subversive ramblings 0

The rawest form of this approach is often referred to as person-centred counselling. The guy who started it was Carl Rogers, a remarkably able therapist. He believed that we each already have the resources to solve our personal problems, and the counsellor shouldn’t interfere by telling the client what to do. In his book ‘On Becoming A Person’ he says this (I rephrase slightly) :

If the counsellor works at our relationship in such a way that I experience his genuineness, transparency, and warm acceptance of me as an individual, and in such a way that I realise he is sensitively seeing my world as I see it then I will become more of a person, understand myself better, function more effectively, gain confidence, be more understanding and accepting of myself and others, be more able to cope with life, and move closer to being who I want to be.

(The book was first published in 1961 and is still readily available.)

Rogers’ theory is: that’s all the counsellor does, although it has to be genuine. If it is then in my experience this really does make a difference. One problem is that even given this rare type of support I still may not be able to sort out the mess my head is in. Another problem is that many counsellors find they are unable to accept clients as they are. I’ve tried working with at least one student who I simply could not accept or prize as he was – and I failed to be of any real help.

Some counsellors confuse the need to be ‘professional’ with the need to show none of these feelings, and as a result their work is far less effective.

The founders of NLP (Richard Bandler and John Grinder) included Carl Rogers in a small group of highly effective counsellors they chose to study. They were ignoring how each therapist claimed to be achieving their results and instead observed with great care what each person was actually doing. Apparently Rogers was seen to be doing more than he said. For instance when clarifying for someone what their options were his body language indicated a preference – even though he was not aware of it.

Rogers’ basic approach, his underpinning attitude to each client, is incredibly powerful on its own. My own feeling, though, is that it should be the background against which other techniques can be used as and when appropriate.

On the other hand I’ve worked with two psycho-dynamic counsellors, and by far the most effective was the one showing very little emotion but having by far the greater training and experience in the method. She came across as caring but professional. Not cold. The other was warm and accepting but not all that helpful.

Conclusions

I aim to be genuine with everyone I meet. For instance if I have nothing good to say I keep quiet, and only when I identify something I believe is worth complimenting do I comment. I try to accept everyone warmly – we each have a hard battle to fight, we each make mistakes. This can be difficult, so I work at seeing the other person’s world through their eyes. I seem to enjoy life much more as a result.

I would prefer a counsellor to be able to communicate at least some of this to the client. But sometimes the nature of the problem requires an expert in some particular approach, and you may have to take what you can get.

An anecdote

Some time back I heard of an experienced senior medical doctor who was taken ill and admitted to hospital for tests. He describes his feelings and thoughts when his consultant surgeon sat down beside the bed and told him he had terminal cancer. I quote his approximate words from memory:

“At that moment the one thing I wanted more than anything else was human contact. I looked at him wishing he would grip my shoulder or hold my hand, but he just sat there. He was behaving in the professional way Doctors are trained to behave: don’t get emotionally involved, never touch the patient except for clear professional purposes.

“But I longed for him to reach out and make human contact. And in that instant I looked back at my entire career behaving professionally and knew that sometimes I should have stretched the boundaries.”

It means a lot to a homeless person when someone pauses, smiles, says hello, and makes even the faintest attempt to understand what it feels like to be homeless.

It's time to talk to someone, but who?

What types of counselling are there?

Here’s a list of what I’ve come across.

My questions are: How does the counsellor expect to achieve results, what do they see as the source of my problems, and what approach do they believe is likely to help? Most formal methods of counselling will include two or more of these facets.

1. The Relationship: you already have the resources within you to sort things out. All that is needed is that I create the right relationship between us.
2. The Solutions: your problems have practical solutions which I will teach you. Some of this will include you learning new skills.
3. Finding solutions: you need to develop problem-solving skills of your own.
4. Memories: it’s all in your memories, especially the ones of your childhood.
5. Consciously controlling thoughts: your natural way of creating and processing thoughts is damaging, so lets help you make some changes.
6. Mental reprogramming: there’s a range of mental tricks other people just use naturally to modify how they think and react. You can learn their tricks.
7. Mindfulness: the problem is your attitude to experiencing life from moment to moment.
8. Hypnotherapy.
9. Classic conditioning.

We’ll take these one at a time – which I guess will take nine posts, but you never know.

If you have a cliff to climb then a guide will probably help. Before leading people up this cliff I've explained a few basics to them. (Can you spot the climbers?)

I first experienced formal counselling in the seventies. Before then, influenced by TV and films, I thought it would involve lying down on a leather couch while someone in suit and glasses sat nearby taking notes.

Updated TV versions include Frasier (in Frasier, obviously), and the counsellor Don Epps is forced to see (in Numbers). Would you agree with me that Frasier the therapist is awful, but Don’s therapist is great?

This article looks at some useful things to be aware of about counselling. Later posts will look at the different approaches to counselling – obviously from my own slightly odd view point.

How can just talking make a difference?

If this worries you have a read of a previous post here on this topic.

How the counsellor relates to you

This can be of crucial importance, and usually affects the results.

You don’t have to like the counsellor and trying to be best buddies might get in the way, but you do need a good working relationship.

Obviously you can expect the counsellor to act professionally, but that shouldn’t stop them being friendly, accepting of you as a unique individual who matters, and trying to sensitively see your world as you see it. Aim not to judge the counsellor on first impressions; it can take several sessions to build up an effective relationship.

Guideline 1: if you don’t take to the counsellor after a few sessions consider looking elsewhere.

