Raj Persaud in conversation - the podcasts

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Psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud talks in-depth to Professor Richard Gill - one of the key experts who has helped overturn two recent nurse serial killer convictions You can also listen to this interview on a free app on iTunes and Google Play Store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience and mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. Download it free from these links. Don't forget to check out the bonus content button on the app.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id927466223?

The article below was published before the outcome of the Lucy Letby case was known https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/in-the-media/2023/02/in-a-normal-murder-case-you-actually-have-a-body-statistician-richard-gill-says-in-science ‘In a normal murder case, you actually have a body’ statistician Richard Gill says in Science 02 February 2023

After diving into the murder trial of nurse Lucia de Berk, statistician Richard Gill became a leading expert on the statistics of medical murder cases. Together with colleagues, he now wrote a peer reviewed report about the statistical missteps in past medical murder trials. It gives recommendations for how legal systems can do better. ‘People’s intuition of an “impossible coincidence” sometimes falsely joins the dots in the evidence,’ he says in the Science Magazine.

Lucia de Berk was under trial for being present at a suspiciously high number of deaths and resuscitations. His wife told him about a “witch trial” and saying: ‘They’re using statistics; you should get involved, do something useful.’

At first Gill didn’t get involved, but years later the case would turn out to be the pinnacle of his career. He proved that the nurse went to jail based on bad statistics, tunnel visions and assumptions. ‘In a normal murder case, you actually have a body which has clearly been murdered,’ he says. ‘When there’s only a suspicious cluster of deaths, investigators may assume a murderer is at work and selectively focus on evidence that supports that assumption.’

Statistics to the rescue

When the court of appeals announced the acquittal of the nurse, Gill was there to celebrate. ‘It was one of the biggest events of my life,’ he says. ‘It was really joyful.’ And that became the start of lending his expertise as a statistician in medical murder cases.

With that expertise, Gill and his colleagues wrote a report published by the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) in September 2022. That report exposes the statistical missteps in past medical murder trials and makes recommendations for how legal systems can do better. One of the things that the report recommends is for investigators to be ‘blinded’. For example, having pathologists classify deaths as suspicious or not, without knowing which medical personnel were in attendance.

The next generation of statisticians Gill hopes the report will help with new similar cases. The one of the British nurse Lucy Letby for expample, who is now on trial for the alleged murder of seven babies. Gill is retired, but still follows the case closely. As he will not be working much on forensic cases anymore, Gill hopes younger statisticians will feel compelled to help when bad statistics lead to injustice, as he did. ‘I sensed that in the Lucia case, I could make a difference. And that therefore I must.’

Want to know more? Read more about Richard Gill and his career in the article on the website of Science.

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Psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud talks in-depth to Dr Dewi Evans - one of the key prosecution expert witnesses about the Lucy Letby case You can also listen to this interview on a free app on iTunes and Google Play Store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience and mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. Download it free from these links. Don't forget to check out the bonus content button on the app.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id927466223?

https://www.herald.wales/west-wales/carmarthenshire/how-dr-dewi-evans-helped-secure-justice-in-nurse-letbys-chilling-baby-murders/ How Dr. Dewi Evans helped secure justice in nurse Letby’s chilling baby murders Luke Sinclair LUCY Letby’s conviction for multiple counts of murder and attempted murder at the Countess of Chester Hospital is intertwined with the meticulous work of Dr. Dewi Evans, a retired consultant paediatrician from Carmarthen. Dr. Evans, a seasoned medical legal expert with over three decades of experience, emerged as a key figure in unraveling the complex web of deliberate harm inflicted upon innocent infants.

In an exclusive interview with TalkTV, Dr. Evans delved into the intricacies of his involvement in the case, revealing the depths of his horror at the heinous events that unfolded. He described the events as a tragedy of unparalleled proportions, possibly ranking as the most shocking occurrence within an NHS hospital in the past 75 years.

Cheshire Police turned to Dr. Evans for his expertise in dissecting the medical evidence and shedding light on the nefarious activities behind the deaths. His journey began with an exhaustive review of clinical records, meticulously analysing over 30 cases of babies who perished or suffered collapses between January 2015 and July 2016. Dr. Evans’ ability to discern hidden patterns within the chaotic medical records would prove to be a critical turning point.

Among the cases, he identified 15 instances that defied conventional explanations. These babies displayed telltale signs of harm, ranging from symptoms of air embolism—suggesting the injection of air into their circulatory systems—to signs of milk or milk-and-air injections directly into their stomachs, leading to life-threatening breathing difficulties.

However, the true revelation came with the discovery of insulin poisoning in two sets of twins. Dr. Evans stumbled upon abnormally elevated insulin levels in these babies, indicative of an intentional injection of insulin. This discovery, initially unforeseen even by the astute doctor, added a sinister layer to the unfolding narrative.

Dr. Evans also highlighted the crucial role of analyzing duty rosters. His meticulous examination revealed a chilling connection—Lucy Letby was consistently on duty during each of the tragic incidents. This realisation provided a pivotal break in the case, further cementing the suspicion against Letby. Yet, the journey wasn’t without its challenges. During the trial, Letby’s defence team sought to discredit Dr. Evans’ objectivity and impartiality, accusing him of bias. However, Mr. Justice Goss, the presiding judge, steadfastly refused to exclude Dr. Evans’ evidence, emphasising the need for the jury to assess his credibility in light of the broader evidence presented.

The case also spotlighted the systemic shortcomings and managerial failures within the NHS. Dr. Evans lamented the lack of responsiveness from NHS managers and pointed to a culture of cover-ups when things went awry. The case prompted a broader conversation about transparency, accountability, and safeguarding within healthcare institutions.

Ultimately, Dr. Dewi Evans’ meticulous analysis and unwavering dedication became instrumental in securing justice for the innocent victims and their families. The case serves as a chilling reminder of the importance of persistent investigation, expert analysis, and the pursuit of truth in even the most chilling of circumstances.

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You can also listen to this interview on a free app on iTunes and Google Play Store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience and mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. Download it free from these links. Don't forget to check out the bonus content button on the app.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id927466223?

Born in New Zealand, Anne fled at the earliest opportunity to England, where her roots and heart lie. She co-founded Meyler Campbell in 1999 and continues to work tirelessly to promote its activities and Community. She is also an intermittent but happy gardener, and a passionate historian.

Following a successful global career as a diplomat and Citibank-trained international banker Anne retrained mid-career as a psychologist (PG Dip Psych and MSc Organisational Psychology - both with Distinction.) Among her many accolades Anne was named as one of five leading experts in business coaching globally by Harvard Business Review (2009), is the author of The Financial Times Guide to Business Coaching (2011) (a second edition of which was published in 2020), and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. In 2018, Anne was appointed Visiting Scholar at Oxford Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.

Anne and her co-author Professor Herminia Ibarra published the article, “The Leader as Coach” in the November-December issue of the Harvard Business Review. In March 2020, it was announced that this article had won the Warren Bennis Prize, awarded for the top-rated HBR leadership article of the year.

Much in demand for her expertise, Anne has served on a raft of Expert Panels and policy committees including a Positive Psychology task force for the Royal Society. She has delivered Keynote speeches for all the major coaching bodies including AC, BPS/SGCP, ICF, WABC and ICAEW, and has taught workshops at London Business School and Cambridge's Judge Business School.

Anne believes that traditional mentoring / training / consulting puts in content while coaching pulls outthe capacity people have within ...and that we all need both. In her view knowledge and skill are essential, but so too are the energy, inspiration and motivation that can only come from within. Great organisational coaching fluently and pertinently blends both.

Anne Scoular on Raj Persaud podcast 14 December 2022

References and further resources

Anne:

Background on Anne: https://www.meylercampbell.com/our-people/anne-scoular ;

Her book on leadership coaching: https://www.amazon.co.uk/FT-Guide-Business- Coaching-Guides/dp/1292309075/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= ;

and her 2019 bicentenary lecture on Queen Victoria, her grief and recovery:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6DMSK16dP0&ab_channel=MeylerCampbell

Queen Victoria

Short, sparkling and psychologically alert biography: Jane Ridley, Victoria: Queen, Matriarch, Empress (London: Allen Lane/Penguin, 2015) (The great, full biography: Elizabeth Longford, Victoria RI (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964/1987)

The Queen’s effectiveness

John Plunkett (2000) “Queen Victoria: the Monarchy and the Media”: PhD dissertation, Birkbeck College London; published as a book, John Plunkett: Queen Victoria: First Media Monarch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). (But the detailed data is in the PhD.)

Wealth of data

Journals of Queen Victoria, freely accessible at http://www.queenvictoriasjournals.org (114 vols: 13 originals 1832-37; 13 Esher transcript 1832-40; 111 Beatrice-ed 1837-01; 4 drafts) Letters of Queen Victoria, ed. Esher / Benson / Buckle, 9 vols 1907-32 (you see her at work.) Personal Letters to her daughter ‘Vicky’, ed. Roger Fulford, 5 vols 1964-81 (Vol 1 especially recommended – two very fine, very real women in impassioned conversation.) The Queen’s own two publications: Leaves from a Highland Journal 1868 and 1885 - online on QV journals site as above Diaries and letters of 360o

: Greville, Ponsonby, Mallet, Antrim, Lyttleton, Reid, Arnold,

Gladstone, Disraeli... Biopsychosocial

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopsychosocial_model

Insecure attachment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory

Complicated grief

The Centre for Prolonged Grief (Columbia University, New York) (formerly the Centre for

Complicated Grief):

https://prolongedgrief.columbia.edu/for-the-public/complicated-grief- public/overview/

Burnout

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSAGnwf0iAY and other Sally Maitlis articles/videos Identity In Victorian era: Pat Jalland, Women, Marriage and Politics 1860 – 1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986) for starters. (Pat Jalland is also the expert on Victorian bereavement.) But the superb (and slim) book in this area is K.D. Reynolds, Aristocratic Women and Political Society in Victorian Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) – a fine scholarly study of gender, power, and female leadership in the Victorian era, its iron constraints, and how some fortunate women got around them a little; has much of relevance to us. Today: Herminia Ibarra, Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2004) The Queen’s recovery The 1997 movie Mrs Brown (Judi Dench/ Billy Connolly) is spot on re Brown; William M. Kuhn, Henry and Mary Ponsonby (London: Duckworth, 2002) is perceptive on the work and marriage of these two remarkable and unconventional characters; Robert Blake’s Disraeli (1966; various editions since) is one of the great biographies of all time. Power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Raven%27s_bases_of_power Mentoring and coaching www.meylercampbell.com Continued discrimination Caroline Criado Perez, Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, (London: Chatto & Windus, 2019)

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All over the world, our ability to pay attention is collapsing. In the US, college students now focus on one task for only 65 seconds, and office workers on average manage only three minutes. New York Times best-selling author Johann Hari went on an epic journey across the world to meet the leading scientists and experts investigating why this is happening to us – and discovered that everything we think we know on this subject is wrong.

We think our inability to focus is a personal failing – a flaw in each one of us. It is not. This has been done to us – by powerful external forces. Our focus has been stolen. Johann discovered there are twelve deep cases of this crisis, all of which have robbed some of our attention. He shows how he learned this in a thrilling journey that takes him from Silicon Valley dissidents who figured out how to hack human attention, to veterinarians who diagnose dogs with ADHD; from a favela in Rio where everyone lost their attention in a particularly surreal way, to an office in New Zealand that discovered a remarkable technique to restore their workers’ attention.

Crucially, he learned how – as individuals, and as a society – we can get our focus back, if we are determined to fight for it. The answers will surprise and thrill you. This is a book about our attention crisis unlike any you’ve read before.

Johann Hari’s books on addiction and depression transformed those debates, appearing in 37 languages, praised by everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Noam Chomsky to Hillary Clinton. His TED talks have been viewed 78 million times.

What They’re Saying About “Stolen Focus” ‘I think this book is exactly what the world needs right now … I hope everybody buys the book. I promise you it will be worth your time and certainly worth your focus.’

– OPRAH ‘If you want to get your attention and focus back, you need to read this remarkable book. All over the world, Johann Hari interviewed both the leading scientists investigating why we’re losing our focus, and the people developing solutions. He has cracked the code of why we’re in this crisis, and how to get out of it. We all need to hear this message.’

– ARIANNA HUFFINGTON ‘A visionary, systemic, revolutionary and practical guide for creating the new world. Through tireless research and genius insight Johann Hari certainly snapped me to attention. A life changing book.’

– EVE ENSLER ‘Johann Hari’s superb STOLEN FOCUS is a beautifully researched and argued exploration of the breakdown of humankind’s ability to pay attention. It’s a story that so many of us have felt needs to be told, but whose cause and consequences are hard to capture and articulate without guesswork, prejudice or ideology. Hari not only achieves this and more, but he does so it with the pace, sparkle and energy of the best kind of thriller writer. I can’t remember reading a book which made me shout out “yes! That’s it!” quite so many times. The same brilliant voice that has made us rethink so convincingly the real solutions to the global epidemic of addiction and mental health (Chasing the Scream, Lost Connections) is not satisfied with hand-wringing or tub-thumping – Hari as ever also offers ways out, one which we would do well to … to concentrate…’

– STEPHEN FRY ‘Stop whatever you’re doing and read this book. A deeply researched, disturbing, and yet ultimately hopeful exploration of the primal crisis of our time: our diminishing ability to focus on what really matters.’

– RUTGER BREGMAN ‘I don’t know anyone thinking more deeply, or more holistically, about the crisis of our collective attention than Johann Hari. And this is a crisis that we must address if we are to meet any of the other pressing emergencies we face as a species, whether ecological or social. Which means that this book could not be more vital. Please sit with it, and focus.’

– NAOMI KLEIN ‘A brilliant book about one of the most important topics of our time’ ‘Johann Hari writes like a dream. He’s both lyricist and storyteller — but also an indefatigable investigator of one of the world’s greatest problems: the systematic destruction of our attention. Read this book to save your mind.’

– SUSAN CAIN ‘A gripping analysis of why we’ve lost the capacity to concentrate, and how we might find it again. STOLEN FOCUS won’t just capture your attention—it will keep you thinking and rethinking long after you’ve finished it. Johann Hari is one of the most insightful critics of our modern malaise, and he’s written the book the world needs to win the war on distraction.’

– ADAM GRANT, #1 New York Times bestselling author of THINK AGAIN and host of the TED podcast WorkLife ‘A brilliant book about one of the most important topics of our time’

– DR. RANGAN CHATTERJEE ‘Thanks to this brilliant book, I have got to know myself and my fellow humans better. It educates and entertains you – the stories will suck any reader in, and then slowly change your mind. Everyone should read it. It has changed my habits – way beyond just putting away my phone more. ‘Stolen Focus’ is a really important book.’

– DR. PHILIPPA PERRY ‘In his unique voice, Johann Hari tackles the profound dangers facing humanity from information technology and rings the alarm bell for what all of us must do to protect ourselves, our children and our democracies.’

– HILLARY CLINTON ‘An entirely necessary book, a miracle of clarity and depth, a resonant, deeply researched warning followed by a truly inspiring clarion-call to action. Read it and weep, then dry your eyes and join in.’

– EMMA THOMPSON ‘In a world that in Johann Hari’s deft phrase suffers from “mental jet lag,” his new book is a highly original and wide-ranging investigation into the causes of our epidemic of flagging attention. Written with Hari’s trademark incisive prose, indefatigable search for scientific evidence vividly presented, and illustrated with telling anecdotes, Stolen Focus is a bracing and necessary wake-up call to us all.’

– GABOR MATE M.D ‘A bold, troubling and penetrating tour de force that lifts the lid on something parents, teachers, psychologists and doctors have been increasingly worried about. A fascinating journey into the mind and how it is being manipulated with devastating effects. Hari’s subject is something that is affecting us all and this seminal work will be one of the defining books of our era. Johann Hari is quickly proving himself to become the chronicler of our time. We must all wake up and pay attention to this book’s message. It is a clarion call for us to take back our focus. Get off social media, switch off the TV, put down your smart-phone and do one thing – read this book.’

– DR. MAX PEMBERTON ‘This mind-blowing book explains everything. Read it and be free.’

– SIMON AMSTELL ‘If you read just one book about how the modern world is driving us crazy, read this one.’

– THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH ohann Hari is the author of three New York Times best-selling books, and the Executive Producer of an Oscar-nominated movie and an eight-part TV series starring Samuel L. Jackson. His books have been translated into 40 languages, and been praised by a broad range of people, from Oprah to Noam Chomsky, from Elton John to Naomi Klein.

His latest book, ‘Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention’, was published in January 2022, and received rave reviews everywhere from the Washington Post to the Irish Times to the Sydney Morning Herald. It has been a best-seller on three continents.

Johann’s first book, ‘Chasing the Scream: the First and Last Days of the War on Drugs’, was adapted into the Oscar-nominated film ‘The United States Vs Billie Holiday’. It has also been adapted into a documentary series which is available to view now.

His second book, ‘Lost Connections: Uncovering The Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions’ was described by the British Journal of General Practice as “one of the most important texts of recent years”, and shortlisted for an award by the British Medical Association.

Johann’s TED talks have been viewed more than 93 million times. The first is named ‘Everything You Think You Know About Addiction is Wrong’. The second is entitled ‘This Could Be Why You Are Depressed or Anxious’.

He has written over the past decade for some of the world’s leading newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, the Spectator, Le Monde Diplomatique, the Sydney Morning Herald, and Politico. He has appeared on NPR’s All Thing Considered, HBO’s Realtime With Bill Maher, The Joe Rogan Podcast, the BBC’s Question Time, and many other popular shows.

Johann was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and when he was a year old, his family moved to London, where he grew up and where he has lived for most of his life. His father – a Swiss immigrant – was a bus driver, and his mother was a nurse and later worked in shelters for survivors of domestic violence.

He studied Social and Political Science at King’s College, Cambridge, and graduated with a Double First.

Johann was twice named ‘National Newspaper Journalist of the Year’ by Amnesty International. He has also been named ‘Cultural Commentator of the Year’ and ‘Environmental Commentator of the Year’ at the Comment Awards.

He lives half the year in London, and spends the other half of the year traveling to research his books.

You can email Johann at chasingthescream (at) gmail dot com.

To read about what Johann is working on now, and what you can do to support him, please click here.

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A London-based executive coaching & mediation practice. I founded Byron & Wilf to coach clients to think, communicate and behave in a way that improves their ability to manage themselves and others more effectively, achieve their professional and personal goals and reach new levels of confidence and performance at work.

About An executive coach, member of Faculty at Meyler Campbell and mediator with over twenty years of experience in communications. I work with board directors, CEOs and senior leaders on how they can improve their awareness and management of themselves and others to successfully:

Communicate with more skill
Transition to a more senior role
Make difficult decisions
Manage stress
Resolve conflict
Build their reputation and impact

My work as a mediator has enabled senior level individuals in global organisations to identify issues and develop a non-adversarial and collaborative approach to resolution with close colleagues, peers and team members.

Qualifications I am a graduate of the Meyler Campbell Mastered Programme (2014) and have an MA in English Literature from St Andrews University (1998). I am currently studying for a MSc in the Psychology and Neuroscience of Mental Health at Kings College London. I am qualified to work with a number of psychometrics including: Hogan, MBTI, Firo-B and ESCI.

What my clients say * I worked with Alex following a promotion, when I was struggling, as many people do, with imposter syndrome. She helped me understand some of the misconceived assumptions I was holding on to and identified strategies to help improve my confidence and performance. Whilst some of those imposter feelings never leave, I now have control of them and feel so much more confident in my role and am performing at a higher level. I highly recommend Alex as a coach, as she gets results and is great fun to work with.

Choice - which for me is fundamental to and comes before change
How we all ignore the mind-body connection - for example high functioning, successful individuals not recognising link between their stress levels, cracked teeth, frozen shoulders, eczema, IBS etc. We tend to think physical health or mental health - still I think the conversation needs to advance to link the two things together
How can you get to 50+ and have no idea about how your amygdala works and why when you are sitting in a meeting and your boss tells you he doesn’t think much of you, you don't freeze and get brain fog because you are incompetent..its physiological (obvs you will need to check my neuroscience here!)
The importance of the language we use in our own heads and the horror movies we mentally press play on and how this links to the above - emotional self-regulation
Mindfulness/breathing - I don’t know your thoughts on this but having always been a bit wary of it for fear of being dubbed a life coach, my degree and personal experience have taught me otherwise and I think it is a crucial life skill
There is lots of hierarchy based debate regarding the differences between coaching, therapy, counselling, psychotherapy - and of course there are differences but the fundamentals which are often the most effective are not rocket science …i.e. asking open questions & listening - but this is still v hard for lots of people to do

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Rosemary Conley CBE is one of the UK’s most successful diet and fitness experts with 50 years’ experience in helping people to lose weight and get fitter.

Rosemary Jean Neil Conley CBE, DL is an English businesswoman, author and broadcaster on exercise and health. Conley authored a low-fat diet and exercise programme, The Hip & Thigh Diet in 1988, which sold more than two million copies.

https://www.rosemaryconley.com/

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Jane Janse Van Rensbury is an addictions therapist at the famous White River Manor Clinic in South Africa. Here she talks to psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud about why the field of addictions has so many ex-addicts as therapists - is this a good or a dangerous thing?

https://www.whiterivermanor.com/team/jane-janse-van-rensburg/

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Roxana is a Business Psychologist with 10 years of experience working in fast-paced organisations.

She is passionate about the human dynamics of successful people, especially those with ADHD. She has been strengthening and coaching teams for many years before specialising in ADHD Business Coaching.

Her speciality is helping her clients find their WHY and operate from a place of strength.

Roxana’s coaching method is built upon a belief that once we become able to see clearly where our power lies, we hit our targets with ridiculous ease and the brain which didn’t quite fit before becomes our greatest asset.

Roxana is committed to always learning is currently doing her ADHD Advanced Coaching Certification at the only accredited institution is the world: ADDCA in New York.

Fun fact:
As a freelancer after her MSc, she worked with Body Talk to produce the biggest Body Language study in the world

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Peter Cook helps you navigate uncertain business futures for a better world. He fuses three passions: Business, Science and Music, in 18-year-long overlapping cycles:

18 years experience leading science innovation teams to bring life-saving pharmaceuticals to the world, from human Insulin to the first breakthrough Herpes and HIV / AIDS treatments. Many years as an industrial troubleshooter, from Europe to USA, India and the Far East.
18 years teaching and writing MBA programmes with 3.5 degrees across multiple fields.
18 ++ years experience as a thought leader, speaker and author, working globally. His books are acclaimed by Tom Peters, Professors Charles Handy, Adrian Furnham and Harvey Goldsmith, the man behind Live Aid. Peter won a prize from Sir Richard Branson for leadership, gaining an exclusive interview with Richard for his 8th book.
18 till I die - Composing and producing music: Working with Ozzy Osbourne's guitarist, Meatloaf's singing partner and members of Prince's musical circle.
http://www.academy-of-rock.co.uk/

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Dr Cosmo Duff-Gordon is an eminent psychologist who created a completely new clinic that specialises in treating addicts - but his ancestor is the infamous Cosmo Duff-Gordon who it is claimed got into lifeboad number 1 as the Titanic sank when it was meant to be women and children first off the sinking wreck. It is claimed he dressed up as a woman to get into the life-boat and also that he bribed the rowers to row away from survivors in the water and not go back to rescue them. The cad and bounder was named the number one Cad of the twentieth century and also featured in the James Cameron hit movie 'Titanic'. Does the psychology of having this notorious ancestor drive someone like the modern day Dr Cosmo Duff-Gordon to rescue people? Psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud probes the psychology of having a 'wrong 'un' dogging your past.

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Jane Janse van Rensburg is a counsellor and part of the multi-professional team at White River Manor Clinic in South Africa - designed to help those recovering from addictions, alcohol dependency and substance abuse problems. She talks to Psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud about what works and what doesn't in therapy, and why therapy is a lot more like work than most people realise.

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Clare outwardly had everything anyone could possibly want - a top executive with a glittering career - a loving husband - wonderful children - yet something wasn't quite right on the inside, as she candidly admits in this searingly honest interview with Psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud, and it led to problems with drinking - an explicit no holds barred account of a slide into trouble and an inspiring story of hope for recovery. The picture is of one of the rooms in White River Manor - the recovery centre that helped Clare.

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Prof Joanna Moncrieff Professor of Critical and Social Psychiatry Epidemiology & Applied Clinical Research Division of Psychiatry Research summary My research consists of an analysis of all aspects of psychiatric drug treatment, including subjective experiences, history of drug treatment, a critique of evidence for drug treatments, theoretical perspectives on psychiatric drug treatment, and political aspects of drug treatment, including work on the influence of the pharmaceutical industry. I am also interested in the nature and function of diagnosis in modern psychiatric practice, and in the history, politics and philosophy of psychiatry more generally. I have written two books: The Myth of the Chemical Cure, published by Palgrave Macmillan http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=283272 and A Straight Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Drugs, published by PCCs books http://www.pccs-books.co.uk/product.php?xProd=463&xSec=1&jssCart=951d6cfb50d466e4f830c58cadfd75d6

LATEST BOOK – A Straight Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Drugs: The truth about how they work and how to come off them. Second Edition

In an era when more people are taking psychiatric drugs than ever before, Joanna Moncrieff’s explosive book challenges the claims for their mythical powers. Drawing on extensive research, she demonstrates that psychiatric drugs do not ‘treat’ or ‘cure’ mental illness by acting on hypothesised chemical imbalances or other abnormalities in the brain. There is no evidence for any of these ideas. Moreover, any relief the drugs may offer from the distress and disturbance of a mental disorder can come at great cost to people’s physical health and their ability to function in day-to-day life. And, once on these drugs, coming off them can be very difficult indeed. This book is a wake-up call to the potential damage we are doing to ourselves by relying on chemical cures for human distress. Its clear, concise explanations will enable people to make a fully informed decision about the benefits and harms of these drugs and whether and how to come off them if they so choose.

Click here to buy this book from the publisher’s website

Click here to buy this book on Amazon

‘This is a brilliant book. It offers an incisive, clear and evidence based appraisal of psychiatric drugs, arriving at just the right time to counter the growing controversy and confusion in this area. I could not think of a more respected and credible guide to take us through this tricky terrain. This book should be compulsory reading for anyone working in mental health. I would also recommend it for anyone holding a more personal interest in the subject.’ – –Dr James Davies, Reader in Social Anthropology & Mental Health, University of Roehampton, and author of Cracked: why psychiatry is doing more harm than good.

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Saving Freud The Rescuers Who Brought Him to Freedom By Andrew Nagorski Andrew Nagorski served as Newsweek’s bureau chief in Hong Kong, Moscow, Rome, Bonn, Warsaw, and Berlin. He is the author of seven previous critically acclaimed books, including Hitlerland and The Nazi Hunters. He has also written for countless publications. Visit him at AndrewNagorski.com.

A dramatic true story about Sigmund Freud’s last-minute escape to London following the German annexation of Austria and the group of friends who made it possible.

In March 1938, German soldiers crossed the border into Austria and Hitler absorbed the country into the Third Reich. Anticipating these events, many Jews had fled Austria, but the most famous Austrian Jew remained in Vienna, where he had lived since early childhood. Sigmund Freud was eighty-one years old, ill with cancer, and still unconvinced that his life was in danger.

But several prominent people close to Freud thought otherwise, and they began a coordinated effort to persuade Freud to leave his beloved Vienna and emigrate to England. The group included a Welsh physician, Napoleon’s great-grandniece, an American ambassador, Freud’s devoted youngest daughter Anna, and his personal doctor.

Saving Freud is the story of how this remarkable collection of people finally succeeded in coaxing Freud, a man who seemingly knew the human mind better than anyone else, to emerge from his deep state of denial about the looming catastrophe, allowing them to extricate him and his family from Austria so that they could settle in London. There Freud would live out the remaining sixteen months of his life in freedom.

This book is both an incisive new biography of Freud and a group biography of the extraordinary friends who saved Freud’s life.

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Peter Richardson https://www.benevolent.com/team/peter-richardson VP Pharmacology Peter Richardson serves as VP Pharmacology at BenevolentAI. He was a founding member of Cambridge Biotechnology Ltd in 2001 and served as CSO and Executive Director until 2005. Peter pioneered the sale of CBT to Proximagen Ltd, to whom he acted as an adviser until 2012. Between 1989 and 2006 he served as a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge where he pioneered research into drug discovery for Parkinson’s disease and inflammation, as well as new gene expression technologies. He is the author of over 70 peer-reviewed scientific papers. Peter studied Biochemistry at the University of Oxford, and was awarded a doctorate in Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge.

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###### George Georgas, Business Development Manager, talks to Dr Raj Persaud about the luxury treatment centre in South Africa attracting patients from all over the world.

###### About White River Manor

https://www.whiterivermanor.com/about/

Surrounded by majestic beauty in the heart of the stunning African bushveld, White River Manor provides the perfect tranquil environment for discerning individuals seeking professional help for addiction, trauma and burnout. With decades of professional experience in addiction and wellness treatment, the Manor was founded in 2015 with passion and purpose. This classic country hotel – a stately heritage home nestled in a 100-year old lush garden – was soon transformed into a world-class facility offering luxury accommodation, state-of-the-art facilities and a dedicated commitment to your recovery.

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'Incredible. One of those rare books that should be dispensed on prescription to every household.' - Lucy Easthope, author of When the Dust Settles
'Hilarious, bitter, poignant and profound . . . like an existential soap opera - only with more laughs.' - Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan

It was the kind of phone call we all dread. Your elderly father has been admitted to hospital. Your even older mum is now at home alone. The answer? Simple. Drop everything, go back and help. The reality? Not so straightforward. Suddenly, you’re a kid again, stranded in the overheated house you grew up in. Soon they need you 24/7. And you want to help, of course you do. But now your own life starts to unravel almost as quickly as their health. And then there is nowhere else to go.

In between bouts of washing, feeding, cooking and fighting there are times that test you, days where everything goes wrong and moments when everyone, miraculously rises to the occasion. And amidst all of that, this strange second childhood offers up a shot at redemption - if you can just stop everyone from falling down.

Irresistibly funny, unflinching and deeply moving, this is a love letter to family and friends, to carers and to anyone who has ever packed a small bag intent on staying for just a few days. This is a true story of what it really means to be a carer, and of the ties that bind even tighter when you least expect it. This is The Reluctant Carer.

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Trans-Africa Land-Rover 7 reviews by Porter Press International Current price£ 30.00 GBP Please note: £30 is the special price for non-trade customers who purchase this book directly from Porter Press.

The story of Philip Kohler and his epic overland adventure by Martin Port

When Philip Kohler left his native South Australia in 1955, his sights were firmly set on the UK, yet his continued appetite for travel eventually led him to Northern Rhodesia – a move that would ultimately see him fulfil a deeply held desire to complete a solo crossing of the Sahara desert.

With only his thoughts and the mechanical outpourings of his Series II Land-Rover for company, Kohler spent three years traversing his way across a remarkable continent that was in the midst of revolution and change – documenting his journey with his trusted Leica camera – before arriving back in London in the latter half of 1962.

The adventure provided not just new experiences, but also shaped the rest of his professional life – his photographic ability, as well as a chance encounter with John Wayne, resulting in a hugely successful career in the international film industry. Lavishly illustrated with the beautiful photographs that he took along the way, and written by award-winning author Martin Port, this new book from Porter Press International tells the story of Philip Kohler and his trans-African Land-Rover.

A unique collection of photographs and documents that charts Kohler’s journey from Australia to Europe, including superb colour images of 1950s London.
The epic story of Kohler’s overland adventure across Africa and Europe in his 1959 Series II Land-Rover – one that was undertaken without sponsorship or assistance.
Illustrated with more than 300 photographs – most of which are in beautifully preserved colour – that Kohler took along the route, including a solo crossing of the Sahara desert.
The full story of Kohler’s encounters with Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox while in Africa, which led to him working as location/production manager on nearly 40 films, including The Empire Strikes Back, Full Metal Jacket and numerous Bond movies.
How this remarkable one-owner Land-Rover, which remained with the family until 2016, made an emotional return to the road after 20 years of inactivity.

