge in Lowestoft opened last September (see Suffolk County Council post). I saw it today on my visit to Lowestoft, where I used to work (see eg. previous post).

A symbol of positive change for Lowestoft.

Defending freedom of speech

I ended a previous post with the following sentence, “How one separates those that are speaking from the position of parrhesia or manipulating 'freedom to speak out' for their own ends is not easy”. Commitment to principles and their expression can create negative consequences and opposition. As Wikipedia says (see entry), exercising the right to free speech carries special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions when necessary for respect of the rights or reputation of others or for the protection of national security or public order, or of public health or morals.

Donald Trump has recently signed an executive order that is entitled 'Restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship'. Having experienced an ideological attack myself on my views about psychiatry (see eg, my BMJ letter) I agree that freedom of speech should not be manipulated for ideological reasons. But free speech can't be about having the right to say whatever one wants. In fact, Trump could be said to be using the promotion of free speech for his own ideological ends. 

Governments clearly have a right to engage with social media companies about controversial content, as has been confirmed by the US Supreme Court (see article). Although I have exercised my right to block Elon Musk on X, very few people probably do. I used to try not to be oversensitive about blocking people but now tend to do so with those that seem to be promoting violence, whereas Trump has pardoned violent Jan 6 offenders.

Places I have lived

Colchester

Edware

Toronto

Watford/Rickmansworth

Cambridge

London

Lancaster

Preston

Sheffield

Norwich

Where next?

And second home in Wenhaston, Suffolk

Can you spot the crazed creepy narcissistic billionaire determined to destroy democracy?

(as asked by Private Eye)

Not protecting oneself in the pursuit of truth

I mentioned Foucault’s 1983 lectures devoted to the study of the Greek notion of parrhesia in a recent post on my Thinking Differently About Mental Health blog. This built on the recent post on this blog about truth-telling in psychiatry. In its positive sense, parrhesia is a virtuous personal attitude and quality to speak the truth boldly. The trouble is that there is a risk in being this kind of person, because speaking the truth may cause hurt or anger leading to retaliation, including scapegoating. 

I have experienced this in the workplace, as I have mentioned previously (see eg. previous post). Although I survived these experiences, they did leave their scars. They caused considerable stress, not least for my family as well as myself. It's no wonder that people find it easier not to challenge authority, even if it is leading people down the wrong road.  Of course the trouble is despots and tyrants survive on that fear. Even people who are not necessarily despots or tyrants can be more interested in maintaining the organisation rather than facing up to the truth (see eg. another previous post).

People may now be encouraged to speak out, for example in the NHS to improve care (see eg. previous post). Wes Streeting, current Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, may have finally realised that the Care Quality Commission, charged with regulating health and social care providers, is not fit for purpose (see eg. BBC report). It may be important for the Care Quality Commssion to remember its history (see eg. previous post). But freedom to speak out can be exploited by people using the facility for their own ends, eg. to target people they don't like. How one separates those that are speaking from the position of parrhesia or manipulating 'freedom to speak out' for their own ends is not easy.

Religious motivation in Middle East conflict

Not all Muslims agree with the Supreme Leader of Iran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (see Wikipedia entry about the Supreme Leader), who led last Friday prayers for the first time in years, has called for pan-Muslim unity against Israel and the United States (see The New York Times article). He has religious reasons for promoting his dangerous views which can encourage killing and destruction amongst his adherents. Denunciation of terrorism does not address his religious motivation. He desires a form of religious politics free from the taint of Western culture.

Religion still matters to many people round the world. This element cannot be ignored in current Middle East conflict. 

Truth-telling in psychiatry

I mentioned in a recent post on my Relational Psychiatry blog that Awais Aftab's edited book Conversations in Critical Psychiatry has just been published. As I said there, Robin Murray (who I have mentioned in a previous post) wrote the foreword to the book. He repeats that he wishes he had not followed "the fashion of the herd" and adhered "to the prevailing orthodoxies" in his psychiatric career. As I said in my previous post, it's not surprising he did, as he had a very successful career, whereas I was suspended twice during my working life. 

Critics of psychiatry, such as myself, still struggle to get our message across. As I said in my interview with Awais in my book chapter in his edited book, there's little evidence that critical/relational psychiatry has changed psychiatry. I struggled in my medical training, giving up in the middle for 8 years, because I couldn't make sense of the overmedicalisation of psychiatry (see eg. my Mad in America Radio interview and my talk given not long before I was first suspended - about which there is more information in a Times Higher Education article). Although there are critics of psychiatry that want to see psychiatry as non-medical, my position has always been that psychiatry is a branch of medicine and that it needs to move on from the reductionism of biomedicine (see eg. my article).

The problem is that there are powerful vested interests in mainstream psychiatry that do not want to fully take on board this need for change. Robin wants to inspire "thoughtful reflection and foster a spirit of collaboration and mutual respect, ultimately leading to better care for those that we serve". I couldn't agree more but it's difficult to see how psychiatry can or will change. Its current institutional crisis of fragmentation and dysfunction may bring the matter to a head (see eg. previous post on my Relational Psychiatry blog) but the likelihood is that psychiatry will continue with more of the same. How the power dynamics of psychiatry can change is uncertain.

