I'm a Bournemouth girl originally, but I'm more of a Pompey bird these days. I've been living and working in Portsmouth for the last few years. I started my therapy career when I was 19. For some reason I decided it would be a good idea to go and work in a Psychiatric unit for very unwell people.

It was a hospital in Dorset that became 'home' to several patients from one of the last remaining old school mental asylums (as they were once called in the olden days). It was interesting to say the least. I remember the first day I worked there, I thought to myself "what the hell am I doing here?". Well actually I was an Occupational Therapy Assistant which involved; making pots, reading poems, issuing hourly cigarettes and teaching cookery (or should I say, learning from the patients how to make victoria sponges!).

That was my first taste of mental health and the first time I was introduced to characters such as "The Brussel Sprout Captain" and "Cat Stevens who lives in the woods". There's not many people who get to work with such interesting people, and nothing quite as humbling as regularly being called a Prostitute, a Bitch, or being accused of stealing a patient's knickers (I'm not and no I didn't). And so with that in mind I decided that I loved it so much that I'd make a career out of it, and off I went to train as an Occupational Therapist!

Since then, I've worked in various mental health settings from psychiatric intensive care, community teams, rehabilitation and acute mental health hospitals. I've been honoured to get to know some amazing people who had unfortunately experienced the raw end of the deal when it comes to mental disorders such as; schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, drug and alcohol problems, eating disorders, depression, crippling anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorders. I've also known a lot of people who don't seem to fit into any of those convenient diagnoses and were so labeled 'Personality Disordered'...charming!

In 2003 I took a little break from the National Health Service and set up my own business running DJ workshops for young people with mental health problems and teenagers in areas of social deprivation.

 

 

 

This is us doing one of our workshops at The Opera House.

 

These days I spend part of my time working in the community mental health team in Leigh Park. It was once the biggest council estate in Europe, and home to 27000 people. It's arguably the roughest estate in Portsmouth, although I've worked in worse estates in Southampton to be honest.

Once a week I'm 'on call', which basically means that anyone who's seen in the mental health service in the area, who has an urgent problem can ring or come and see me.

 If you were to spend an hour with me when I'm on call, you'd see how the mental health services in these types of areas aren't so much about mental health, but more about social deprivation.

 Typically queries that I get are stuff like

"I haven't got my benefits through yet; what can you do about it?"

""I split up with my girlfriend 2 years ago and I can't cope..."

"I've got all these problems and my medication's not helping."  That's a very common one along with my personal favourite! ....

"My life's a mess what are you going to do about it" because apparently 'I'm the expert'!! Cheers for that!

Although that doesn't beat one of the best I've heard for a while, when a colleague of mine had spent half an hour talking to a client on the phone about his recent drug use and how this really wasn't too good for his mental health not to mention his cash flow, when he proclaimed "this credit crunch is doin me in!". Priceless!

 Don't get me wrong, I'm not doing the people of Leigh Park a dis-service. We all have our problems, life happens! But the fact that 14 years ago my caseload consisted mainly of people with Schizophrenia and Manic Depression, and now the majority of people I see suffer with depression and anxiety (and who hasn't had either of those at some point in their lives) just tells you how things have changed.

The way I see it, is that in this country we don't generally teach children how to cope with emotions. The number one cause of mental and physical health problems in STRESS, and we don't teach people how to cope with it, how ridiculous is that?! So it's no wonder we're the Prozac nation.

If you go to see your GP with anxiety or depression, the chances are they'll prescribe you an SSRI (anti-depressant to me and you) although government guidelines suggest otherwise now. This country is so over medicalised it's untrue. But then GP's have 6 minutes to see a patient so how do you get to the bottom of the problem in 6 minutes. The problem this has created is a culture of  'Got a problem? ....Take a pill!'

I love my national health service job it's made me who I am today with experience you just can't get anywhere else. I happen to think that people in the UK get a bloody good service for free considering the constant strain it's under.

I chose to take up private work in addition to my NHS job, because the changes I can help people make in one or two sessions with NLP & EFT, would take me months if at all in my NHS role. Unfortunately I can't use my NLP and EFT skills in the NHS...yet! I'm not sure the drug companies would be too keen on us actually 'curing' people!