Specifications:

ISBN: 978-1-913089-29-0

280 x 240mm, 144 pages

Jacketed hardback

Over 300 period photographs and original documents

The Author

Martin Port has owned and run classic cars for 30 years – from humble Morris Minor to AC Buckland and Porsche 912 – but his overwhelming passion is for classic Land-Rovers.

Since buying his first as an antidote to Porsche ownership, he has travelled through Europe and North Africa at the wheel of various examples and has been the proud owner of the 1959 Trans-Africa Series II since 2016, using the 63-year-old example as his preferred daily mode of transport.

Martin has been working as a graphic designer, writer and photographer since graduating from art college in 1993 and was Classic & Sports Car’s art editor for 16 years before embarking on a freelance career in 2019.

He is author of JUE 477: the Remarkable History & Restoration of the World’s First Production Land Rover, Mini Scrapbook: 60 years of a British icon and JCB Scrapbook: celebrating 75 years of engineering innovation, and designer of Camel Trophy: The Definitive History – all published by Porter Press International.

He has written for Land Rover Monthly, Classic Land Rover, Classic & Sports Car, Octane and Magneto and is editor of the Series 2 Club magazine, Built 2 Last.

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Vajrin Malin qualified as a doctor from Bristol Medical School in 1985. His postgraduate medical training was mostly in London, initially in Infectious Diseases. This took him to a lecturer position in Zimbabwe for two years where he had an interest in TB in HIV. He then undertook a PhD on TB vaccine design and finally completed his training including Infectious Diseases, Respiratory and General Medicine. He recently retired from 20 years as Respiratory Consultant in Bath. He's had a lifelong interest in training and education. In addition to his time in Africa, he was College Tutor for the Royal College of Physicians, Foundation Programme Director, Director of Medical Education in his hospital trust and Associate Postgraduate Dean for Health Education England (HEE) South West. He sat on the council for the NACT UK holding the office of Honorary Treasurer then Honorary Secretary. His HEE responsibilities included providing professional support for postgraduate trainees (PSW) and Supported Return to Training (SuppoRTT). He's taught in Uganda, he has been a NACT Eugene Meyer Travelling Fellow to North Carolina and written several documents for NACT. He was a keen triathlete competing in Ironman events, marathons and long distance cycle holidays with his wife and friends. He was ordained and given the name Vajrin (previously Adam) in the Western Buddhist Order (now Triratna) 16 years ago. Sadly, in February 2020, whilst undertaking a 3000km off-road cycle trip the length of New Zealand, he fell 20m down the gorge leaving him permanently paralysed from his chest down. However, he's had excellent rehabilitation, initially in Auckland and later Salisbury and Stoke Mandeville spinal units. After a stormy period in the first year of his spinal cord injury (four neurosurgical operations for a swollen spinal cord - SPAM). He is now back working one day a week for HEE seeing trainees and running a South West programme on supporting trainees who’ve had a break of 3 months or more. His interests include health and well-being, coaching (ILM5 trained), burnout, educational leadership and educational systems. Selection of articles * Supporting Locally Employed Doctors (LEDs) across the UK: The non-consultant non-training doctors. NACT UK 2017 (currently being updated) * Putting an end to Black Wednesday: improving patient safety by achieving comprehensive trust induction and mandatory training by day 1 - Clinical Medicine 2016 * Vaccinia expression of mycobacterium tuberculosis antigen 85 and ESAT-6 secreted proteins - Microbes Infect. 2000 * Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in Zimbabwe - Lancet 1995 * Leprosy in reaction: a medical emergency. Lesson of the Week - British Medical Journal 1991

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GWENDOLINE SMITH - PSYCHOLOGIST, AUTHOR AND SPEAKER Trained as a clinical psychologist in the 1970’s, we were introduced to a bit of everything, sex therapy, behavioural therapy, couples therapy, working with phobias, depression, addictions and schizophrenia. The pallet of learning was extensive.

As a combined result of my experience I specialise in:

Depression
Anxiety
Work-related stress
Worry
Social anxiety
PTSD

I mostly work with adults and young adults. In today’s ‘urban jungle’, anxiety, in my opinion, prevails as the epidemic. The anxiety of the ‘Facebook’ world and brand advertising and social images of perfection, do take their toll in the youth as illustrated by youth suicide.

For adults, the same – work stress, lifestyle balance impact on relationships, anxiety accumulates and collapses the system into depression.

My approach is integrated, in that I will use whatever I see as offering the biggest contribution to the well-being of the individual. This often means borrowing from different schools of thought. I integrate a great deal of the cognitive behavioural approach into my work.

I also work alongside doctors and psychiatrists and am very literate in the appropriate uses of medication.

          The Book of Knowing: Know How You Think, Change How You Feel (Gwendoline Smith - Improving Mental Health Series) 07-Jan-2021 by Gwendoline Smith    ( 20 )   £3.99 £8.99    Written in an accessible and humorous style, this book teaches you to know what's going on in your mind and how to get your feelings under control. It'll help you adapt and feel better about your place in the world.

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The Little Book of Zen Money: A Simple Path to Financial Peace of Mind Seven Dollar Millionaire

ISBN: 978-1-119-85969-7 April 2022 304 Pages

DESCRIPTION At last, a mindful book about money that anyone can appreciate and understand

The Little Book of Zen Money: A Simple Path to Financial Peace of Mind delivers easy-to-follow steps for combining sensible saving strategies with mindfulness practices to achieving financial peace of mind. Finally, you can know how to fix your finances without feeling stressed out!

In this book, you’ll find out that sound financial strategy is far more straightforward than the financial industry wants you to think. It reveals the path to mindful money simplicity, showing readers how to adopt behaviors that encourage responsible saving and spending.

You’ll learn about:

How to journal your spending and saving so you keep track of the money you have coming in and going out
Easy mindfulness exercises, mantras, and meditations that keep you centered, rational, and calm when it comes to your money
Simple explanations of the financial industry and how to invest responsibly that anyone can understand

Perfect for anyone who doesn’t usually like books about money (or the complicated jargon they’re often filled with), The Little Book of Zen Money proves that you don’t need to be an expert, professional, or mathematician to get great financial advice.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR THE SEVEN DOLLAR MILLIONAIRE is a group of financial literacy enthusiasts, who make learning about money accessible and engaging, and the author of Happy Ever After: Financial Freedom Isn’t a Fairy Tale. They were quoted in the Financial Times in November 2020 saying “No one thinks about being financially literate per se. But they do want to be financially secure, to not be in debt and misery”.

Seven Dollar Millionaire Did you know that the smallest amount of money you need to save and invest (at a 7% return) to become a millionaire over your career is just seven dollars? No, nor did the Seven Dollar Millionaire until his daughter asked him if she could become a millionaire, and what was the smallest amount she could start with. That question turned into the book "Happy Ever After", his new nickname and a lifetime commitment to teaching the concepts that can help all of us achieve financial security.

Having worked in the financial sector for more than 20 years, he has managed billion-dollar deals, invested hundreds of millions of dollars for clients, and won multiple awards - but helping people make the most of their circumstances, whether they are migrant workers or his own daughter, is worth so much more.

You can find out more of the Seven Dollar Millionaire's secrets, at this page of his website https://www.sevendollarmillionaire.com/secrets/ and here is an example of one of the fairytales from Happy Ever After, along with its wonderful hand-drawn illustration by Jo Sanders: https://www.sevendollarmillionaire.com/2021/02/21/the-emperors-new-money-2/

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Does predicting the outcome of the war in Ukraine rest more on understanding the psychology of the Ukrainian soldier, than any other factor?

Psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud is in conversation with Dmytro Assonov, MD, MSc

Assistant professor at the department of medical psychology, psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy, Bogomolets National Medical University, Kyiv, Ukraine Clinical psychologist at the Hospital for War Veterans "Forest Glade" of Ministry of Health of Ukraine. PhD thesis (currently writing) is related to the resilience of Ukrainian veterans. You can also listen to this interview on a free app on iTunes and Google Play Store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience and mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. Download it free from these links. Don't forget to check out the bonus content button on the app.

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The photograph accompanying this podcast is of Orest Suvalo, a volunteer and a psychiatrist in #Ukraine, speaks with patients at a medical point set up above Lviv Central Station.

A doctor and psychiatrist, Orest Suvalo, talks to Dr Raj Persaud about the mental health situation in Ukraine

From The Guardian Newspaper

‘They draw bombs, tanks and wishes for peace’: Ukraine’s child mental health crisis      Theatre workshops and art classes have sprung up to offer temporary respite from war as doctors warn of widespread trauma

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/mar/15/ukraine-child-mental-health-crisis

Two days after Russian forces entered Ukraine, on 26 February, the country’s public military administration requested that a psychological support system be put in place at Lviv train station.

Thousands of women and children were passing through the station, 80km (50 miles) from the border with Poland, and the need for doctors and psychiatrists to support the displaced was immediately clear.

“The first week was very difficult,” says Dr Orest Suvalo, psychiatrist and coordinator of the support centre. “There were people arriving from Kyiv and Kharkiv who showed critical signs of distress. Many children, but also adults, were panicking, looking for shelters and buses to Poland.’’

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   You can also listen to this interview on a free app on iTunes and Google Play Store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience and mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. Download it free from these links. Don't forget to check out the bonus content button on the app.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id927466223?

CONNECT THE DOTS THE ART AND SCIENCE OF CREATING GOOD LUCK “A wise, exciting, and life-changing book” - Arianna Huffington Modern life can feel like an endless sequence of cancelled plans, last-minute meetings and delayed journeys. So how can we use unpredictability to our advantage? LSE and NYU academic Dr Christian Busch has spent a decade exploring how we can use uncertainty as a pathway to more joyful, purposeful and successful lives. In this book, he reveals the secrets behind the hidden force that rules the universe: serendipity. The book is based on cutting-edge research in the natural and social sciences, as well as hundreds of interviews including with leading CEOs, entrepreneurs, and changemakers from around the world who turned the unexpected into opportunity by seeing and connecting the dots. Anchored in a science-based framework and peppered with inspiring stories and hands-on exercises, it captures how all of us can cultivate serendipity and turn uncertainty into opportunity, joy, and sustained success. Dr. Christian Busch is an expert in entrepreneurship, social innovation, and purpose-driven business. He teaches at New York University (NYU) and at the London School of Economics (LSE), and directs the NYU Global Economy Program. He is a co-founder of Leaders on Purpose and the author of The Serendipity Mindset: The Art & Science of Creating Good Luck.

Previously, he served as Inaugural Deputy Director at the LSE's Innovation Centre and co-founded the Sandbox Network, a community of young innovators. He is part of the World Economic Forum's Expert Forum, and has been named as 'top emerging management thinker' (Thinkers50), 'Top 99 Influencer' (Diplomatic Courier), and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA).

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Grief and Grieving a guide for the confused

https://michael.cholbi.com/

Grief: A Philosophical Guide published by Princeton University Press

Michael Cholbi

An engaging and illuminating exploration of grief—and why, despite its intense pain, it can also help us grow

Experiencing grief at the death of a person we love or who matters to us—as universal as it is painful—is central to the human condition. Surprisingly, however, philosophers have rarely examined grief in any depth. In Grief, Michael Cholbi presents a groundbreaking philosophical exploration of this complex emotional event, offering valuable new insights about what grief is, whom we grieve, and how grief can ultimately lead us to a richer self-understanding and a fuller realization of our humanity.

Drawing on psychology, social science, and literature as well as philosophy, Cholbi explains that we grieve for the loss of those in whom our identities are invested, including people we don’t know personally but cherish anyway, such as public figures. Their deaths not only deprive us of worthwhile experiences; they also disrupt our commitments and values. Yet grief is something we should embrace rather than avoid, an important part of a good and meaningful life. The key to understanding this paradox, Cholbi says, is that grief offers us a unique and powerful opportunity to grow in self-knowledge by fashioning a new identity. Although grief can be tumultuous and disorienting, it also reflects our distinctly human capacity to rationally adapt as the relationships we depend on evolve.

An original account of how grieving works and why it is so important, Grief shows how the pain of this experience gives us a chance to deepen our relationships with others and ourselves.

The pandemic has flooded the world with grief, but we’re not in a ‘grief pandemic’ Michael Cholbi is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He has published widely in ethical theory, practical ethics, and the philosophy of death and dying. His books include Suicide: The Philosophical Dimensions (Broadview, 2011), Understanding Kant’s Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2016), and Grief: A Philosophical Guide (Princeton University Press, expected 2021). He is the editor of several scholarly collections, including Immortality and the Philosophy of Death (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015); Procreation, Parenthood, and Educational Rights (Routledge, 2017); The Future of Work, Technology, and Basic Income (Routledge, 2019); and The Movement for Black Lives: Philosophical Perspectives (Oxford University Press, 2020). He is the the co-editor of the textbook Exploring the Philosophy of Death and Dying: Classic and Contemporary Perspectives (Routledge, forthcoming 2020). His work has also appeared in a number of scholarly journals, including Ethics, Mind, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, and Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics. In recent years, he has been an acdemic visitor at Australian National University, the University of Turku (Finland), and the Hastings Center - Bioethics Research Insitute.

His current research interests are

Kantian ethics, particularly respect for persons, equality, and rational agency
death and dying, including suicide and assisted dying, immortality, and grief
ethics of work and labor
paternalism
procreative and parental ethics

Qualifications Ph.D, University of Virginia, 1999 [President's Fellow and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Fellow]

Responsibilities & affiliations * Founder, International Association for the Philosophy of Death and Dying * Editorial board, Journal of Applied Philosophy * Board of advisors, Social Theory and Practice * Area editor (Ethics), Ergo * International advisory board, Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh * Former editor, Teaching Philosophy * Multiple roles within the American Philosophical Association, including Divisional Executive Committe Member, the Committe on Teaching Philosophy, and the Committee on Public Philosophy

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https://readinglist.click/sub/in-madness-stories-of-uncertainty-and-hope-sean-baumann-argues-for-a-more-inclusive-way-of-making-sense-of-mental-health/ In Madness: Stories of Uncertainty and Hope, Sean Baumann argues for a more inclusive way of making sense of mental health Madness: Stories of Uncertainty and Hope by Sean Baumann is out now from Jonathan Ball Publishers.

‘This book has irrevocably changed my understanding of madness. Through succinct and often poetic accounts Baumann carefully mediates access to glimpses of the brave, fearful, lonely and vulnerable humanities of those suffering from psychiatric disorders, especially schizophrenia. The text, illuminated by extraordinary artwork, compels one to believe that beyond all the distress and despair, there is, and always should be, hope.’ – Antjie Krog

For many of us, what lies beyond conventional portrayals of mental illness is often shrouded in mystery, misconception and fear.

Sean Baumann spent decades as a psychiatrist at Valkenberg Hospital and, through his personal engagement with patients’ various forms of psychosis, he describes the lived experiences of those who suffer from schizophrenia, depression, bipolar and other disorders.

A patient is standing in the middle of the river, his back turned to the hospital. The nurses are waiting for him patiently on the riverbank. He seems uncertain whether to cross the river or to return. There is no danger. He is in an in-between space, as is the hospital where I have worked as a specialist psychiatrist for over 25 years.

The stories told are authentic, mysterious and compelling, representing both vivid expressions of minds in turmoil and the struggle to give form and meaning to distress. The author seeks to describe these encounters in a respectful way, believing that careless portrayals of madness cause further suffering and perpetuate the burden of stigma.

Baumann argues cogently for a more inclusive way of making sense of mental health. With sensitivity and empathy, his enquiries into the territories of art, psychology, consciousness, otherness, free will and theories of the self reveal how mental illness raises questions that affect us all.

Madness is illustrated by award-winning artist Fiona Moodie.

Ebook available from Amazon, Kobo, Snapplify and ITSI.

About the author

Dr Sean Baumann worked for 25 years as a consultant to the male acute service at Valkenberg Hospital in Cape Town and was a senior lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health at UCT, where he holds an honorary position. He is the editor of Primary Care Psychiatry: A Practical Guide for Southern Africa (1998, 2007, 2015). His cantata Madness: Songs of Hope and Despair was performed at the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town in 2017.

Madness: Stories of Uncertainty and Hope

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A crystal-clear, scientifically rigorous argument for the existence of free will, challenging what many scientists and scientifically minded philosophers believe.

Philosophers have argued about the nature and the very existence of free will for centuries. Today, many scientists and scientifically minded commentators are skeptical that it exists, especially when it is understood to require the ability to choose between alternative possibilities. If the laws of physics govern everything that happens, they argue, then how can our choices be free? Believers in free will must be misled by habit, sentiment, or religious doctrine. Why Free Will Is Real defies scientific orthodoxy and presents a bold new defense of free will in the same naturalistic terms that are usually deployed against it.

Unlike those who defend free will by giving up the idea that it requires alternative possibilities to choose from, Christian List retains this idea as central, resisting the tendency to defend free will by watering it down. He concedes that free will and its prerequisites—intentional agency, alternative possibilities, and causal control over our actions—cannot be found among the fundamental physical features of the natural world. But, he argues, that’s not where we should be looking. Free will is a “higher-level” phenomenon found at the level of psychology. It is like other phenomena that emerge from physical processes but are autonomous from them and not best understood in fundamental physical terms—like an ecosystem or the economy. When we discover it in its proper context, acknowledging that free will is real is not just scientifically respectable; it is indispensable for explaining our world.

“Accessible, clear and convincing… List’s carefully crafted argument may help many of us sleep more soundly, being further assured that we can choose how to live our own lives.”—Ellie Lasater-Guttman, LSE Review of Books

“Well argued and admirably sets out the challenges to free will that, when coupled with its clarity, make it an excellent gateway into the contemporary free will debate.”—Logan B. Weir, Review of Metaphysics

“List argues that free will is not explained away through science by looking at the activity in our brain… A wonderful defense of free will accessibly written for readers new to the topic.”—Library Journal

“In Why Free Will Is Real, List does as advertised, advancing a novel, intriguing view of free will and making a thoughtful case for the thesis that free will, as he conceives of it, is real. This book is a pleasure to read.”—Alfred Mele, Florida State University

“An original and challenging new contribution to contemporary debates about free will. After making a compelling case for the irreducibility of different explanatory levels of reality, Christian List argues that free will requires indeterminism at the psychological level of explanation, but not at the physical level, where it is compatible with determinism. His arguments in support of these claims address a host of potential objections and include insightful appeals to new developments in the logic of agency and branching time, among other novel arguments.”—Robert H. Kane, The University of Texas at Austin

“Many philosophers have suggested that we may be causally determined at the neurophysiological level, but not at the psychological. List is the first to work out a detailed proposal of how this might work, and of how it can underpin an account of free will. Developing ideas from theories of causation and of counterfactuals, it provides an incisive and accessible introduction to contemporary thinking about how we might be free in a causally-determined world.”—Richard Holton, University of Cambridge

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Richard Bett specializes in ancient Greek philosophy, with a particular focus on ethics and epistemology. He also has interests in modern ethics and epistemology, as well as a significant side-interest in Nietzsche. He is the author of Pyrrho, his Antecedents and his Legacy (Oxford, 2000), and of translations of Sextus Empiricus' Against the Ethicists (Oxford, 1997, with introduction and commentary), Against the Logicians (Cambridge, 2005, with introduction and notes), Against the Physicists (Cambridge, 2012, with introduction and notes), and Against Those in the Disciplines (Oxford, 2018, with introduction and notes). He is also the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Scepticism (2010). A collection of his essays, under the title How to be A Pyrrhonist, was published in 2019 (Cambridge). He has published articles in Phronesis, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Ancient Philosophy, Apeiron (of which he is an Editorial Board member), and elsewhere. His publications have been especially on ancient Greek skepticism (sometimes including comparisons with modern approaches to skepticism), but also include papers on the Stoics, Socrates, Plato, the Sophists, and Nietzsche. He spent 1994–95 as a Fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington, DC. From January 2000 to June 2001, he was acting executive director of The American Philosophical Association, and from 2003-13 he was secretary-treasurer of its Eastern Division; since 2013 he has been Vice Chair of its Board of Officers.

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691206042/how-to-keep-an-open-mind

Along with Stoicism and Epicureanism, Skepticism is one of the three major schools of ancient Greek philosophy that claim to offer a way of living as well as thinking. How to Keep an Open Mind provides an unmatched introduction to skepticism by presenting a fresh, modern translation of key passages from the writings of Sextus Empiricus, the only Greek skeptic whose works have survived.

While content in daily life to go along with things as they appear to be, Sextus advocated—and provided a set of techniques to achieve—a radical suspension of judgment about the way things really are, believing that such nonjudging can be useful for challenging the unfounded dogmatism of others and may help one achieve a state of calm and tranquility. In an introduction, Richard Bett makes the case that the most important lesson we can draw from Sextus’s brand of skepticism today may be an ability to see what can be said on the other side of any issue, leading to a greater open-mindedness.

Complete with the original Greek on facing pages, How to Keep an Open Mind offers a compelling antidote to the closed-minded dogmatism of today’s polarized world.

"[How to Keep an Open Mind] gives a modern audience an accessible introduction to the school of thought, and shows us a better way to think about skepticism in a radically polarized world."—Steven Gambardella, The Sophist (Medium)

“In a world overflowing with information, ‘What should I believe?’ can be a daunting question. The ancient philosopher Sextus Empiricus addresses this issue, asking, what if the pressure to form beliefs is itself a major source of distress and turmoil in our lives? This accessible, engaging translation of key parts of Sextus’s most famous work shows how to achieve a more tranquil life by suspending judgment and keeping an open mind.”—Christiana Olfert, Tufts University

"This excellent volume offers a timely introduction to ancient skepticism, which argues that much of our anguish and conflict is the product of dogmatism and that only an open mind can lead to tranquility. This is surely a message for our times.”—John Sellars, author of The Pocket Stoic

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I guess it comes down to a simple choice,
really. Get busy living or get busy dying.
– Andy, The Shawshank Redemption

Dr Mark Sinyor

Appointments and Affiliations:

Associate scientist, Evaluative Clinical Sciences, Hurvitz Brain Sciences Research Program, Sunnybrook Research Institute
Staff psychiatrist, mood and anxiety disorders program, department of psychiatry, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Assistant professor, department of psychiatry, U of T

Research Foci:

Suicide prevention
Mood and anxiety disorders
Placebos and expectation effects
Randomized controlled trial design
Public health

Research Summary:

The focus of Dr. Sinyor's research is in two areas within the field of mood disorders.

Suicide is a leading cause of premature death around the world and the second most common cause of death in young people in Canada after accidents. Dr. Sinyor is one of the founding members of PROGRESS (Program of Research and Education to Stop Suicide) at Sunnybrook. He is using coroner's records and other data sources to examine thousands of suicides that have occurred in Toronto and more broadly in Ontario to understand suicide better and to inform future efforts in suicide prevention. He is also conducting clinical trials that aim to prevent suicide in hospitalized patients.

There is growing evidence that expectations and the placebo effect have an important, under-recognized impact on mood and anxiety disorders both clinically and in research trials. Dr. Sinyor is working in this emerging field to understand how these factors influence outcomes and whether there are avenues to optimize expectations to improve patient care.

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Thomas Niederkrotenthaler is associate professor at the Suicide Research Unit at the Institute of Social Medicine, Center for Public Health, Medical University of Vienna. He is the co-chair of the International Association for Suicide Prevention's Media and Suicide Special Interest Group.

Reacting to suicidal revelations - is Piers Morgan right?

Research on suicide reporting suggests a surprising effect of Meghan's interview

by Dr Raj Persaud

Piers Morgan, a controversial TV host, has now left his national broadcasting position after expressing strong disbelief over Meghan’s confessions of suicidal thinking in her interview with Oprah Winfrey.

BBC News reports that Piers Morgan continues to stand by his criticism of the Duchess of Sussex. Ofcom, a regulator of broadcasting in the UK, is investigating his comments after receiving 41,000 complaints from the British public.

The duchess apparently formally complained to ITV about Morgan's remarks. It is reported that she raised concerns about how Piers Morgan's sentiments affect the issue of mental health, and what it might do to others contemplating suicide.

Is Meghan correct in her reported analysis? Or is Piers Morgan right to stand by his comments?

Or, in discussing suicide during an Oprah Winfrey interview, did she in fact make it more likely that others will self-harm?

Media reporting of suicidal behaviour has been found to contribute to an increase in suicidal thinking and actual suicides in the population. At this point Piers Morgan may argue the duchess is wrong to criticise him, and has only herself to blame, if there is a spike in suicides following the interview.

Recent research found that Google searches for “How to kill yourself” significantly increased after the release of ‘13 Reasons Why’, a popular Netflix American teen drama on the aftermath of high school student's suicide. The study calculated there were 900 000 to 1.5 million more searches than expected, for that time of year, in just over two weeks following the release of the series.

Another study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry in February 2020, estimated there were 195 additional suicide deaths among 10- to 17-year-old youths between April 1 and December 31, 2017, following the series’ release.

One of the first studies to investigate this effect, analysed 34 newspaper stories that reported on suicides, and found a 2.51% increase in suicide during the month of the publicity.

More worrying still, about the possible repercussions of the extensive reporting of Meghan’s suicidal thinking worldwide, is that, research by Professor Steven Stack, an expert on the sociology of suicide, based at Wayne State University, USA, found that studies measuring the presence of an entertainment celebrity in a suicide press report, are over 5 times more likely to find a copycat effect, while studies focusing on female suicide, were almost 5 times more likely to report a copycat effect, than other research investigating the impact of suicide reporting in the press.

Another example reported by Steven Stack is that in the year of the publication of a book which focused on self-harm via a particular method, suicide by that specific recommended method, increased 313% in New York City. In almost one third of cases a copy of the book was found at the scene of the suicide.

On average, following the media reporting of a suicide, approximately one third of persons involved in subsequent suicidal behavior appear to have seen the reporting of that suicide and may be copycat suicides.

The suicide of actress Marilyn Monroe was associated with a 12% increase in suicide.

One theory as to why reporting of a celebrity killing themselves or feeling suicidal, according to Professor Steven Stack, is that the vulnerable suicidal person may reason, ‘If a Marilyn Monroe with all her fame and fortune cannot endure life, why should I?’

Copycat suicides following media reporting of self-harm has been termed the ‘Werther Effect’, following a notorious historical incident after the publication in 1774 of a popular novel in which the hero kills himself. Entitled, The Sorrows of Young Werther the book by Goethe was rumoured to be responsible for a subsequent epidemic of suicide in young people. European authorities were so worried about its impact, that the book was banned in Copenhagen, Italy and Leipzig.

Goethe is reported to have commented on the phenomenon; “My friends … thought that they must transform poetry into reality, imitate a novel like this in real life and, in any case, shoot themselves; and what occurred at first among a few took place later among the general public …”

However, now new research suggests that, in fact, Meghan Markle in talking about suicide, may have indeed performed a positive service in terms of suicide prevention.

The study entitled, ‘Role of media reports in completed and prevented suicide: Werther v. Papageno effects’, refers to a ‘Papageno Effect’, which the authors claim may be the opposite of the ‘Werther Effect’, and happens when suicide rates go down following a particular kind of self-harm publicity.

The ‘Papageno Effect’, the authors explain, is based on Papageno's overcoming of a suicidal crisis in Mozart's opera ‘The Magic Flute’. If media reporting has a suicide-protective impact this should now be referred to as the ‘Papageno Effect’ the authors argue. In Mozart's opera, Papageno becomes suicidal upon fearing the loss of his beloved Papagena; however, he refrains from suicide because of three boys who draw his attention to alternative coping strategies.

Thomas Niederkrotenthaler and Gernot Sonneck from the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, led a team who analysed all 497 suicide-related print media reports from the 11 largest Austrian nationwide newspapers, including the term suicide, between 1 January and 30 June 2005.

Reporting of individuals thinking about suicide (not accompanied by attempted or completed suicide) was associated with a decrease in national suicide rates. This study suggests that media items on suicidal thinking, perhaps as described by Meghan in her recent interview, formed a distinctive class of articles, which have a low probability of being potentially harmful.

The study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that in marked contrast, media stories attempting to dispel popular public myths about suicide, in other words articles that you would have thought would be helpful, and were intended to be helpful as regards suicide, were associated with increases in suicide rates.

Other articles associated with increases in suicide rates include stories where the main focus was on suicide research, items containing contact information for a public support service and also the reporting of expert opinions.

In other words, all the previous so-called expert opinion of how the media ought to report suicide was not actually linked to drops in suicide rates, but instead increases.

The authors conclude that the actual reporting of suicidal thinking may contribute to preventing suicide. Therefore, it follows that whatever Piers Morgan may think or believe about the Meghan interview, the latest scientific research suggests she may have performed a public service in drawing attention to suicidal thinking.

One theory as to why this might be the case include the suggestion that reporting someone thinking about suicide enhances identification with the reported individual, and thus highlights the reported outcome as ‘going on living’.

This research suggests a new public health strategy as regards suicide prevention. This may be most effective when articles are published on individuals who refrained from adopting suicidal plans, and instead adopted positive coping mechanisms, despite suffering adverse circumstances.

The authors refer to this kind of press story as ‘Mastery of Crisis’. One example they quote: ‘Before [Tom Jones] had his first hit, he thought about suicide… and wanted to jump in front of an Underground train in London… In 1965, before he made the charts with “It's not unusual”, he thought for a second: “If I just take a step to the right, then it'll all be over”.’

Whatever else you may think of her, or the interview, the key question becomes, did Meghan exhibit ‘Mastery Of Crisis’?

REFERENCES

Piers Morgan stands by Meghan criticism after Good Morning Britain exit https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-56343768

Internet Searches for Suicide Following the Release of 13 Reasons Why. Ayers JW, Althouse BM, Leas EC, Dredze M, Allem J. JAMA Intern Med. 2017;177(10):1527–1529. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2017.3333

Association between the release of Netflix's 13 Reasons Why and suicide rates in the United States: an interrupted times series analysis. Bridge, J, Greenhouse, JB, Ruch, D, Stevens, J, Ackerman, J, Sheftall, A, et al. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 2019; 28 Apr (doi: 10.1016/j.jaac.2019.04.020).

Suicide in the Media: A Quantitative Review of Studies Based on Nonfictional Stories. Steven Stack. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior 35(2) April 2005, 121-133

Role of media reports in completed and prevented suicide: Werther v. Papageno effects. Thomas Niederkrotenthaler, Martin Voracek, Arno Herberth, Benedikt Till, Markus Strauss, Elmar Etzersdorfer, Brigitte Eisenwort and Gernot Sonneck. British Journal of Psychiatry, 197(3), 234-243. doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.109.074633

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The Demon in the Machine HOW HIDDEN WEBS OF INFORMATION ARE SOLVING THE MYSTERY OF LIFE PAUL DAVIES **Physics World Book of the Year

A Financial Times, Sunday Times, and Telegraph Best Science Book of the Year

What is life? For generations, scientists have struggled to make sense of this fundamental question, for life really does look like magic: even a humble bacterium accomplishes things so dazzling that no human engineer can match it. Huge advances in molecular biology over the past few decades have served only to deepen the mystery.

In this penetrating and wide-ranging book, world-renowned physicist and science communicator Paul Davies searches for answers in a field so new and fast-moving that it lacks a name; it is a domain where biology, computing, logic, chemistry, quantum physics, and nanotechnology intersect. At the heart of these diverse fields, Davies explains, is the concept of information: a quantity which has the power to unify biology with physics, transform technology and medicine, and force us to fundamentally reconsider what it means to be alive—even illuminating the age-old question of whether we are alone in the universe.