Guideline 2: if this means you’re switching every few weeks then the problem may be with you. You need to be committed to what you’re doing, and open and honest with your helper. Do you really want to change? If those questions make you angry ask yourself why.

How experienced should the counsellor be?

That depends on the method(s) being used and the exact nature of your problem(s). Obviously some things can only be learned from experience, but sometimes just having someone shrewd enough to shut up and listen is all that is needed. That requires no formal experience.

Do I need a specialist in one type of counselling?

Maybe. It could be worth finding someone first who can assess you and then advise. Some psychiatrists and some psychologists can do this for you, but be aware that some have no time for counselling.

I would suggest that whatever their special approach it is likely to help a lot if your counsellor knows parts of other approaches and is willing to use them as appropriate.

Guideline 3: ideally a counsellor has a range of tools at his/her disposal and is flexible in approach, adapting to the unique needs of the individual client.

Guideline 4: sometimes you really have to have the right tool for the job. Listen to expert advice, and if it is a specific type of counselling that is most likely to help you then go for it.

How long will it take?

If your problem is easy to define and you work at it some things can be fixed in a single session (bythe right person). However it may take many sessions to get at the root causes of your problems.

For instance it may be possible to weaken or remove a terror of cats in one session, but learning to control anger is likely to take quite a bit longer.

Guideline 5: It takes as long as it takes. But beware of the charlatan who extends treatment unnecessarily for some personal reason like wanting your money!

Does the counsellor do all the work?

Probably not. Assume that some effort will be required from you. At the very least you may need to talk about painful or embarrassing things. If you are unwilling to make that effort – with help and encouragement – then how is your helper to know what the real problems are? You need to talk. You need to think. You may need to learn new skills. You may be given homework to do either in the form of reading, or keeping a diary, or practising new tricks, or trying something new.

Guideline 6: expect to have to work hard at being a client.

Guideline 7: don’t be surprised if it is a traumatic experience, and don’t be surprised if you find yourself unexpectedly crying. It’s okay.

What types of counselling are there?

We’ll start looking at that next post. See you then.

Relax. I'll be bouncing around again in a few minutes.

There are moments when suicide makes sense.

That is, it feels like it makes sense.

In the moment.

Especially if that moment drags on for days or weeks.

Today we heard of the death of influential fashion designer Alexander McQueen. Someone very close to him had just died. It’s not known at this stage if he committed suicide, but the possibility has been mooted.

That got me thinking.

If my wife Jenny dies before me then I’m sure I will be devastated, and I’ll not be at all surprised if I feel there’s no longer any point in staying alive myself. Living with chronic depression is tough, and such thoughts can flitter though my mind. Usually they are weak and comfortably brief. But I have nearly lost Jenny several times so I have a sense of how I may feel.

What I’ve done is promise myself I will allow time to recover from the immediate grief before making any critical decisions such as whether to move house. I guess suicide also counts as a critical decision.

You see when emotions are strong or depression is deep we don’t think straight. During depression is exactly the time NOT to make important decisions. I’m lucky. I know my depression will ease, so I just postpone following through on any ideas till I’m feeling better. It works. Some of the ideas then make sense, and some I realise are just plain silly.

When depression first hit in 1970 and I had no idea what was wrong with me I felt a bit suicidal. I talked to friends and that helped. My Doctor referred me to a specialist and that started me on the road to understanding, learning to cope, and realising depression was only temporary. Mind you that temporary episode lasted over eighteen months, but I survived. And I’m glad I did.

Many years later one depressive episode brought extended thoughts of suicide, and a friend (Peter Jolly) helped me through the suicidal stage.

If you are feeling like death could be an option then please talk it through with a good friend, and if you’re not already receiving treatment for depression then please go and see a Doctor as soon as possible. There are medicines that can probably help you, although some take several weeks before you feel the effects.

Above all else, be patient. If you want to kill yourself now, it will pass. Life will get better. There will be times worth experiencing again.

Afterthought

When I suggest chatting with a friend I’m not suggesting you text everyone in your address book. Some depressed people contact all their friends saying where they are and that they are about to kill themselves. If that’s what you’re doing then you are in a rough state and you do need professional help, but maybe what you’re really doing is trying to attract attention. You may be trying to shout ‘HELP!’ or you may just like the fuss. The trouble is that friends rapidly become fed up with you if you try this more than once. And let’s face it, friends shouldn’t be abused like that. Or to put it from a selfish viewpoint (which is much easier to grasp when depressed) you need your friends to still be there if it ever gets really serious.

I’m working on a short series of articles about the different types of counselling that are available – obviously to be viewed from an odd perspective. So far the first post is in its third incarnation and likely to change quite a bit further. To keep the blog moving for now here are some of my favourite ‘abstract’ photos from the past year. Enjoy or dismiss as takes your fancy.

Nothing special - just sunlight on some leaves by a town road I was walking along.

Nothing special - just one of the rocks bordering our lawn

Dare I say, nothing special - just part of a wall in the village of Robin Hood's Bay

Each of these cheered me up when I was a bit down. They’re nothing special, you just have to notice them. For the last it was an overcast day with rain coming, and we enjoyed ourselves. There was less than an hour of sun all day, and we were there for it.

My Dad grew up in a very different culture and society to our own. Like it or not his ways of thinking were affected by how those around him thought and spoke, and by his location in time and space. Can you guess which one he is?

It was the late fifties and we were going on holiday, which was a bad thing. Being there would be okay, but getting there was not.

