“People did not believe in my facts and thought my theories unsavory. Resistance was strong and unrelenting.”

‘Addressing the topic of mental health in Australia (and its treatment) are: Professor Allan Fels, head of the newly established National Mental Health Commission; former Australian of the Year Professor Patrick McGorry, head of Orygen Youth Health and one of the National Mental Health Commissioners, and Barbara Hocking, Executive Director of SANE Australia…’

Please click link below to go directly to this discussion:

the monthly: mental health & australia ’12

Videorative Portrait of Randall Okita…

“a picture of the mind… a map of emotions…painted with meanings”

The March 2012 issue of the Psychologist (Brit Psych Soc.) cites a fantastic new initiative and resource aimed at broadening ‘UNDERSTANDING of MENTAL HEALTH’.

“This pack is an invaluable resource for anyone educating others about mental health. It is perfect for schools, but should also be used elsewhere. Training volunteers, police officers, and medical students are all possibilities.”

David Rye, Chairman of ‘Working Mind’ (part of the UK mental health charity, ‘Mind’)

The pack contains over 100 personal accounts of people with mental health issues and was put together by researchers at Surrey Child & Adolescent MH Services, the University of Oxford and the Royal College of Psychiatrists and is endorsed by the BPS.

It is free to download and includes teacher/trainer resources, in addition to the 100+ perspectives from people in the community:

www.mentalhealtheducation.org.uk/home/

The Royal Society (UK) promotes excellence in scientific research and has recently published a report, ‘Brain Waves: neuroscience and the law’ (Dec 2011), focussing on new findings in neuroscience and their implications for the judiciary, lawyers and policy makers.

Supported by the British Psychological Society (BPS):

“The 36-page document, which is freely available online (at tinyurl.com/brainwaves4), charts the rising influence of neuroscience evidence in courts of law. For example, of 722 US court cases in which neurological or behavioural genetics evidence was submitted in defence, 199 and 205 took place in 2008 and 2009, respectively, compared with 101 and 105 in 2005 and 2006.”

Brain Waves (& the Law) was chaired by Professor Emeritus of Experimental Psychology Nicholas Mackintosh at the University of Cambridge and a key  recommendation of the report was that contacts between brain researchers and lawyers should be strengthened. Furthermore, the report frames the broader implications as follows:

More broadly, progress in neuroscience is going to raise questions about personality, identity, responsibility, and liberty, as well as associated social and ethical issues. The aim of the Royal Society’s Brain Waves project is to explore what neuroscience can offer, what are its limitations, and what are the potential benefits and the risks posed by particular applications.

All Brain Waves reports are freely available @  http://royalsociety.org/policy/projects/brain-waves

The practice of offering routine post-trauma psychological debriefing (Critical Incident Stress Debriefing – CISD) has declined significantly in recent years, attributable in part to adverse findings of the NICE (National Institute for Health & Clinical Excellence, UK) meta analysis of 2005. The British Psychological Society (BPS) research blog is currently critiquing the methodology and findings of NICE et al and citing new evidence that CISD may be beneficial, if not imperative, after all:

“We have been told that the case against debriefing is proven and the debate is closed,” Hawker, Durkin and Hawker conclude. “We disagree … We predict that appropriate psychological debriefing will be shown to have benefits for secondary victims of trauma who have been briefed together and who have worked together through traumatic events. Research into these uses of debriefing should be encouraged and supported.”

Hawker, D., Durkin, J., and Hawker, D. (2011). To debrief or not to debrief our heroes: that is the question.   J. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 18 (6), 453-463 

Hawker et al, are a team of therapists and trauma consultants who’ve worked extensively with NGOs, aid workers and emergency responders and have called for post-trauma debriefing to be resurrected for these specific client groups.

All we need is love?

Nicolas Guéguen and Lubomir Lamy placed opaque collection boxes in 14 bakeries in Brittany for two weeks. All the boxes featured the following text in French: “Women students in business trying to organise a humanitarian action in Togo. We are relying on your support”, together with a picture of a young African woman with an infant in her arms. Some boxes had this additional text in French just below the money slot: “DONATING=LOVING”; others had the text “DONATING=HELPING”; whilst others had no further text below the slot. Different box types were placed in different bakeries on different days and the amount of money collected each day was recorded.

Their results found that the text on the donation boxes made a profound difference. On average, almost twice as much money was raised daily in boxes with the “donating=loving” text, as compared with the “donating=helping” boxes Guéguen and Lamy think that the word “loving” acts as a prime, activating related concepts such as compassion, support and solidarity, and thereby encourages behaviour consistent with those ideas. Such an explanation would fit the wider literature showing how our motivations and attitudes can be influenced by words and objects without us realising it.

source: British Psychological Society Research Digest & cited December 2011

More info can be accessed by clicking underlined text.

“The Resilient Brain: Cognition and Ageing”, The annual British Academy/British Psychological Society Lecture, was given by Professor Lorraine Tyler FBA at the Royal Society, London, September 2011.

 Professor Tyler discusses research that takes a positive view of changes across the lifespan, and in doing so, is starting to overturn existing stereotypes of ageing.

“Five praises a day for young children, can greatly enhance positive interactions between them and their caregivers.”

The Psychologist, January, 2012.

The Psychologist is the official monthly publication of The British Psychological Society. It serves as a forum for communication, discussion and debate on a range of psychological topics.