From life’s murky origins to the microscopic engines that run the cells of our bodies, The Demon in the Machine journeys across an astounding landscape of cutting-edge science. Weaving together cancer and consciousness, two-headed worms and bird navigation, Davies reveals how biological organisms garner and process information to conjure order out of chaos, opening a window onto the secret of life itself. Steven Poole | Guardian “Brilliantly vivid. . . . The big idea is that . . . understanding the information flow in organisms might be the missing part of our scientific jigsaw puzzle. The informational approach, in Davies’s elegant and lucid exposition, is extremely promising.” Timo Hannay | Nature “Boundary-transcending. . . . Davies claims that life’s defining characteristics are better understood in terms of information. . . . With apologies to Charles Darwin, there is grandeur in this view of life.” Clive Cookson | Financial Times “Important and imaginative.” Lewis Dartnell | Times (UK) “Wonderful. . . . Davies is a lucid writer and master storyteller. . . . Truly mind-blowing. . . . This is a cracking read.” Bianca Nogrady | Sydney Morning Herald “Fascinating. . . . This book is no lightweight holiday read you can laze through.” Richard Joyner | Times Higher Education “A dizzying tour de force.” Liz Else | New Scientist “Explaining one of the oldest questions—what is life?—is physicist Davies’s quest. . . . He searches for answers beyond the known, venturing into a place with no name.” Tushna Commissariat | Physics World "Davies’s lucid writing on this emerging scientific area is just what the pop-sci reader ordered. He is the perfect host to this admittedly dizzying journey, as he spins yarns of quantum demons, double-headed worms and everything in-between." Andrew Briggs, University of Oxford “Davies narrates a gripping new drama in science, in which the plot is the story of life and the leading actor is information. With his characteristic blend of erudition and clarity, he brings together some of the most rapidly advancing knowledge in physics and technology to show how information controls biology. If you want to understand how the concept of life is changing, read this.” Robyn Williams “This is one of the most exciting books I have read in years. Davies celebrates a significant anniversary with a demonically brilliant investigation of a fundamental question that only the very latest science and philosophy can deal with. Now we have a view from the master that's as thrilling as it is satisfying. Superb.” David Deutsch “Davies takes us on a fascinating tour of what is known about what life is. Along the way he speculates interestingly about what may become known. His theme, drawn from Darwin, Schrödinger, Turing, Gödel, Shannon, and von Neumann, is that what separates life from non-life is information. But how? Exploring that question illuminates biology by revealing its deep roots in physics, mathematics, and computer science.” George F.R. Ellis, University of Cape Town “In this characteristically clearly written and engaging book, ranging from physics to biology and evolutionary theory to neuroscience, Davies strongly makes the case that at its core, life is about information flows.” Denis Noble, University of Oxford “Davies is a courageous explorer of the boundaries of what we can know about our world. This book makes his explorations available to all who enjoy pushing those boundaries. Written with a light entertaining touch, even the most abstruse science acquires the clarity of exposition for which the author is justly renowned.” Michael Levin, Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University “A tour-de-force. . . . The Demon in the Machine is simultaneously rigorous, state-of-the-art, and highly readable—very hard to put down.” Michael Berry, HH Wills Physics Laboratory “Davies always probes the deepest questions in science. Here, addressing the deepest of all—Schrödinger’s What is Life?—he tells us what life is: matter plus information—beyond the laws of physics, but compatible with them. To elaborate this thesis, he deploys his trademark talent: getting to the heart of the most abstruse and technical aspects of science (biology as well as physics), without jargon and with down-to-earth analogies.” Charles Jencks, author of "The Garden of Cosmic Speculation” “This creative demon shadows DNA and the promise of quantum computing, answering some basic questions. What is consciousness, why is life so good at predicting where it might go next? The bridge connecting fundamental physics, biology, and the most advanced labs of computation is what Davies calls information patterns. He shows how it organizes for top-down creativity, and thereby holds off the grim reaper of entropy. With striking insight, and metaphors that illuminate the landscape of science today, Davies once again becomes our guide to the near future.” Mikhail Prokopenko, University of Sydney “The Demon in the Machine encompasses some of the most intriguing and unsolved mysteries of the universe: the existence of an arrow of time imprinted on the cosmos, and the emergence of life itself. Davies's crisp but rich narrative succeeds in untangling various highly complex ideas and processes, while fluently and intelligently setting out its own arrow of argument.” J. S. Schwartz, emeritus, CUNY College of Staten Island | Choice "This work analyzes the properties of life from the perspective of atomic physics, arguing that the very nature of living things allows them to defy the second fundamental law of physics: namely, that there is a 'tendency towards degeneration and disorder.'... Along with treating the question 'What is life?' this book explains the fundamental principles of quantum physics, making a very complex subject more understandable." Jim Al-Khalili | BBC Science Focus "This book is really about whether a physicist can define what life is, and the living systems that are far from equilibrium, yet maintain high-order...It’s one of those books where you read a few pages, then you lean back and think and go, 'Oh, I hadn’t thought of it that way.'" Daily Galaxy "Davies offers a similar message . . . : information, like energy, has the ability to animate matter. ‘In each and every one of us lies a message,’ writes Davies. ‘It is inscribed in an ancient code, its beginnings lost in the mists of time. Decrypted, the message contains instructions on how to make a human being. Nobody wrote the message; nobody invented the code. They came into existence spontaneously.’" ESSSAT News & Reviews "Davies is struck by the way living organisms consistently resist the ravages of entropy that all forms of inanimate matter are subject to and argues that there must be some non-physical principle allowing living matter to defy the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This non-physical principle is information. Throughout the book, Davies explores all the different ways that information is an essential component of biological processes, especially at the cellular and molecular levels." Penn Book Center** "For Davies, life is a data processing system. That is his demon from the machine. It is one of the books where you read a couple of pages; you then lean back and go and think, 'Oh, I had not thought of it like that.'"

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https://press.princeton.edu/books/ebook/9780691202020/a-passion-for-ignorance

A Passion for Ignorance: What We Choose Not to Know and Why * Renata Salecl

An original and provocative exploration of our capacity to ignore what is inconvenient or traumatic

Ignorance, whether passive or active, conscious or unconscious, has always been a part of the human condition, Renata Salecl argues. What has changed in our post-truth, postindustrial world is that we often feel overwhelmed by the constant flood of information and misinformation. It sometimes seems impossible to differentiate between truth and falsehood and, as a result, there has been a backlash against the idea of expertise, and a rise in the number of people actively choosing not to know. The dangers of this are obvious, but Salecl challenges our assumptions, arguing that there may also be a positive side to ignorance, and that by addressing the role of ignorance in society, we may also be able to reclaim the role of knowledge.

Drawing on philosophy, social and psychoanalytic theory, popular culture, and her own experience, Salecl explores how the passion for ignorance plays out in many different aspects of life today, from love, illness, trauma, and the fear of failure to genetics, forensic science, big data, and the incel movement—and she concludes that ignorance is a complex phenomenon that can, on occasion, benefit individuals and society as a whole.

The result is a fascinating investigation of how the knowledge economy became an ignorance economy, what it means for us, and what it tells us about the world today. "A thoughtful, nuanced examination of the social and psychological motivations for—and consequences of—ignorance or denial. . . . At a time when fake news, propaganda, political rhetoric, and dueling experts dominate the media, [Salecl]’s analysis offers a fresh way to think about the decisions each of us make to 'embrace ignorance and denial."—Kirkus Reviews

"A book passionately not to be ignored!"—Hanif Kureishi, author of The Nothing

"In this pithy, elegant book, Renata Salecl documents and explores today's pervasive passion for ignorance and how it operates at so many different levels of society. Written in an accessible, lively style, the book analyses our efforts not to know through a wide range of examples that touch on most people's lives. Fascinating, illuminating reading."—Darian Leader, author of The New Black: Mourning, Melancholia, and Depression

“In these times of information overload, many people seem more keen than ever to close their eyes and embrace ignorance or denial. As the brilliant Renata Salecl shows in her masterful book, A Passion for Ignorance, this tendency is sometimes increased when people confront something that is too painful or hard to grasp—or when they are in the throes of love or feel ignored by society. This insightful book is a treasure to read.”—Bernard E. Harcourt, author of Exposed: Desire and Disobedience in the Digital Age

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Scott Newstok teaches literature of the English Renaissance as well as film, rhetoric, education, lyric poetry, and the humanities. In 2012 Professor Newstok received the Campus Life Award for Outstanding Faculty Member and in 2016 he received the Clarence Day Award for Outstanding Teaching. Before joining the Rhodes faculty in 2007, Professor Newstok earned his doctorate from Harvard University, taught at Oberlin College, Amherst College, and Gustavus Adolphus College, and held the Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the Humanities at Yale University Library′s Special Collections.

Dr. Newstok has published five books: a scholarly edition of Kenneth Burke′s Shakespeare criticism; a collection of essays on Macbeth and race (co-edited with Ayanna Thompson); a monograph on early modern English epitaphs; an edition of Michael Cavanagh's Paradise Lost: A Primer (CUAP 2020); and How to Think Like Shakespeare (Princeton, 2020). Newstok′s work has been recognized by grants and fellowships from the American Philosophical Society, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Institute for Research in the Humanities, the Marco Institute, the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Humanities Center, and the Newberry Library.

Newstok is the Founding Director of the Pearce Shakespeare Endowment and is a board member of Opera Memphis, Beth Sholom Synagogue, and the Libertas School of Memphis. He previously served as Co-Director (with Dr. Judith Haas) of Postgraduate Scholarships, Humanities faculty member of the Rhodes Board of Trustees, President of Rhodes′ Phi Beta Kappa chapter, and trustee of Humanities Tennessee, the state chapter of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Prof. Newstok's Website

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS Book projects

Orson Welles, Shakespeare, and Race, supported by a fellowship from the Folger Shakespeare Library

Duluth in Mind, on the place of the Zenith City within the American cultural imagination

Twinomials: "Residual Bilingualism and Philological Citizenship in English Renaissance Literature," supported by a fellowship from the American Philosophical Society

Books

How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education (Princeton University Press, 2020).

"Insightful and joyful, this book is a masterpiece. It invokes and provokes rather than explains. It reminds rather than lectures. It is different than any book I have ever read. And it works. Drawing on the past in the best sense of the term, it reminds us that we are part of a long tradition. Few books make the case for liberal education as creatively as this one does."—Johann N. Neem, author of What's the Point of College? Seeking Purpose in an Age of Reform

"Ranging widely from the classics right up to the present with apt quotations, all in service of ideas we lose at our peril, How to Think like Shakespeare winningly blends respect for tradition with thoughtful steps toward a more equitable society. It is the work of a Renaissance man in both senses."—Robert N. Watson, author of Cultural Evolution and Its Discontents: Cognitive Overload, Parasitic Cultures, and the Humanistic Cure

https://lithub.com/5-shakespeare-scholars-on-the-past-present-and-future-of-theater-amid-covid-19/ 5 Shakespeare Scholars on the Past, Present, and Future of Theater Amid COVID-19 In Honor of the Bard's 456th Birthday By Literary Hub

April 23, 2020 It’s strange to think that on the day we began contemplating a roundtable to mark William Shakespeare’s 456th birthday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo created a containment zone in the city of New Rochelle, formerly the epicenter of the state’s coronavirus outbreak. We were on the eve of the pandemic declaration and approaching the day Broadway would go dark for the first time since 9/11. It became apparent that just as the death toll would rise, so too would there be consequences for the social and cultural fabrics that bind us to one another.

Briefly, the prospect of a conversation centered on the Bard seemed, at best, like a convenient escape. But the following discussion, between five scholars who have devoted their careers situating Shakespeare alongside issues of performance, education, identity, partisanship and more, feels uniquely primed to our moment. It is an essential guide to the possible futures of our collective engagement with theater.

Scott Newstok (author of How to Think Like Shakespeare) moderated this discussion with Emma Smith (This is Shakespeare), James Shapiro (Shakespeare in a Divided America), Jeffrey Wilson (Shakespeare and Trump), and Vanessa Corredera, who is currently at work on a book about adaptations of Othello. I hope you gain as much from their vibrant dialogue as I did.

–Aaron Robertson, Assistant Editor

Scott Newstok: I suppose we have to start with our inescapable moment: social distancing policies have led to cancellations of public gatherings, and we’re now all teaching remotely. Artistic companies have gone dark; some worry whether they can survive the coming months.

Are there any precedents for this fraught moment in theater history—whether in the UK, the United States, or elsewhere?

James Shapiro: If plague closures in Elizabethan and Jacobean England hold any lessons for us, it’s that theater is precarious, actors and companies are vulnerable. Many wonderful companies will go under, as talented ones did in Shakespeare’s day. Airlines are sure to get a bailout; I doubt that theaters will, though they will need it just as badly.

Jeffrey Wilson: English theaters closed due to plague outbreaks between 1592 and 1594. So Shakespeare, as he was launching a career in drama, took some time to write poetry. That poetry was very dramatic, and his later drama very poetic. A lot of teachers with campuses closed due to the coronavirus are undergoing a different shift. They’re wondering how their physical classrooms will transfer into online settings. I’ll be very curious to see, six months from now, how our experiences with online teaching transfer back into our physical classrooms.

Emma Smith: It’s hard to imagine an equivalent. I’ve seen people comparing the situation in the UK to the situation during the Second World War, only for our seniors to say that they spent much of the war in theaters and dance halls. I’ve been interested to revisit the old chestnut about early modern companies releasing scripts for publication when the theaters were closed, in light of the National Theatre London and the Royal Shakespeare Company releasing their live screenings during the lockdown.

Vanessa Corredera: I share concern over the vulnerability of the arts during this time, especially since the powers that be (at least for the moment) do not seem interested in what would be a modern version of patronage—by that I mean extending monetary and structural support to the arts. I also think our current situation continues to spotlight issues of access and theater. For instance, many people (my family included) cannot access Shakespeare on the stage on a regular basis because of prohibitions ranging from locale to time to finances.

All of sudden, out of necessity, artistic institutions are turning to streaming, for which I and others are very grateful. This decision opens up a new audience for these performances. What remains to be seen is not only which institutions will be able to weather the storm, but also, how the effects of

their changes in mode inform their decisions regarding audience and accessibility moving forward. JS: I’d only add that King James I provided Shakespeare’s company with “a gift” in “the time of infection” when theaters were closed in early 1604, and then again in 1608, 1609, and 1610. We’ll see if the governments of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson will be as generous to the arts.

JW: Vanessa makes such a good point—this difficult episode has shown that artistic institutions have the desire, ingenuity, and infrastructure to use technology to make art freely accessible to people who aren’t able to make it to a show in New York or London. And wouldn’t it be wonderful to see initiatives like those continue after the current emergency subsides? But that costs money. I suppose the question is: Would it be possible to develop a born-digital version of the Public Theater’s Mobile Unit? A Digital Unit?

JS: I work at the Public Theater and am closely involved with the Mobile Unit, which has had to put its upcoming and dazzling production of

Cymbeline on hold. I can tell you that there are no plans for a born-digital version of the production, which tours prisons and other facilities in and around New York. But one thought I’ve had of late—as odd as it might sound—is to enlist actors who have already had the virus and have developed immunity so they can rehearse and create a taped version of a production and be poised to perform publicly once a vaccine makes it possible for the rest of us to attend shows safely. JW: Perhaps one historical analogy could be the world wars of the 20th century. A Google Ngram suggests that Shakespeare’s popularity declined—along with interest in other arts, I have to imagine—during the wartime years. But then the post-war periods saw big rebounds in interest in Shakespeare. Perhaps some post-war theaters might provide models for how today’s theaters can respond to the inevitable thirst for art, reflection, and human connection that will come after social distancing subsides.

ES: That’s so fascinating that interest in Shakespeare declined during those periods. I think that streamed theater productions will be wonderful for those who already include Shakespeare in their cultural life. For new audiences, it might not be as easy to make a space for those amid all the other digital offerings.

Most likely begun in the plague-free summer or autumn of 1605, King Lear was almost surely not written during an outbreak of plague.

SN: You all have probably seen social media posts along the lines of “When Shakespeare was in quarantine, he wrote King Lear” (some citing Jim’s The Year of Lear). There’s cold comfort in recalling that some artists have flourished during prior outbreaks. What other kinds of solace can we derive reading Shakespeare now?

JS: It’s maddening that my book was misread in that way. Most likely begun in the plague-free summer or autumn of 1605, King Lear was almost surely not written during an outbreak of plague (though Lear horrifically calls Goneril a “plague-sore”). What I actually wrote was that the return of plague in late 1606 led to theater closures, and a remarkable season at the Globe—that included

King Lear, Macbeth, Volpone, and The Revenger’s Tragedy—ended prematurely, once weekly plague deaths rose to above 30 or so. That said, all of Shakespeare’s Jacobean plays, from Measure for Measure through Coriolanus, were written during or not long after yet another outbreak of plague, which struck London repeatedly (if not always as punishingly) from 1603-10.

ES: It’s interesting that “solace” hasn’t really been what we have looked for in Shakespeare—or in literary texts more generally—for some time. I remember A.D. Nuttall saying something in the preface to Why Does Tragedy Give Pleasure to the effect that we used to praise work by saying it was comforting, but now the greatest praise is to say it is discomforting, or something similar.

And now that we need solace, perhaps we will need to return to some less disquieting interpretations of the plays. The great solace I think we could get is the solace of concentrating over something knotty and rewarding. Most people I know feel their ability to focus has been really challenged by the current circumstances.

VC: While I love Shakespeare, I don’t think his works are particularly unique in their ability to provide solace, at least not any more so than other literature that may speak to our affective needs right now. If we are even seeking solace—which Emma interestingly challenges—the beauty of Shakespeare’s language might provide it, but so might the familiarity of the barnyard animals as I read Charlotte’s Web each night to my son, or the complexity people experience upon finally reading that long novel they’ve been putting off.

SN: All of you have worked with digital mediations of Shakespeare, whether Emma’s podcasts, Jim’s recorded lectures, Vanessa’s scholarship on Serial, or Jeff’s extensive online resources. What’s one bit of advice you would offer about teaching remotely?

ES: It doesn’t need to be perfect. And it doesn’t need to be synchronous—that adds stress with technology. Recording things people can play in their own time has worked for me.

VC: I agree with Emma. Also, since we lose community by being asynchronous, lean into online experiences that help form virtual communities. Encourage students to engage with these digital meditations of Shakespeare—like Patrick Stewart reading Shakespeare’s sonnets—and then participate in an online forum, thoughtful debates in comments, or a Twitter discussion (like #ShakeRace).

JW: Vanessa’s point about the possible loss of community is so important. It’s been a big challenge for me. I’ve tried to think very deliberately about how to maintain those connections that students make in the little conversations before class, and the fun we have when we jump into an impromptu performance of a scene. They’re called “plays” for a reason: this is supposed to be fun. I’ve found it vital to spend valuable class time developing those moments and using things like group chats to keep the energy of the course strong.

SN: Parents are improvising schooling at home. Any suggestions for helping children engage with Shakespeare beyond their conventional classrooms?

ES: I admire anyone who is improvising schooling as well as everything else right now, and I’d say, do what’s fun. That might be watching movie versions, or acting out scenes with Lego figures, or learning speeches to show off. I think we need to take whatever advantages there are here, but not to be overambitious!

VC: As someone trying to homeschool and work right now, helping children engage with Shakespeare is not really on my radar! That said, my kindergartener is now around my work much more, which gives me an opportunity to explain who Shakespeare is and what he wrote or to pause a movie or clip and explain more about Shakespeare when he asks about what I’m doing.

JS: One of the initiatives we’re undertaking at the Public Theater is the Brave New Shakespeare Challenge. Every week a new passage will be posted, and we’re encouraging everyone—starting with schoolkids—to share a link with their performance of that speech, poem, or scene. It’ll be fun, and a necessary break from the boredom of quarantine.

VC: James, this sounds like a great initiative!

SN: Shifting gears, Shakespeare is, exceptionally, the only author named in the Common Core. As secondary school curricula increasingly focus on contemporary prose, Shakespeareans find themselves in a discomfiting position: we teach a figure who is sometimes the solitary pre-20th century poet on the syllabus. Which of Shakespeare’s peers do you wish were assigned more often? (I, for one, love assigning Christopher Marlowe’s deceptively simple “

Come Live with Me” ballad.) It’s impossible to know what the world will be like in a year or so, once we’re all vaccinated for coronavirus. But it seems likely that theaters will suffer, schools and universities too.

ES: I also love “Come Live With Me”. Texts I enjoy—and my students too—include revenge tragedies by Thomas Kyd (The Spanish Tragedy) or Thomas Middleton (Revenger’s Tragedy). John Webster sometimes makes it onto our high school curriculum in the UK—some A Level students here study Duchess of Malfi.

JS: Emma’s list dovetails with my own. I’d only add John Donne.

VC: Some of my non-Shakespearean favorites to teach are The Spanish Tragedy, almost anything by Marlowe (last term, it was Dr. Faustus), The Duchess of Malfi, and Elizabeth Cary’s The Tragedy of Mariam. I wish they were taught more so that we could see the different ways authors in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras approach the same topics (revenge, race, gender, etc.), as well as identify the ideological and social concerns to which they return.

SN: Vanessa, you’re writing a book that examines adaptations of Shakespeare’s Othello. How did Shakespeare’s “Moor” come to be “American,” yet also “Global”?

VC: In an essay on teaching Othello, Francesca Royster notes that it has become the play for thinking about race and Shakespeare in America. I think that’s because Othello taps into long-standing American stereotypes about black masculinity that a wide range of scholars on race in America identify. The work of Joyce MacDonald, Ayanna Thompson, and Robert Hornback, for example, shows how burlesque and blackface versions of Othello were key to reifying these stereotypes of black masculinity during Reconstruction. Othello is angry (the Brute), he endangers and then murders white femininity, and by the end of the play, he threatens the white social order (the Nat). I’m interested in thinking about what has to happen to Othello to make it an anti-racist play.

In Citing Shakespeare, Peter Erickson also calls Othello Shakespeare’s global emissary, pointing to the way the play and character speak beyond America. Issues of race, otherness, religion, and anti-blackness aren’t distinctly American problems.

Ambereen Dadabhoy’s and Dennis Britton’s respective work, for instance, aptly highlights the importance of religion, specifically Islam and issues of conversion, when intepreting Othello. I don’t want to suggest that Othello’s narrative is universal so much as it’s easily adaptable. As Kim F. Hall remarks regarding Othello, “one of the gifts Shakespeare gave us is the ability to use his texts to talk about the modern world,” including issues of race, sexuality, and status that appear in the play. JW: Vanessa, if you were to swap a scholarly hat for a creative one, how might you do Othello to achieve that anti-racist aspect that you describe?

VC: I get asked this question so often, and I think I always provide such haphazard and inadequate answers. My responses reveal my vexed relationship to this play. The most hope for an anti-racist version of Othello, I believe, remains with creators willing to let go of Othello almost entirely. One example is Keith Hamilton Cobb’s American Moor. In the play, the unnamed African American actor auditioning for the role of Othello weaves together the threads of Shakespeare and authority, race in America, and the problems with American regional theater (among other topics) into a provocative, hopeful dialogue with the director he’s auditioning for, and the audience itself.

SN: Jeff, I know that in addition to your recent book Shakespeare and Trump you’ve been thinking about Shakespeare and stigma. Where do you find overlaps across your projects?

JW: Literary works create contact zones for conversations spanning the centuries from the early modern period to today. Shakespeare—as both written text deeply shaped by the classical tradition, and living performance often acted and adapted today—is the most obvious example. Under a banner of better living through historicism, I study the past to better understand today’s ethical and political questions. Sometimes that means historicizing the modern manifestations of early-modern literature, as in Shakespeare and Trump. Other times it means using modern ideas to unpack early-modern texts and traditions, as in the “Stigma in Shakespeare”

project. VC: Jeff, could you speak to what you see as at odds between historicism and presentism in Shakespeare studies?

JW: Perhaps it goes back to Ben Jonson’s statement that Shakespeare was “not of an age, but for all time.” Shakespeare’s works—as both very old printed texts and plays often performed today—call for both historicism (“of an age”) and presentism (“for all time”). A historicism that doesn’t account for the present is as limited as a presentism that doesn’t account for the past. And this dynamic, which grows organically out of the multi-temporality of Shakespeare, provides a model for other fields of humanistic scholarship.

SN: Jim, you close Shakespeare in a Divided America with a guarded statement about Shakespeare’s future, which, you write, “seems as precarious as it has ever been in this nation’s history.” Have the crisis developments allayed or amplified your fears?

In times of crisis, we tend to neglect Shakespeare’s poems in favor of his plays, which (rightly or wrongly) appear more readily amenable to contemporary concerns.

JS: It’s impossible to know what the world will be like in a year or so, once we’re all vaccinated for coronavirus. But it seems likely that theaters will suffer, schools and universities too. Colleges will close, faculties will likely be downsized. When that happens, the study and performance of Shakespeare will suffer too. It would be nice to imagine people emerging from self-isolation eager for culture, but without government support, it’s likely that few companies will be back on their feet anytime soon.

VC: I agree that it would be great if people emerge eager for culture, and I think they might! But if economic resources aren’t evenly distributed, and there’s no reason to think they will be, then the divide in America may only deepen, and the arts will be affected by that.

JW: Jim, more broadly, could you predict the future for us: “what’s past is prologue,” etc. How might some of Shakespeare’s plays interact with the issues likely to exacerbate partisanship in America in the coming years—climate crisis, automation, tax code, public education, etc.? Any Shakespearean resonances you see?

JS: I recently taught the opening scene of Coriolanus to my Columbia students and I couldn’t help imagining, while doing so, a grim future in America in which—given the scarcity of resources—protests and violence were once again a defining feature of our culture. Anyone who imagines higher education and the arts in America won’t be diminished for years to come will have to persuade me otherwise.

SN: Emma, Shakespeare’s works seem prone to being “weaponized” in the US cultural sphere. Does such weaponization function differently in the United Kingdom?

ES: I learned so much from Jim’s book, and as I was reading it I wondered whether things would be similar in the British context. It’s been interesting to see in recent years the role of performed Shakespeare in ideological debates about so-called “color-blind” casting, or in arguments over casting women in male roles. Because it touches on ideas of cultural propriety, the question of who gets to perform Shakespeare may be our version of the weaponization that Jim interrogates so brilliantly.

SN: In times of crisis, we tend to neglect Shakespeare’s poems in favor of his plays, which (rightly or wrongly) appear more readily amenable to contemporary concerns. Let’s conclude on a lyrical note: what’s your favorite Shakespearean sonnet, and why? What do you cherish about its formal details?

ES: Confession time: I find Shakespeare’s sonnets alienating. Difficult, yes, but that’s not the problem. To me they are just a touch onanistic—solipsistic, rebarbatively masculine. The space I find for myself or for alternative voices in Shakespeare’s plays I struggle to find there. I’ve been rereading Venus and Adonis, and thinking about it as the signature work for Shakespeare during his own lifetime.

JW: I do a PSA in my classes every Valentine’s Day: be careful giving your beloved one of Shakespeare’s sonnets

because they’re a lesson in toxic love. Nowhere is this better captured than in the lines that open Sonnet 138: “When my love swears that she is made of truth, / I do believe her, though I know she lies.” That also captures the follow-the-leader partisanship we see right now in America, and later in the sonnet Shakespeare gives a good gloss of the audience that enables post-truth politics: “Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue: / On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.” The closing couplet is a searing takedown of willful self-delusion—whether it’s in love or in politics: “Therefore I lie with her and she with me, / And in our faults by lies we flattered be.”

VC: At the risk of seeming much more sentimental than Emma or Jeff, I have a soft spot for Sonnets 29 (“When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes”) and 73 (“That time of year thou mayest in me behold”).

I remember reading these sonnets in one of my first college English classes and being struck by the beautiful language of love and community in Sonnet 29, and the stunning imagery in Sonnet 73. As a novice major, I was excited that I could understand that symbolism! I’ve come a long way in my training and thinking, but those sonnets stay with me for very affective reasons.

JS: The Public Theater initiative I mentioned earlier just posted Sonnet 29 as its first selection, with Phylicia Rashad reciting it in English, Raúl Esparza in Spanish, and Steve Earle doing a beautiful musical version. If anyone is interested, add your own version!

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An invitation to readers from every walk of life to rediscover the impractical splendors of a life of learning In an overloaded, superficial, technological world, in which almost everything
and everybody is judged by its usefulness, where can we turn for escape, lasting pleasure … Lost In Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life is newly published by Princeton University Press. In it I defend intellectual activity–reading, thinking, studying, pondering–as worthwhile for its own sake, and as a key part of human happiness. You can order it at the Press (50% off until June 28), with free shipping. Or, order it from Barnes and Noble or find it at your preferred bookstore.

Reviews

“The life of the mind”, Jonathan Marks, Wall St Journal.

“Surviving solitude: Why is quarantine reading so difficult?”, Elayne Allen, The American Interest.

“Cultivating the inner life in the time of COVID”, Flagg Taylor, National Review

“Reader with a cause”, Sophie Duncan, Literary Review.

“The real value of an education”, Jennifer Frey, Classical Learning Test blog.

“The intellectual vocation“, Josh Hochschild, First Things.

“Vidas occultas“, Daniel Capó, The Objective (in Spanish / en Español)

press.princeton.edu/ideas/escape-from-quarantine

Escape from quarantine By Zena Hitz May 12, 2020

    Lost in ThoughtAvailable in 2 editions      Like many professional intellectuals, books were my original escape. I was a strange child with abrasive manners, and real life was lonely and chaotic. I read ceaselessly, anything I could get my hands on. I read on the bus from school and got off, walking while still reading. My father and I went to the library on Sundays; there was an eight-book limit, so I took eight, and brought back the eight I finished last week. I laid waste to the rotating wire rack that held the young adult section and moved onto the fiction my parents liked.

In college I learned to read difficult books, to find a beachhead of clarity in a sea of words and to work my way out from there. Brutal honesty was required: if I didn’t understand something, I had to ask. Otherwise I’d be at sea in the classroom, nodding without agreeing, hearing without learning, caught in a pretense for which there was no honorable way out. Voicing uncertainty was the only way to connect. I developed a habit of uncertainty and then a taste for it. I discovered then that I could also get lost in puzzling through something, in finding patterns and parallels, tracking references, analyzing passages.

When I began trying to articulate the value of intellectual life, of reading and thinking, I was drawn to stories about the intellectual lives of prisoners. Consider Malcolm X, who was arrested in 1946 for theft and sentenced to eight to ten years in prison. At the time of his arrest, he lived a life dedicated to pleasures high and low: music, dancing, gambling, women, drugs. When he was released in 1952, he was a different man, impassioned and forcefully honest, devoted both to his new Muslim faith and to fighting for a better life for African-American communities. In the intervening six years, he had read most of the prison library: the Bible and the Qu’ran, Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, and the histories of European and African peoples. He felt his old ways of thinking disappear, “like snow off of a roof.” He filled his letters with verse, writing to his brother: “I’m a real bug for poetry. When you think back over all of our past lives, only poetry could best fit into the vast emptiness created by men.” He described his time in prison in another letter as “a blessing in disguise, for it provided me with the Solitude that produced many nights of Meditation.”

There are many such stories: Andre Weil, Simone Weil’s brother, undertook a major mathematical proof while in a French prison in 1940; Antonio Gramsci produced voluminous writing, despite excruciating physical suffering, while imprisoned by Mussolini. Irina Rutushinskaya, a Russian dissident imprisoned in the 1980s, wrote poetry on bars of soap with matchsticks and washed it away when she had memorized it. She wrote out the poems on cigarette paper later to be smuggled to the West. The poems, the proofs, the notebooks, and the speeches cast a light that obscures the brutal suffering in which they originated. Through them we share indirectly in the escape that these prisoners found in themselves.

Much of the known world is now in enforced isolation, prying these stories loose to the surface. Isaac Newton, we are told, discovered calculus while quarantined, and Shakespeare managed to squeeze out King Lear in similar circumstances. And yet despite my years of intellectual training, and despite having written a book on the value of withdrawn inwardness, like most everyone else these days, I am unable to read seriously or to think. I am anxious and continually distracted. I would give anything to be able to lose myself in thought—but it feels impossible. What accounts for the gap between the determined, thoughtful prisoners and ourselves?

I can’t be sure, but I can speculate. The difference is surrender. To get to the inner depths, one has to give up on controlling one’s surroundings. For that, uncertainty has to give way to acceptance. We have to be able to say: “This is all there is, right now. What can be done with it?” But it is nearly impossible to say such a thing, much less to mean it, when we live and breathe uncertainty, when anxiety about the future is far more salient for us even than isolation.

