The Mental
Wealth Festival 2016 took place on 13-15 September 2016 at City Lit in Covent
Garden. The event highlighted the way mental health issues impact many features of daily life, and how the
arts, politics, culture, faith and the media can support ‘mental wealth’.
I went along
to the City Lit with a full list of workshops and presentations to
attend. The choice was a diverse range of speakers and subjects covering topics
from an academic perspective through to practical skills.
The festival featured
70 events with high profile speakers such as Ruby Wax, Alastair Campbell, Hugh
Grant, Paul Dolan and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor rubbing shoulders with
lesser known but equally exciting presenters.
As is often the case at these
events I feel that attending one session leaves me with the feeling of having
missed out; this festival had it all. And I wanted to do it all! I missed the
chance to witness three members of the House of Lords take part in lunchtime tai-chi,
I didn’t get to any sessions on the links between money and mental health or
get a chance to take part in any of the creative workshops. Therefore this post is skewed as I can only share
personal thoughts of the event. The
festival produced a host of ideas for topics, lists of questions, people I
want to interview and a general feeling of needing to do more. The question that I have been left with relates
to the importance of how we can all raise awareness and reduce stigma around
our mental health?
I shall be
expanding my reflections in future posts, but in a nut shell this is what I discovered:
Session: Changing Minds through Neuroscience Inspired Fashion - Sandy
Walker
Content:
Sandy Walker, from the
Faculty of Health and Sciences at the University of Southampton, shared the
work that students from Winchester School of Art have produced by collaborating
with the Southampton Neuroscience Group. This project aims to address the
stigma and misconceptions surrounding mental health through fashion design. The
students have an opportunity to visit the neuroscience department and learn
about the brain patterns created in patients with mental health issues such as
bi-polar disease, dementia, and Parkinson’s, they then decide which issue they
wish to learn more about and are connected to someone with the condition via
the Human Library. The final part of the project involves responding to all the
have discovered by producing a garment
that reflects the physiological and psychological, the science and the
human, in clothes that communicate what it is like to have that condition. The
finished garments are a diverse collection. Some students took the images of
the brain to create intricate textile designs, others responded with powerful
garments that restricted the wearer. The collection was shown as a fashion show
and was on show at the city lit during the festival.
Find out more here:
Takeaways: Could the model of this collaboration
be used by other fashion education or Art departments to increase awareness of
mental health issues?
How did it
feel to wear the garments?
Can I
interview the models to find out their phenomenological embodied experience of
wearing ‘schizophrenia’ or ‘dementia’?
How did the
human library participants feel about the finished collection?
What was the
lasting impact (if any) on the student who took part?
The resulting
garments were strong and emotional; I felt moved by the stories reworked in
fabric. I had a visceral response, particular as I imagined myself wearing each
outfit and how that would make me feel; trapped, misunderstood, angry, and
vulnerable. The tactile nature of clothes, the way they connect with our bodies
and our emotions, enclothed cognition, can shape different ways to approach
opening up a dialogue about mental health.
Could this
idea be extended to a younger group, school age, to create understanding?
Session: An
Artist’s Tale: Michael Nicholson in conversation with Dr Roger Banks
Content:
Roger introduced Mike’s work as a graphic artist, his
Ensixteen Editions projects and how he came to be an illustrator for Books
Beyond Words. The relationship between authors (Roger) and illustrators (Mike),
the way in which we translate images into meaning, how we read a blank screen
to create a narrative and what does a picture ‘say’, were all explored in words
and pictures.
The evolution
of an idea into a tangible book charted the collaboration, team work and testing
process involved in the process of creating a book beyond words.
Books Beyond
Words was formed 1989 by Baroness Sheila Hollins to help people with
developmental learning disabilities to understand their emotions, to help
people talk about or understand adult feelings and adult experiences. Forty
five titles have been published since 1989, and all have been co-produced with
people who find pictures easier than words, with family carers, support staff
and professionals.
Find out more here:
Takeaways:
Books Beyond
Words provide a valuable resource for expanding understanding to a population
who may not be able to access traditional routes to acquire knowledge. Pictures
offer emotions a chance to escape.
How can I use
images in my work to bring about change in my clients or to facilitate
discussions about emotional issues?
What stories
do I tell myself when I see a piece of Art? How do I read an illustration? What
about the artists’ intention?
Continuity of
character by using the same colours throughout make it easier to form a
relationship.
Session: Fiona Wilson – Emotions, Identity and the Self Fulfilling
Prophecy
Content:
Fiona Wilson, a teacher and lecturer at
St Mary's University, Twickenham, led this workshop to explore how our
perceptions of self are formed by our emotions and how these in turn inform our
patterns of behaviour. Fiona explained how she had moved from Emotional
Literacy to Emotional Wisdom, the value of listening, watching and learning
form children, how we stack our experiences to skew our understanding of ‘now’
and how ninety seconds is all we have of an experience, then rest being
imagination. (The content of this workshop needs 3000 words of its own to do it
justice, I will come back to this later)
Find out more here:
Takeaways:
We can’t
out-think a feeling; we have to out-feel a feeling.