You see Dad found driving stressful and his job involved a lot of it, often while depressed. When he came to his annual fortnight off he really needed to sleep for a few days and then just potter around locally, but we had to go and stay near his aging parents in Colwyn Bay. Driving alone was bad enough, but taking the family was something else. We would set off early ‘to avoid the traffic’ and I hated being dragged out of bed a couple of hours too soon. I would say so loudly. Well, I was barely past being a toddler. At that age you care about as much for your Dad’s tiredness as you do for the starving children in Africa who are metaphorically paraded before you whenever you fail to finish a meal. Meals in those days were nutritious. No supermarkets. No junk food. Mo microwave dinners. It was all freshly cooked from scratch, and sometimes about as appealing to me as getting up early

I was consigned to the back seat  and settled down to read – probably Enid Blyton, who did more than any other writer to start me on a lifelong love of reading. It was a long journey driven slowly. There were no speed limits between towns because few roads allowed a car to get over seventy anyway. Overtaking was hazardous.

A long way into the journey, and a long way from its end, I was jerked out of my book by Dad shouting something like, “Damned negroes. They’re everywhere!”

"Nothing wrong with being black. It's getting old I dislike. You know, arthritis and poor eyesight and stuff. Now that's what really matters." Suzy, who lived to 19

I sat up straight, which was the only way to see out of the side windows, and looked. Then I pushed myself higher (no seat belts or child seats then) to stare through front and back windows.

There was no one about.

There was almost no traffic, even by fifties standards.

All around were the empty plots of bulldozered rubble left over from the war. I didn’t know then, but Britain was virtually bankrupt in 1950. There was no spare cash for rebuilding anything that wasn’t strictly necessary. I grew up thinking it was normal for major cities like Bristol, Exeter and Birmingham to have wide-open parts of their centres occupied mainly by block after block of rubble. It felt like fields of knee-high masonry enclosed by a grid of narrow roads and narrower footpaths. It had always been there. It was natural.

And that was the part of Birmingham we were driving through. Fields of rubble as far as my childish eyes could see. Nowhere for the hordes of black men to hide on hearing my Dad’s anger. I was disappointed, never having seen a black man except in pictures. I kept looking. There was not a single pedestrian visible. The paths were empty. In retrospect there was no reason for anyone to be walking through that devastation so early on a Saturday morning.

I demanded to know where all these black men were and Dad made some angry remark I can’t recall. He was of course exhausted, stressed out, and depressed. Mum cautioned me to be quiet, which after questionning her some more I was.

Dad wasn’t racist. He’d travelled the world in his youth, lived and worked with all sorts of people, but he had been brought up in Edwardian times when only men could vote and women were an underclass. British schools had been designed to train boys to cope with the hardships of going abroad to uphold the British Empire and keep those foreigners in check. Black people were thought of as little more than savages.

Of course he was educated and intelligent. He knew that people are just people and that where they came from was largely irrelevant. But he was living in what today we like to call a racist culture. Black people were treated by society as inferior. Those who dared to migrate to Britain for a better job were oddities. We were still a decade away from Enoch Powell’s sad ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech warning against what he perceived as the dangers of continued immigration. I understand his point of view, but value our modern multi-cultural society far more.

Dad could not avoid picking up some of the public thinking.

At school we would refer to anyone whose tie was slightly askew as a ’scruffy Arab’. We picked this phrasing up from our teachers. Okay, so Arabs tended to dress differently from traditional Englishmen. Fair enough. They were a different culture living in a different climate. The trouble was that very few people in Britain had ever met an Arab. They just mimicked the rather pathetic statements made by everyone else. It was only when I was much older that I realised calling someone a ’scruffy Arab’ was insulting to true Arabs. Some of the nicest people I’ve got to know in more recent years have been the children of parents from the Arab countries, or India, or Pakistan, or South America. The first Jew I met was a member of my tutor group in the seventies, but I didn’t know he was Jewish till I met him in Leeds some years later. At school he’d kept quiet, the only Jew in the school.

Am I odd? I find it depressing when people try to rewrite history. They go through old films removing scenes where people smoke. They criticise the actions of the British Empire from their twenty-first century moral pedestal. They are disparaging about the servility of 1930’s housewives. And they damn people like my Dad as ignorant racists.

Sorry guys but Dad was not racist. He was just a man of his time. And severely depressed, which pushed him to saying outrageous things.

You had to be there to understand.

Or at least you have to be willing to put yourself in the heads of people living then.

Fire off enough arrows and you'll hit something good.

Just want to say your article is impressive. The lucidity in your post is simply spectacular and i can take for granted you are an expert on this subject. Well with your permission allow me to grab your rss feed to keep up to date with future post. Thanks a million and please keep up the fabulous work.

I’m starting to get comments like this one, which is sad. Fortunately there’s software to catch it. (If you posted this one and it’s genuine I do apologise. Please read on to find out why it needs sorting if it’s not to appear suspicious.)

What’s wrong with it?

For a start it’s completely over the top which makes it nauseating. There’s nothing there of real interest either to me or to people reading the blog.

Secondly there is not a single phrase relevant to the article it comments on, which is here.

Thirdly it contains both an e-mail address (starting with info@) and a web site address. Most commenters do not include links to themselves. However, if you are trying to improve your site’s search engine ratings, or are commenting just so people will contact you, then you put this stuff in. Search engines like Google take into account how many other sites (including blogs) link to you.

By the way, if you send me an e-mail with links then please include some wording showing you know me. In these days of malicious software taking over people’s e-mail address books we all get stuff which was sent automatically from a friend’s computer without their knowledge. Mind you it is typically ungrammatical and with spelling errors.