We face an additional challenge that previous generations of isolati did not. Even apart from quarantine, a major sector of the economy is built to profit from our distraction. We live in environments designed in their smallest details to draw our attention, as Matthew Crawford catalogues in The World Beyond Your Head. Those of us (however privileged) who are able to work online have very little margin to escape. Anxiety is the perfect engine to churn the seamless slurry between our metrics-driven work and our chosen distractions. Our screens wall us off from ourselves.

T.S. Eliot warns that “human kind cannot bear very much reality”, and he is right. Distraction can be medicinal or wise. Nor can we continually punish ourselves for not having the discipline to recover elements of our education that might help us, or for not turning to our own library with the determination that Malcolm X took to his. What then can we do?

We can lower our expectations for ourselves, and face our anxious uncertainty with honesty and courage. We can seek out a beachhead, a base of operations, a time of peace however small, and work our way out from there. That said, the surrender that we need is frankly a gift of grace.

Fortunately, grace runs in channels. We will run ourselves down. The ultimate moment of exhaustion and despair may furnish the seed that blossoms into a new focus. Beyond the screens lie realms of wonder, truth, and connections with others that reach to our depths. We all know this. Let’s face each moment with all the clarity we can muster and wait for the door to open.

Zena Hitz is a Tutor in the great books program at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, where she also lives. She has a PhD in ancient philosophy from Princeton University and studies and teaches across the liberal arts. Website: zenahitz.net Twitter @zenahitz

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Welcome to the website of Professor Chris Bauch.

http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~cbauch/

I am a professor of Applied Mathematics and a University Research Chair at the University of Waterloo, Canada. My lab's research program is centred on applying mathematics to real-world problems in infectious diseases, ecology, human-environment systems, behaviour, and sustainability. On these pages you will find more information about my research, my lab members, and opportunities to join the lab as a student or postdoc.

Chris Bauch is a full professor and a university research chair in the Department of Applied Mathematics. His research group develops mathematical and computational models of the dynamics of natural systems, such as ecosystems or infectious diseases. The particular emphasis is on understanding how human systems and natural systems interact with one another, and how this understanding can be used to improve ecosystem health and human health. His study systems include forest-grassland ecosystem mosaics, forest pest infestations, childhood vaccine scares, and influenza vaccination, among others (see homepage for details). His work has reached a wide public audience through the media, having been covered in The New York Times, Scientific American, USA Today, BBC News and other sources. His research has also been published in top journals such as Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of the USA. His research partners have included the World Health Organization, the United States Food and Drug Administration, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He is also a recipient of a CIHR New Investigator Salary Award, a MRI Early Researcher Award, and a Marshall Scholarship.

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The Flagellants Attempt to Repel the Black Death, 1349 www.eyewitnesstohistory.com › flagellants The Flagellants were religious zealots of the Middle Ages in Europe who demonstrated their religious fervor and sought atonement for their sins by vigorously whipping themselves in public displays of penance. This approach to achieving redemption was most popular during times of crisis.

 Samuel Kohn's book 'Epidemics'

By investigating thousands of descriptions of epidemics reaching back before the fifth-century-BCE Plague of Athens to the distrust and violence that erupted with Ebola in 2014, Epidemics challenges a dominant hypothesis in the study of epidemics, that invariably across time and space, epidemics provoked hatred, blaming of the 'other', and victimizing bearers of epidemic diseases, particularly when diseases were mysterious, without known cures or preventive measures, as with AIDS during the last two decades of the twentieth century.

However, scholars and public intellectuals, especially post-AIDS, have missed a fundamental aspect of the history of epidemics. Instead of sparking hatred and blame, this study traces epidemics' socio-psychological consequences across time and discovers a radically different picture: that epidemic diseases have more often unified societies across class, race, ethnicity, and religion, spurring self-sacrifice and compassion.

Epidemics Hate and Compassion from the Plague of Athens to AIDS Samuel K. Cohn, Jr. * A study of the history of epidemics, stretching from the 5th century BCE to the 2014 Ebola crisis * Challenges the dominant hypothesis that epidemics invariably provoke hatred, blaming of the 'other', and victimizing bearers of epidemic diseases * Investigates thousands of descriptions of epidemics throughout history, including the Black Death, Cholera, Smallpox, and AIDS * Offers a new view of the Black Death and how short-lived were its effects of hate, violence, and division

"Epidemics, conceived in the influenza scare of 2009, is in itself a commemoration of all the deadliest plagues to have afflicted our species. ... covering the major infections from 430 BC, through the Black Death (134751) and syphilis (14945), to cholera (1832 onwards), smallpox in nineteenth-century America, plague in India since 1894, yellow fever (Southern USA), and the Great Influenza, with a coda on HIV/AIDS ... Cohn's aim is not just to tell their stories (although there are stories aplenty), but to tell them from a new perspective." - Anne Hardy, Times Literary Supplement

"In a number of distinct contexts, Cohn uncovers responses of sympathy and mutual assistance crossing class, religious, gender or ethnic divides. These take very different forms - some grassroots movements and some organized centrally. Here, as in all other parts of the discussion, Cohn establishes that responses to epidemics are complicated by the specific nature of the disease as well as the context in which it develops. The mentalities, memories and manifestations of each varied. By reintroducing a number of complexities and ambiguities into the study of epidemic disease, Cohn illustrates the richness of the comparative history of disease, and his work will likely act as a point of reference and inspiration for many years to come." - Jane Stevens Cranshaw, Oxford Brookes University, European History Quarterly

"The historical breadth of this book, with its meticulous attention to varied sources and contexts, is simply breathtaking. ... This book will interest students of the history of medicine as well as anyone seeking a historical and comparative exploration of epidemics. It is dense and detailed reading ... this book will appeal chiefly to specialists at the graduate level and above." - CHOICE

Samuel K. Cohn, Jr., Professor of Medieval History, University of Glasgow

Samuel K. Cohn, Jr. is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Glasgow, an Honorary Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities at the University of Edinburgh, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Over the past sixteen years, he has focused on the history of popular unrest in late medieval and early modern Europe and on the history of disease and medicine. Cohn's latest two books are Popular Protest in Late Medieval English Towns (2013) and Cultures of Plague: Medical Thinking at the End of the Renaissance (OUP, 2010).

Over the pass seventeen years I have specialized in the history of popular unrest in late medieval and
early modern Europe and in the history of disease and medicine. My current project on the emotional
histories of epidemics and pandemics from Antiquity to Ebola brings these two interests together. I
am now beginning the third year of a three-year ‘Major Research Fellowship’ from the Leverhulme
Trust to complete my project ‘Epidemics: hate and compassion from the Plague of Athens to AIDS’. In
addition, I have recently collaborated with medical anthropologists on comparative projects on
cholera, plague and Ebola, and with geneticists on the Black Death and syphilis and gonorrhoea in
eighteenth-century Scotland.
I am currently an Honorary Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) at
the University of Edinburgh, an Honorary Fellow of the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology at
the University of Edinburgh, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Recent and Current projects
I was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board and other smaller grants to complete two
books:
 Popular protest in late medieval Europe: Italy, France, and Flanders Medieval Sources Series.
Manchester University Press (October, 2004), xxiv+389 pp. ISBN 0 7190 6730 8 hardback; 0
7190 6731 6 paperback and
 Lust for Liberty: The politics of Social Revolt in Medieval Europe, 1200-1425 (Cambridge, Ma.,
Harvard University Press, 2006). ISBN 0-674-02162-2; x+376 pp. Paperback edition (2008) 978-
0-674-03038-1
I have been funded by the Wellcome for three projects from 1998 to 2013, which resulted in the
publication of two monographs and numerous articles:
 The Black Death Transformed: Disease and Culture in Early Renaissance Europe (London:
Edward Arnold, May, 2002 in the UK and Oxford University Press, in the US), xii+318 pp. ISBN
0 340 70646 5 (Hb); ISBN 0 349 70647 3 (Pb) and
 Cultures of Plague: Medical Thinking at the End of the Renaissance(Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2010). ISBN 978-0-19-957402-5; xiv+342 pp. Paperback edition (2010) 978-0-19-
960509-5
 with Guido Alfani, 'Households and Plague in Early Modern Italy' Journal of Interdisciplinary
History, xxxviii:2 (Autumn, 2007): 177-205.
 ‘The Black Death and the burning of Jews’, Past & Present, no. 196 (August, 2007): 3-36.
 'Epidemiology of the Black Death and Successive Waves of Plague', Medical History
Supplement no. 27: Pestilential Complexities: Understanding the Medieval Plague, ed. Vivian
Nutton (London, 2008), pp. 74-100.
 ‘Pandemics: Waves of Disease, Waves of Hate from the Plague of Athens to A.I.D.S’, Historical
Research, 85, no. 230 (2012), 535-55.
 ‘The Historian and the Laboratory: the Black Death Disease’, in Fifteenth Century: XII: Society
in an Age of Plague, ed. Carole Rawcliffe and Linda Clark, (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2013), pp. 1-
18.
 Plague and Violence against Jews’, Early Modern Workshop: Jewish History Resources, Volume
10: Jews and Violence in the Early Modern Period, an on-line publication open access (2013).
 ‘Renaissance hate and disease in European perspective’, in Emotions, Passion and Power in
Renaissance Italy, ed. Fabrizio Ricciardelli and Andrea Zorzi (Amsterdam: Amsterdam
University Press, 2015).
I received a project grant from the ESRC which resulted in a monograph and several articles:
 Popular Protest in Late Medieval English Towns (Cambridge University Press, 2012) ISBN
9781107027800; xiv+376 pp.
 ‘La pecularità degli Inglesi e le rivolte del tardo medievo’, in Rivolte urbane e rivolte contadine
nell’Europa del Trecento: un confronto, ed. Giuliano Pinto and Monique Bourin (Florence,
2008), pp. 37-51.
 ‘Revolts of the Late Middle Ages and the Peculiarities of the English’ in Survival and Discord in
Medieval Society: Essays in Honour of Christopher Dyer, ed. R. Goddard, J. Langdon, and
Müller (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 269-85.
 ‘The “Modernity” of Medieval Popular Revolt’, History Compass 10/10 (2012): 731-41.
 ‘Paradoxes: Rich and Poor in Western Europe and the Political Consequences, ca. 1300-1600’,
in Handling Poverty in Medieval Europe, ed. Sharon Farmer (forthcoming 2015).
 ‘Enigmas of communication: Jacques, Ciompi, and the English’, in La comunidad medieval
como espera publica spacio público, ed. Hipólito Rafael Oliva Herrer, Vincent Challet, Jan
Dumolyn, and María Antonia Carmona Ruiz (Seville: Universidad de Sevilla, 2014), pp. 227-47.
 ‘Authority and Popular Resistance’, in The Oxford Handbook of early modern European
History, 2 vols, ed. Hamish Scott (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).

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Isobel Heyman, BSc, MBBS, PhD, FRCPsych Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London; Honorary Professor at the Institute of Child Health, University College London.

Dr Heyman has worked at Great Ormond Street Hospital part-time since 1998 and full-time since 2012. Over the same period she has also worked as a consultant at the Maudsley Hospital, where she continues to hold an honorary position. She has a particular commitment to the detection and treatment of
emotional and behavioural problems in children who also have long-term physical health problems, such as epilepsy.
Dr Heyman received the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ ‘Psychiatrist of the Year’ award in 2015.

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Covid-19 and Conspiracy Theory - Who To Believe In A Pandemic?
Harvard University Professor Nancy Rosenblum talks to Psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud about the new conspiracism and its relationship to the pandemic and discusses her new book, co-authored with Professor Russell Muirhead, on the subject of Conspiracy Theories and the new Conspiracism.

Conspiracy theories are as old as politics. But conspiracists today have introduced something new—conspiracy without theory. And the new conspiracism has moved from the fringes to the heart of government with the election of Donald Trump. In A Lot of People Are Saying, Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum show how the new conspiracism differs from classic conspiracy theory, how it undermines democracy, and what needs to be done to resist it.

Russell Muirhead is the Robert Clements Professor of Democracy and Politics at Dartmouth College and the author of The Promise of Party in a Polarized Age, among other books. Nancy L. Rosenblum is the Senator Joseph Clark Research Professor of Ethics in Politics and Government at Harvard University. Her books include Good Neighbors: The Democracy of Everyday Life in America (Princeton).

"Muirhead and Rosenblum have pointed out something genuinely new and disturbing…. [T]his is a book worth reading."—Jesse Singal, New York Magazine's Intelligencer

"Timely and insightful."—Lee Drutman, Washington Monthly

"[Muirhead and Rosenblum] are convincing in their argument that there is something different afoot in the world of conspiracy and that danger lies ahead if we don't confront it with truth and action."—Kirkus Reviews

"If there is one industry that has increased its productivity in recent years, it is the manufacture and marketing of conspiracies. Muirhead and Rosenblum brilliantly analyze how this happened and why it is a problem for our democracy."—E. J. Dionne Jr., coauthor of One Nation After Trump

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| Plaster cast bust of Thucydides (in the Pushkin Museum) from a Roman copy (located at Holkham Hall) of an early fourth-century BC Greek original | | Born | c. 460 BC[1] Halimous, Athens (modern Alimos) | | Died | c. 400 BC (aged approximately 72) Athens |

Thucydides from Ancient Greece - perhaps the first Historian - gives a famous Account of the Plague of Athens from over 2000 years ago - Ancient Greek Literary Scholar Jenna Colclough explains to Dr Raj Persaud the relevance to today's pandemic using her thesis researched while she was at the University of Western Ontario.

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Thucydides’ detailed description of the Athenian plague, which is estimated to have killed from a quarter to a third of Athens’ population and led to the breakdown of several social norms By combining elements of personal narrative, literature, and historiography, Thucydides rendered the story of the Athenian plague into an aesthetic representation and thus provides a collective memorialization of the forgotten victims. Jenna Coclough suggests in her thesis while studying at the University of Western Ontario that his vivid description (ἐνάργεια) of the immense suffering enabled his readers to empathetically engage with the traumatic event and thus work through their own trauma.

Here are the links:
Thucydides’ plague episode, 2.47-54, Perseus Tufts: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Thuc.+2.47&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0200 "The Language of Thucydides’ Description of the Plague Episode,” by Adam Parry: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/43646392.pdf?seq=1 Pale Horse, Pale Rider, by Katherine Anne Porter: https://www.amazon.ca/Pale-Horse-Rider-Library-America-ebook/dp/B00JAUGGEA Writing History, Writing Trauma, by Dominick LaCapra: https://www.amazon.ca/Writing-History-Trauma-Dominick-LaCapra/dp/0801864968 And here is a link to Jenna's Academia account, which has her thesis and CV: https://westernu.academia.edu/JennaColclough

Pale Horse, Pale Rider: Three Short Novels: A Library of America eBook Classic

Writing History, Writing Trauma (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)

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In the Pandemic Crisis - where have all the truly great leaders gone? Leadership Expert Professor Alexander Haslam discusses the surprising psychology of what makes a truly great leader with Psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud, and, how to lead a team at a time of crisis Free Audio Podcast Download

The New Psychology of Leadership: Identity, Influence and Power Alexander Haslam, Stephen D. Reicher
and Michael J. Platow

Winner of the University of San Diego Outstanding Leadership Book Award 2012!

Shortlisted for the British Psychological Society Book Award 2011!

Shortlisted for the CMI (Chartered Management Institute) Management Book of the Year Award 2011–2012!

According to John Adair, the most important word in the leader's vocabulary is "we" and the least important word is "I". But if this is true, it raises one important question: why do psychological analyses of leadership always focus on the leader as an individual – as the great "I"?

One answer is that theorists and practitioners have never properly understood the psychology of "we-ness". This book fills this gap by presenting a new psychology of leadership that is the result of two decades of research inspired by social identity and self-categorization theories. The book argues that to succeed, leaders need to create, champion, and embed a group identity in order to cultivate an understanding of 'us' of which they themselves are representative. It also shows how, by doing this, they can make a material difference to the groups, organizations, and societies that they lead.

Written in an accessible and engaging style, the book examines a range of central theoretical and practical issues, including the nature of group identity, the basis of authority and legitimacy, the dynamics of justice and fairness, the determinants of followership and charisma, and the practice and politics of leadership.

The book will appeal to academics, practitioners and students in social and organizational psychology, sociology, political science and anyone interested in leadership, influence and power.

MIND The New Psychology of Leadership Recent research in psychology points to secrets of effective leadership that radically challenge conventional wisdom

By Stephen D. Reicher, Michael J. Platow, S. Alexander Haslam

"Today we've had a national tragedy," announced President George W. Bush, addressing the nation for the first time on September 11, 2001. "Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country." Bush then promised "to hunt down and to find those folks who committed this act." These remarks, made from Emma T. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Fla., may not seem extraordinary, but in subtle ways they exemplify Bush's skill as a leader. When viewed through the lens of a radical new theory of leadership, Bush's 9/11 address contains important clues to how the president solidified his political power in his early months and years in office.

In the past, leadership scholars considered charisma, intelligence and other personality traits to be the key to effective leadership. Accordingly, these academics thought that good leaders use their inborn talents to dominate followers and tell them what to do, with the goal either of injecting them with enthusiasm and willpower that they would otherwise lack or of enforcing compliance. Such theories suggest that leaders with sufficient character and will can triumph over whatever reality they confront.

In recent years, however, a new picture of leadership has emerged, one that better accounts for leadership performance. In this alternative view, effective leaders must work to understand the values and opinions of their followers--rather than assuming absolute authority--to enable a productive dialogue with followers about what the group embodies and stands for and thus how it should act. By leadership, we mean the ability to shape what followers actually want to do, not the act of enforcing compliance using rewards and punishments.

Researcher biography Alex is Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology and Australian Laureate Fellow at the University of Queensland. His research focuses on the study of group and identity processes in organizational, social, and clinical contexts.

Together with colleagues, Alex has written and edited 14 books and published over 240 peer-reviewed articles on these topics. His most recent books are The New Psychology of Health: Unlocking the Social Cure (with Catherine Haslam, Jolanda Jetten, Tegan Cruwys and Genvieve Dingle, Routledge, 2018),The New Psychology of Leadership: Identity, Influence and Power (with Stephen Reicher & Michael Platow, Psychology Press, 2011), and Social Psychology: Revisiting the Classic Studies (2nd Ed. with Joanne Smith, Sage, 2017).

Alex is a former Chief Editor of the European Journal of Social Psychology and currently Associate Editor of The Leadership Quarterly. In 2005 he won the European Association of Social Psychology's Kurt Lewin Medal for outstanding scientific contribution; in 2013 he won the International Leadership Association's Outstanding Leadership Book Award for The New Psychology of Leadership (with Steve Reicher and Michael Platow); in 2016 he won the British Psychology Society Presidents' Award for distinguished contributions to psychological knowledge; in 2017 he won the International Society for Political Psychology's Sanford Prize for distinguished contributions to political psychology, and the Australian Psychological Society's Workplace Excellence Award for Leadership Development (with Nik Steffens & Kim Peters); in 2018 he won the Australian Psychological Society's Award for Distinguished Contribution to Psychological Science.

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www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo24660818.html Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering WHAT PHILOSOPHY CAN TELL US ABOUT THE HARDEST MYSTERY OF ALL It’s right there in the Book of Job: “Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward.” Suffering is an inescapable part of the human condition—which leads to a question that has proved just as inescapable throughout the centuries: Why? Why do we suffer? Why do people die young? Is there any point to our pain, physical or emotional? Do horrors like hurricanes have meaning?

In Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering, Scott Samuelson tackles that hardest question of all. To do so, he travels through the history of philosophy and religion, but he also attends closely to the real world we live in. While always taking the question of suffering seriously, Samuelson is just as likely to draw lessons from Bugs Bunny as from Confucius, from his time teaching philosophy to prisoners as from Hannah Arendt’s attempts to come to terms with the Holocaust. He guides us through the arguments people have offered to answer this fundamental question, explores the many ways that we have tried to minimize or eliminate suffering, and examines people’s attempts to find ways to live with pointless suffering. Ultimately, Samuelson shows, to be fully human means to acknowledge a mysterious paradox: we must simultaneously accept suffering and oppose it. And understanding that is itself a step towards acceptance.

Wholly accessible, and thoroughly thought-provoking, Seven Ways of Looking at Pointless Suffering is a masterpiece of philosophy, returning the field to its roots—helping us see new ways to understand, explain, and live in our world, fully alive to both its light and its darkness.

Christian Century "A compelling and highly readable assessment of modern and perennial responses to suffering." Times Higher Education, Book of the Week "Excellent. . . . The challenge that Samuelson locates in the philosophical tradition, and which he passes on to the reader, is to reflect deeply on what it means to live with pointless suffering while resisting the temptation to transmute it into meaningful pain, which is something else entirely. . . One of the many virtues of Samuelson's book is that the reader often feels as though she were his student. His wry, self-deprecating and confessional style is both serious and playful--and seriously playful. The exposition of different philosophers and traditions is careful and scholarly without being pedantic. . . . Another great merit of Samuelson's insightful, informative and deeply humane book is that it is a genuine pleasure to read. Herein lies a final challenge to the reader: after luxuriating in his reflections, we must close the book and return to daily life with renewed determination and courage to apply its lessons."

 **Gordon Marino, author of The Existential Survival Guide**  "You can keep your gratitude journals, but make no mistake about it: this world is a vale of tears, a world of seemingly senseless suffering. How we understand and relate ourselves to this suffering will shape our lives both morally and otherwise. A gifted author with a feathery writing touch on the weightiest of subjects, Scott Samuelson has succeeded in carefully distilling the wisdom of a wide array of philosophers on what St. Paul called 'the groaning of creation.' Rife with engaging personal stories, Samuelson's meditation is both intellectually substantive and uplifting."    **Todd May, author of A Fragile Life**  "In this eminently readable but subtle book, Scott Samuelson opens up new ways of thinking about suffering. Weaving together philosophical reflections with compelling stories of his time teaching in prison, Samuelson shows us the various roles undeserved suffering plays our lives, and indeed in life itself. This book is a necessary read for those of us who want to reflect on the place of pain in human existence."  About the Author   **Scott Samuelson** lives in Iowa City, Iowa, where he teaches philosophy at Kirkwood Community College and is a movie reviewer, television host, and sous-chef at a French restaurant on a gravel road. Visit the author’s website: http://scottsamuelsonauthor.com/   **Affiliation:** Kirkwood Community College

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New Book: The New Psychology of Health Unlocking the Social Cure By Catherine Haslam , Jolanda Jetten, Tegan Cruwys, Genevieve Dingle and S. Alexander Haslam ISBN 9781138123885 Published April 24, 2018 by Routledge 490 Pages - 146 Color Illustrations Why do people who are more socially connected live longer and have better health than those who are socially isolated?

Why are social ties at least as good for your health as not smoking, having a good diet, and taking regular exercise?

Why is treatment more effective when there is an alliance between therapist and client?

Until now, researchers and practitioners have lacked a strong theoretical foundation for answering such questions. This ground-breaking book fills this gap by showing how social identity processes are key to understanding and effectively managing a broad range of health-related problems.

Integrating a wealth of evidence that the authors and colleagues around the world have built up over the last decade, The New Psychology of Health provides a powerful framework for reconceptualising the psychological dimensions of a range of conditions – including stress, trauma, ageing, depression, addiction, eating behaviour, brain injury, and pain.

Alongside reviews of current approaches to these various issues, each chapter provides an in-depth analysis of the ways in which theory and practice can be enriched by attention to social identity processes. Here the authors show not only how an array of social and structural factors shape health outcomes through their impact on group life, but also how this analysis can be harnessed to promote the delivery of ‘social cures’ in a range of fields.

This is a must-have volume for service providers, practitioners, students, and researchers working in a wide range of disciplines and fields, and will also be essential reading for anyone whose goal it is to improve the health and well-being of people and communities in their care.

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Economics in Two Lessons: Why Markets Work So Well, and Why They Can Fail So Badly book by John Quiggin published by Princeton University Press A masterful introduction to the key ideas behind the successes—and failures—of free-market economics.

Since 1946, Henry Hazlitt’s bestselling Economics in One Lesson has popularized the belief that economics can be boiled down to one simple lesson: market prices represent the true cost of everything. But one-lesson economics tells only half the story. It can explain why markets often work so well, but it can’t explain why they often fail so badly—or what we should do when they stumble.

As Nobel Prize–winning economist Paul Samuelson quipped, “When someone preaches ‘Economics in one lesson,’ I advise: Go back for the second lesson.”

In Economics in Two Lessons, John Quiggin teaches both lessons, offering a masterful introduction to the key ideas behind the successes—and failures—of free markets. Economics in Two Lessons explains why market prices often fail to reflect the full cost of our choices to society as a whole. For example, every time we drive a car, fly in a plane, or flick a light switch, we contribute to global warming.

But, in the absence of a price on carbon emissions, the costs of our actions are borne by everyone else. In such cases, government action is needed to achieve better outcomes. Two-lesson economics means giving up the dogmatism of laissez-faire as well as the reflexive assumption that any economic problem can be solved by government action, since the right answer often involves a mixture of market forces and government policy. But the payoff is huge: understanding how markets actually work—and what to do when they don’t. Brilliantly accessible, Economics in Two Lessons unlocks the essential issues at the heart of any economic question.

"There is little doubt that Quiggin’s Economics in Two Lessons will bean instant classicand feature on university reading lists around the world. It should also be compulsory reading for policymakers and public commentators, who all too often lack a framework for thinking clearly about the costs and benefits of markets. The good news is that Quiggin has one—and he’s happy to share."—Richard Holden, Inside Story

"This is a highly readable introduction to the intellectual framework of modern policy economics, with plenty of lively examples."—Diane Coyle, Enlightened Economist

"His book would be a useful supplement to a principles of economics course, with the advantage of avoiding resort to any graphs or equations . . . . [It] provides an essential completion of the basic story . . . . It is essential reading for anyone interested in the practical side of economic policymaking."—Max B. Sawicky, Jacobin

"The themes are complex, but the writing is clear, and the journey is rewarding."—BizEd

"Quiggin writes well and [this] book is full of useful erudite information."—Warwick Lightfoot, Financial World

"Many economists consider ‘opp cost’ to be the single most important and fundamental concept in economics, and the discipline’s most useful contribution to the betterment of mankind. Indeed, that’s the view Professor John Quiggin, of the University of Queensland, takes in his book Economics in Two Lessons, which I recommend as the best book to introduce you to economics."—Ross Gittins, Sydney Morning Herald

"Quiggin reckons with the incoherence of markets-only thinking in his masterful 2019 book Economics in Two Lessons, which explores the power, limitations and dangers of using markets to solve our problems in a thoughtful and clear way."—Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing

“A brilliant book. People often try to write for readers who know no economics, but they rarely succeed. This book is an exception.”—Roger Backhouse, author of The Ordinary Business of Life: A History of Economics from the Ancient World to the Twenty-First Century

“This popular, accessible introduction to economics is organized around an idea that is brilliantly simple yet encompassing.”—Suresh Naidu, Columbia University

"With apologies to Isaiah Berlin, Quiggin is a foxy hedgehog: He knows two big things, and these twin lessons—about the virtues and limits of markets—sustain a pioneering, persuasive, and even passionate case for democracy and the mixed economy. Make room for two lessons in your mind, and on your bookshelf.”—Jacob S. Hacker, coauthor of American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper

"With a confident style, John Quiggin weaves together clear theory and fascinating stories to explain why markets work and why they fail. He makes the case that one-lesson economics, based on the idea that market prices are always right, is as useful as a one-wheeled bicycle. If you want to understand what free-market economics gets right, and when governments need to step in, this is the book for you. My two lessons: buy it, and read it."—Andrew Leigh, member of the Parliament of Australia

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Introduction quoted from:

Annual Review of Law and Social Science 50 Years of “Obedience to Authority”: From Blind Conformity to Engaged
Followership

Alexander Haslam and Stephen D. Reicher
School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Australia and School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St. Andrews, United Kingdom

INTRODUCTION: WHAT WE THOUGHT WE KNEW ABOUT
“OBEDIENCE TO AUTHORITY”
In early 1961, residents of New Haven, Connecticut, were targeted via newspaper advertisements to take part in a psychology experiment at Yale University. Having been recruited, they arrived at a laboratory where they were asked by an experimenter to administer shocks to a learner whenever he made errors on a word-recall task. These shocks were administered via a shock generator and increased from 0 to 450 volts in 15-V intervals. The study was introduced as an investigation of the effects of punishment on learning, but in fact the researchers were interested in how far participants would be willing to follow their instructions. Would they be willing to give any shocks at all? Or would they stop at 150 V when the learner cried out, “Get me out of here, please. My
heart’s starting to bother me. I refuse to go on. Let me out”? Or at 300 V when he let out an agonized scream and shouted, “I absolutely refuse to answer any more. Get me out of here. You can’t hold me here. Get me out. Get me out of here”? Or would they continue to a maximum of 450 V (long after the learner had stopped responding)—a point labeled XXX on the generator? The answer was that of 40 participants, only 7 (17.5%) stopped at 150 V or lower, whereas 26
(65%) went all the way to 450 V. This finding suggested that most normal, well-adjusted people would be prepared to kill an innocent stranger if they were asked to do so by a person in authority. And in this finding the results appeared to bear testimony to the destructive and ineluctable power
of blind obedience (e.g., Benjamin & Simpson 2009, Lutsky 1995).

Stephen David Reicher

School of Psychology and Neuroscience - Bishop Wardlaw Professor

School of Psychology & Neuroscience
St Andrews
United Kingdom Overview of Stephen Reicher's research interests from St Andrews University website Broadly - the issues of group behaviour and the individual-social relationship. More specifically, my recent research can be grouped into three areas. The first is an attempt to develop a model of crowd action that accounts for both social determination and social change. The second concerns the construction of social categories through language and action. The third concerns political rhetoric and mass mobilisation - especially around the issue of national identity. Currently, I am starting work on a Leverhulme funded project (jointly with Nick Hopkins of Lancaster University) looking at the impact of devolution on Scottish identity and social action in Scotland.

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Re-reading Camus’s The Plague in pandemic times https://blog.oup.com/2020/04/re-reading-camuss-the-plague-in-pandemic-times/

BY OLIVER GLOAG
APRIL 2ND 2020

Sometime in the 1940s in the sleepy colonial city of Oran, in French occupied Algeria, there was an outbreak of plague. First rats died, then people. Within days, the entire city was quarantined: it was impossible to get out, and no one could get in.

This is the fictional setting for Albert Camus’s second most famous novel, The Plague (1947). And yes, there are some similarities to our current situation with the coronavirus.

First, the denials by those in positions of power. Doctor Rieux, the main character (who turns out to be the narrator) confronts the authorities who reluctantly agree to form an official sanitary commission to deal with the outbreak. The prefect insists on discretion, however, for he is convinced it is a false alarm, or as some would say today, fake news! It is not difficult to hear the echoes of the initial reactions in China and in some parts of the US media landscape regarding the coronavirus.

In between patient visits, Rieux reflects that though calamities are fairly frequent historical occurrences, they are hard to accept when they happen to us, in our lifetimes. This is the story of placid everyday lives lived as routines that are suddenly, brutally disrupted by a virus: an existential reminder of the arbitrariness of life and the certainty and randomness of death. The temptation of denial is a powerful one, both in the book and today with the emergence of the coronavirus.

With the city gates of Oran closing and everyone collectively thrown into interior exile, the gravity of the situation becomes impossible to deny. Families and couples are separated, food rationed and consequently a black market emerges – this reminds us of the run on hospital masks and sanitizing gel in the US, formerly cheap, readily available products, now increasingly sought-after commodities.

As we know, Camus conceived his novel as an allegory for the German Occupation of France from 1940 to 1944, during which families were separated due to the division of the country in two zones, one occupied, one nominally free. In short, the plague is the stand-in for the Germans.

Here with the coronavirus, the challenge resides not in decoding an allegory, but rather in finding out what the pandemic reveals. In other words, what can a genuine global medical crisis tell us about what is fictional or hidden in our lives?