We see what
we look for and hear what we listen for.
When our
imagination habitually sabotages our minds our brains create pathways that
biologically become traits.
Imagination
is what keeps an experience going.
How can we
harness reframing to become self-authors of the story we want to create?
We need to
meet ourselves with forgiveness, kindness and compassion
Session: Alastair Campbell, mental
health campaigner and an ambassador for Rethink and Mind in conversation with Mark
Malcomson, Principal of City Lit
Content:
Drawing on his own experiences, Alastair
Campbell discussed his own mental health issues, and how he works to help break
down the stigma around mental illness. He
was exceptionally open about his breakdown, the impact this had on his family
and career and the support he received from colleagues. Tony Blair's response
when Alastair introduced his mental health issues, “I’m not bothered, if you’re
not bothered “, was a lesson in trust and instincts when making decisions. Alastair
explained that he feels experienced mental health problems better qualifies him to take on challenging roles; he has overcome ‘stuff’ in his life, he is
more resilient and understanding. How would it be if we could all be this open
about our emotional battles? What would a world look and feel like if this were
the norm?
Find out more here:
My takeaways:
Football is
vital to the mental health of some people. Music too.
Why do we say
it’s brave to talk about mental health?
Honesty and
openness are the tools for eliminating stigma about mental health issues.
Resilience
can be learnt; it’s about managing your life.
Why don’t we
send get well cards and flowers when people have had a breakdown?
There is a
difference between ‘being humbled’ and ‘being humiliated’.
Session: Professor Paul Dolan, LSE
professor and author of bestselling book Happiness by Design in conversation
with Mark Malcomson, Principal of City Lit
Content:
Paul began by clarifying the confusion around
what we mean by happiness. How in order to create the feeling of life being
good we need to balance the simple pleasure feelings, the positive emotions,
and the purposeful, meaningful sense of fulfilment. He expanded the idea that ‘negative’
emotions can feel ‘good’ that anger can be a driver for change and that it is our
everyday life that makes us happy not necessarily the big things that we think
should make us happy.
Find out more here:
Takeaways:
We all have a
choice to make life purposeful; it can be whatever works for you.
The human
condition is to seek out meaning.
Reminder:
research is MEsearch.
Academics may
not be so hot on pleasure but expert on purpose.
Find your own
happiness maximiser experiences, they are entirely subjective.
It is healthy
to have appropriate responses to situations.
We need light
touch interventions around sorrow
The narrative
of trauma doesn’t leave room for those
who experience trauma not to experience their life to be devastated.
Session: Reframing the Debate - A Discussion on Press Intrusion
– Katie Traxton
Content:
Katie showed a
short trailer of her documentary on press intrusion. The film reflects on the
feelings of key players almost four years after the Leveson Inquiry. Katie Traxton handles the subject with sensitivity;
she manages to create a sense of healing by allowing the subjects of the film a
platform to share the deep emotions that the media intrusion caused in their
lives. The effects on mental well-being
of the victims of press intrusion deserve more investigation. I would love to
write more about this but the documentary is yet to be released and the feelings
shared in the room at this session were not for public airing
Find out more here:
Takeaways:
How can we support
victims of press intrusion without furthering the sense that we are consuming
their stories for our own pleasure?
What role
does education have in changing the manner in which we devour sensational news?
Is it
possible to restore ethics in journalism?
What can be
done to assist young journalists when entering the ‘business of media’ so they
are able to challenge the status-quo without fear of losing commissions?
Can Positive
Psychology, and Positive Occupational Psychology enter the spaces in which news
is made to change the culture from the top down?
Session: Empathy in Action-
Baroness Sheila Hollins
Content:
Baroness Hollins shared reflections of
her approach to wellbeing within her life and work, with compassion as ‘empathy
in action’ central to her approach. She asked
us to question our own assumptions about what constitutes a caring society; why
is there a lack of compassion in human services? How could we redress this? How
do you avoid burnout in caring roles? Who looks after the carers? What will
happen if you don’t look after those who are expected to care? When do those inner
resources needed to care for others get a chance to be replenished? Baroness Hollins
belief is that Mental Wealth is about relationships, and in those caring relationships
what is the difference between caring about and caring for?
Find out more here:
Takeaways:
GRACE is the path to wellbeing: daily practices of giving, receiving,
activity, creating and engagement.
Listening means
you are able to find out what someone wants rather than giving them what you
think they should want.
We can be
taught to be more empathic – training medical students in empathy generates
quicker recovery in patients.
Individual compassion
needs to be supported with an empathic environment.
How can we
create a culture of compassion?
.
Session: Tools To Live By: How to listen and connect to others - with Ruby Wax
Content:
In this culture we’re over-whelmed,
over-loaded, over-stimulated, which takes us out of our minds. Ruby guided
the audience through simple mindfulness practices and explained how mindfulness
helped her to regain her mental wealth. She
talked about how to de-frazzle; techniques to find your own braking system and
highlighted that we can only connect with others when we’re able to think
clearly and calmly.