It is a grate honer to have someone of your stature and integrity take the timing to read my blog. I recently came across this brilliant web site witch im sure you will find of grate intrest: thisnameisfalseyoutwit.com

(PS the first stupid web site name I tried there turned out to exist. I guess that’s part of the fun of the web Oh, and it is safe to click the link. Just takes you to my web site.)

The winter makes me feel so lethargic and down

In the seventies a psychiatrist said my depression has a lot in common with hibernation in some other mammals. I’ve mentioned this before. I’ve no idea if the expects still believe that about some types of depression, but it’s a great metaphor, a great way of thinking about what’s going on, a great model to work with. Like all metaphors it doesn’t have to be literally provided it helps.

I’ve not been writing much lately because most times I’ve tried it’s felt like trying to run through foot-deep fresh snow (that’s a simile because I’ve made the comparison explicit by using the word ‘like’ – and yes I have tried running through such snow, in my younger days). The problem has been that right now my mind and body are trying to hibernate (that’s the metaphor).

Maybe not the day to go for a long run in the park - probably feel like trying to think when depressed.

What does hibernating feel like?

Rather nice, actually. I’m thinking of the many times in the last month when I’ve gone to bed in the middle of the day and let myself relax, possibly with the radio on. If I don’t sleep it still feels good to drowse. I envy the real hibernators.

Trouble is most of the time my head and body are telling me to hibernate, but I’m not set up to do it properly. Hedgehogs have no problem. My metabolism fails to fully respond.

Normally I do a lot of reading, both fiction and non-fiction. Recently I’ve tired after just a few pages. I can cope with maybe two hours of TV a day before that loses its appeal. Anything physical is unappealing (the chemical systems are telling me to hibernate, and exercise might wake me up – perishing brain is nothing if not logical).

Getting started writing is much harder, and the results not as good. I write a section and realise it is not that interesting; I need to come up with a different approach, maybe some good illustrations (metaphors? photos?). But I can’t be bothered. And if I do try then the cog wheels in my brain scream out for lack of lubrication (metaphor with alliteration ).

Sometimes I get going on some activity, but I’m far less likely to feel any pleasure from it. I’ve shifted from my normal atypical depression to a dysthymic state, which I find depressing.

So what do I do about it?

Decades of experience have taught me when it might be worth pushing myself, and when to stop worrying and go with the flow.

If I’ve also got some physical illness like a cold I know to take things more gently till those additional symptoms ease. This has become more important with age. Right now I have shingles, but am recovering nicely from recent chest and sinus infections. So today I tried writing this and it seems to be working.

Sometimes my head lies to me. I have got used to giving in to the feelings of lethargy. There comes a time when I need to try pushing myself a bit every few days just to check, and I know that one of those times I really will feel better once started.

I started today’s blog aware that I might need to take a break in the middle for a day or two, and that’s okay. I did not start assuming I wouldn’t finish. I did started hopeful.

It helps to let people and commitments jolly me into doing bits and pieces. I am tempted to get ratty when this happens, but actually it does me good in the long term to have to do a few things, to get out a bit, to have to meet people. I may or may not enjoy it, but it helps. We go out shopping. We have the occasional meal out. We visit with friends, but just not as often as normal, and we don’t stay as long. Real friends understand – partly because we’ve explained.

Getting some exercise most days is good too. Walking for quarter of an hour would be excellent since it would get me out as well, but it’s not attractive. Especially when it’s overcast, cold, raining or snowing. We recently bought a rowing machine, and five minutes on that is both bearable (most days) and makes me feel better. Jenny encourages me gently.

Then there’s the SAD light box. Theory is that lack of natural sunlight in the winter makes some people function less well, possibly by affecting serotonin production. A light box provides bright light with wave-lengths not available from normal artificial lighting. It’s much nearer to sunlight, though in my experience not as good. If the sun is shining I’m better off sitting in the front porch (a small conservatory) than using my light box, but otherwise the box is better than nothing. It makes a noticeable difference.

Ah, that's better. Even with your stupid light box half blinding me.

Here are some useful links if you’d like to know more (or just Google something like ’sad light therapy’):

http://www.psycheducation.org/depression/LightTherapy.htm#which

http://depression.about.com/od/sad/a/besttreatment.htm

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/seasonal-affective-disorder-treatment/DN00013

Does light therapy work? Scientific evidence seems confused, but personally I do feel better when I use my light box. It’s worth trying, but do read the instructions. Do buy the right one for you. Do consult experts.

My own box is some dozen years old, large and quite heavy. It still works providing I replace the tubes at worst every other year. I’m thinking of trying one of the new generation of smaller systems, perhaps a blue light or LED one. Must read that up.

Having depression which gets worse most winters is not the end of life. Yes it’s another obstacle, but one that can be overcome. If you’re patient. And realistic. And you want to.

I'm not very bright, but I'm cute and I love you.

This is a question many people ask themselves, and sadly the answer can feel devastating. In the last twenty four hours I’ve encountered a couple of items which give a strikingly fresh perspective on this.

Was Franco intelligent?

We recently caught a TV program about the Spanish civil war. It was interesting, and highlighted my ignorance on the matter. I knew it happened in Spain (obviously) during that odd period of unrest and depression between the two world wars. I knew the winners were led by a guy called Franco. And that was it. So I borrowed a couple of books from the library.