Paradoxically, in these times of self-imposed exiles, school closings and quarantines, the coronavirus tells us about a different kind of globalization. We have now learned that China manufactures most of our medications and medical supplies – not only our consumer goods – and suddenly emerges in our mind the figure of a Chinese worker making our antibiotics and the like: this leads to the stark realization that our survival depends on hers; it is a collective enterprise. We are in it together.This could be the best thing that comes out of the current pandemic.

Oliver Gloag was educated at Columbia University (BA, honors in comparative literature), Tulane University (J.D.) and Duke University (Ph.D.). His research interests include Francophone/postcolonial literature, political theory, twentieth century French literature and cultural history.

His chapter "Sartre and Colonialism" for The Sartrean Mind will be published by Routledge. He is also working on the Very Short Introduction to Albert Camus (under contract with Oxford University Press).

Education * Ph.D., Romance Studies, Duke University * M.A., Romance Studies, Duke University * Juris Doctor, Tulane University School of Law * B.A., Comparative Literature, Columbia University

Courses Taught * French 178: Existentialism * French 325: Composition and Structural Review * French 340: French Civilization and Literature I * French 341: French Civilization and Literature II * French 435: Francophone Studies * French 460: Master of French Cinema * Humanities 324: The Modern World * Humanities 414: The Individual in the Contemporary World

Cultural Activities * French Film Society * Weekly French Conversation Table

Research and Teaching Interests * Colonial and Postcolonial studies * Francophonie * Twentieth century French literature * Political theory * Cultural history * Sartre and the notion of l'artiste engagé(e)

Recent Conferences * “Sartre and Camus, Inseparable”. 21st Annual Meeting of the North American Sartre Society. East Stroudsburg University. 13-15 November, 2015. * "Sartre's Black Orpheus in a Global World: a Resurgence." Thinking with Sartre Today: New Approaches to Sartre Studies? The Oxford Center for Humanities. 30th and 31st January, 2015.

Recent Publications * Forthcoming: "Sartre and Colonialism". In The Sartrean Mind. Routledge. * Under contract: Albert Camus, A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. * "Camus et les colonies: à rebours de l'Histoire." Chapel Hill: Romance Notes, Volume 55/1. 2015.

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Professor Michael Fontaine discusses his new book with Psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud. As people turn to alcohol to get through the pandemic can they learn how to drink more artfully and skillfully from a 500 year old text? The Art of Drinking (De Arte Bibendi) (1536), a how-to manual for drinking with pleasure and discrimination. How to Drink: A Classical Guide to the Art of Imbibing * Vincent Obsopoeus

Translated with commentary by
Michael Fontaine
Edited by
Michael Fontaine

A spirited new translation of a forgotten classic, shot through with timeless wisdom

Is there an art to drinking alcohol? Can drinking ever be a virtue? The Renaissance humanist and neoclassical poet Vincent Obsopoeus (ca. 1498–1539) thought so. In the winelands of sixteenth-century Germany, he witnessed the birth of a poisonous new culture of bingeing, hazing, peer pressure, and competitive drinking. Alarmed, and inspired by the Roman poet Ovid’s Art of Love, he wrote The Art of Drinking (De Arte Bibendi) (1536), a how-to manual for drinking with pleasure and discrimination. In How to Drink, Michael Fontaine offers the first proper English translation of Obsopoeus’s text, rendering his poetry into spirited, contemporary prose and uncorking a forgotten classic that will appeal to drinkers of all kinds and (legal) ages.

Arguing that moderation, not abstinence, is the key to lasting sobriety, and that drinking can be a virtue if it is done with rules and limits, Obsopoeus teaches us how to manage our drinking, how to win friends at social gatherings, and how to give a proper toast. But he also says that drinking to excess on occasion is okay—and he even tells us how to win drinking games, citing extensive personal experience.

Complete with the original Latin on facing pages, this sparkling work is as intoxicating today as when it was first published.

"[How to Drink] serves as relevant social commentary for today, railing, with wit and humor, against toxic masculinity and overindulgence while providing advice on how to win drinking games. It’s a great addition to your bartending library."—Matt Kettman, Santa Barbara Independent

"I found this book fascinating . . . I recommend How to Drink for anyone who enjoys history, the social aspects of alcohol, and the fact that some things never seem to change through the ages!"—TheBrewholder.com

"Spirited into the twenty-first century in Fontaine's witty translation, these entertaining tips should be savored over your favorite tipple."—Daisy Dunn, author of The Shadow of Vesuvius: A Life of Pliny

"How to Drink is a delight—an amusing and at points hilarious book that is also a deeply learned, and occasionally sobering, introduction to ancient drinking customs and their modern parallels."—James Tatum, Dartmouth College

"I'm grateful to be introduced to Vincent Obsopoeus and his art of drinking, and I hope many other readers will be too! This is a lively, fun translation."—Julia D. Hejduk, Baylor University

"Wine and other fermented beverages have been the boon and bane of human existence from the beginning. 'Barbarian' Europe long had an appetite for bingeing, as the more 'civilized' Greeks and Romans were quick to point out. This compelling book offers timeless advice, inspired by classical wisdom, for drinking responsibly from a Renaissance poet in Germany, where the wine was flowing in the universities and people reveled in the drink, sometimes to their chagrin."—Patrick E. McGovern, author of Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture

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Professor Jonathan Bisson is a professor in psychiatry atCardiff University School of Medicine. His main research interests are in thefield of traumatic stress. He has conducted various studies including twowidely cited randomised controlled trials of early psychological interventions(psychological debriefing and trauma focused cognitive behavioural therapy)following traumatic events and five Cochrane systematic reviews in thetraumatic stress field. His work on early interventions following traumaticevents has shaped thinking internationally.

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Psychology of Coping with Quarantine

The latest psychological research unearths some surprising mental effects of quarantine

By Dr Raj Persaud

Three years after you have been released from quarantine, you can still suffer from profound psychological effects.

Elevated rates of mental health problems, such as post-traumatic stress, depression and alcoholism, can all be traced back to the stress of confinement, three years earlier.

These are the conclusions of a group of mental health experts based in the UK (including a psychiatrist who had also served in the army, and who had been deployed to various hostile environments including Afghanistan and Iraq), which has just published an investigation into the psychological impact of quarantine. Their study was published in one of the oldest and most prestigious medical journals in the world, The Lancet, and attempted comprehensively to review the body of previous published scientific research into psychological survival of quarantine.

Titled, ‘The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: rapid review of the evidence’, this investigation also found profound impacts on lives beyond the issue of mental health, long after the quarantine was over. For example, weeks after being released from quarantine, avoidance behaviour in health care workers persisted, such as minimising direct contact with patients and not reporting to work. Other research this study cited found 54% of people who had been quarantined avoided those who were coughing or sneezing, 26% avoided crowded enclosed places, and 21% avoided all public spaces in the weeks following the quarantine period. For some, the return to normality was delayed by many months.

This investigation also reviewed evidence that Governments should be cautious about introducing quarantine given some of the effects can be counter-productive. For example, one study argued that travel bans and other ‘lock-down’ measures may inadvertently spread disease, because the economic hardship induces an unintentional consequence of increasing the migration of potentially infected people from affected areas.

One of the studies quoted examined the enforced quarantine of a hospital in Taiwan following a SARS outbreak there in 2003. All 930 staff were ordered into a two-week quarantine, yet expected to perform duties as usual. All 240 patients staying at the hospital were banned from leaving, as were 129 visitors and outpatients. Everyone was imprisoned in the hospital for at least 14 days while the police cordoned off the building. After watching some health care workers die from SARS, some medical staff tried to escape, while others refused to provide care for the ill. Telephone lines and television cables were cut by the authorities citing security reasons, adding to the terror and mental strain of their ‘lock-down’.

The authors of this particular investigation into the Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital SARS quarantine of 2003, Donna Barbisch, Kristi Koenig and Fuh-Yuan Shih, point out that the full psychological impact was revealed when on just the third day of confinement a depressed man who was suspected of having SARS, hanged himself in the hospital. This was despite psychiatric counselling. The following day, another suicide attempt was halted when another was prevented from jumping out a window.

The Lancet study quoted an investigation into the strain of quarantine following a 2007 outbreak of highly infectious equine influenza in Australia, which found that those with one child had a 1.2 times higher risk of high psychological distress than those with no children. Yet this study, titled, ‘Factors influencing psychological distress during a disease epidemic: Data from Australia's first outbreak of equine influenza’, also found that having three or more children appeared protective against high psychological distress.

Perhaps having more children represents a distraction from the monotony of quarantine, though it’s hard to get one’s head around the idea that having more children in this circumstance would not be a nightmare whatever the context. One meme doing the rounds on the internet right now is that if the doctors don’t develop a vaccine soon, the parents will step in and do it for them.

Another possible explanation for this intriguing finding is that having three children simply might be a marker for being older. This study found one of the primary factors associated with high psychological distress during an epidemic was age. Those in the 16–24 age category reported highest levels of psychological distress.

It could therefore be that in post-quarantine it is the young who appear to need the most psychological support. Thus we might lose a whole generation, psychologically, not virally, to this pandemic. The elderly may be most vulnerable to physical attack from Covid-19 but it is the young who might be least immune to the longer-term mental effects, once quarantine is over.

Another possible explanation for this fascinating finding is suggested by some other research conducted in Pittsburgh USA where the precise opposite procedure to the usual quarantine study being reported here, occurred – people were quarantined because attempts were being made to infect them deliberately.

Titled, ‘Parenthood and Host Resistance to the Common Cold’, this study investigated immune resistance to viruses, by quarantining subjects, then administering nasal drops containing one of four common cold viruses. They were then monitored for the development of a clinical cold. Published in the academic journal Psychosomatic Medicine the intriguing finding is that the more children you have as a parent, the more resistant you are to getting the common cold. One possible explanation is that you have built up immunity over time because of having more children who constantly exposed you to bugs they got.

Another reason this might be an important link with psychological resilience during quarantine is that The Lancet review found a major cause of psychological strain was becoming worried if physical symptoms potentially related to the infection were experienced. This fear that the symptoms could reflect having the infection, continued to be related to future mental health difficulties several months later. It might be parents with lots of children having been through the mill with infections being brought home, are better set up for quarantine, because they are already more resigned or resilient or immune, and therefore either shrug off ambiguous or irrelevant symptoms, or just don’t get them.

We all get physical symptoms quite a lot of the time but usually these just go away of their own accord, and so we give them little attention. During quarantine, in contrast, perhaps we become hypervigilant for signs we have got the very thing we were being quarantined against, and this constant worrying about what the latest symptoms mean, might take a more significant toll on our mental health than previously appreciated.

As the physical symptoms of anxiety can look very similar to a viral infection, for example, headache, difficulty breathing or hyperventilation and also a cough, it is possible to enter a panic cycle. Your anxiety makes you believe you have the viral infection you dread, as you detect physical symptoms attributable to rising panic, but mistake them for the flu, you get more panicky and descend into a spiral of ever increasing mental and physical distress.

The conclusion of the just published academic investigation in The Lancet into the stress of quarantine, argues that ‘altruism is better than compulsion’. The authors contend that superior coping with the mental strain of such confinement could also hinge on whether those quarantined are motivated to comply because of a sense of volunteering, and free choice, seeing meaning in their sacrifice, by assisting others. However, if we are being compelled instead, to endure the many different sacrifices of quarantine, without it being clear exactly why it’s necessary, then poorer coping and worse mental health becomes more likely.

REFERENCES

The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: rapid review of the evidence. Samantha K Brooks, Rebecca K Webster, Louise Smith, Lisa Woodland, Simon Wessely, Neil Greenberg, Gideon James Rubin. The Lancet, Published: February 26, 2020 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30460-8

Is There a Case for Quarantine? Perspectives from SARS to Ebola. Donna Barbisch, Kristi Koenig and Fuh-Yuan Shih. Disaster medicine and public health preparedness, Volume 9, Issue 5 October 2015 , pp. 547-553.

Factors influencing psychological distress during a disease epidemic: Data from Australia's first outbreak of equine influenza. Melanie Taylor, Kingsley Agho, Garry Stevens & Beverley Raphael. BMC Public Health volume 8, Article number: 347 (2008)

Parenthood and Host Resistance to the Common Cold. Rodlescia Sneed, Sheldon Cohen, Donald Turner and William Doyle. Psychosomatic Medicine. 2012 Jul-Aug; 74(6): 567–573.doi: 10.1097/PSY.0b013e31825941ff

Professor Neil Greenberg, Professor of Defence Mental Health

BM, BSc, MMedSc, FHEA, MFMLM, DOccMed, MInstLM, MEWI, MFFLM, MD, FRCPsych

Professor Neil Greenberg is an academic psychiatrist based at King’s College London UK and is a consultant occupational and forensic psychiatrist. Neil served in the United Kingdom Armed Forces for more than 23 years and has deployed, as a psychiatrist and researcher, to a number of hostile environments including Afghanistan and Iraq. At King’s College London, Neil is one of the senior members of the military mental health research team and is a principal investigator within a nationally funded Health Protection Research unit which researches the psychological impacts of disasters on organisations. Neil also runs March on Stress (www.marchonstress.com) which is a psychological health consultancy and also Chairs the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) Special Interest Group in Occupational Psychiatry.

Neil studied medicine at Southampton University and graduated in 1993. He served as a general duties doctor in a variety of Warships, Submarines and with two Royal Marines Commando units. Whilst serving with the Royal Marines he completed his arctic warfare qualification and the All Arms Commando Course, earning the coveted Green Beret.

Neil provided psychological input for Foreign Office personnel after the events of September 11th 2001 and in Bali after 12th October 2002 bombings. He has also assisted with the aftermath management of number of other significant incidents including assisting the London Ambulance Service in the wake of the London Bombings in 2005.

In 2008 he was awarded the Gilbert Blane Medal by the Royal Navy for his work in supporting the health of Naval personnel through his research work. He also led the team that won a military-civilian partnership award in 2013 for carrying out research into the psychological health of troops who were deployed and was shortlisted for The RCP Psychiatrist of the Year in 2015. He was awarded an RCP Presidential Medal for his work with trauma and veterans in 2017.

Neil has published more than 250 scientific papers and book chapters. He has presented to national and international audiences on matters concerning the psychological health of the UK Armed Forces, organisational management of traumatic stress and occupational mental health. He has been the Secretary of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, the President of the UK Psychological Trauma Society and Specialist Advisor to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee. He is the current Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Lead for Military and Veterans Health, a trustee with Walking with the Wounded, an independent director of the Forces in Mind Trust and a principal advisor for Hostage International.

Neil has extensive experience of conducting research in military and veteran populations and successfully led the first two ever randomised controlled trials on the effectiveness of psychological health interventions in the UK Armed Forces. He, working with the team at King’s College London, is one of the UK’s leading military health researchers and has published very widely on a broad spectrum of military health and traumatic stress related topics (www.kcl.ac.uk/kcmhr) and advises the Armed Forces, media organisations (including the BBC and News UK) and UK government regularly about mental health issues.

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The Psychology of the Virus Super-Spreader

Covid-19 like many infections, can produce such mild symptoms, or maybe none at all, in some, so that they don’t realise they are infected; they then spread the contagion without realising it. This means that Covid-19 may be particularly prone to the disturbing phenomenon of the ‘super-spreader’.

 Mary Mallon (1870-1938) nicknamed “Typhoid Mary” Source: An illustration that appeared in 1909 in The New York American June 20, 1909    Officialdom doesn’t seem keen so far on disseminating the ‘super-spreader’ theories over Covid-19, maybe because they don’t want the general public to feel ‘off the hook’ to make mass personal changes. This may happen if they don’t feel personal responsibility for contagion; which they won’t if they can blame a few ‘super-spreaders’ instead.

But maybe the opposite is true, if the public better grasped the concept of the ‘super-spreader’, maybe they would adhere more to public health restrictions?

Why can there be such large variability between countries and regions, as to the spread and virulence of a particular infectious disease? It is tempting to see the answers in, for example, differences between varying Government policies, but there are other biological factors which can be in play as well, such as genetic susceptibility, or the age profile of a population.

However, one phenomenon which may not be receiving as much attention as it deserves, given it’s potential to explain variable rates of spread of infections, is the idea of the ‘super-spreader’.

‘Super-spreading’ refers to the frightening spectacle when just a single patient infects such a huge number of contacts, that the usual or average rate of spread from more typical individuals, becomes dwarfed.

There is a strand of thinking in epidemiology that the controversial role of ‘super-spreaders’ needs to be better understood if modelling of epidemics is to become more accurate, and official response better targeted.

‘Supers-spreaders’ might be out in the community spreading the disease for an extended period of time before being detected by conventional methods.

In a study entitled ‘MERS, SARS, and Ebola: The Role of Super-Spreaders in Infectious Disease’, the authors point to the role of so-called ‘super-spreaders’ in past epidemics.

Published in the academic journal Cell Host & Microbe, the study quotes the example of the 2015 MERS-CoV outbreak in South Korea, which began from a single case who had travelled from the Middle East. Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) emerged as a new virus resulting in severe respiratory disease plus renal failure. The case fatality rate was up to 38%.

The authors of this study into ‘super-spreaders’ were based at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, Shenzhen Third People’s Hospital, Shenzhen, and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China.

MERS-CoV cases typically occur in the Middle East, where dromedary camels harbour the virus.

Between May and July 2015, an outbreak of MERS-CoV in South Korea killed 36 people out of 186 confirmed cases. Twenty-nine secondary infections in South Korea have been traced to a single index patient who travelled from the Middle East. Two of these secondary cases were apparently responsible for 106 subsequent infections, out of 166 known cases at the time.

So, according to this study, the MERS-CoV outbreak in South Korea was driven primarily by three infected individuals, and approximately 75% of cases can be traced back to three super-spreaders who have each infected a disproportionately high number of contacts.

This study also documented ‘super-spreading’ during the SARS-CoV outbreak in 2003. The index patient of the Hong Kong epidemic was treated at Prince of Wales Hospital and was associated with at least 125 secondary cases.

Similar events, according to the study, were observed with the 2014-15 Ebola outbreak, centred in Western Africa. In Sierra Leone, the funeral of a traditional healer that died from EBOV directly infected 13 others and was ultimately linked to more than 300 cases. The authors point out that ‘super-spreading’ has also been documented in measles and TB outbreaks.

The authors contend that initial stages of all of the outbreaks mentioned above involved at least one super-spreading event. Super-spreaders the authors argue, may become the key difference between an infection cluster and an epidemic.

In a study entitled, ‘Transmission potential of COVID-19 in South Korea’, published at medRxiv as a preprint, the authors point out that the epicentre of the South Korean COVID-19 outbreak has been identified in Daegu, where the rapid spread has been attributed one super-spreading event that has led to at least 40 secondary cases stemming from church services in that city.

In another study entitled, ‘Spatial and temporal dynamics of superspreading events in the 2014–2015 West Africa Ebola epidemic’, published in PNAS, (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America), the authors argue that had the super-spreaders been identified and quarantined promptly, around 61% of the Ebola infections could have been prevented. The authors argue their findings highlight the key role of super-spreaders in driving epidemic growth.

While there are many factors that may explain the still mysterious phenomenon of ‘super-spreading’, individual behaviour might play a key role.

A classic example that arises from experience of previous outbreaks includes so-called “doctor shopping”. This can comprise visiting multiple hospitals to treat the same ailments, even traveling to other countries to visit new clinics.

Different health care systems may promote contrasting doctor-shopping behaviours.For example, privatised healthcare lends itself more readily to ‘doctor-shopping’, as the individual patient can decide to consult as many different physicians as they can afford. Indeed, in non-pandemic times this may be a key advantage used to promote fee-for-service systems.

Yet a more centralised, state-controlled system, like the UK’s NHS (National Health Service) is better equipped to prevent this. In the NHS you can’t very easily consult any other Family Practice, beyond the one you are registered with. Also, you can’t see any specialist you desire, unless you have been formally referred by your General Practitioner.

During normal times these limitations might be irritating, but in a pandemic these restrictions may curtail ‘super-spreading’.

However, it is not clear that any healthcare system, no matter how well organised, can do much against an extremely determined ‘super-spreader’, unless extremely draconian powers of incarceration are invoked.

This is precisely what happened in the case of perhaps the first documented case, and most famous individual ‘super-spreader’ in history, an Irish immigrant cook who disseminated Typhoid fever in the New York area, subsequently becoming notoriously referred to as ‘Typhoid Mary’.Her story is important as it may be a prophetic foretelling of our own future. It could be many recalcitrant spreaders who refuse to conform to public health advice, may yet find themselves similarly imprisoned.

Between 1900 and 1907, Mary Mallon moved as cook from household to household, infecting some 22 people with typhoid fever. At this time this was a disease with a ten-per-cent mortality rate.

Several attempts were made to enlist her cooperation in being tested, and to comply with quarantine advice, which she resolutely ignored. Eventually the authorities concluded that she represented such a threat to the public’s health, she had to be incarcerated, and therefore isolated against her will on a quarantine island in the East River.

The police and doctors were involved in the frantic physical chase to capture her. Such was the struggle from the intransigent cook, that the doctor had to be involved in the forcible physical restraint involved in subduing the patient in the ambulance, removing her from her freedom.

Mary Mallon was released over three years later having grudgingly promised to comply with restrictions, including promising not to return to cooking, and signing in regularly with the authorities.

However, such was her actual resolution to return to cooking against medical advice, she eventually slipped away again from surveillance, only to resurface 5 years later, when she was discovered to be cooking at the Sloan Maternity Hospital in New York City, where 25 new cases of typhoid fever had just been reported.

One lesson that might be learned from her case was that finding her alternative viable employment might have prevented the second tragic outbreak.

Mallon was sent back to her secluded bungalow on North Brother Island, for the rest of her life. She died on Nov. 11, 1938, after more than 26 years of compulsory isolation. In the end, she had infected at least 51 people, 3 of whom died.

Yet as Janet Brooks points out in her investigation entitled, ‘The Sad and Tragic Life of Typhoid Mary’ published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, by the time she died, New York health officials had identified more than 400 other healthy carriers of Typhoid, yet no one else was forcibly confined.

Was Mary Mallon discriminated against? Was it something to do with being an Irish single woman with no husband nor parents to fight her corner, or did she suffer from some kind of intransigent personality type, or even disorder, which meant she was more prone to conflict with the authorities?

Could this personality type identify behavioural super-spreaders today?

Before they imprisoned her, Mary Mallon was quick to wield a carving fork whenever approached by health officials who first tried to reason with her. Once incarcerated she wrote violently threatening letters to her doctors, explaining that if ever released, she would get a gun and kill them. This was not an immediately obviously sensible tactic over securing her freedom, and might suggest the possibility of an undiagnosed mental illness.

Author Susan Campbell Bartoletti, in her biography of Mary Mallon, entitled, ‘Terrible Typhoid Mary – The Deadliest Cook in America’, points out that she could have been let out of her imprisonment much earlier, if she had just played the politics, and agreed to the terms the authorities demanded, from the beginning.

She could have simply agreed not to cook, and she could then have slipped away from their surveillance, once released. Her problem really was that she was too honest.

Paradoxically could extreme sincerity might also be a sign of a psychiatric disorder? It was the key argument many anti-psychiatrists in the 1960’s deployed against the incarceration of psychiatric patients, which is that they landed themselves in trouble because they were too ‘authentic’ or honest when answering the doctor’s questions.

This is one of the underlying themes of films like Jack Nicholson’s ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’.

If it was her persistent personal rigidity, in denying there was anything wrong with her cooking, maybe Mary Mallon could not apparently grasp the concept of being a ‘healthy carrier’, which trapped her into dogged conflict with the authorities, and left her to languish for the rest of her life in enforced quarantine.

Maybe there seemed to be a pride issue involved in that she may have regarded Typhoid as a disease associated with being ‘dirty’, with not washing her hands properly after leaving the toilet before cooking, yet she was a proud ‘clean’ cook. Perhaps the doctors failed in their attempt to explain the science to a scarcely educated kitchen worker because of the cultural and class divide between them?

Maybe they are failing again with the public as they are making the same mistake in not grasping how to bridge the chasm in understanding between the epidemiologists and the public?

Or is there, in fact, a little of Mary Mallon in all of us who buck the Government’s injunctions? We rebel when attempts are made to prevent us from doing what we love, because we don’t see the link between our own personal behaviour, and how it’s going to stop a pandemic?

The story of possibly the first documented ‘super-spreader’ in history, suggests that even today, a failure to grasp the science behind infections and disease, by just one person, could prove deadly to society.

References

MERS, SARS, and Ebola: The Role of Super-Spreaders in Infectious Disease. Gary Wong, Wenjun Liu, Yingxia Liu, Boping Zhou, Yuhai Bi, George F.Gao Cell Host & Microbe Volume 18, Issue 4, 14 October 2015, Pages 398-401

Transmission potential of COVID-19 in South Korea. Eunha Shim, Amna Tariq, Wongyeong Choi, Yiseul Lee, Gerardo Chowell. medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.27.20028829.

‘Spatial and temporal dynamics of superspreading events in the 2014–2015 West Africa Ebola epidemic’. Max S. Y. Lau, Benjamin Douglas Dalziel, Sebastian Funk, Amanda McClelland, Amanda Tiffany, Steven Riley, C. Jessica E. Metcalf, and Bryan T. Grenfell. PNAS February 28, 2017 114 (9) 2337-2342

 Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public’s Health By Judith Walzer Leavitt ISBN 0-8070-2102-4, Beacon Press, Boston, Massachusetts

The sad and tragic life of Typhoid Mary. J Brooks. CMAJ. 1996 Mar 15; 154(6): 915–916.

‘Terrible Typhoid Mary: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America’ by Susan Campbell Bartoletti. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishers.

  What happens when a person's reputation has been forever damaged? With archival photographs and text among other primary sources, this riveting biography of Mary Mallon by the Sibert medalist and Newbery Honor winner Susan Bartoletti looks beyond the tabloid scandal of Mary's controversial life. How she was treated by medical and legal officials reveals a lesser-known story of human and constitutional rights, entangled with the science of pathology and enduring questions about who Mary Mallon really was. How did her name become synonymous with deadly disease? And who is really responsible for the lasting legacy of Typhoid Mary? This thorough exploration includes an author's note, timeline, annotated source notes, and bibliography.

Awards: Newbery Honor, Carolyn Field Award, Lamplighter Award, Parents Gold Choice Award, Outstanding Pennsylvania Author of the Year, Children's Book Guild Award for Body of Nonfiction Work Abstract: Susan Campbell Bartoletti was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1958 and grew up in rural Pennsylvania, a place she has used as a setting in her young adult novels and nonfiction books. A student, author, and teacher, Bartoletti uses historical elements as the backbone of many of her works, and she has won many awards for her ability to combine historical facts with her unique writing style.

Biography Susan Campbell Bartoletti was born Susan Campbell in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on November 18, 1958. Two months after her birth, her father was killed in a car accident. Her mother later remarried after Bartoletti finished kindergarten, and the family moved to the outskirts of Scranton, Pennsylvania. She loved growing up in the countryside of rural Pennsylvania, and she later used this setting in many of her works. As a young girl, Bartoletti enjoyed reading, drawing, horseback riding, playing piano, and listening to the Beatles. By the eighth grade, she was editor of her newspaper and had discovered her passion for art and writing. She decided to pursue her career as soon as possible, and after her junior year of high school, she left to attend college early. Bartoletti attended Marywood College and majored in art at first. After realizing the stiff competition in the field and receiving praise from her creative writing professor, Campbell switched gears and decided to major in English and secondary education instead. After her sophomore year, she married Joseph Bartoletti, and the couple later had two children, Brandy and Joey. Bartoletti received her BA in 1979 and obtained her first teaching job at the age of 20. She began teaching English at North Pocono Middle School and remained there for 18 years. She also co-advised the school's award-winning literary magazine for 15 years. While teaching, she simultaneously earned her MA in English at the University of Scranton in 1982. Bartoletti became involved in many different activities, including the Children's Literature Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the Rutgers Council on Children's Literature. She also found time to write more. Her first picture book, Silver at Night, was published in 1994. This was an autobiographical work about her husband's grandfather, an Italian immigrant who spent nearly half a century in the coal mines. Bartoletti wanted a lot of her writing to focus on historical events, particularly labor history in her native Pennsylvania. In 1996, her work Growing Up in Coal Country was published. This book focused on the working and living conditions of Pennsylvania coal towns and won her numerous awards including the Carolyn Field Award, the Lamplighter Award, and the Parents Gold Choice Award. She remained ambitious, and as she was writing and teaching eighth grade English she became an instructor in children's literature at the University of Scranton. In 1998, Bartoletti decided to stop teaching at the middle school in order to pursue her writing career and earn her PhD in creative writing. She attended Binghamton University with a full fellowship, where she won the Excellence in Research award for her doctoral dissertation.

In 1999, Susan wrote a book concerning child labor laws and the hardships children endured as they were forced to work in big industries. Kids on Strike! discussed the problems of child labor and the actions to strike against them. The pictures within the work reveal children suffering from sleep deprivation and missing fingers and showed the world just how tragic child labor was. She also focused on another historical tragedy in 2001 when she finished writing Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850. This work tells the story of the Great Potato Famine in which one million Irish died from starvation and disease, and two million had to leave Ireland to escape death. That same year, the Pennsylvania Library Association named Bartoletti the Outstanding Pennsylvania Author of the Year. In the midst of all the attention, Bartoletti wrote yet another book titled The Flag Maker (2004). This was a story about Caroline Pickersgill and her mother, Mary, sewing a large-enough American flag for the British to see it during a major battle in the War of 1812. She was inspired to write about it after she saw the 80-pound masterpiece in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC.

One of Bartoletti's most compelling books was written in 2005. Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow is a story about young Germans devoting their lives to Hitler and his Nazi regime. The book also incorporated stories about young people resisting the movement, a dangerous and often fatal move. The photographs in the book put the impact of Hitler's campaign in perspective and are difficult to look at. One of the first photos was a 1934 photo taken during German Youth Day in Potsdam where a young boy is shown raising his hand in the Nazi salute. In 2006, Hitler Youth became a Newbery Honor Book selection.

On her website and in interviews, Bartoletti mentions that she is often asked if she writes the works she does, which often delve into difficult and complex topics, "to show kids today how good they have it." The answer is no. She hopes that her works give "readers courage — courage to question and to think critically about history; courage to consider and respond to their social, political, and existential responsibilities; and, most of all, courage to stand up."

In 2009, she won the Washington Post's Children's Book Guild Award for Body of Nonfiction Work. Bartoletti also won the Carolyn W. Field Award in 2009 for her novel The Boy Who Dared. The Boy Who Dared earned Bartoletti many more honors and distinctions, including American Library Association Book of Distinction and Best Book for Young Adults, Booklist Top 10 Historical Fiction for Youth, and International Reading Association Notable Book for an Important Society. In 2010, she published They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group, which was a Junior Library Guild Selection. This children's book also earned recognition and was placed on the Best Children's Book of the Year List for the School Library Journal, Kirkus, and Publisher's Weekly.

Susan Campbell Bartoletti has served as a professor of children's literature for the Pennsylvania State University's World Campus and, at the time of this writing, lives in Moscow, Pennsylvania, where she continues to write and publish.

Selected Works: Nonfiction

Growing Up in Coal Country. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996.
Kids on Strike! Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.
Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow. New York: Scholastic Nonfiction, 2005.
They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2010.
(Coedited with Marc Aronson.) 1968. Somerville: Candlewick, 2018.

Novels

No Man's Land: A Young Soldier's Story. New York: Blue Sky Press, 1999.
A Coal Miner's Bride: The Diary of Anetka Kaminska. New York: Scholastic, 2000.
The Boy Who Dared. New York: Scholastic Press, 2008.

Picture Books

Silver at Night. New York: Crown, 1994.
Dancing with Dziadziu. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1997.
The Christmas Promise. New York: Blue Sky Press, 2001.
Nobody's Nosier Than a Cat. New York: Hyperion Books for Children, 2003.
The Flag Maker: A Story of the Star Spangled Banner. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004.
Nobody's Diggier Than a Dog. New York: Hyperion Books for Children, 2005.
Naamah and the Ark at Night. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick, 2011.