Find out more here:
Takeaways:
Gloria Gaynor
was wrong; I am not what I am, I can be other things due to neuroplasticity.
Become a
watcher of thoughts rather than a victim to them. Achieve this by cultivating
mindfulness.
Notice ‘this
are just my thoughts’ and allow a gap between the thinking and the action.
It only takes
five minutes of mindfulness a day to build mindful-muscle.
Walk to get
into your body and out of your mind.
Session: Rachel Kelly “How to Walk on Sunshine” Workshop
Content:
Rachel Kelly asked the audience to
stand if they had experienced mental health problems or had close family or
friends who did. Not surprisingly at an event on mental health, everyone stood
up. She then asked those who felt they had been able to share openly those
experiences to remain standing, there were a handful who didn’t sit. Rachel’s journey back from depression and stress
related mental health problems involved a variety of strategies relating to both
body and mind. During this workshop we were able to experience a taster of some
of the things which worked for Rachel and which can easily be incorporated in
to daily life. Rachel’s steps are simple, don’t require time or money and can
be adapted to make for personal habits that help our Mental Wealth, fostering
resilience and making life fun again.
Find out more here:
Takeaways:
When you
focus on your breathe you can’t worry about the future or stress about the
past. You can only breath in the now.
Nutrition
research is likely to offer new mental health solutions in the near future.
Gut health
changes our moods; an imbalance In the stomach creates stress in the brain.
90% of serotonin
produced in the body is made in the stomach.
Happy foods
are dark green leafy vegetables, omega3s and real chocolate.
Session: What is #MentalMovement?
Content:
Technically not a session,#MentalMovement
had a stand at the festival but as I spent over an hour talking to the
founders, Steph and Emma, I felt as if I had been at a presentation. I hope they are able to deliver a keynote speech
next year because the work they are doing is, in my opinion, fundamental to changing
the way we can change views on mental health when we enable creativity,
communication, and collaboration to flourish.
#MentalMovement wants to challenge and
re-address the way mental health is dealt with and portrayed. It is online
platform created by writers who have been or are currently, struggling with or
have had a personal experience of mental health.
The stories
are inspiring, uplifting, funny, engaging and the content is positive in its
approach to mental well-being, there is nothing preachy about what they do. #MentalMovement
also looks great, the design is fresh and appealing, and the print version
should be in every venue where young people gather. If I were a student I wouldn’t
feel so alone if I spotted someone else reading #MentalMovement even if I didn’t quite have the courage to
ask how that person felt, I would feel that we are all in this together. There is
something powerfully enlightening in #MentalMovement
Find out more here:
Takeaways:
Can mental health
content be approached in a new way without demeaning the pain of the actual
experience?
What do we
need to do to reach young people in their own spaces to make it Ok to share?
Being brave
can sometimes be overwhelming?
How can I
listen in a way that doesn’t feel intrusive?
What is the
most effective way to support people when they are in the turmoil of mental
confusion?
Which Positive
Psychology Interventions, if any, are most suitable to be adapted in order to
be relevant to this section of society?
How can we make
the way easier in the future to accept that mental health is part of life and
that sharing our stories of troubled times decreases the power they have over
us?
Final Thoughts
I meet some
incredibly inspiring people who were very honest and willing to share their
mental health challenges. This event was unique (in my experience) in creating
a community of individuals all being given an equal voice to express their
opinions on how we create, change and tackle our individual well being, as well
as how we manage collective mental wealth. I heard experts share personal
stories of battling with depression, anxiety and addiction alongside the views
of mental health service ‘users’ who have a treasure trove of ideas as to improving the manner in which
they could be helped towards better well-being. I saw raw emotions expressed
with authenticity and received with non-judgement and compassion. The festival felt like a micro-climate of a
caring culture of mental health, a way forward to create a vision of a safe
environment in which we are allowed to communicate the full range of humanness.
As a positive psychologist others occasionally assume I don’t do ‘negative
feelings’, PP however poses questions relating to the way we need the full rich
range of emotions in order to flourish; to embrace every aspect of our
psychologically make up in order to explore the potential we all have. The Mental Wealth Festival challenged me to
examine my personal beliefs and attitudes towards my own, and others mental well-being. There is so much we can do to
get this message out. Thank you to everyone involved in creating the Mental
Wealth Festival.
Takeaway: What can I do to help?
As an
individual I start with myself; I can share my stories, my hopes, and my
strategies for mental wealth. I can lead by example.
As a
researcher I can find ways to make my studies relevant and tangible to increase
others mental wealth.
As a coach I
can be there to listen and support.
I can always
lighten the burden by bringing the topic around to the positive impact of shoes
on our mental health. (Which I did at the end of Paul Dolan’s talk hence the
photo!)
I’m not a
social media ‘expert’ (my tee-shirt states ‘I don’t know’) but I do feel that
it can be harnessed to get a positive message across - Is there a story you
would like to share that could help others? I’d love to help you to share it.
Thank you
City Lit Team http://www.citylit.ac.uk/
Everyone at BooksBeyondWords http://booksbeyondwords.co.uk/