The Nationalists were battling the Monarchists. Each group was made up of a pretty mixed bunch of people who spent a lot of time and effort disagreeing with each other rather than cooperating to win the war. A key difference was that the Nationalists were led by Franco, yet oddly he is described as ‘not one of the century’s great intellects’ and characterised by the statement that ‘his head was a cemetery of dead ideas’.

So if the guy was so stupid how come he won? It seems a key factor was his ability to lead. He brought the bickering groups on his side together, enabled them to see that their differences were minor compared with what they had in common, and acted as a single figure head for his side. Now that kind of skill is rare. We could do with more of it in our schools, hospitals, businesses, political parties, even charity shops. Franco may have been what some people call ‘thick’, but there was at least one way in which he displayed awesome intelligence. I guess he just wouldn’t have passed many exams.

Is Lenny Henry intelligent?

Lenny is a successful and much loved comedian here in the UK. This morning on the radio he described how as a youngster he was troubled by not being able to do Maths. This made him feel totally useless. If you can’t do Maths, what can you do? Well quite a lot actually. He certainly did. Now if we were looking for someone to head up the astrophysics department Lenny’s would not be the first name to come to mind. But so what?

During the post grad year of training to be a teacher I wanted to do my dissertation on intelligence but was dissuaded. Intelligence, the man said, is far too difficult a topic for you. You’re not an expert trained in psychology.

Hmmm.

Looking back, this advice said more about the lecturer’s failure to sort ideas out in his own mind. At the level of a dissertation ‘intelligence’ could have been fascinating. Okay, so there’s a range of theories. To some extent these are just different ways of looking at things. Let’s consider one approach.

In 1983 Howard Gardner published his ground-breaking book “Frames of Mind”. I’ve got a copy in the attic. It’s not written as popular science, so you might prefer the summary here on Wikipedia. In outline he suggested that there is not just a single ‘intelligence’ thing as supposedly found using IQ tests. He identified seven different types of intelligence, each of great value. We’re all good at some, weak at others, and the mix is part of who we are. It influences what types of stuff we’re most likely to do well at.

Franco must have been very strong in interpersonal intelligence. He was good at dealing with people. He knew how to influence and motivate them.

Lenny Henry would also score high on this one, but also is good with bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence. Watch the way he uses his face and body and voice.

I could get hung up over finding it so hard to remember names and faces. But it’s rather more sensible to feel good about what I can do, and choose a direction based on the talent that is there.

Books quoted above

The first statement above about Franco is from “Aspects of European History 1789-1980″ by Stephen J. Lee (first published 1987).

The second is from “The Spanish Civil War” edited by A.Puzzo (published 1969).

Yes, I unearthed them in my old school library.

If the keyboard wasn't upside down I'd type you a New Year's message if I could type. Ah well.

New Year’s resolution: tidy my desk.

(This is the tenth article in a series. Click on the ARTICLE SERIES tab above for links to the rest.)

Despite losing my original notes I’ve managed to come up with a list of nine Ps which pretty much cover it:

• Possible,
• Personal,
• Pragmatic,
• Passionate,
• Present tense,
• Positive,
• Precise,
• Posted,
• Process.

Usually this sort of list annoys me as artificial, but it’ll do.

Possible

Assess anything you’re considering making a personal goal. If you really go for it, how likely are you to succeed? As a very loose guideline, if your answer is under 50% then pick a more reasonable goal (which may ultimately serve as a stepping stone to making your original choice feasible).

It’s worth taking into account your talents, level of education, physical and mental health, support systems (eg friends), interests, motivation, and age. I’m not good at learning raw facts, which is one reason I found foreign languages so tough at school. Now I’m older it’s even harder to memorise stuff. It would be really nice to speak fluent French, but setting myself the target of learning French to that level would be silly. Instead I take a phrase book, dictionary, and the remnants of what I learned at school.

Frankland's Green Crack, Almscliffe Crag, just coming up to the tricky bit. In my 30s I was running most days and using weights, and still had trouble on this route. Now I'm 60 it would be absurd to set myself the target of leading that route again. I'll stick with the easier stuff.

Personal

Aim for things you want to achieve. As a teacher I was often tempted to try imposing targets that students didn’t want. I might know that some aspects of life are easier if you get a good grade in Maths, but not everyone shares my personal aspirations and interests. If your Dad is a successful businessman who is hoping you’ll one day take over, and if you don’t like Maths, then maybe you don’t need to get to University to achieve your main goal of becoming able to run the business well. On the other hand, if Dad is determined you will take over but the very idea makes you slightly sick….

Targets you set for yourself are likely to be far more powerful than targets someone else sets for you.

Pragmatic

We’re all different. Take your uniqueness into account. Any goals you set need to match with who you are and what you hold important.

I once heard of someone who came up with a way to become a millionaire in a year if he did the right work, and he was correct that most millionaires only became so rich by making themselves very focussed on that goal. He set himself the target and set about achieving it.  This required he spend most of his time on the road. He hardly ever saw his wife and children, and when he did he was tired from travel and hard work. Occasionally he’d take one of his children with him for a week or two, but he was out of touch with family life and too focussed on his work. While they were with him he let them eat far too much junk food, which led to arguments with his wife. At the end of the year he had achieved his target. He was a millionaire. But he had lost his wife and family.

Okay, so maybe he was at ease with that result. I wouldn’t be. The process of achieving that kind of goal would not fit with my personal values. It would risk destroying things I hold dear.

That overlaps with this consideration. We need to check that the end result is really what we want and that it fits with who we really are.