Sources: * "Biography: Susan Campbell Bartoletti." Scholastic. 4 December 2011. http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/contributor/susan-campbell-bartoletti. * Heller, Steven. "Hitler Youth." New York Times Book Review 14 Aug. 2005: 16. * Kohlepp, Peg. "History Unfurled; A Kids' Salute to the Illustrious History of the Red, White, and Blue." Times-Picayune 4 July 2004: 4. * "Librarians Find Meat in 'Potatoes'" Lancaster Sunday News 17 Nov. 2002: 6. * Myers, Alison Green. Faculty Interview: Susan Campbell Bartoletti. Highlights Foundation. 6 September 2017. 12 July 2018. . * Susan Campbell Bartoletti. 2010. 4 December 2011 and 12 July 2018. . * "Susan Campbell Bartoletti." The Gale Literary Databases: Contemporary Authors Online. 8 Oct. 2010. 4 Dec. 2011.

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Did you know that research has found 40% of rail and bus commuters have faecal bacteria on their hands, suggesting not washing hands after toilet use is... pandemic. Psychological reactions to pandemic information can range from 'monitoring' to 'blunting' and there is even a psychological syndrome referred to as 'Flu Fatigue' when people become so overwhelmed with frightening messages that they start to become exhausted and ignore public health guidance. If you want to learn better how to handle elevated levels of hypochondriasis and anxiety plus the psychiatric and psychological implications of a pandemic listen to this interview of Professor Steve Taylor by Psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud about Steve's new prophetic book (published a couple of months before the outbreak of the current pandemic). Given the description of this book below was written before the current pandemic this book is definitely prophetic!

  The Psychology of Pandemics Preparing for the Next Global Outbreak of Infectious Disease Author(s):Steven Taylor Book Description       Pandemics are large-scale epidemics that spread throughout world. Virologists predict that the next pandemic could occur in the coming years, probably from some form of influenza, with potentially devastating consequences. Vaccinations, if available, and behavioral methods are vital for stemming the spread of infection. However, remarkably little attention has been devoted to the psychological factors that influence the spread of pandemic infection and the associated emotional distress and social disruption. Psychological factors are important for many reasons. They play a role in nonadherence to vaccination and hygiene programs, and play an important role in how people cope with the threat of infection and associated losses. Psychological factors are important for understanding and managing societal problems associated with pandemics, such as the spreading of excessive fear, stigmatization, and xenophobia that occur when people are threatened with infection. This book offers the first comprehensive analysis of the psychology of pandemics. It describes the psychological reactions to pandemics, including maladaptive behaviors, emotions, and defensive reactions, and reviews the psychological vulnerability factors that contribute to the spreading of disease and distress. It also considers empirically supported methods for addressing these pro...read more

VIEW EXTRACT Hardback ISBN-13:978-1-5275-3959-4 ISBN-10:1-5275-3959-8 Date of Publication:01/12/2019 Biography Steven Taylor, PhD, is a Professor and Clinical Psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia, Canada. He received his MSc from the University of Melbourne, and his PhD from the University of British Columbia. His research and clinical work has focused largely on anxiety disorders and related clinical conditions, including fears and phobias, health anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. He has authored over 300 scientific publications and more than 20 books, which have been translated into many languages. His books include Understanding and Treating Panic Disorder, Treating Health Anxiety, and Clinician’s Guide to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. He has also served as Editor and Associate Editor of several academic journals, including Behaviour Research and Therapy, Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, and the Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders. He maintains a clinical practice in Vancouver, BC, specializing in mood and anxiety disorders.

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You can also listen to this interview on a free app on iTunes and Google Play Store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience and mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. Download it free from these links. Don't forget to check out the bonus content button on the app.

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The Calculus of Happiness: How a Mathematical Approach to Life Adds Up to Health, Wealth, and Love Oscar Fernandez

How math holds the keys to improving one's health, wealth, and love life

From  https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691168630/the-calculus-of-happiness   What’s the best diet for overall health and weight management? How can we change our finances to retire earlier? How can we maximize our chances of finding our soul mate?

In The Calculus of Happiness, Oscar Fernandez shows us that math yields powerful insights into health, wealth, and love. Using only high-school-level math (precalculus with a dash of calculus), Fernandez guides us through several of the surprising results, including an easy rule of thumb for choosing foods that lower our risk for developing diabetes (and that help us lose weight too), simple “all-weather” investment portfolios with great returns, and math-backed strategies for achieving financial independence and searching for our soul mate. Moreover, the important formulas are linked to a dozen free online interactive calculators on the book’s website, allowing one to personalize the equations.

Fernandez uses everyday experiences—such as visiting a coffee shop—to provide context for his mathematical insights, making the math discussed more accessible, real-world, and relevant to our daily lives. Every chapter ends with a summary of essential lessons and takeaways, and for advanced math fans, Fernandez includes the mathematical derivations in the appendices.

A nutrition, personal finance, and relationship how-to guide all in one, The Calculus of Happiness invites you to discover how empowering mathematics can be.

Oscar E. Fernandez Associate Professor of Mathematics; Faculty Director, Pforzheimer Learning and Teaching Center

Research is in geometric mechanics and specifically in Nonholonomic Mechanics. Presently researching Hamiltonian-like properties of some special types of nonholonomic systems.

Personal web site

   Professor Fernandez's current research is in Geometric Mechanics, which can perhaps most easily be described as Hamiltonian Mechanics on manifolds, and specifically in Nonholonomic Mechanics. He is presently researching the Hamiltonian-like properties of some special types of nonholonomic systems, through ideas in symplectic geometry and the theory of integrable systems.

Professor Fernandez also has a passion for teaching. He is motivated by his desire to increase the number of students---and particularly underrepresented students---studying math. Shortly after coming to Wellesley he co-created the Wellesley Emerging Scholars Initiative in which students work collaboratively on challenging calculus problems twice weekly along with Prof. Stanley Chang. The two math faculty continue to run the program every semester, and last year the program received 3-year funding from the Mathematical Association of America.

An applied mathematician by training, Professor Fernandez also strives to be a spokesperson for mathematics and its applications. He types up his lecture notes and distributes them to his students, tends to have many office hours, recently created a new course (Introduction to Fourier Analysis and Partial Differential Equations), and recently published Everyday Calculus: Discovering the Hidden Math All Around Us (Princeton University Press, 2014) which reveals the calculus concepts hidden throughout a typical day.

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In his illuminating new book, Douglas McWilliams argues that inequality is largely driven not by a conspiracy of the rich, as Thomas Piketty suggests, but by technology and globalization that have led to the paradox of rising inequality even as worldwide poverty drops. But what are the implications of this seeming contradiction, and what ultimately drives the global distribution of wealth? What can societies do to reshape capitalism for the 21st century? Drawing on the latest research, McWilliams investigates how wealth is concentrated and why it persistently remains in the hands of very few. In accessible and thought-provoking prose, McWilliams poses a comprehensive theory on why capitalism has not met its match in the form of increasingly disparate income distribution, but warns of the coming wave of technological development―the fourth industrial revolution―that threatens to create a scarcity of unskilled jobs that will lead to even greater inequality and explains what governments can do to prepare for this. From the inquisitive layperson to the professional economist or policymaker, The Inequality Paradox is essential reading for understanding the global economy in its present state. McWilliams is a fresh, authoritative voice entering the global discussion, making this book indispensable in preparing for the imminent economic challenges of our changing world.

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The Seven Deadly Sins of Psychology: A Manifesto for Reforming the Culture of Scientific Practice Chris Chambers Why psychology is in peril as a scientific discipline—and how to save it Psychological science has made extraordinary discoveries about the human mind, but can we trust everything its practitioners are telling us? In recent years, it has become increasingly apparent that a lot of research in psychology is based on weak evidence, questionable practices, and sometimes even fraud. The Seven Deadly Sins of Psychology diagnoses the ills besetting the discipline today and proposes sensible, practical solutions to ensure that it remains a legitimate and reliable science in the years ahead. In this unflinchingly candid manifesto, Chris Chambers shows how practitioners are vulnerable to powerful biases that undercut the scientific method, how they routinely torture data until it produces outcomes that can be published in prestigious journals, and how studies are much less reliable than advertised. Left unchecked, these and other problems threaten the very future of psychology as a science—but help is here. “Chris Chambers’s portrait should sit high on the wall of heroes in the movement to reform science.”—Barbara A. Spellman, Nature

“Psychology: it’s not dead yet. But Chris Chambers makes a stark case for its having engaged in sins that call its validity into question.”—Luna C. M. Centifanti, Times Higher Education

“Passionate, provocative, and persuasive, Chambers’ book is filled with information and insights about current practices in psychology—and offers recommendations to enhance transparency and reproducibility.”—Glenn C. Altschuler, Psychology Today

“An excellent warts-and-all summary of the state of play in modern psychology.”—Dean Burnett, The Guardian

“Superb and exceedingly timely. . . . An impressive achievement.”—Scott O. Lilienfeld and Thomas H. Costello, PsycCRITIQUES

“I applaud Chambers for advocating reform of our science and this book for encouraging me to rethink our discipline. This book should be required reading for all graduate students and, of course, their mentors.”—Dom Massaro, American Journal of Psychology

Awards and Recognition * One of The Guardian’s Favourite Reads of 2017 as chosen by scientists * Winner of the 2018 PROSE Award in Psychology, Association of American Publishers * Winner of the 2018 British Psychological Society Book Award, Best Academic Monograph

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from amazon.co.uk David Sellu was a surgeon with a distinguished record extending over forty years. In 2010, a patient died under his care in a private hospital. There followed a sequence of extraordinary events that led to David being prosecuted and convicted for the patient's death and sent to prison. His licence to practice medicine was suspended, his career cut short. Events that took place later showed that this was an unfair trial with tinges of racism, and he won an appeal against his conviction and is now a free man. But the damage had already been done.

This book tells his extraordinary story for the first time, in his own words.

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David Taylor is Director of Pharmacy and Pathology at the Maudsley Hospital, Professor of Psychopharmacology at King’s College, London and Honorary Professor at the Institute of Psychiatry.

David is also the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology and Head of Pharmaceutical Sciences in King’s Health Partners. He has previously been President of the College of Mental Health Pharmacists and Chairman of the UK Psychiatric Pharmacy Group. Professor Taylor has been the lead author of the Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines since their inception in 1993. The Maudsley Prescribing Guidelines have sold over 200,000 copies in eleven editions and been translated into nine languages.

David has also authored over 200 clinical papers in journals such as the BMJ, British Journal of Psychiatry and Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. These papers have been cited over 5000 times. Professor Taylor has an H Index of 41.

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Prior to the Second World War mental illness was largely untreatable, but all that changed when an Australian doctor and recently returned prisoner of war, John Cade, made the monumental discovery that lithium could serve as an effective treatment for manic depression, now bipolar disorder. In this podcast, Dr Raj Persaud interviews Professor Greg de Moore about the life and work of John Cade, discussing his remarkable – but often overlooked – contribution to the history of mental health treatment.

Finding Sanity John Cade, lithium and the taming of bipolar disorder

Greg de Moore and Ann Westmore The first biography of the ground breaking Australian doctor who discovered the first pharmacological treatment for mental illness.

For most of human history, mental illness has been largely untreatable. Sufferers lived their lives - if they survived - in and out of asylums, accumulating life's wreckage around them.

In 1948, all that changed when an Australian doctor and recently returned prisoner of war, working alone in a disused kitchen, set about an experimental treatment for one of the scourges of mankind - manic depression, or bipolar disorder. That doctor was John Cade and in that small kitchen he stirred up a miracle.

John Cade discovered a treatment that has become the gold standard for bipolar disorder - lithium. It has stopped more people from committing suicide than a thousand help lines.

Lithium is the penicillin story of mental health - the first effective medication discovered for the treatment of a mental illness - and it is, without doubt, Australia's greatest mental health story.

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Professor Eileen Joyce one of the world's leading authorities on tics and tic disorders talks to Dr Raj Persaud about tics.

Professor Joyce obtained her first degree, PhD and medical degree from the University of Cambridge. She trained in psychiatry at the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospitals and spent several years as a research worker at the Institute of Psychiatry, where she was a Wellcome Trust Lecturer in Mental Health, and the USA National Institutes of Health. Before moving to UCL/UCLH, she was Professor of Neuropsychiatry at Imperial College London.

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Dr Henrietta Bowden-Jones is a medical doctor and neuroscience researcher working as Consultant psychiatrist in Addictions.

Dr Henrietta Bowden-Jones was appointed Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire ( OBE) in the 2019 New Year’s Honours for Services to Addiction Treatment and to Research.

She was elected President of the Medical Women’s Federation in 2018 having been Vice President from 2014 to 2016 and President Elect 2016-2018.

She is Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College and the past co-recipient of Medical Research Council grants in the area of decision-making and impulsivity as well as a Wolfson Family Trust 3 year grant.

She is the Founder and Director of the National Problem Gambling Clinic based in London. The clinic is the first and only NHS multidisciplinary treatment centre in the UK for the treatment of problem gamblers,it has been inundated by thousands of referrals since its opening in 2008 and holds an extensive national database on pathological gambling.

Henrietta also runs a Problem Gambling Research Consortium, collaborating with various universities on different research projects exploring the nature of pathological gambling from a neurobiological and clinical perspective.

Henrietta belongs to the ICCAM (Imperial, Cambridge, Manchester)neuroscience research group funded by the Medical Research Council to develop effective treatment for all addictions.

Prior to founding the National Problem Gambling Clinic she spent several years running the inpatient NHS detoxification services for alcohol and drugs in central London (CNWL NHS Foundation Trust) as well as leading the Soho Rapid Access Clinic, treating the homeless drug addicts of central London.

Much of her time is spent lecturing at conferences and teaching medical postgraduate students, psychologists, mental health professionals, magistrates, psychiatrists, neuroscientists and others about behavioural addictions, internet addiction disorder, problem gambling,the neurobiology of addiction, decision-making and risk, adolescent brains and impulsivity . She is regularly invited to lecture nationally and internationally, she has been interviewed extensively both by the press ( The Times, Financial Times,Guardian, Observer,Telegraph,Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Vogue, Wired etc)and radio ( Radio 3 Private Passions) as well asTV (Women’s Hour, You and Yours, Today Programme, Despatches, The One Show and many others). She gave a TED talk in 2013, has spoken at Hay-on-Wye and Latitude bringing science to a wider population.

She is the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ spokesperson on Behavioural Addictions and Problem Gambling as well as having been an elected member of the Executive Committee Addictions Faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists for nine years until 2014. She is now a co-opted member of the Addictions Faculty.

She held the post of elected Finance Officer for the Addictions Faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists for the period 2006-2010.

She was Academic Secretary for the Faculty of Addictions at theRoyal College of Psychiatrists for the year 2011-2012 and on the Conference Committee from 2009-2012.

Henrietta was a member of the Government’s Responsible Gambling Strategy Board from 2009 to 2016 advising on prevention, research, treatment and education. She was on the Prevention Panel from 2009 to 2012.

2015 ongoing- Member of the Royal Society of Medicine’s Psychiatry Council.

2015 ongoing – member of the World Health Organisation ( WHO) Behavioural Addictions Gaming Disorder Group.

Having completed her medical degree and her psychiatric training she spent some years with Imperial College researching the effects of alcohol on the brain. She was awarded an MD in Neuroscience for her work, her doctorate thesis was on Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Dysfunction in Alcohol dependency. Decision-making is one of her areas of interest.

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A Theory of the AphorismFrom Confucius to Twitter by Andrew Hui An engaging look at the aphorism, the shortest literary form, across time, languages, and cultures

From press.princeton.edu/titles/14222.html

Aphorisms—or philosophical short sayings—appear everywhere, from Confucius to Twitter, the Buddha to the Bible, Heraclitus to Nietzsche. Yet despite this ubiquity, the aphorism is the least studied literary form. What are its origins? How did it develop? How do religious or philosophical movements arise from the enigmatic sayings of charismatic leaders? And why do some of our most celebrated modern philosophers use aphoristic fragments to convey their deepest ideas? In A Theory of the Aphorism, Andrew Hui crisscrosses histories and cultures to answer these questions and more.

With clarity and precision, Hui demonstrates how aphorisms—ranging from China, Greece, and biblical antiquity to the European Renaissance and nineteenth century—encompass sweeping and urgent programs of thought. Constructed as literary fragments, aphorisms open new lines of inquiry and horizons of interpretation. In this way, aphorisms have functioned as ancestors, allies, or antagonists to grand systems of philosophy.

Encompassing literature, philology, and philosophy, the history of the book and the history of reading, A Theory of the Aphorism invites us to reflect anew on what it means to think deeply about this pithiest of literary forms.

Andrew Hui is associate professor of humanities at Yale-NUS College, Singapore. He is the author of The Poetics of Ruins in Renaissance Literature.

From https://www.yale-nus.edu.sg/about/faculty/andrew-hui/

Associate Professor Andrew Hui loves to read, think, write, and talk to other humans (and occasionally trees). His speciality is the classical tradition of early modern Europe and the Global Renaissance. He occasionally thinks about: allegory and algorithm, afterlife of antiquity, cultural philology, encyclopedias and epics, theatrum mundi, wonder, grace, and kairos. He likes to practice deep reading and slow humanities.

His work has been generously supported by the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale, a Berenson fellowship at Harvard’s Villa I Tatti, a National Endowment of Humanities grant for a summer of reading Dante in Florence, a Brian Crawford Award at the Warburg Library in London and a stint at the Centre for the Study of the Book at the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

He received his PhD from Princeton University in Department of Comparative Literature and is a graduate of St John’s College, Annapolis. From 2009-2012, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the humanities at Stanford University. He joined the faculty of Yale-NUS College in 2012.

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Marcia Bjornerud Walter Schober Professor of Environmental Studies and Professor of Geology Why an awareness of Earth’s temporal rhythms is critical to our planetary survival

Few of us have any conception of the enormous timescales in our planet’s long history, and this narrow perspective underlies many of the environmental problems we are creating for ourselves. The passage of nine days, which is how long a drop of water typically stays in Earth’s atmosphere, is something we can easily grasp. But spans of hundreds of years—the time a molecule of carbon dioxide resides in the atmosphere—approach the limits of our comprehension. Our everyday lives are shaped by processes that vastly predate us, and our habits will in turn have consequences that will outlast us by generations. Timefulness reveals how knowing the rhythms of Earth’s deep past and conceiving of time as a geologist does can give us the perspective we need for a more sustainable future.

Marcia Bjornerud shows how geologists chart the planet’s past, explaining how we can determine the pace of solid Earth processes such as mountain building and erosion and comparing them with the more unstable rhythms of the oceans and atmosphere. These overlapping rates of change in the Earth system—some fast, some slow—demand a poly-temporal worldview, one that Bjornerud calls “timefulness.” She explains why timefulness is vital in the Anthropocene, this human epoch of accelerating planetary change, and proposes sensible solutions for building a more time-literate society.

This compelling book presents a new way of thinking about our place in time, enabling us to make decisions on multigenerational timescales. The lifespan of Earth may seem unfathomable compared to the brevity of human existence, but this view of time denies our deep roots in Earth’s history—and the magnitude of our effects on the planet.

Marcia Bjornerud is professor of geology and environmental studies at Lawrence University. She is the author of Reading the Rocks: The Autobiography of the Earthand a contributing writer for Elements, the New Yorker’s science and technology blog. She lives in Appleton, Wisconsin.

More about this book * Finalist for the 2019 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Science & Technology * Winner of the 2019 PROSE Award in Popular Science & Popular Mathematics, Association of American Publishers * Longlisted for the 2019 PEN/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing Award, PEN American Center * One of EcoLit Books' Best Environmental Books of 2018

 You can also listen to this interview on a free app on iTunes and Google Play Store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience and mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. Download it free from these links. Don't forget to check out the bonus content button on the app.

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T I M E F U L N E S S : H O W T H I N K I N G
L I K E A G E O L O G I S T C A N H E L P
SAVE THE WORLD

Marcia Bjornerud, Walter Schober Professor of
Environmental Studies and Professor of Geology

Our everyday lives are shaped by processes that
vastly predate us, and our habits will in turn have consequences
that will outlast us by generations. Timefulness reveals how
knowing the rhythms of Earth’s deep past and conceiving of time
as a geologist does can give us the perspective we need for a more
sustainable future. This compelling book presents a new way of
thinking about our place in time, enabling us to make decisions
on multigenerational timescales. The lifespan of Earth may seem
unfathomable compared to the brevity of human existence, but
this view of time denies our deep roots in Earth’s history—and the
magnitude of our effects.

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      On Freedom **Cass R. Sunstein**                    **From *New York Times* bestselling author Cass Sunstein, a brisk, provocative book that shows what freedom really means—and requires—today**

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From press.princeton.edu/titles/30081.html

In this pathbreaking book, New York Times bestselling author Cass Sunstein asks us to rethink freedom. He shows that freedom of choice isn’t nearly enough. To be free, we must also be able to navigate life. People often need something like a GPS device to help them get where they want to go—whether the issue involves health, money, jobs, children, or relationships.

In both rich and poor countries, citizens often have no idea how to get to their desired destination. That is why they are unfree. People also face serious problems of self-control, as many of them make decisions today that can make their lives worse tomorrow. And in some cases, we would be just as happy with other choices, whether a different partner, career, or place to live—which raises the difficult question of which outcome best promotes our well-being.

Accessible and lively, and drawing on perspectives from the humanities, religion, and the arts, as well as social science and the law, On Freedom explores a crucial dimension of the human condition that philosophers and economists have long missed—and shows what it would take to make freedom real.

Cass R. Sunstein is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School, where he is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy. From 2009 to 2012, he led the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. His many books include the New York Times bestsellers Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (with Richard H. Thaler) and The World According to Star Wars. The 2018 recipient of Norway’s Holberg Prize, he lives in Concord, Massachusetts. Twitter @CassSunstein

Reviews "This slip of a book can be quickly read, but puts forth important concepts. Its ideas will stay with readers a long time."--Publishers Weekly "[A] dazzling little book."--Times Higher Education Endorsements "Real freedom is the freedom to reach your goal, not to get lost at every turn. In this powerful book, Cass Sunstein shows when policy can help us navigate to where we want to go, where policy might overstep by choosing the end point for us, and how to tell the two apart. A delightful masterpiece."—Esther Duflo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology “On Freedom is an elegant, clear, deceptively simple book about a fiendishly complex problem. How can free societies help citizens to navigate among a perplexing multitude of forking paths, only some of which lead toward desirable ends? How is a nudge in the right direction distinct from coercion? What is the best way to enable people to choose paths that enhance life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Drawing on a wealth of probing examples from social policy, literature, and his own experience, Sunstein brilliantly illuminates the challenges that face governments and individuals and sketches plausible ways forward.”—Stephen Greenblatt, author of The Swerve: How the World Became Modern “In this eloquent and timely book, Cass Sunstein asks urgent questions relevant to the crisis of democracy in which we find ourselves. As the author has demonstrated in the past, he is a thoughtful navigator of territory we may have prematurely believed we understood."—Joyce Carol Oates “An important and engaging book on freedom and choice by a top scholar. Sunstein gives us a comprehensive and cutting-edge treatment of his enormously influential work on nudging and well-being.”—L. A. Paul, author of Transformative Experience “By redefining freedom, this becomes a book about the meaning of life.”—Robert J. Shiller, Nobel Prize–winning economist From hls.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/10871/Sunstein

Cass R. Sunstein is currently the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard. From 2009 to 2012, he was Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School. Mr. Sunstein has testified before congressional committees on many subjects, and he has been involved in constitution-making and law reform activities in a number of nations.

Mr. Sunstein is author of many articles and books, including Republic.com (2001), Risk and Reason (2002), Why Societies Need Dissent (2003), The Second Bill of Rights (2004), Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle (2005), Worst-Case Scenarios (2001), Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (with Richard H. Thaler, 2008), Simpler: The Future of Government (2013) and most recently Why Nudge? (2014) and Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas (2014). He is now working on group decisionmaking and various projects on the idea of liberty

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    Did Sir Winston Churchill suffer from the ‘black dog’?      Anthony M Daniels, J Allister Vale    **First Published** October 26, 2018 Research Article     https://doi.org/10.1177/0141076818808428                *This article is in a series from the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine on Winston Churchill's illnesses*

Introduction In 1969, the psychiatrist Anthony Storr published an essay Churchill: the Man,1 reprinted in 1980 as the first chapter of his book, Churchill's Black Dog and Other Phenomena of the Human Mind.2 This essay established very firmly in the public imagination that Sir Winston Churchill (Figure 1) suffered throughout his life from recurrent attacks of severe depression, or even manic depression (bipolar disease). Indeed, Churchill's depression is now taken for granted as being almost as much a fact of his biography as that he was born in 1874 and died in 1965.

Figure 1. Sir Winston Churchill ©Karsh of Ottowa.

Storr begins his influential and seminal essay as follows:

The psychiatrist who takes it upon himself to attempt a character study of an individual whom he has never met is engaged upon a project which is full of risk…psychiatrists who attempt biographical studies of great men are apt to allow theory to outrun discretion….1

He then throws caution to the wind. His hypothesis is as follows: Churchill was genetically predisposed to melancholia, a predisposition that was reinforced by an upbringing peculiarly liable to result in depression. His beloved mother was neglectful of him: she was more interested in the social whirl than in her offspring. His greatly admired father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was neglectful too, and in so far as he took any notice at all of the young Winston, it was to point out his deficiencies. He did not think much of his son, believing that he was not clever enough for the law and that the army would have to do for him instead. When Winston offered to be Lord Randolph's private secretary, Lord Randolph turned him down with contumely.

Not long afterwards, Storr's hypothesis continues, Lord Randolph died, and his son spent the rest of his life trying to come up to his deceased father's high standards of achievement in order to earn his love and approbation, a futile and impossible task of course because his father was dead. In the absence of demonstrative parental love, then, Winston Churchill was permanently insecure and tried to earn that love by exceptional activity and accomplishment, which caused him to be hyperactive except when it became obvious that such accomplishment would never make up for the absence of love, whereupon he became depressed. He therefore veered between hyperactivity and his Black Dog. Such is Storr's hypothesis. This is a plausible story, but of course much of the hypothesis is undermined if, in fact, Churchill did not suffer from serious depression.

Storr concluded:

It is at this point that psychoanalytic insight reveals its inadequacy. For, although I believe that the evidence shows that the conclusions reached in this chapter are justified, we are still at a loss to explain Churchill's remarkable courage. In the course of his life he experienced many reverses: disappointments which might have embittered and defeated even a man who was not afflicted by the ‘Black Dog’. Yet his dogged determination, his resilience, and his courage enabled him, until old age, to conquer his own inner enemy, just as he defeated the foes of the country he loved so well.1

The evidence that Storr adduces in favour of Churchill's supposed depression is repeated over and over again in subsequent studies, so that on reading certain passages one has a powerful sensation of déjà lu. As John Ramsden, the historian, has stated, ‘Storr's view of Churchill strongly influenced all later accounts, sometimes dangerously so in the more inexpert hands.’3

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https://press.princeton.edu/titles/13323.html

Timeless wisdom on controlling anger in personal life and politics from the Roman Stoic philosopher and statesman Seneca

In his essay “On Anger” (De Ira), the Roman Stoic thinker Seneca (c. 4 BC–65 AD) argues that anger is the most destructive passion: “No plague has cost the human race more dear.” This was proved by his own life, which he barely preserved under one wrathful emperor, Caligula, and lost under a second, Nero. This splendid new translation of essential selections from “On Anger,” presented with an enlightening introduction and the original Latin on facing pages, offers readers a timeless guide to avoiding and managing anger. It vividly illustrates why the emotion is so dangerous and why controlling it would bring vast benefits to individuals and society.

Drawing on his great arsenal of rhetoric, including historical examples (especially from Caligula’s horrific reign), anecdotes, quips, and soaring flights of eloquence, Seneca builds his case against anger with mounting intensity. Like a fire-and-brimstone preacher, he paints a grim picture of the moral perils to which anger exposes us, tracing nearly all the world’s evils to this one toxic source. But he then uplifts us with a beatific vision of the alternate path, a path of forgiveness and compassion that resonates with Christian and Buddhist ethics.

Seneca’s thoughts on anger have never been more relevant than today, when uncivil discourse has increasingly infected public debate. Whether seeking personal growth or political renewal, readers will find, in Seneca’s wisdom, a valuable antidote to the ills of an angry age.

James Romm is the editor and translator of Seneca’s How to Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life (Princeton) and the author of Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero (Knopf). He has written for the New York Review of Books and the Wall Street Journal, among other publications. He is the James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics at Bard College and lives in Barrytown, New York.

Endorsements "Few have written more eloquently and profoundly on the perils of anger than Seneca and few have translated him better than James Romm."—Ryan Holiday, coauthor of The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living “How to Keep Your Cool presents one of Seneca’s most timely essays in an attractive format that is sure to appeal to readers. James Romm’s excellent translation is more readable than any other.”—A. A. Long, author of Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life

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from David Healy's blog https://davidhealy.org/about-data-based-medicine/

Dr. David Healy Dr. David Healy is an internationally respected psychiatrist, psychopharmacologist, scientist, and author.

A professor of Psychiatry in Wales, David studied medicine in Dublin, and at Cambridge University. He is a former Secretary of the British Association for Psychopharmacology, and has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed articles, 200 other pieces, and 20 books, including The Antidepressant Era and The Creation of Psychopharmacology from Harvard University Press, The Psychopharmacologists Volumes 1-3 and Let Them Eat Prozac from New York University Press, and Mania from Johns Hopkins University Press.

David’s latest book, Pharmageddon, documents the riveting and terrifying story of how pharmaceutical companies have hijacked healthcare in America and the life-threatening results.

David’s main areas of research are clinical trials in psychopharmacology, the history of psychopharmacology, and the impact of both trials and psychotropic drugs on our culture.

He has been involved as an expert witness in homicide and suicide trials involving psychotropic drugs, and in bringing problems with these drugs to the attention of American and British regulators, as well raising awareness of how pharmaceutical companies sell drugs by marketing diseases and co-opting academic opinion-leaders, ghost-writing their articles.

David is a founder and CEO of Data Based Medicine Limited, which operates through its website RxISK.org, dedicated to making medicines safer through online direct patient reporting of drug side effects.

David and his colleagues recently established RxISK eConsult, an online medication consultation service to answer the question “Could it be my meds?”

About Data Based Medicine Adverse drug events are now the fourth leading cause of death in hospitals It’s a reasonable bet they are an even greater cause of death in non-hospital settings where there is no one to monitor things going wrong and no one to intervene to save a life. In mental health for instance drug-induced problems are the leading cause of death — and these deaths happen in community rather than hospital settings.

There is also another drug crisis — we are failing to discover new drugs. These two crises may be linked in that detecting adverse events on drugs is still the best way to discover a new use for a drug, and new drugs. But there are fewer and fewer incentives for anyone to recognize adverse events. Companies are blocking efforts to detect problems and in so doing are sawing off the branch on which they are sitting. Doctors are neutering themselves by failing to recognize and treat what should be the most recognizable threat to life and moreover the most eminently treatable cause of death in the world today.

A century ago Freud drew our attention to the many ways in which speech could be biased. Half a century ago clinical trials drew our attention to the biases that both doctors and patients bring to therapy. Just as Freud’s insights once made it difficult for anyone to accept things that were said at face value, so clinical trials and evidence-based medicine have created a culture that makes it increasingly difficult for doctors or patients to spot what is right in front of our own eyes. Ultimately Freud ended up being used to explain away or deny claims of abuse that we now know were happening, and in much the same way companies and doctors are now using trial data, or the lack of it, as a drunk uses a lamppost — for support rather than illumination. Just as a point came at which claims of abuse could no longer be denied, we may be nearing a point where treatment-induced problems will have to be recognized.

This blog aims at raising the profile of this interlocked set of problems and the need for Data Based Medicine. See my first blog post for a full discussion of what I hope this blog can help achieve.