I used to be able to get through this gate when I was an undergraduate.

Photo only Trinity College fellows should take. I was told off by the porters but didn’t realise.

Burrell’s court didn’t exist when I was an undergraduate.

Nor was I allowed to go into the Fellows’ garden

The meaning of gaslighting

Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse where a person causes someone to question their sanity, memories, or perception of reality. Gas Light was a 1938 thriller play, set in 1880s London, written by the British novelist and playwright Patrick Hamilton (see Wikipedia entry). It is a story of a husband committed to driving his wife insane in order to steal from her.

Social media can be a toxic environment. People can argue their case vehemently. If people feel their reality and experience is being infringed they can accuse their opponent of gaslighting. I worry about the extension of this use of the word. 

Reality is socially constructed, but not totally socially constructed. Reality is constituted through active shifting of moving and multiple points of view reinforced by social perspective-taking (see eg. post on my Relational Psychiatry blog). The models of the world we create do not necessarily describe the real world (see eg. another post on my Relational Psychiatry blog). Just because people disagree and feel their reality is being questioned, does not mean they are right or gaslighted. Since the Enlightenment at least we have had to debate the nature of truth. 

Moving from bullshit to substance in NHS Foundation Trusts

I mentioned the Trust I used to work for in a previous post. It has been found inadequate four times by the CQC, although currently rated as requires improvement. As with Ofsted (see recent report from Education Committee) there are concerns about the way CQC is working, for example, because of single word ratings and the expertise of inspectors. I commonly find it difficult actually to understand what CQC reports are saying about services because of their lack of narrative. They can appear superficial and formulaic. There are concerns about their accuracy, completeness and depth of analysis. They don’t always make clear what services need to do to improve. 

Still, Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust’s (NSFT) first inadequate rating was not surprising. CQC was probably looking for a Mental Health Trust to rate inadequate, as it had been created to give all Trusts a rating and hadn’t yet found a Mental Health Trust to rate inadequate. NSFT was the first and only inadequate Mental Health Trust in its first round of inspections. The Trust had been through a programme of radical redesign without proper consultation and chaotic implementation. I’m not convinced CQC really understood what was happening when they inspected but interviewed staff who were in turmoil. This led to the inadequate rating.

I was a governor at the time. In December 2012 I was observing the Trust Board meeting and spontaneously stood up and interrupted the meeting with a fellow governor because the non-executive directors (NEDs) bounced the CEO in the meeting into saying that the radical redesign would be implemented. The NEDs were unhappy about how long the Chief Operating Officer was taking to finalise the plan for the Trust to be in the lead of the charge to meet the Nicholson challenge, named after the then NHS CEO, for the NHS to make £20 billion efficiency savings. The Chair said the radical redesign was going ahead nonetheless and we had to sit down. This was before there had been the promised consultation, which never happened, about the plan.

Unfortunately the CEO resigned in June 2013. He was probably the only person who could have kept the radical design process together. Instead I witnessed the most chaotic implementation imaginable. I was, therefore, present as a governor, together with a roomful of concerned people, in November 2013 at the launch of the Campaign to Save Mental Health Services, which continues to this day in its campaign. Lurking in the background at the meeting was the interim CEO, who unfortunately that same month refuted that the Trust was in crisis.

Nonetheless the NEDs continued with their gung-ho attitude that the Trust had made major steps forward in forming NSFT by the merger of Norfolk and Waveney Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust and Suffolk Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust in January 2012. In fact they saw it as a takeover of Suffolk by Norfolk and Waveney, which technically it was. Nonetheless, I argued as a governor for the headquarters of NSFT to be in Ipswich, rather than Norwich, which of course did not happen.

The NEDs recruited a replacement CEO in March 2014. He was CEO at Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust (NCH&C) and took up his post at NSFT later in the year. Personally I was not convinced he was the best candidate for the post, but it’s the NEDs that appoint a CEO not the governors, and clearly the governors had to ratify the appointment. I think he was probably sold a ‘pig in a poke’ by the NEDs that they were hoping to also take over NCH&C, which would be ideal for them because he had been CEO there. A few months after him starting in post, CQC gave the Trust its first inadequate rating in February 2015 following an inspection the previous October. I'm not convinced he was aware that this was what he had inherited.

I came to the end of my terms of being a governor in 2015, although I continue to be a member of the Trust. A CQC report published in October 2016 following an inspection in July 2016 regraded the Trust to needs improvement. The following year the Trust was again regraded inadequate, with the CEO resigning just before the report was published. A warning notice under S29A of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 was issued following the inspection in July 2017. The Chair of the Trust left earlier than expected in November 2018 and was followed by the publication of a third inadequate CQC rating. 

The new Chair in January 2019 was already Chair at North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT), which had an excellent CQC rating and she took on both roles. This was despite the governors having already appointed a replacement Chair. They were pressured to change their decision and the constitution of the Trust was changed to allow the new Chair to be appointed. The CEO she inherited was working towards splitting the Trust but he left, having been stopped in his tracks, when the new Chair insisted that the Trust remain a single organisation. She then appointed a new CEO, who had worked at NELFT in the past, although not as CEO. 