Brian Jones was a founder-member of The Rolling Stones. He was with the band through its first six years of success, but according to Mick Jagger could not handle fame and the lifestyle that went with it. In 1968 he left the band with the hope he might be able to return, but died the next year in odd circumstances. Fame is not for everyone, nor is the life of a rock star.

Passionate

What will achieving the goal require you to do? Have you the enthusiasm to do this? If you fancy being a world-famous concert pianist you’re looking at many years of practising at least five hours a day. Does your passion extend that far? Mine wouldn’t. I wanted to relearn the guitar when I retired, but frankly I was never much good at playing it, and these days my enthusiasm no way matches the need to play every day. I dumped that as a target with sadness, but felt more at ease having done so.

Present tense

Goals are best phrased in the present tense, as if they are already achieved.

Apparently a boxing manager spotted someone called Cassius Clay who was showing great promise as a boxer. He asked Clay what his ambition was. “I’d really like to become heavyweight champion of the world.” No, said the manager, with that attitude you’ll never make it. Stop saying “I’d like to become…” and start saying “I am the greatest in the world”.

After Whoopi Goldberg was awarded an Oscar she said that for most of her career she’d been imagining herself accepting the award and holding it to herself with joy.

Visualise yourself already having achieved your target. Feel what it will feel like. Think of yourself as already being that person. (Of course I’m assuming you’ve checked your goal is Possible!)

Positive

Cassius Clay was also making another common mistake. He phrased his ambition in slightly negative terms, which gave him a getout. The manager advised him this was a realistic target, but not an easy one. To achieve it he must remove the “like to” bit.

If becoming fluent with French was a sensible target for me then I should phrase it something like this: “I am becoming fluent in French. I have the ability. I have the desire. I am succeeding.”

Precise

Clay did not aim to become a good boxer. He aimed to be heavyweight world champion. He succeeded. He was also voted sports personality of the century.

Be clear exactly what you’re aiming to achieve.

How will you know when you have arrived?

One of my current targets is to have a book I’ve written published by an established publishing house. That’s clear. I’ll know for certain when I’ve achieved it. I think it is possible, but I’m being realistic by not aiming (yet) for a best seller. Joanne Harris’ agent did place her first novel. It wasn’t all that successful – none of the local book stores stocked it. Her next was slightly more successful. The next two were not published until after her best seller Chocolat. I don’t know if she was aiming for the level of success she achieved. Must ask her. I’m at ease with my current target.

Posted

We need motivation to achieve a target. One source is feedback about our progress, and the more frequent the better.  Identify stages along the way, sub-goals you can check off as they are achieved. How can you tell if today you are doing stuff which moves you onwards?

Process

Don’t be conned. Life is about living, not sitting still. Make sure you know what will come after you achieve a target. Enjoy every part of working towards it. Be on a continuing journey in which every scene is valued.

NO ENTRY !

There’s a classic TV sketch in which a one-legged actor turns up to audition for the role of Tarzan and is outraged that he’s not considered quite suitable. (Sorry, can’t remember the source. Probably Monty Python or Not The Nine O’Clock News.)

If you suffer depression it’s easy to think like this. You know what you’re capable of at your best, so why do you need to declare your disability in the job application?

Because it matters.

If you had a single episode of depression ten years ago, got over it, and have coped with a range of stressful situations since: yes it must be galling to have to declare it. On the other hand if, like me, you have repeating depression then you just have to accept that some roads are closed to you.

This is a tricky area. Depression affects individual people and jobs differently. Stephen Fry became an outstanding entertainer (comedian, actor, writer, presenter) despite major depressive problems. Other depressives who try to become actors find that profession makes them even less stable.

There are few solid rules. Obviously you should think very carefully before trying a career in school teaching. The hours are long in term time. Stress can be high. Abrupt switches several times a year from crippling levels of work to several weeks of nothing is arguably bad for a depressive. But it’s possible. It would seem equally daft for a depressive to go into national politics, but Winston Churchill is recognised as a great wartime Prime Minister of this country.

How about I describe what limitations illness forced on my own career? What no-entry signs were inevitable, even if it did take me years to accept them? I’ll cover them based on the reason they’re there.

I’ve been off ill a lot

Early in my career this would be the occasional half term off following a breakdown. Also depression may depress the immune system. I had more than my fair share of normal illnesses some of which also required sick leave.

In the final dozen years I was generally able to manage things better in the sense that I could usually see a breakdown coming and take a few days off to recharge. As stress built up in the last few years of teaching I was physically ill more often too.

When I was off ill someone else had to cover my lessons. With short-term absence this would be colleagues giving up non-teaching lessons. I would set work and phone it in. They would try to interpret my instructions but most teachers do not ‘teach’ cover lessons. They turn up, set the work, and get on with urgent marking. This is not ideal, but if you’ve ever tried teaching you’ll understand. With long-term absence a temporary replacement must be found from outside the school, but anyone good enough to be teaching Maths full time probably is, rather than sitting at home waiting for someone to be ill.

I was lucky. My various headmasters were sympathetic. It seems they wanted me back so chose to make the school put up with problems. Even so the last Head quite reasonably stopped me returning after my last breakdown and required a full medical report. I was five years from retirement. He offered a part-time teaching job coupled with maintaining pension payments at their full rate. This was a remarkable concession. He thought I was a good teacher, to be kept if at all possible. (Actually my consultant psychiatrist reviewed matters and rightly assessed I’d reached the stage where I wouldn’t cope with even part time teaching.)