David Healy
January 2012

 Int J Risk Saf Med. 2019;30(1):1-7. doi: 10.3233/JRS-180746. Paediatric antidepressants: Benefits and risks.  Healy D1, Le Noury J2, Jureidini J3.  Author information   Abstract  The data supporting the use of "antidepressants" in children and adolescents is largely unavailable. Academic publications give a different picture as regards benefits and harms to publications from regulatory other sources. Despite disagreements about the data driving use of these medicines, in practice "antidepressants" may now be the most commonly used drugs by adolescent girls, and children's mental health services are attracting increasing attention.This paper reviews the difficulties surrounding the data. It outlines a case for benefits (as well as risks) that would require physicians to exert a greater degree of professional autonomy than service managers might wish.

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The Inflamed Mind A radical new approach to depression by Edward Bullmore You can also listen to this interview on a free app on iTunes and Google Play Store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience and mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. Download it free from these links. Don't forget to check out the bonus content button on the app.

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Worldwide, depression will be the single biggest cause of disability in the next 20 years. But treatment for it has not changed much in the last three decades. In the world of psychiatry, time has apparently stood still… until now.

In this game-changing book, University of Cambridge Professor Edward Bullmore reveals the breakthrough new science on the link between depression and inflammation of the body and brain. He explains how and why we now know that mental disorders can have their root cause in the immune system, and outlines a future revolution in which treatments could be specifically targeted to break the vicious cycle of stress, inflammation and depression.

The Inflamed Mind goes far beyond the clinic and the lab, representing a whole new way of looking at how mind, brain and body all work together in a sometimes misguided effort to help us survive in a hostile world. It offers insights into the story of Western medicine, how we have got it wrong as well as right in the past, and how we could start getting to grips with depression and other mental disorders much more effectively in the future.

www.theinflamedmind.co.uk

““This is an important book, a hopeful book, for anyone who wants to think about depression in a new way.” ”
Tom Insel, MD, Co-founder and President, Mindstrong Health

““The Inflamed Mind is not only a dramatic breakthrough in our understanding of depression. It is an extraordinary exploration of what it is to be human.””
Matthew D'Ancona, author of 'Post Truth'

“"Suddenly an expert who wants to stop and question everything we thought we knew... This is a lesson in the workings of the brain far too important to ignore."”
Jeremy Vine, BBC

About Edward Bullmore Professor Edward Bullmore MB PhD FRCP FRCPsych FMedSci trained in medicine at the University of Oxford and then at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. After working as a physician in London and in the University of Hong Kong, he trained as a psychiatrist at St George’s Hospital and the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospitals in London, and as a clinical scientist at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London. He has been a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge since 1999 and is currently Head of the Department of Psychiatry and Director of the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences. Since 2005, he has also worked half-time for GlaxoSmithKline and is currently leading an academic-industrial partnership for the development of new anti-inflammatory drugs for depression. He is a world expert in neuroscience and mental health.

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Charis E. Kubrin Professor of Criminology, Law and Society
Ph.D., University of Washington

 You can also listen to this interview on a free app on iTunes and Google Play Store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience and mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. Download it free from these links. Don't forget to check out the bonus content button on the app. https://play.google.com/store/apps/de... https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-ra...

Charis E. Kubrin is Professor of Criminology, Law and Society and (by courtesy) Sociology. Professor Kubrin’s research focuses on neighborhoods, race, and violence as central to social disorganization theory. A related line of research examines the intersection of music, culture and social identity, particularly as it applies to hip-hop and minority youth in disadvantaged communities. In 2005, Professor Kubrin received the Ruth Shonle Cavan Young Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology (a national award given to recognize outstanding scholarly contributions to the discipline of criminology) and the Morris Rosenberg Award for Recent Achievement from the District of Columbia Sociological Society (given to recognize outstanding sociological achievement during the past three years). In 2014, Professor Kubrin received the University of California, Irvine, School of Social Ecology, Dean’s Diversity Research Award (given to recognize excellence in research on diversity and inclusion) and the American Society of Criminology, Division on People of Color and Crime, Coramae Richey Mann Award (for outstanding contributions of scholarship on race/ethnicity, crime, and justice). Most recently, she received the W.E.B. DuBois Award from the Western Society of Criminology (for significant contributions to racial and ethnic issues in the field of criminology). In 2007, she was a visiting fellow at the Centre for Criminology at Oxford University.

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       The Tyranny of Metrics **Jerry Z. Muller**         You can also listen to this interview on a free app on iTunes and Google Play Store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience and mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. Download it free from these links. Don't forget to check out the bonus content button on the app.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id927466223?

For more information on this book and how to order it go to https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11218.html How the obsession with quantifying human performance threatens our schools, medical care, businesses, and government

Today, organizations of all kinds are ruled by the belief that the path to success is quantifying human performance, publicizing the results, and dividing up the rewards based on the numbers. But in our zeal to instill the evaluation process with scientific rigor, we've gone from measuring performance to fixating on measuring itself. The result is a tyranny of metrics that threatens the quality of our lives and most important institutions. In this timely and powerful book, Jerry Muller uncovers the damage our obsession with metrics is causing—and shows how we can begin to fix the problem.

Filled with examples from education, medicine, business and finance, government, the police and military, and philanthropy and foreign aid, this brief and accessible book explains why the seemingly irresistible pressure to quantify performance distorts and distracts, whether by encouraging "gaming the stats" or "teaching to the test." That's because what can and does get measured is not always worth measuring, may not be what we really want to know, and may draw effort away from the things we care about. Along the way, we learn why paying for measured performance doesn't work, why surgical scorecards may increase deaths, and much more. But metrics can be good when used as a complement to—rather than a replacement for—judgment based on personal experience, and Muller also gives examples of when metrics have been beneficial.

Complete with a checklist of when and how to use metrics, The Tyranny of Metrics is an essential corrective to a rarely questioned trend that increasingly affects us all.

Jerry Z. Muller is the author of many books, including The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Modern European Thought (Knopf), Adam Smith in His Time and Ours(Princeton), and Capitalism and the Jews (Princeton). His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Times Literary Supplement, and Foreign Affairs, among other publications. He is professor of history at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Q & A with Jerry Z. Muller Jerry Z. Muller Photo Credit Claudio Vasquez An interview with Jerry Z. Muller, author of The Tyranny of Metrics
What’s the main idea?
We increasingly live in a culture of metric fixation: the belief in so many organizations that scientific management means replacing judgment based upon experience and talent with standardized measures of performance, and then rewarding or punishing individuals and organizations based upon those measures. The buzzwords of metric fixation are all around us: “metrics,” “accountability,” “assessment,” and “transparency.” Though often characterized as “best practice,” metric fixation is in fact often counterproductive, with costs to individual satisfaction with work, organizational effectiveness, and economic growth.

The Tyranny of Metrics treats metric fixation as the organizational equivalent of The Emperor’s New Clothes. It helps explain why metric fixation has become so popular, why it is so often counterproductive, and why some people have an interest in pushing it. It is a book that analyzes and critiques a dominant fashion in contemporary organizational culture, with an eye to making life in organizations more satisfying and productive.

Can you give a few examples of the “tyranny of metrics?”
Sure. In medicine, you have the phenomenon of “surgical report cards” that purport to show the success rates of surgeons who perform a particular procedure, such as cardiac operations. The scores are publicly reported. In an effort to raise their scores, surgeons were found to avoid operating on patients whose complicated circumstances made a successful operation less likely. So, the surgeons raised their scores. But some cardiac patients who might have benefited from an operation failed to get one—and died as a result. That’s what we call “creaming”—only dealing with cases most likely to be successful.

Then there is the phenomenon of goal diversion. A great deal of K-12 education has been distorted by the emphasis that teachers are forced to place on preparing students for standardized tests of English and math, where the results of the tests influence teacher retention or school closings. Teachers are instructed to focus class time on the elements of the subject that are tested (such as reading short prose passages), while ignoring those elements that are not (such as novels). Subjects that are not tested—including civics, art, and history—receive little attention.

Or, to take an example from the world of business. In 2011 the Wells Fargo bank set high quotas for its employees to sign up customers who were interested in one of its products (say, a deposit account) for additional services, such as overdraft coverage or credit cards. For the bank’s employees, failure to reach the quota meant working additional hours without pay and the threat of termination. The result: to reach their quotas, thousands of bankers resorted to low-level fraud, with disastrous effects for the bank. It was forced to pay a fortune in fines, and its stock price dropped.

Why is the book called The Tyranny of Metrics?
Because it helps explain and articulate the sense of frustration and oppression that people in a wide range of organizations feel at the diversion of their time and energy to performance measurement that is wasteful and counterproductive.

What sort of organizations does the book deal with?
There are chapters devoted to colleges and universities, K-12 education, medicine and health care, business and finance, non-profits and philanthropic organizations, policing, and the military. The goal is not to be definitive about any of these realms, but to explore instances in which metrics of measured performance have been functional or dysfunctional, and then to draw useful generalizations about the use and misuse of metrics.

What sort of a book is it? Does it belong to any particular discipline or political ideology?
It’s a work of synthesis, drawing on a wide range of studies and analyses from psychology, sociology, economics, political science, philosophy, organizational behavior, history, and other fields. But it’s written in jargon-free prose, that doesn’t require prior knowledge of any of these fields. Princeton University Press has it classified under “Business,” “Public Policy,” and “Current Affairs.” That’s accurate enough, but it only begins to suggest the ubiquity of the cultural pattern that the book depicts, analyzes, and critiques. The book makes use of conservative, liberal, Marxist, and anarchist authors—some of whom have surprising areas of analytic convergence.

What’s the geographic scope of the book?
In the first instance, the United States. There is also a lot of attention to Great Britain, which in many respects was at the leading edge of metric fixation in the government’s treatment of higher education (from the “Teaching Quality Assessment” through the “Research Excellence Framework”), health care (the NHS) and policing, under the rubric of “New Public Management.” From the US and Great Britain, metric fixation—often carried by consultants touting “best practice”—has spread to Continental Europe, the Anglosphere, Asia, and especially China (where the quest for measured performance and university rankings is having a particularly pernicious effect on science and higher education).

Is the book simply a manifesto against performance measurement?
By no means. Drawing on a wide range of case studies from education to medicine to the military, the book shows how measured performance can be developed and used in positive ways.

Who do you hope will read the book?
Everyone who works in an organization, manages an organization, or supervises an organization, whether in the for-profit, non-profit, or government sector. Or anyone who wants to understand this dominant organizational culture and its intrinsic weaknesses.

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The untold story of how hereditary data in mental hospitals gave rise to the science of human heredity

https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11242.html

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In the early 1800s, a century before there was any concept of the gene, physicians in insane asylums began to record causes of madness in their admission books. Almost from the beginning, they pointed to heredity as the most important of these causes. As doctors and state officials steadily lost faith in the capacity of asylum care to stem the terrible increase of insanity, they began emphasizing the need to curb the reproduction of the insane. They became obsessed with identifying weak or tainted families and anticipating the outcomes of their marriages. Genetics in the Madhouse is the untold story of how the collection and sorting of hereditary data in mental hospitals, schools for "feebleminded" children, and prisons gave rise to a new science of human heredity.

In this compelling book, Theodore Porter draws on untapped archival evidence from across Europe and North America to bring to light the hidden history behind modern genetics. He looks at the institutional use of pedigree charts, censuses of mental illness, medical-social surveys, and other data techniques--innovative quantitative practices that were worked out in the madhouse long before the manipulation of DNA became possible in the lab. Porter argues that asylum doctors developed many of the ideologies and methods of what would come to be known as eugenics, and deepens our appreciation of the moral issues at stake in data work conducted on the border of subjectivity and science.

A bold rethinking of asylum work, Genetics in the Madhouse shows how heredity was a human science as well as a medical and biological one.

Theodore M. Porter is Distinguished Professor of History and holds the Peter Reill Chair at the University of California, Los Angeles. His books include Karl Pearson: The Scientific Life in a Statistical Age, Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life, and The Rise of Statistical Thinking, 1820–1900 (all Princeton). He lives in Altadena, California.

Reviews "I suspect this bold, dauntingly well-documented book will prove difficult to dismiss."--David Dobbs, Nature "By following the technologies of paperwork and data collection, Porter has unearthed a radically new history of human genetics, one that evokes not the double helix but the humble filing cabinet."--Emily M. Kern, Science "Fascinating but scary. Genetics in the Madhouse . . . uses date collection in psychiatric hospitals to show the stages when research straddles subjectivity and science."--Liz Else and Simon Ings, New Scientist "Porter takes a fascinating look at early attempts to tame unruly minds with big data and statistics."--Bruce Bower, Science News "[An] absorbing account of the role played by mental illness studies in gaining an early understanding of human heredity."--Robin McKie, The Observer "Genetics in the Madhouse provides a fascinating examination of investigations of human heredity, conducted long before DNA could be studied in laboratories."--Glenn Altschuler, Philadelphia Inquirer Endorsements "We’ve all been taught how genetics got its start in Mendel’s pea patch. But the real story is more complicated, and a lot more interesting. In Genetics in the Madhouse, Theodore Porter chronicles some of the early history of heredity—not in gardens, but in asylums. The book is a fascinating exploration of the long-running conviction that madness, criminality, and other mental traits can be passed down from parent to child."—Carl Zimmer, author of She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity "Porter’s masterful book casts the fresh light of sanity over a previously uncharted sea of data on madness. He brings analytical order to an intriguingly chaotic subject, illuminating the challenges of ‘big data’ from a past era when the plasticity of categorization resulted in data being deduced from conclusions, a problem with uncanny similarities to those we face today."—Stephen M. Stigler, author of The Seven Pillars of Statistical Wisdom "Porter brilliantly reveals the debt that the science of human heredity owes to the data gathering, numerical tables, and statistical interpretations that emerged from attempts to account for mental and physical disease among patients in asylums, hospitals, and prisons. Richly informed by archival sources, his book is masterfully argued, lucidly written, and boldly original. A landmark in the history of medicine, science, and mental illness."—Daniel J. Kevles, author of In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity "Porter serves as a captivating and intriguing guide into the largely uncredited history of statistical and genetic data derived from the pre-Mendelian asylums, prisons, and schools. Genetics in the Madhouse succeeds in illuminating our present concepts of heredity and eugenics by leaning into the complexities of human science."—Aaron T. Beck, University of Pennsylvania "Genetics in the Madhouse is a fascinating examination of the role played by big data in the history of genetics and its subsequent exploitation in the disgraced science of eugenics. Porter weaves together complex elements of historical influences, personalities, and seismic events almost like a novel, but the difference is that his story cannot have a neat and tidy resolution. Beautifully written and admirably researched, this is an enthralling book."—Catharine Arnold, author of Bedlam: London and Its Mad "Important and original. Drawing on a wealth of archival research in many languages across many different national settings, Porter reexamines the role of psychiatry in the study of human heredity. Genetics in the Madhouse is an enormously impressive book."—Andrew Scull, author of Madness in Civilization: A Cultural History of Insanity, from the Bible to Freud, from the Madhouse to Modern Medicine "A very significant contribution to the history of the human sciences, statistics, and eugenics. Porter rewards readers not only with astonishing insights into nineteenth-century data collection on the mentally ill and feebleminded, but also with the pleasure of reading a good, intriguing story."—Staffan Müller-Wille, coauthor of A Cultural History of Heredity Theodore Porter *http://www.history.ucla.edu/faculty/theodore-porter Distinguished Professor of History & Vice Chair for Academic Personnel I teach various topics pertaining more or less directly to history of science. My first book, The Rise of Statistical Thinking (1986), was about the development of statistical ideas and methods in fields ranging from the social science of statistics to biological evolution and thermodynamics. This interest in the relations of the natural and the social is also central to my Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life*** (1995). There I emphasize that effective quantification is never a matter simply of discovery, but always also of administration, hence of social and technological power. Quantitative objectivity is in a way a form of standardization, the use of rules to confine and tame the personal and subjective. Science did not always idealize this mechanical form of objectivity, but has come to do so (at least in its rhetoric) as an adaptation to modern political and administrative cultures—which it at the same time has helped to shape. In both of these books I invert the usual account of the relations between natural and social science, by showing how some of the crucial assumptions and methods of science arose within contexts of application. The history of quantification is the history of a social technology, reflecting a sensibility that is as closely linked to fields like accounting and cost-benefit analysis and to social science as to physics. The ethic of systematic calculation as a basis for social decisions—and often, as in inferential statistics, also for scientific demonstration—responds to a political culture marked by distrust of elites and even, in a way, of experts.

In 2003, Dorothy Ross and I completed a book on the history of the social sciences, volume VII of The Cambridge History of Science volume on The Modern Social Sciences (2003). This is our pioneering effort to provide a synthetic history of social science since the eighteenth century, in relation to each other and to the sciences of nature. The volume tells a story not of detached knowledge, but of tools, theories, and images that have helped to create the modern world.

My most recent book is Karl Pearson: The Scientific Life in a Statistical Age (2004). This is a biographical study of a scientist who was ever in revolt against the confines of this or any professional identity and who lived his life, with conscious reference to Goethe, as a bildungsroman. At the age of 23, after his German Wanderjahre, he published a fictionalized autobiography under the title The New Werther, and followed it with a passion play for the nineteenth-century. For a decade after that he threw himself into writings on socialism, on the cultural history of the German Reformation (he loathed Martin Luther), and on sexuality, friendship, and the status of women. I’ve been fascinated by the continuities between his works and experiences in these years and the statistical labors that absorbed him after about 1892. I am interested, too, in his deep relationship to nature as an object of passionate attraction, which yet, when approached in the true spirit of science, must always be remote. Pearson’s life displays a deep and revealing ambivalence between scientific method as a way of controlling the merely personal and science as an expression of individuality that is inseparable from wisdom and maturity. Finally, I think I have learned some new things about the relation of statistics to all of this, as well as to ether theories in physics and graphical methods in engineering instruction.

I have advised or am advising graduate students working on a variety of historical topics: science and rational leisure; social science and colonial administration; nature and imperialism in the North Atlantic; Chinese mathematics; the British census; scientific exchanges in the Eastern Mediterranean; psychical research; museums and ethnology in imperial Germany..

My current book project, which I intend to finish during my stay at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in 2013-14, is about this history of human heredity, and more particularly how insane asylums and related institutions became important sites for recordkeeping on conditions regarded as hereditary, and for research on their presumed inheritance. These institutions developed the ideologies and some of the research methods of eugenics decades before Francis Galton announced this biological human science. From the beginning it was a science of data and statistics. The history of data practices and analysis is as central to the history of genetics and genomics as is the more familiar story of Mendelian breeding, fruit flies, and the decoding of DNA. This project highlights the key role of social and medical institutions, and of the expansion of state activities, in the rise of genetics, and conversely of hereditary ideas and practices in the shaping of welfare states.

On the back burner just now, but likely to develop before too long into a book, is a project on the contradictions of quantification at the intersection of science and government. An ethic of the simple fact, typically in numerical form, grew up over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, less as an export of science than as a political and bureaucratic role for which certain tools of science have been shaped. The ideal has been to reconcile central control with local autonomy, but the required faith in what I call “thin description” is often undermined by creative deception. Ambitions for “evidence-based” practices under the neo-liberal governance have formed an unprecedented vulnerability to Funny Numbers (my working title).

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You can also listen to this interview on a free app on iTunes and google play store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. Download it free from these links

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id927466223?

David Humbert discusses with psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud his new book on Violence in the Films of Alfred Hitchcock and uses a depth psychological analysis to show that there are often hidden layers of meaning behind the use of violence in film. This analysis also helps us understand ourselves better and why we turn to anger and violence ourselves.

http://msupress.org/books/book/?id=50-1D0-3FC2#.Wv_WB4iUuUk

Violence in the Films of Alfred Hitchcock A Study in Mimesis David Humbert Parting ways with the Freudian and Lacanian readings that have dominated recent scholarly understanding of Hitchcock, David Humbert examines the roots of violence in the director’s narratives and finds them not in human sexuality but in mimesis. Through an analysis of seven key films, he argues that Girard’s model of mimetic desire—desire oriented by imitation of and competition with others—best explains a variety of well-recognized themes, including the MacGuffin, the double, the innocent victim, the wrong man, the transfer of guilt, and the scapegoat. This study will appeal not only to Hitchcock fans and film scholars but also to those interested in Freud and Girard and their competing theories of desire.
Subjects: Religion | Psychology | Film Studies Series: Studies in Violence, Mimesis, & Culture Publication Date: May 1st, 2017 210 pages| 6 in x 9 in Michigan State University Press “This book is a brilliant response to a famous volume edited by Slavoj Žižek in which Jacques Lacan takes the place of René Girard. The author convinces us that one of the best guides to understanding Girard is Hitchcock’s filmography. The anguish of the wrongly accused, the irresistible escalation of violence, and the independence of desire from its object are all ingredients of the Hitchcockian suspense, and we follow the author’s analyses with the same pleasure as we watched the movies.”
—Jean-Pierre Dupuy, author of The Mark of the Sacred

“Humbert’s commentary is an excellent introduction both to Girard’s thought and to Hitchcock. And a welcome addition to film studies. That postmodern garden has long since gone to weed, overrun by an ‘emancipatory’ obsession with sex that would draw us down the rabbit hole into the lost world of gender theory, where everything is fungible and whose motto must be, ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.’ Humbert’s book begins to clear out the post-Freudian staleness with a breath of fresh critical air. This book is very well-written and easily accessible. Its interest is not confined to the specialist and academic, as postmodern theory is by definition, but generously welcomes the lay reader and the student as well. Highly recommended.”
—Stephen Gardner, Associate Professor of Philosophy, The University of Tulsa

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| You can also listen to this interview on a free app on iTunes and google play store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. Download it free from these links https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id927466223?mt=8 The Voices Within http://www.charlesfernyhough.com/tvw.html The Voices Within is a book about the voices in our heads. It is published by Basic Books in the US and by Profile Books/Wellcome Collection in the UK. The Voices Within was picked as a top neuroscience book of 2016 by Forbes and a science book of the year by the Observer and ABC. It was chosen as a top spring science book by Nature and selected as a summer reading pick in the Guardian and Times Higher Education. It was the subject of an essay-review in the New Yorker. I spoke about the themes of the book on the Diane Rehm Show, and discussed them in this Q&A with The Atlantic. These pieces for TIME Ideas and the LA Times explore the benefits of talking to yourself. I spoke about these ideas on BBC Radio 4's Start the Week; you can listen again here. You can also see me speaking about the themes of the book in this talk for 5x15 and in this Royal Institution lecture. The book featured in a Guardian Books podcast. An abridged extract from the book was published by BBC Future. Translation agreements have been concluded for German, Spanish, French, Turkish, Italian, Korean and simplified Chinese. Order from the Guardian Bookshop, Hive.co.uk or Amazon.com. | | | 'A lucid, authoritative survey of our current knowledge… The author’s investigations, at once scientific and humane, represent the discipline of psychology at its rare best.' Raymond Tallis, Wall Street Journal 'An intriguing and deeply humane book… particularly good when addressing the role of inner voices in creativity… In ‘The Voices Within’, [Fernyhough] has again rendered complicated mental experience without losing its human texture.' Casey Schwartz, New York Times Book Review 'Fernyhough’s book … provides enough science to ground the argument, but the real achievement here is the writing. The author is a psychologist and a novelist, and his prose has a narrative feel that separates it from most books on the psych shelf. The subject is one of the tough brain conundrums that’s far from settled; we’ll be trying to figure out the role of the inner voice long from now, but Fernyhough’s book is a readable take on what we know and where the questions may go next.' David DiSalvo, Forbes Brain Books of 2016. 'From explaining the hurdles of studying our internal dialogue to setting the record straight on schizophrenia and “hearing voices,” this book is a must-read for those seeking to understand the voices in their heads.' DiscoverMagazine 'Fernyhough has built up an interesting picture of inner speech and its functions… making a case for the role of inner speech in memory, sports performance, religious revelation, psychotherapy, and literary fiction.' The New Yorker 'This sophisticated and appealing work scrutinizes a tangled topic with aplomb and will leave readers permanently observing their own thought processes differently. Perfect for readers of Oliver Sacks and Malcolm Gladwell.' Booklist (starred review) 'After reading the book, I couldn’t help noticing my thoughts more closely—asking myself, Is this dialogic thinking? or What perspective was that voice taking?At one point, there’s mention of “the idea that, when we internalise dialogue, we internalise other people. Our brains, like our minds, are full of voices.” For me, at least for now, one of those voices is Fernyhough’s.' New York Magazine, The Science of Us | | | 'Though the book is not about creativity per se, one of its highlights is its fascinating insight into the process of artistic creation, particularly writing. In another high point, the narrative gently prods readers into a wider and more empathetic view of pathologies such as aural hallucinations. Fernyhough's book is a valuable addition to the literature surrounding the unending human quest to understand the location—and the creation—of the self.' Publishers Weekly 'Fernyhough examines the phenomenon of "inner voices," which manifests in two broad components: the more or less ordinary business of talking to oneself and the more fraught existence of voices inside one's head... with much to say about how the brain works at the interface of thought and language.' Kirkus Reviews 'This expansive review offers a stimulating blend of theory, research, and insight on inner speech and voice hearing that will complement more prevalent behaviorist and biomedical perspectives.' Library Journal 'A book that will challenge some of our preconceptions about how we think and how "the voices within" may be plentiful, or infrequent, helpful or problematic and variable from person-to-person. This is a valuable book for those who want to understand one important aspect of our human mind.' New York Journal of Books 'Intriguingly challenges conventional assumptions about the self as unified and coherent, while also posing the question: how might that which we deem pathological be shaped by the mores of our times?' Christine Gross-Loh, Guardian summer reading picks. 'As enlightening as it is surprising… By entwining inner voice theories, research, and data into easy-to-digest literary, pop culture, and personal anecdotes, Fernyhough has (quite intentionally) crafted a book that reads like a novel but never strays from its carefully examined scientific foundation.' Kirkus Reviews author interview 'Charles Fernyhough isn't just a scholar and a scientist, he is also a novelist, and this book reflects his unusual combination of gifts. It is an engaging and humane exploration of the experience of voices in our heads, delving into the origin of these voices in children, their contribution to problem-solving, creativity, and religious experience, their role in madness, and much else. This is a beautifully written and fascinating work.' Paul Bloom, Professor of Psychology at Yale University, and author of Just Babies 'Perceptive, illuminating and humane.' Gavin Francis, author of Adventures in Human Being 'Fascinating and elegantly humane... [Fernyhough’s] book is refreshingly interdisciplinary in its insistence that philosophy and literature are going to be just as important investigative tools for this subject as clinical psychology and brain scan.' Steven Poole, Guardian Fascinating… the book traces in detail (the footnotes are just as interesting as the text) the various attempts to pin down inner voices… an expert blend of the scientific and artistic.' Erica Wagner, New Statesman 'Persuasively unravels connections between the voices we hear inside and the words we say out loud... an elegantly written survey.' Nick Rennison, Sunday Times 'If Fernyhough is to be believed, there is a sense in which we are visited all the time by good or bad angels and it is the ability to question and discriminate that distinguishes creative thoughtfulness from madness... His book, The Voices Within, is the intriguing result of his research.' Salley Vickers, Observer 'Fascinating… thought provoking… intriguing… clear presentation of the slippery nature of both our inner and spoken worlds.' Suzanne O’Sullivan, Lancet 'Stimulating and fruitful... A fascinating tour d'horizon.' Mike Jay, Literary Review 'Profound and eloquent... an intriguing array of fresh findings and perspectives.' Douwe Draaisma, Nature 'Compelling… reassures those of us who worry that we have a chorus of voices jabbering in our heads.' Mail on Sunday 'This is a truly exceptional book for its scope, richness of detail and originality… a book that informs as well as provoking thought and reflection… It is quite simply a remarkable book.' British Journal of Psychiatry 'With its extensive illustrations of the creative effects of inner speech and voice-hearing, sane and mad, [The Voices Within] is a thought-provoking and engaging read.' Times Higher Education 'Fernyhough presents his work as a wide-ranging investigation, spanning psychological research – including the brain-plundering marvels of fMRI – as well as philosophy, spirituality, literature and the arts. If there’s a drawback to The Voices Within, it’s that it may make you spend even more of your waking hours listening to yourself think.' The Saturday Paper(Australia) 'Utterly fascinating... the main joy of Fernyhough’s book comes from watching him chase down the faintest conceptual ripples extending outward from the ideas he discusses.' The National (UAE) 'A surprisingly humanitarian approach to a necessarily human topic… a vital, illuminating, engaging exploration of the things that make us who we are.' Ilkley Gazette 'Most of us talk to ourselves. In fact, many people describe their thoughts as being like a conversation between the different voices of their consciousness. In his eye-opening new book, Charles Fernyhough explores this inner speech, revealing what purpose it serves, what it says about us, and what it can tell us about those who experience hallucinated voices.' BBC Science Focus

| Biography I was born in Chelmsford, Essex, in 1968, and educated at Brentwood School, Essex, and Queens’ College, Cambridge, where I read Natural Sciences. I returned to Cambridge to study for a PhD in Developmental Psychology, which I was awarded in 1995. My writing has been published in several anthologies, including New Writing 11 and New Writing 14, and my books have been translated into eleven languages. | Photo credit: Ben Gilbert/Wellcome Images | | My awards include a Time to Write Award from the Northern Writers’ Awards and an Arts Council of England Grant for the Arts I have taught creative writing, with a particular focus on psychological processes in reading and writing, in a variety of contexts around the UK, including a short course on Creative Writing and Psychology at Newcastle University. Between 2004 and 2006 I worked as a mentor on the British Council’s Crossing Borders project for African writers. I have appeared at festivals in Barcelona, Sydney, Durham, Newcastle, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Hay-on-Wye, LSE, Wigtown and Bath. I work as a part-time Professor of Psychology at Durham University, with interests in child development, memory and hallucinations. |

photo credit, it’s Ben Gilbert/Wellcome Images |

The Voices Within: The History and Science of How We Talk to Ourselves

The Voices Within: The History and Science of How We Talk to Ourselves (Wellcome)

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Dr Charlotte Hanlon is a British psychiatrist who lives and works in Ethiopia, linked to Addis Ababa University and King’s College London. Dr Hanlon provides clinical supervision to psychiatric trainees working in general adult psychiatry in Ethiopia. She co-ordinates a PhD programme in mental health epidemiology at Addis Ababa University, from which 6 Ethiopian students have graduated and a further 20 students are enrolled. Her research interests focus on public mental health, women’s mental health, cultural validity of measurement, intervention studies and health service and system implementation research. She is research director for the Programme for Improving Mental health carE (PRIME:www.prime.uct.ac.za) which is developing evidence to support scale-up of integrated mental health care, and country lead for the ASSET project (health system strengthening in sub-Saharan Africa: https://www.healthasset.org) and PST project (adaptation and piloting parent skills training for child developmental disorders).

Dr Hanlon works to support efforts of the Federal Ministry of Health to scale up mental health care in Ethiopia and is a member of the Ministry’s technical working group on mental health. Dr Hanlon and Professor Vikram Patel have just co-edited a revised version of Where there is no Psychiatrist (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/where-there-is-no-psychiatrist/47578A845CAFC7E23A181749A4190B54) to support the delivery of integrated mental health care in primary care settings.

Dr. Hanlon received her PhD in psychiatric epidemiology from the University of London, a master's in epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and her medical degree from the University of Oxford.

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https://www.amazon.co.uk/Delusions-Understanding-understandable-Peter-McKenna-ebook/dp/B07314FDKD

Delusions, in their many different manifestations, are central to the concepts of madness and psychosis. Yet what causes them remains in many ways a complete mystery. McKenna's Delusions is the first comprehensive attempt to tackle one of the most arresting phenomena in psychiatry: an in-depth and critical review of what delusions are, the forms they can take and how they might be explained from both psychological and biological perspectives. Delusions covers key topics such as the clinical features of delusions, the disorders they are seen in, other oddities that resemble them in both health and disease and the different approaches that have been taken to try and understand them. It is an essential book for psychiatrists and psychologists who work with delusional patients, as well as being of interest to neuroscientists engaged in research into major psychiatric disorders.

