Articles
Resilience for Staff Articles
What is Psychological Fitness
Twenty twenty-three has, quite frankly, been shite! Things started to go badly in January and declined thereafter, right through to December. I list the events not for sympathy or compassion (although both are most welcome), but for illustrative purposes only.
Sep 25th, 2023
Resilience and Alzheimer’s
Twenty-three years’ ago I did a PhD at the University of York under the supervision of Dr Derek Roger. I was investigating the psychological impact on staff of working therapeutically with offenders and wanted to know why some staff seemed to thrive whilst others were seriously psychologically injured by their experience.
Jun 08th, 2023
Golden Nuggets
I am going to talk about golden nuggets – not the cereal (is that still available?), but life’s golden nuggets! And, please note that the self-disclosure is for illustrative purposes only – NOT for sympathy. Sympathy and golden nuggets are two different things.
Apr 29th, 2022
Strong communities mean better health
I met Jo Clarke as she was out riding her young horse past our house, long story short, we got talking and realised we have so much in common! Not just our love of animals, and our local community but our belief that prevention is SO MUCH better than cure!
Jan 11th, 2021
How to Be Kind To Your Mind
Did you know that there are nearly 200 phrases in the English language that include the word “mind”? From changing your mind and being absent minded to making up your mind and being mindful, right through to going out of your mind, or even losing it! It makes me think about how busy our minds actually are; being changed, absent, made up, full, or even lost. It’s no wonder we can sometimes feel overwhelmed.
May 22nd, 2020
Playfulness and Being Present
When I say play, I am covering the whole spectrum of creativity including making art, gardening, writing poetry or stories, sculpting with clay or bread dough, inventing new recipes and devising new ways of staying in touch with people we love and miss without breaking lockdown. Playfulness is essentially a state of mind so we can be playful even when undertaking an everyday task. Play is about being in the process rather than focusing on the end product and so, in that respect, play brings us into the present moment.
May 22nd, 2020
When was the last time you were honest with yourself?
I am sitting in my bath crying. I’m not dirty, I had already had a shower earlier that day but, mentally, I needed the space. The bathroom is the only space during lockdown which allows me privacy.
May 11th, 2020
Tips for Working from Home
Many of us may be familiar with working from home, but no-one has ever had to work from home during a global health crisis and in such numbers. All of us have had to adapt to new ways of doing our jobs; for some that adaptation has been fairly straight forward, for others it has been more of a challenge...
May 05th, 2020
Calming our unfounded fears
I have two daughters. Both in their 20s, my eldest is safely ensconced in her house share with three friends. My youngest is far away, adrift on the Caribbean, aboard a ship that cannot dock.
Apr 29th, 2020
The survivor tree & me
There are many trees planted around the site, but this one is special; special, because this tree somehow managed to survive the catastrophic attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001.