Most teachers expect to be promoted during their career. There are a number of options. My preferred one was pastoral. I wanted to be Head of Year. More of that later. The obvious alternative was academic: become Head of Maths. Both roles must have someone who is going to be there pretty much every day. Neither person can do the job if they keep taking sick leave. This is not unfair, it’s in the nature of the job. We did find a unique alternate route for my skills plus illness, but repeated sick leave effectively banned me from reaching deputy head level whether I was otherwise up to it.

My mood changes according to how ill I am

Okay, I’ll be honest. When depressed I’m a moody git, and when stressed by teaching as well I became bad tempered and not entirely rational.

Imagine this:  they make me Head of year 9. John Smith, aged 14, has rich and influential parents who are far too busy with their own careers to spend time with their son. He is mixed up, attention seeking, and frankly lacking in moral awareness. Yesterday he was internally excluded (supervised while he worked but not allowed to go to lessons) for throwing his calculator at a teacher coupled with fairly explicit instructions where to go. It is 8.25am and I am just heading off to take year 9 assembly. Passing through reception I’m accosted by Mr Smith. He has no appointment but demands to speak with me “right now”. He is angry that he’s paying school fees for his son to not attend lessons. He is a busy man so requires instant attention – now I know where his son gets that from.

Okay, that’s the scenario. How do I deal with Mr Smith a) when I’m well, and able to respond calmly and professionally, b) when I’m struggling to stay afloat with depression, my head hurts, my back aches, and my subconscious keeps telling me to snarl at someone?

Enough said?

So what’s the good news?

More of what Nigel Day wrote for the school mag

I was in the right career for me.

I think the problems caused by illness were generally (though not for everone) outweighed by how I did my job.

Because they’ve told me: I know many that people have benefited from my work.

And being someone students knew well who was also known to suffer chronic depression was itself of value to quite a number.

One trick, which admittedly I was slow to learn, is to recognise the genuine limitations imposed by who you are and any problems your body or mind have. This is true for everyone, but more so when the disability is something as powerful as cerebral palsy or chronic depression.

Oh, and in case you missed it: the previous post was about the shame and stigma of depression. It may be just below. It is here.

This week ’The Independent’ newspaper produced a double-page spread about the shame and stigma of depression. The articles are here and here.

Apparently it’s okay to admit to depression if you’re a celebrity, but for the rest of us this admission can just increase our problems.

I guess I’m weird.

From the start I’ve been fairly open about my mental illness. I’ve not encountered significant problems that weren’t actually there because of the depression itself, as opposed to created by telling people. But yes, I’ve met enough ignorant and bigoted people that I do have some understanding. And I believe some cultures are far less sympathetic to mental illness than the one I grew up in.

Good morning world. My name is Nigel and I've suffered chronic depression these past forty years. I don't know it yet but three months from now the illness will force me to retire. Live with it. I can.

You’re just lazy

One problem is that of wilful misunderstanding. A friend recently mentioned that her father is quite sure there is no such thing as depression. He believes people who say they’re depressed are just lazy. Well thanks. So when I used to force myself out of bed at twenty to six every morning, fight intermittent desires to lose my temper or cry during the day, worked ten hours at school and then marking, and came home almost too tired to eat, I was just being lazy. Neat analysis. If my reasoning was that dodgy would I want people to know?

Yes of course there’s a laziness element in depression. Part of recovery is to develop ways of overcoming this learned lethargy. That needs its own article. But it may or may not be what most people think of as laziness. You might as well accuse someone with brain cancer of just having a headache. Yes, they may have a headache, but they may not, and it may or may not be caused by the cancer.

You and any doctors you consult are wrong!

Another problem is denial. “There’s nothing wrong with our family. We do not get mental illness.”

Fair enough. Presumably you’re immune to other illnesses too. Must be nice to never catch a cold or break a bone.

Come on, get real. Depression may or may not be inherited. All sorts of people contract it. There is no medical reason why someone in your family can’t become clinically depressed. And to say that none of your ancestors suffered depression is plain silly. How do you know? How far back do accurate records go? What about Aunt Ethel who was a bit of a character? Might depression explain her strange behaviour?

Mental illness is just too shameful

Part of the article Nigel Day wrote

When I had to retire early a friend at work wrote the valedictory article for the school magazine.  The editor, bless him, contacted me urgently to ask if I’d seen the proposed article. He was very worried that it contained information I would not wish to have published: it stated clearly why I had been forced to take ill-health retirement. We found this amusing. I used to give talks to years 10 and 11 about depression, using myself as a key example.

In the old days – most of the history of the human race – when depression was not understood it was interpreted in one of four ways. If you were in fact clinically depressed with faulty brain chemistry then one of the following must apply:

• you’re lazy – to be despised,
• you’re a nasty person – to be avoided,
• you’re mad – to be locked up,
• you’re possessed by an evil spirit – to be exorcised or maybe just killed.

It’s sad that now we have a well-publicised biochemical explanation, and medicines that usually help, people cling to the emotions which only made sense before modern understanding. Trouble is we’re not rational beings. We pick up these daft ideas so easily, and cling to them so fiercely whatever the evidence. It’s as if we think changing our understanding somehow removes a bit of who we are. I’d call it growing up, but there you go. Try to be patient with such people.

But…

There is no logical or scientific reason why depression should be shameful, although it is oh so understandable that we feel ashamed. However stigma is a social reality. If you admit to depression in a job application how likely are they to interview you? Obviously you’re unpredictable, unreliable. There’s no telling what you might do. After all, depression is one of those ‘mental illnesses’, isn’t it, and everyone knows one leads to another. You might even kill someone. That’s what you schizophrenics do isn’t it? (Er, no. Most schizophrenics are no more likely to murder than you are, though in your case I might be tempted. In any case I said I suffered depression and that medication has it pretty much under control. )

But there are opportunities depression may deny you, and this can feel both crippling and demeaning.