The CQC rating was changed to needs improvement in January 2020, following an inspection in October/November 2019. The CEO retired in March 2021. His replacement, who had also worked at NSFT and previously at NELFT, was appointed but withdrew his application when it emerged that parts of his CV were falsified. Although there was an interim CEO, the Chair, even though she was leaving, insisted on making a CEO appointment before she left and the COO was promoted to CEO in September 2021. I questioned whether this should happen, by asking in a public board meeting why an appointment could not wait until a new Chair was in post. The Chair told me that NHS East of England were supporting her in doing so.

I had retired from clinical work in July 2019. Nonetheless I continued my membership as a public rather than staff member. I continued to have some contact with colleagues with whom I used to work. The information I was receiving made me express my concern about the deterioration in services in Great Yarmouth and Waveney, where I used to work, in a Twitter thread in November 2021. I formally asked a question at the Council of Governors in December 2021 about why the Chair was stating that the Trust was one of the fastest improving Trusts in the country, when that clearly did not seem to be the case to me. I was so dissatisfied with her answer that I followed it up with a letter, which she eventually answered in January 2022 after she had left. I had also tried to engage with the lead governor on the telephone asking the Council of Governors to act but we ended up shouting at each other, for which I have subsequently apologised, but I don’t think it would have made any difference if I had kept my cool. As far as I was concerned the Chair did not properly engage with any of my concerns expressed in the letter. I had anticipated that the Trust would again be found inadequate in its next inspection and called for the resignation of the Chair, the two Vice Chairs, the Senior Independent Director and the lead governor in a tweet. As predicted, the Trust was again found inadequate in a report in February 2022 following inspections in November to December 2021. The CQC had already again initiated enforcement action before the Chair left at the end of 2021.

The new Chair duly came into post and managed to help the Trust obtain a CQC needs improvement rating in a report in February 2023 and the threat of enforcement was removed, following inspections in September and November 2022. I thought it was important to keep pressure on the Trust, even with a new Chair, and had been with the Campaign on their lobby of parliament in July 2022 (see EDP report and my Twitter thread). I called for the resignation of the CEO, and he eventually left in September 2023 (see EDP report). I do not think this was because of my campaigning, although MPs we met on our lobby of parliament questioned whether this was necessary. Personally I had no doubt and raised the matter in May 2022 with the two vice Chairs, as technically the appointment had been made before the Chair came into post. I was told the CEO had the full confidence of the Board and that they couldn’t help me any further. I suspect his performance at the Norfolk Health Overview and Scrutiny Board (HOSC) in September 2023 was a factor in his going. At the same meeting HOSC called for a public inquiry, as has the Campaign persistently and consistently for some time. An answer is still awaited from the Secretary of State although an inquiry is being resisted by the Trust and the two local Integrated Care Boards.

Personally I have become more confident that the Trust can turn itself round with its new CEO after the intervention of NHS England. Other campaigners remain more sceptical and they continue to think a public inquiry is necessary. This is not surprising considering the sorry saga I have related here. The Trust is also facing a criminal investigation (see EDP report).

By the way, I’m not being rude when I use the term ‘bullshit’. The technical definition is explained in another previous post. 

The exhibition on ‘Spitting Image’ is worth seeing at the Cambridge University Library. It makes links with the origin of satire in Georgian England (see book by Alice Loxton Uproar: Satire, scandal and printmakers in Georgian England).

Hogarth, of course, used satire to expose social ills and encourage reform.

Maybe our modern age no longer worries about the ridiculing of its follies and vices but instead exploits them.

From spin to bullshit

That’s now two blog post headings with the word ‘bullshit’ in them (see other one)! I’m meaning the technical definition of bullshit which means a corporate rhetoric that creates a positive image regardless of the organisational reality. I think the point to emphasise is that the organisation doesn’t care about the real situation. Instead it has become more concerned with words and rituals which are actually empty. Management speak is supposed to give the impression of expertise, but actually avoids dealing with the real issues. Producing, distributing and consuming bullshit becomes a goal in itself. Rampant bureaucracy creates forms to be filled in, procedures to be followed and standards to be complied with. Managers feel compelled to deal with a problem by bullshitting.

Truthful, accurate and transparent communications are crucial to keeping people properly informed. How an organisation presents and promotes itself can be packaged, which has potentially problematic implications in a democracy. Communication has become a formidable industry in politics and business. Spin has always existed where there are people to be influenced. Something new developed, though, in British politics in the 1990s. "The media, industry, politics, the establishment and the arts conspired to bring us not their constituent parts, but a presentation of what they would like us to think they were" (see Demos article). Presentation seemed to become all and form overcame content. A lack of substance in what was being said and interpretation parading as facts meant that 'spin' eventually became a pejorative term. 

Even though there may have been signs that the spin culture had run its course as people disapproved of spin because it was lacking substance, I'm not convinced we have moved on to a culture in which there is an open and honest debate. Instead there is still too much bullshitting, which is actually worse than mere spin because it is an indication that the organisation doing the bullshitting does not care. I may well post further once I have read André Spicer's Business Bullshit.