Lucy Series -The state isn't always better, but profit usually makes things worse
The Institute of Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
This week we have a reblog from Lucy Series, who writes a really excellent blog here.  You can read the post in it's original format here.In the wake of Winterbourne View we are all looking for answers to the questions: How did this happen? How can we prevent it from happening again?  There are as many different answers to this question as there ar
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Dr Victoria Tischler ~ The IMH's Sculpture
The Institute of Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
An update on the IMH's sculpture from Victoria Tischler the Institute’s arts co-ordinator : We've now commissioned Ekkehard Altenburger to create a sculpture for the building. See an image of his initial design and concept here http://www.institutemh.org.uk/-about-us-/art-at-the-institute and examples of his work here http://www.altenburger.co.uk/.
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Debbie Butler, Patient and Public Involvement Coordinator
The Institute of Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
Please find below the third post from the IMH staff member Debbie Butler, Patient and Public Involvement Coordinator: It seems a while since I wrote on the IMH blog; life hasn’t stopped though by any means. It has been quite an adventure these last few weeks with a lovely cruise around France and Spain, a mini stroke, and lots of family stuff; I fe
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The IMH Blog ~ 4,683 online visits from across 56 countries!
The Institute of Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
At the start of this new academic year, the Institute of Mental Health Blog editorial team is hoping to recruit new post writers and editors. To date, the IMH Blog has had 4,683 online visits from across 56 countries! Previous posts have explored myriad topics including: artwork and mental health; chronic pain; patient involvement; therapeutic comm
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Dr Hanna Pickard (All Souls College, Oxford) ~ Responsibility without Blame
The Institute of Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
Do mental disorders excuse people from responsibility when they harm others? It’s easy to feel trapped between two extremes. Either people with mental disorders aren’t responsible because they lack control, in which case we need to help them, not blame them. Or they are responsible because they do have control, in which case we should blame them, n
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Dr Amy Chandler ~ The social contexts of suicide: sociological contributions to understanding suicide
The Institute of Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
Suicide is a complex issue that touches many lives, and is the concern of a range of social and health-care professionals. It is also an important public health problem, being the “tenth leading cause of death worldwide” (Windfuhr & Kapur 2011: 28). While suicide is strongly related to poor mental health; it is widely understood that suicide of
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Debbie Butler (PPI Coordinator) ~ 2nd Post
The Institute of Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
Well what a week. There has been progress with the MHRN Industry Group of service users and carers. This group has met twice now and are preparing to meet again in a few weeks.  The MHRN are pushing for more recruitment to these types of studies and although it is very complicated, we were privileged to have a good few people attend our first coupl
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Deborah Kitson, CEO, Ann Craft Trust, University of Nottingham
The Institute of Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
Deborah Kitson, CEO, Ann Craft Trust, University of NottinghamLink to UoN press release: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/pressreleases/2012/august/will-we-learn-from-the-winterbourne-view-findings.aspxA leading national charity committed to safeguarding disabled children and vulnerable adults from abuse says it hoped that lessons can be learned fr
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Dr Simon Clarke ~ All in the mind? The Dynamics of Chronic Pain
The Institute of Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
As a clinical psychologist working in chronic pain (CP), the question I get asked most by lay people (apart from whether I am reading their mind) is why bother? The thinking is usually this: pain is a physical experience that results from an injury of some sort, which surely requires a physical (usually medical) remedy. The implication from this, o
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Chris Sampson ~ Considering Time Perception
The Institute of Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
Chris Sampson ~ Considering Time Perception Chris works in the IMH building for the NIHR CLAHRC and runs The Academic Health Economists' Blog: http://aheblog.com/. In economic evaluations in health, time matters. More time in a bad health state is necessarily worse (or no better) than a smaller amount of time in said health state. Likewise, the val
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The Consortium for Therapeutic Communities Annual International Conference: Delivering Integrity (22-24 Oct 2012)
The Institute of Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
The IMH Blog is pleased to announce The Consortium for Therapeutic Communities' (TCTC's) upcoming Annual International Conference taking place 22-24 October 2012.  This year’s conference theme is Delivering Integrity and it will focus on evidence based practice, value for money and sustainable outcomes.2012 marks a significant year for therapeutic
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Dr Melanie Jordan ~ Mental health photography and Kubin’s artwork
The Institute of Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
In this post Melanie Jordan from the IMH introduces two contemporary art ventures with mental health themes that may perhaps be of interest to IMH members. A BBC News photography article and a Nottingham Contemporary exhibit and talk. 1. In this ‘BBC News In Pictures’ article Picturing Mental Health published on September the 12th  (http://www.bbc.
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Jenelle Clarke ~ The ‘So What?’ Factor of Value-Based Research in Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
Recent conferences, Q&A of paper presentations, and even my NHS REC meeting have recently made me question the impact of social research within mental health and the ‘so what?’ factor of non-clinical studies.  We live and work in an evidence-based system whereby the expectation is that results are observable, measurable, quantifiable and replic
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Dr Victoria Tischler ~ IMH sculpture update
The Institute of Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
[caption id="attachment_541" align="aligncenter" width="251"] Just a hole? [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="256"] No - the beginnings of something! A massive hole was dug, the foundations have been poured, the metal supports are in place and Ekkehard is in Italy carving. He has started a blog to chart the progress of the work.  It's hard t
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Chloe Hill - Society’s perception of “perfection”
The Institute of Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
“Teenagers have it so easy nowadays”– I’ve heard this quote used frequently by adults to their stressed teenagers, telling them to make the most of the youth they have before life gets difficult, but there are becoming more and more reasons for me to disagree with this statement. The expectations that come with a 17 year old adolescent are growing
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Dr John Milton ~ Any port(al) in a (information) storm
The Institute of Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
Any port(al) in a (information) storm “Don’t read newspapers for the news (just for the gossip and, of course, profiles of authors). The best filter to know if the news matters is if you hear it in cafes, restaurants... or (again) parties”. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Professor of Risk Engineering at New York University. I like Taleb’s writing. ‘Maddeni
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Amanda Keeling - Emergency Services as the 'Safety Net' in Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
There is a programme running on Channel 4 at the moment called 999: What’s your emergency?   The programme follows calls through from when they are received at the call centre, to their resolution by one of the three (or a combination of all three) emergency services.  The programmes are themed around different issues, and this week’s episode focus
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Neil Chadborn ~ How might community organising relate to health or social research?
The Institute of Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
How might community organising relate to health or social research? #nottinghamcitizensNeil Chadborn, Collaboration for Leadership and Applied Health Research and Care @nchadbornOn 17th October I joined a delegation from School of Sociology Social Policy to attend the first major public meeting of Nottingham Citizens.170 people, representing 34 org
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Chris Sampson: Generic benefit measurement - the key to better mental health research
The Institute of Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
The NHS can’t afford to fund every new medical treatment. Budgets are limited. Resources are finite. It’s a boring fact of life, from which people like me – economists – benefit. In recent years the UK has championed the provision of cost-effective healthcare. The efficiency of the NHS owes no small thanks to NICE, which evaluates health technologi
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Dr. Hugh Middleton - Dig Till You Gently Perspire
The Institute of Mental Health
The Institute of Mental Health
There has been something of a tea-cup storm over publication of findings from the TREAD study in the British Medical Journal on June 9th (Chalder et al 2012). TREAD is an inventive acronym for the NIHR funded TREAtment of Depression with physical activity study which was conducted in Bristol and Exeter between August 2007 and October 2010. The BMJ
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