There are no hard and fast rules. People need to get to know you, and you need to get to know your own limitations, but actually that is true of everyone.

Next article I’ll describe what roads have been closed to me by my own depression, why, and how I responded.

PS

This is the 100th post.

I thought of making it something special.

I considered making key changes to the style of the blog.

I decided 100 is only a special number because we happen to have a total of 10 fingers on our two hands (thumb-obsessed people don’t quibble) so we count in tens, and a hundred is ten squared. If we had one arm with eleven fingers on it then we’d not think anything of a hundred but go crazy over 121.

You gotta pity us mathematicians

I need to relax today because I’m exhausted. Not a problem. It’s beautiful out, and the sun has been shining on my face much of the morning.

While idly preparing some more horizontal photo crops for the randomised header of this blog I came across quite I few which seem really good uncropped. Since I’m too tired to write anything serious, and a blog about depression needs brightening up, here are the first few. Typically they’re uncropped, but the contrast may have been tweaked slightly. Like any of them?

We spotted this part of someone’s front garden in Beddgelert, North Wales, last July. If this is your garden, thank you very much for the pleasure your display gave us.

A very small part of the large lake in Roundhay Park near where we live.

A stream on the edge of Porthmadog, North Wales. Jenny and I were running the patrol leaders’ expedition for my old school Scouts. The equivalent expedition in 1983 involved twenty miles of walking in order to traverse the Grey Corries, and a night in a bothy. Kids these days can’t hack it any more (and to be honest neither can I) so we’ve been go-karting, and now I’m taking photos while they kick a ball around on a nearby field.

We took a day off camp to explore Snowdonia. Well, we weren’t being paid. This is a crag above Tan-y-Grisiau on the edge of the Moelwyns. Used to be a big slate-mining area, and now the easier mines are reopening. This is a crag I climbed with one of our students some fifteen years ago. The gleaming slab was good fun, but finishing off towards the right not so great. Glad I climbed it, but it’s an awful long slog up the slag heap of waste slate for a two pitch route. Never mind, we were young.

You may have noticed a slice from this one as a random header. The wall is just outside Joe Brown’s outdoor and mountaineering shop in Capel Curig, North Wales. Same day as previous photo. Sadly the local cafe no longer uses genuine clotted cream for its cream teas, but there you go.

Okay, so you don’t shop with me. Just couldn’t resist putting this at the end.

If you’re reading this within twenty four hours of me posting it, have a great weekend.

Bad memories can be tough to live with. Alcohol and other drugs feel like a solution but they are oh so temporary, and the side effects can be worse than the memories.

Have you ever watched a film in which a character has repeated flashbacks to some traumatic event in their past? Part of the story line is that the past is controlling their present. Believe me, it happens.

Fortunately bad memories can be controlled. Some interesting new research on this has recently been published and the BBC have reported on it here. (I think the researchers’ web site is here, although I’ve yet to track down the original research paper. Let me know if you find a link to it. Meanwhile I’ll be studying some of their other research papers with interest )

We all have memories we’d prefer to be rid of. Sometimes these are powerful forces distorting lives. For years my own memories of things that happened in my childhood (actually fairly mild emotional abuse) tortured me. They kept returning. They kept hurting. They kept telling me I’d never recover, never be normal, never achieve what I was capable of. Okay, so I still haven’t achieved that, but now I can relive those memories without pain, and without them manipulating me. They’re just part of who I am, and I’ve moved on from the bad effects.

Often it’s not the experience itself that damages us, but how we react to reliving it inside our head.

Some therapists believe in getting clients to relive trauma. I guess repeated exposure is supposed to dull the pain. That strikes me as a pretty hit or miss approach without clear objectives, although I believe it can work. My understanding is that this process on its own sometimes makes the memory even more damaging. Another danger is that incompetent (presumably uninformed) counsellors or interrogators can guide the process in such a way as to change the memories into what the questioner thinks they might have been. In fact it’s frighteningly easy to create false memories. Arthur Miller’s play ‘The Crucible’ contains some great examples of this, but on a lesser scale we all do this all the time with our own memories. Usually it doesn’t matter. Sometimes it does. If we witness a crime our memories may well be not quite right, and careless questionning can distort them further.

A couple of thoughts here, based on study, training, and experience:

Firstly I believe it is important we retain the original, factual memory as something we can recall at will. The trick is to no longer be controlled by the mental images, but to be able to view them calmly, with hindsight. Probably the only experience we cannot learn something of value for this life from is death. I’m guessing that in the (Phelps Lab) research mentioned above the subjects were able to recall having been frightened by the chosen colour.

Secondly, it is relatively easy to create a second version of a memory. For instance I have helped a student make an alternate memory of a time when he behaved stupidly. In the new version he behaves as the older, more experienced him would have reacted. He has both memories, and is clear which is the historic truth. The other is a psychological truth.

Of course, in creating a second version we are not just reliving the original but reprocessing it in controlled ways within minutes, which is well within the six hour window Dr Elizabeth Phelps’ team identified.

By the way, if you need help with a memory and so far no one has been able to help, consider seeking out a qualified NLP practitioner. They’re not all good, but they should at least have been trained in effective skills and techniques. Make sure he or she understands you wish to retain the original version undamaged and clearly identifiable.