Peter McKenna qualified in medicine in the university of Birmingham and has a degree in psychology and physiology from the university of Oxford. He worked as a clinical psychiatrist in Cambridge and then became professor of psychiatry in Glasgow. His research focuses on neuropsychological aspects of schizophrenia and other major mental disorders and their relationship to symptoms and brain function. He has published over 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals and is the author of a book on schizophrenia (currently in its 2nd edition). He is also, with a linguist, Tomasina Oh, the co-author of a book on on disordered speech in schizophrenia. For the last five years he has worked as a senior researcher in FIDMAG and is a principal investigator in the CIBERSAM mental health research network.

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Delusions: Understanding the Un-understandable

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Could you live to 120 years old? Is all disease just a manifestation of a more fundamental biological process referred to aging? Why do we get old and get sick? A revolutionary new approach to aging and disease is being pioneered by one of the foremost authorities on longevity Dr Valter Longo. Dr Raj Persaud interviews him about his latest research and new book. Professor Longo's research suggests that living to 120 is entirely possible and that the average human lifespan could end up being 110 if the right diet and lifestyle is followed. From https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/valter-longo/133188/ Biography Dr Valter Longo was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1967. He is one of the world leaders in the field of aging and aging-related diseases and has published over 120 papers which include the discovery of some of the genes responsible for longevity and the identification of a genetic mutation protecting humans from some of the most common diseases.

He is currently a professor of Biogerontology and Director of the Longevity Institute in the School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. This is his first commercial book.

Valter Longo, PhD, is the Edna Jones Professor in Gerontology and Professor in Biological Science. He is also the Director of the USC Longevity Institute. He is interested in understanding the fundamental mechanisms of aging in yeast, mice and humans by using genetics and biochemistry techniques. He is also interested in identifying the molecular pathways conserved from simple organisms to humans that can be modulated to protect against multiple stresses and treat or prevent cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease and other diseases of aging. The focus is on the signal transduction pathways that regulate resistance to oxidative damage in yeast and mice.

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You can also listen to this podcast using the free app 'Raj Persaud in Conversation' for Android and Apple mobile devices; the app gives you access to more interviews with world class experts plus more free information and bonus content on the latest cutting edge psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy, self-help, social science and neuroscience then any other app and is available free from itunes app store and Google Play Store - click on these links https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id927466223?mt=8 If you are having difficulty viewing any of the content on the app, or the latest updates or bonus content, just uninstall it and re-install it. Why Enlightenment culture sparked the Industrial Revolution press.princeton.edu/titles/10835.html

During the late eighteenth century, innovations in Europe triggered the Industrial Revolution and the sustained economic progress that spread across the globe. While much has been made of the details of the Industrial Revolution, what remains a mystery is why it took place at all. Why did this revolution begin in the West and not elsewhere, and why did it continue, leading to today's unprecedented prosperity? In this groundbreaking book, celebrated economic historian Joel Mokyr argues that a culture of growth specific to early modern Europe and the European Enlightenment laid the foundations for the scientific advances and pioneering inventions that would instigate explosive technological and economic development. Bringing together economics, the history of science and technology, and models of cultural evolution, Mokyr demonstrates that culture—the beliefs, values, and preferences in society that are capable of changing behavior—was a deciding factor in societal transformations.

Mokyr looks at the period 1500–1700 to show that a politically fragmented Europe fostered a competitive "market for ideas" and a willingness to investigate the secrets of nature. At the same time, a transnational community of brilliant thinkers known as the “Republic of Letters” freely circulated and distributed ideas and writings. This political fragmentation and the supportive intellectual environment explain how the Industrial Revolution happened in Europe but not China, despite similar levels of technology and intellectual activity. In Europe, heterodox and creative thinkers could find sanctuary in other countries and spread their thinking across borders. In contrast, China’s version of the Enlightenment remained controlled by the ruling elite.

Combining ideas from economics and cultural evolution, A Culture of Growth provides startling reasons for why the foundations of our modern economy were laid in the mere two centuries between Columbus and Newton.

[back cover bio]Joel Mokyr is the Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences and professor of economics and history at Northwestern University and Sackler Professor at the Eitan Berglas School of Economics at the University of Tel Aviv. Joel Mokyr is the Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences and professor of economics and history at Northwestern University and Sackler Professor at the Eitan Berglas School of Economics at the University of Tel Aviv. His many books include The Enlightened Economy and The Gifts of Athena (Princeton). He is the recipient of the Heineken Prize for History and the International Balzan Prize for Economic History. A Culture of GrowthThe Origins of the Modern EconomyJoel Moky More about this book * Finalist for the 2017 Hayek Prize, The Manhattan Institute * One of MIT Technology Review’s Best Books of 2016 * Honorable Mention for the 2017 PROSE Award in European and World History, Association of American Publishers Reviews More praise forA Culture of Growth--Adam Gopnik,New Yorker "A fine book…. One of our country's great economic historians has helped us better understand the greatest transformation in human welfare our planet has ever seen."--Richard Vedder,Wall Street Journal Endorsements "Many great minds have written many great books about why Europe spearheaded technological progress and economic growth in the past three centuries. Joel Mokyr has joined their ranks with admirable verve, erudition, and originality. In his account, a change in the beliefs, values, and preferences of Europeans drove them to accumulate, share, and apply knowledge as it had never been done before. Agree or disagree with Mokyr's thesis, you definitely need to take it seriously."--Margaret Jacob, University of California, Los Angeles "A Culture of Growthis an insightful quest into the economic history of the last five centuries. Mokyr's historical laboratory is early modern Europe, when a small mass of highly skilled artisans, entrepreneurs, financiers and merchants laid the roots of what was to become the Industrial Revolution."--Angus Deaton, 2015 Nobel Laureate in Economics Q & A with Joel Mokyr An interview with Joel Mokyr, author of A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy https://press.princeton.edu/interviews/qa-10835

How would you sum up the book’s main points?
Before 1800 the overwhelming majority of humankind was poor; today in the industrialized world, almost nobody lives at the verge of subsistence, and a majority of people in the world enjoy living standards that would have been unimaginable a few centuries ago. My book asks how and why that happened. The question of the Great Enlightenment is central to economic history; a Nobel prize winning economist, Robert Lucas, once wrote that once we start thinking about it, it is hard to think of anything else.

Do we know how and where this started?
Yes, it started in Western Europe (primarily in Britain) in the last third of the eighteenth century through a set of technological innovations we now call the Industrial Revolution. From there it spread to the four corners of the world, although the success rate varied from place to place, and often the new techniques had to be adapted to local circumstances.

How is this book different from other work looking at this event?
The literature looking at the question of why this happened has advanced three types of explanations: geographical (looking at resources and natural endowments), political-institutional (focusing on the State and economic policies), or purely economic, through prices and incomes. My book examines culture: what did people believe, value, and how did they learn to understand natural phenomena and regularities they could harness to their material improvement.

Whose culture mattered most here?
Good question! Technological progress and the growth of modern science were driven first and foremost by a small educated elite of literate people who had been trained in medicine, mathematics and what they called “natural philosophy.” The culture of the large majority of people, who were as yet uneducated and mostly illiterate, mattered less in the early stages, but became increasingly important at a later stage when mass education became the norm.

So what was it about these intellectuals that mattered most?
In my earlier work, especially my The Enlightened Economy (2009), I pointed to what I called “the Industrial Enlightenment” as the central change that prepared the ground for modern economic growth. In the new book, I explain the origins of the Industrial Enlightenment. At some point, say around 1700, the consensus of intellectuals in Europe had become that material progress (what we were later to call “economic growth”) was not only desirable but possible, and that increasing what they called “useful knowledge” (science and technology) was the way to bring it about. These intellectuals then carried out that program through continuous advances in science that eventually found a myriad of economic applications.

How and why did this change happen?
That is the main question this book is focusing on and tries to answer. It describes and analyzes the cultural changes in the decades between Columbus and Newton, during what is sometimes known as “early modern Europe.” It was an age of tremendous cultural changes, above all of course the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution. Equally important was the emergence of what is known as “the Baconian Program,” in which Francis Bacon and his followers formulated the principles of what later became the Industrial Enlightenment. The success of these thinkers to persuade others of the validity of their notions of progress and the importance of a research agenda that reflected real economic needs is at the heart of the story of how the Industrial Enlightenment emerged.

So why did this take place in this period and in Europe, and not somewhere else?
Europe in this age enjoyed an unusual structure that allowed new and fresh ideas to flourish as never before. On the one hand, it was politically and religiously fragmented into units that fiercely competed with one another. This created a competitive market both for and among intellectuals that stimulated intellectual innovation. It was a market for ideas that worked well and in it the Baconian Program was an idea that succeeded, in part because it was attractive to many actors, but also because it was marketed effectively by cultural entrepreneurs. At the same time, political fragmentation coexisted with a unified and transnational institution (known at the time as the Republic of Letters) that connected European intellectuals through networks of correspondence and publications and created a pan-European competitive market in which new ideas circulated all over the Continent. In this sense, early modern Europe had the “best of all possible worlds” in having all the advantages of diversity and fragmentation and yet have a unified intellectual community.

Of all the new ideas, which ones were the most important?
Many new ideas played a role in the intellectual transformations that eventually led to the waves of technological progress we associate with modern growth. One of the most important was the decline in the blind veneration of ancient learning that was the hallmark of many other cultures. Shaking off the paralyzing grip of past learning is one of the central developments that counted in the cultural evolution in this period. The “classical canon” of Ptolemy and Aristotle was overthrown by rebels such as Copernicus and Galileo, and over time the intellectuals of this age became more assertive in their belief that they could outdo classical learning and that many of the conventional beliefs that had ruled the world of intellectuals in astronomy, medicine, and other fields were demonstrably wrong. Evidence and logic replaced ancient authority.

Was the success of the new ideas a foregone conclusion?
Not at all: there was fierce resistance to intellectual innovation by a variety of conservative powers, both religious and political. Many of the most original and creative people were persecuted. But in the end resistance failed, in large part because both people and books — and hence ideas — could move around in Europe and move to more liberal areas where their reception was more welcomed.

Could an Industrial Enlightenment not have happened elsewhere, for example in China?
The book deals at length with the intellectual development of China. In many ways, China’s economy in 1500 was as advanced and sophisticated as Europe. But in China the kind of competitive pluralism and diversity that were the hallmark of Europe were absent, and even though we see attempts to introduce more progressive thinking in China, it never succeeded to overthrow the conservative vested interests that controlled the world of intellectuals, above all the Mandarine bureaucracy. Instead of explosive growth as in Europe, Chinese science and technology stagnated.

Does the book have any implications for our own time?
By focusing on the social and economic mechanisms that stimulated and encouraged technological innovation in the past, my book points to the kind of factors that will ensure future technological creativity. First and foremost, innovation requires the correct incentives. Intellectuals on the whole do not require vast riches, but they will struggle for some measure of economic security and the opportunity to do their research in an environment of intellectual freedom in which successful innovation is respected and rewarded. Second, the freedom to innovate thrives in environments that are internationally competitive: just as much of innovation in earlier times emerged from the rivalry between England, France, Spain and the United Provinces, in the modern era the global competition between the United States, the EU, China, and so on will ensure continuous innovation. International competition and mobility ensure the intellectual freedom needed to propose new ideas. Finally, global institutions that share and distribute knowledge, as well as coordinate and govern intellectual communities of scientists and innovators across national boundaries and cultural divides, are critical for continued technological progress.

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| Press Release• Sat, November 04, 2017, 7:16 PM |

You can also listen to this podcast using the free app 'Raj Persaud in Conversation' for Android and Apple mobile devices; the app gives you access to more interviews with world class experts plus more free information and bonus content on the latest cutting edge psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy, self-help, social science and neuroscience then any other app and is available free from itunes app store and Google Play Store - click on these links https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id927466223?mt=8 If you are having difficulty viewing any of the content on the app, or the latest updates or bonus content, just uninstall it and re-install it. Maurice Papworth - The story of one man’s battle against the medical establishment - by Joanna Seldon - University of Buckingham Press - Hardback £14.99

2017 marks the 50th anniversary of Maurice Pappworth’s seminal work Human Guinea Pigs (1967), the controversial book which unearthed shocking practices within the medical establishment including experimentation on humans. Despite ethical principles set up by the Nuremburg code, Pappworth uncovered increasingly invasive procedures on vulnerable groups including babies, pregnant women and cancer patients up until the 1970’s in Britain, the US and Canada. From deliberately inducing heart stoppage to achieve better X-Rays and oxygen deprivation on infants to the deliberate blistering of children’s abdomens, Pappworth named and shamed those that placed the pursuit of science above ethical practice and put lives at risk.

The Whistle-Blower is the first biography exploring the life of Pappworth, a physician who reshaped the medical establishment and helped change the face of medical ethics with Human Guinea Pigs. Brilliant, Jewish, already an outsider, Maurice Pappworth was recognised as the best medical teacher of his generation. Unafraid to speak his mind, Pappworth’s exposés were frequently covered in the press and eventually led to stricter codes of practise for human experimentation. From the Rights of Patients Bill to the establishment of ethical committees in the UK, The Whistle-Blower examines the impact Maurice Pappworth had on the medical establishment.

Maurice Pappworth’s daughter, the late Joanna Seldon, reassesses the importance of Human Guinea Pigs as a major milestone in the development of modern research ethics. The Whistle-Blower calls for a re-evaluation of the pioneering medical ethicist who compromised his own career for the protection of the patient.

About the Author

Dr Joanna Seldon, wife of historian, and political commentator, Sir Anthony Seldon, was an independent teacher and writer who died in 2016 after losing her battle with cancer. She was awarded the top first in her year reading English at Oxford University and went on to complete a Ph.D. She has published a range of novels, short-stories, poems and non-fiction titles including Still Crazy (2013), Squared (2014), Piper’s Hole (2014) and Waterloo to Wellington: From Iron Duke to Enlightened College (2015). Order the book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whistle-Blower-Maurice-Pappworth-Establishment/dp/1908684976/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1515063413&sr=8-1&keywords=pappworth Sir Anthony Seldon is a political historian and commentator on British political leadership as well as on education and contemporary Britain. He is also Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham. He was previously the 13th Master (headmaster) of Wellington College, one of the country's most famous and historic independent schools. He was co-founder and first Director of the Institute of Contemporary British History. He is also author or editor of some 40+ books.

From http://www.anthonyseldon.co.uk/biographical-details/

Sir Anthony Seldon MA, PhD, FRSA, MBA, FRHisS Anthony Seldon is a leading authority on contemporary British history and education and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham. He was formerly Master of Wellington College, one of the world's most famous independent schools. He is author or editor of over 40 books on contemporary history, politics and education and is the author on, and honorary historical advisor to, Downing Street.

After gaining an MA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Worcester College, Oxford, and a PhD at the London School of Economics, he qualified as a teacher at King's College, London, where he was awarded the top PGCE prize in his year. In 1993, he was appointed Deputy Headmaster and, ultimately, Acting Headmaster of St Dunstan's College in South London. He then became Headmaster of Brighton College from September 1997 until he joined Wellington College in January 2006 as 13th Master. He left Wellington College in summer 2015 to become Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, the only independent university in the UK with a Royal Charter. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and King's College London. He was knighted in the Queen's 2014 Birthday Honours list for services to education and modern political history. He founded the Sunday Times (now Telegraph) Festival of Education and most recently the Festival of Higher Education, and is widely known for introducing and promoting happiness, wellbeing and mindfulness across education.

       *Portrait by Caroline Ayles*

     He founded, with Professor Lord Peter Hennessy, the Institute of Contemporary British History, the internationally renowned body whose aim is to promote research into, and the study of, British history since 1945. He founded Action for Happiness with Professor Lord Richard Layard and Geoff Mulgan. He is governor of several bodies, including the Royal Shakespeare Company, and is Chair of The Comment Awards.

Some of Anthony Seldon's books include: Churchill's Indian Summer, which won a Best First Work Prize; Major, A Political Life, the authorised biography of the former Prime Minister; Conservative Century, the standard academic history of the Conservative Party; The Powers Behind the Prime Minister, co-written with Professor Dennis Kavanagh; Number 10: The Illustrated History, which he is currently updating for publication in 2016; The Foreign Office: A History of the Place and its People; Blair and Blair Unbound, his acclaimed two-part biography of the former Prime Minister; three volumes of edited books on the Blair governments; Trust: How We Lost it and How to Get it Back; Brown at 10, with Guy Lodge; The Great War and Public Schools, with David Walsh; and The Architecture of Diplomacy: The British Ambassador's Residence in Washington, written with Daniel Collings. In March 2015 his new books, Beyond Happiness and The Coalition Effect 2010-2015, co-authored with Dr Mike Finn, were published. His latest political history, the authorised study Cameron at 10 with Peter Snowdon, was published in September 2015. The book is the inside story of the Cameron premiership, based on over 400 in-depth interviews with senior figures in 10 Downing Street, including the Prime Minister himself. He has also been historical consultant on the memoirs of several former Prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries.

Sir Anthony is regarded as one of the country's most authoritative high profile commentators on contemporary history and on education and appears regularly on television and radio and in the press, and writes for several national newspapers. His views have regularly been sought by the government and political parties. He was married to Joanna, who also taught and wrote, and they have three children, Jessica, Susannah and Adam. According to 'Who's Who, his interests are sport, directing plays, family and old English sports cars.

The Whistle Blower: The life of Maurice Pappworth

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You can also listen to this podcast using the free app 'Raj Persaud in Conversation' for Android and Apple mobile devices; the app gives you access to more interviews with world class experts plus more free information and bonus content on the latest cutting edge psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy, self-help, social science and neuroscience then any other app and is available free from itunes app store and Google Play Store - click on these links https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id927466223?mt=8 If you are having difficulty viewing any of the content on the app, or the latest updates or bonus content, just uninstall it and re-install it. From www.harpercollins.com/9780062692863/stick-with-it About the Book #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller

An award-winning psychologist and director of the UCLA Center for Digital Behavior shows everyone how to make real, lasting change in their lives in this exciting work of popular psychology that goes beyond The Power of Habit with science and practical strategies that can alter their problem behaviors—forever.

Whether it’s absent-minded mistakes at work, a weakness for junk food, a smart phone addiction, or a lack of exercise, everyone has some bad habit or behavior that they’d like to change. But wanting to change and actually doing it—and sticking with it—are two very different things.

Dr. Sean Young, an authoritative new voice in the field of behavioral science, knows a great deal about our habits—how we make them and how we can break them. Stick with It is his fascinating look at the science of behavior, filled with crucial knowledge and practical advice to help everyone successfully alter their actions and improve their lives.

As Dr. Young explains, you don’t change behavior by changing the person, you do it by changing the process. Drawing on his own scientific research and that of other leading experts in the field, he explains why change can be difficult and identifies the crucial forces that combine to make transformation permanent, from the right way to create new habits to how to harness emotional meaning to motivate change. He also helps us understand how the mind often interferes with creating lasting change and how we can outsmart it, including using "neurohacks" to shortcut the brain’s counterproductive instincts. In addition he provides a powerful corrective to the decades old science of habits, offering a next generation discussion of how habits can change behavior with the right approach.

Packed with pragmatic exercises and stories of real people who have used them successfully, Stick with Itshows that it is possible to control spending, stick to a diet, become more social, exercise regularly, stop compulsively checking e-mail, and overcome problem behaviors—forever.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B071WWSP2Y/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Stick with It: A Scientifically Proven Process for Changing Your Life-for Good

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   **You can also listen to this podcast using the free app 'Raj Persaud in Conversation' for Android and Apple mobile devices; the app gives you access to more interviews with world class experts plus more free information and bonus content on the latest cutting edge psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy, self-help, social science and neuroscience then any other app and is available free from itunes app store and Google Play Store - click on these links**   https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id927466223?mt=8 If you are having difficulty viewing any of the content on the app, or the latest updates or bonus content, just uninstall it and re-install it. **From press.princeton.edu/titles/10923.html**  Face ValueThe Irresistible Influence of First Impressions**Alexander Todorov**                **The scientific story of first impressions—and why the snap character judgments we make from faces are irresistible but usually incorrect**  We make up our minds about others after seeing their faces for a fraction of a second—and these snap judgments predict all kinds of important decisions. For example, politicians who simply look more competent are more likely to win elections. Yet the character judgments we make from faces are as inaccurate as they are irresistible; in most situations, we would guess more accurately if we ignored faces. So why do we put so much stock in these widely shared impressions? What is their purpose if they are completely unreliable? In this book, Alexander Todorov, one of the world's leading researchers on the subject, answers these questions as he tells the story of the modern science of first impressions.

Drawing on psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, computer science, and other fields, this accessible and richly illustrated book describes cutting-edge research and puts it in the context of the history of efforts to read personality from faces. Todorov describes how we have evolved the ability to read basic social signals and momentary emotional states from faces, using a network of brain regions dedicated to the processing of faces. Yet contrary to the nineteenth-century pseudoscience of physiognomy and even some of today's psychologists, faces don't provide us a map to the personalities of others. Rather, the impressions we draw from faces reveal a map of our own biases and stereotypes.

Alexander Todorov is professor of psychology at Princeton University, where he is also affiliated with the Princeton Neuroscience Institute and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. His research on first impressions has been covered by media around the world, including the New York Times, the Guardian, the New Yorker, the Daily Telegraph, Scientific American, PBS, and NPR. He lives in Princeton.

An interview with Alexander Todorov, author of Face Value: The Irresistible Influence of First Impressions
What inspired you to write this book?
I have been doing research on how people perceive faces for more than 10 years. Typically, we think of face perception as recognizing identity and emotional expressions, but we do much more than that. When we meet someone new, we immediately evaluate their face and these evaluations shape our decisions. This is what we informally call first impressions. First impressions pervade everyday life and often have detrimental consequences. Research on first impressions from facial appearance has been quite active during the last decade and we have made substantive progress in understanding these impressions. My book is about the nature of first impressions, why we cannot help but form impressions, and why these impressions will not disappear from our lives.

In your book, you argue that first impressions from facial appearance are irresistible. What is the evidence?
As I mentioned, the study of first impressions has been a particularly active area of research and the findings have been quite surprising. First, we form impressions after seeing a face for less than one-tenth of a second. We decide not only whether the person is attractive but also whether he or she is trustworthy, competent, extroverted, or dominant. Second, we agree on these impressions and this agreement emerges early in development. Children, just like adults, are prone to using face stereotypes. Third, these impressions are consequential. Unlucky people who appear “untrustworthy” are more likely to get harsher legal punishments. Those who appear “trustworthy” are more likely to get loans on better financial terms. Politicians who appear more “competent” are more likely to get elected. Military personnel who appear more “dominant” are more likely to achieve higher ranks. My book documents both the effortless nature of first impressions and their biasing effects on decisions.

The first part of your book is about the appeal of physiognomy—the pseudoscience of reading character from faces. Has not physiognomy been thoroughly discredited?
Yes and no. Most people today don’t believe in the great physiognomy myth that we can read the character of others from their faces, but the evidence suggests that we are all naïve physiognomists: forming instantaneous impressions and acting on these impressions. Moreover, fueled by recent research advances in visualizing the content of first impressions, physiognomy appears in many modern disguises: from research papers claiming that we can discern the political, religious, and sexual orientations of others from images of their faces to private ventures promising to profile people based on images of their faces and offering business services to companies and governments. This is nothing new. The early 20th century physiognomists, who called themselves “character analysts,” were involved in many business ventures. The modern physiognomists are relying on empirical and computer science methods to legitimize their claims. But as I try to make clear in the book, the modern claims are as far-stretched as the claims of the old physiognomists. First, different images of the same person can lead to completely different impressions. Second, often our decisions are more accurate if we completely ignore face information and rely on common knowledge.

You mentioned research advances that visualize the content of first impressions. What do you mean?
Faces are incredibly complex stimuli and we are inquisitively sensitive to minor variations in facial appearance. This makes the study of face perception both fascinating and difficult. In the last 10 years, we have developed methods that capture the variations in facial appearance that lead to specific impressions such as trustworthiness. The best way to illustrate the methods is by providing visual images, because it is impossible to describe all these variations in verbal terms. Accordingly, the book is richly illustrated. Here is a pair of faces that have been extremely exaggerated to show the variations in appearance that shape our impressions of trustworthiness.

Most people immediately see the face on the left as untrustworthy and the face on the right as trustworthy. But notice the large number of differences between the two faces: shape, color, texture, individual features, placement of individual features, and so on. Yet we can easily identify global characteristics that differentiate these faces. Positive expressions and feminine appearance make a face appear more trustworthy. In contrast, negative expressions and masculine appearance make a face appear less trustworthy. We can and have built models of many other impressions such as dominance, extroversion, competence, threat, and criminality. These models identify the contents of our facial stereotypes.

To the extent that we share face stereotypes that emerge early in development, isn’t it possible that these stereotypes are grounded in our evolutionary past and, hence, have a kernel of truth?
On the evolutionary scale, physiognomy has a very short history. If you imagine the evolution of humankind compressed within 24 hours, we have lived in small groups during the entire 24 hours except for the last 5 minutes. In such groups, there is abundant information about others coming from first-hand experiences (like observations of behavior and interactions) and from second-hand experiences (like testimonies of family, friends, and acquaintances). That is for most of human history, people did not have to rely on appearance information to infer the character of others. These inferences were based on much more reliable and easily accessible information. The emergence of large societies in the last few minutes of the day changed all that. The physiognomists’ promise was that we could handle the uncertainty of living with strangers by knowing them from their faces. It is no coincidence that the peaks of popularity of physiognomists’ ideas were during times of great migration. Unfortunately, the physiognomists’ promise is as appealing today as it was in the past.

Are there ways to minimize the effects of first impressions on our decisions?
We need to structure decisions so that we have access to valid information and minimize the access to appearance information. A good real life example is the increase of the number of women in prestigious philharmonic orchestras. Until recently, these orchestras were almost exclusively populated by men. What made the difference was the introduction of blind auditions. The judges could hear the candidates’ performance but their judgments could not be swayed by appearance, because they could not see the candidates.

So why are faces important?
Faces play an extremely important role in our mental life, though not the role the physiognomists imagined. Newborns with virtually no visual experience prefer to look at faces than at other objects. After all, without caregivers we will not survive. In the first few months of life, faces are one of the most looked upon objects. This intensive experience with faces develops into an intricate network of brain regions dedicated to the processing of faces. This network supports our extraordinary face skills: recognizing others and detecting changes in their emotional and mental states. There are likely evolutionary adaptations in the human face—our bare skin, elongated eyes with white sclera, and prominent eyebrows—but these adaptations are about facilitating the reading of other minds, about communicating and coordinating our actions, not about inferring character.

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Do you consider yourself stoical? Do a bit of meditation or mindfulness practice? Buddhism and Stoicism have a lot to offer modern readers seeking the good life, but they’re also radical systems that ask much of their followers. In More than Happiness, Antonia Macaro delves into both philosophies, focusing on the elements that fit with our sceptical age, and those which have the potential to make the biggest impact on how we live. From accepting that some things are beyond our control, to monitoring our emotions for unhealthy reactions, to shedding attachment to material things, there is much, she argues, that we can take and much that we’d do better to leave behind.

In this synthesis of ancient wisdom, Macaro reframes the ‘good life’, and gets us to see the world as it really is and to question the value of the things we desire. The goal is more than happiness: living ethically and placing value on the right things in life.

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FROM THE INTRODUCTION TO 'STRANGER IN THE MIRROR - THE SCIENTIFIC SEARCH FOR THE SELF' BY ROBERT LEVINE (NEW PAPERBACK EDITION) PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS AT CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FRESNO

Introduction
Theseus’s Paradox
I used to subscribe to People.
Then I switched to Us.
Now I just read Self.
—My friend Lenny

I love hearing people talk about their “real” selves. I still remember my first girlfriend, the seemingly perfect Natalie Duberman,1
spooking me with the warning: “Be careful. You don’t know the real me.” Was she a werewolf? Could she be in the witness protection program? No, Natalie explained, “It’s just that I’m not this nice with guys I like.” She went on to detail how insecure, jealous, and passive-aggressive she had been with her first two boyfriends. I wondered what it would take for this new version of Natalie, the one I knew, to assume the mantle of “the real Natalie”? What if we were together for a year and, during that time, she never once became insecure, jealous, or passive-aggressive toward me? What if it stayed that way for ten years? How would she decide when the new
Natalie qualified as the real one?

Then there is my friend Lenny, who utilizes an infuriating twist on
Natalie’s warning. When Lenny acts badly—which, incidentally, is more or less constantly—he explains it away by saying, “Forgive me. I’m just not myself today.” Really? Who are you, then? Because I’d like to know the name of the guy I’m thinking about punching in the nose right now.

And when do you expect your real self to return? I’d like to lodge a complaint with him.

FROM AMAZON.CO.UK SITE

In Stranger in the Mirror, Robert Levine offers a provocative, wide-ranging, and entertaining scientific exploration of the most personal and important of all landscapes: the physical and psychological entity we call our self. Who are we? Where is the boundary between us and everything else? Are we all multiple personalities? And how can we control who we become?

Levine tackles these and other questions with a combination of surprising stories, case studies, and cutting-edge research--from biology, neuroscience, virtual reality, psychology, and many other fields. The result challenges cherished beliefs about the unity and stability of the self--but also suggests that we are more capable of change than we know.

Transformation, Levine shows, is the human condition at virtually every level. Physically, our cells are unrecognizable from one moment to the next. Cognitively, our self-perceptions are equally changeable: A single glitch can make us lose track of a body part or our entire body--or to confuse our very self with that of another person. Psychologically, we switch back and forth like quicksilver between incongruent, sometimes adversarial subselves. Socially, we appear to be little more than an ever-changing troupe of actors. And, culturally, the boundaries of the self vary wildly around the world--from the confines of one's body to an entire village.

The self, in short, is a fiction--vague, arbitrary, and utterly intangible. But it is also interminably fluid. And this, Levine argues, unleashes a world of potential. Fluidity creates malleability. And malleability creates possibilities.

Engaging, informative, and ultimately liberating, Stranger in the Mirror will change forever how you think about your self--and what it might become.

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You can also listen to this podcast using the free app 'Raj Persaud in Conversation' for Android and Apple mobile devices; the app gives you access to more interviews with world class experts plus more free information and bonus content on the latest cutting edge psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy, self-help, social science and neuroscience then any other app and is available free from itunes app store and Google Play Store - click on these links https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id927466223?mt=8 Soul Machine THE INVENTION OF THE MODERN MIND A brilliant and comprehensive history of the creation of the modern Western mind.

Taken from http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Soul-Machine/

Soul Machine takes us back to the origins of modernity, a time when a crisis in religious authority and the scientific revolution led to searching questions about the nature of human inner life. This is the story of how a new concept—the mind—emerged as a potential solution, one that was part soul and part machine, but fully neither.

In this groundbreaking work, award-winning historian George Makari shows how writers, philosophers, physicians, and anatomists worked to construct notions of the mind as not an ethereal thing, but a natural one. From the ascent of Oliver Cromwell to the fall of Napoleon, seminal thinkers like Hobbes, Locke, Diderot, and Kant worked alongside often-forgotten brain specialists, physiologists, and alienists in the hopes of mapping the inner world. Conducted in a cauldron of political turmoil, these frequently shocking, always embattled efforts would give rise to psychiatry, mind sciences such as phrenology, and radically new visions of the self. Further, they would be crucial to the establishment of secular ethics and political liberalism. Boldly original, wide-ranging, and brilliantly synthetic, Soul Machine gives us a masterful, new account of the making of the modern Western mind.

ENDORSEMENTS & REVIEWS

“An enlightening and gracefully written account of a vital aspect of our history that few of us are aware of—the replacement of the soul by the mind, and the struggle to understand its foundations in the brain.” — Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of How the Mind Works and The Stuff of Thought

“In this sweeping, authoritative, and lively account, George Makari chronicles the emergence of the modern mind as an appealing yet unstable object of scientific inquiry, and shows why the long-standing goal of establishing boundaries between it and the brain and even the soul has proven so elusive. Illuminating and highly engaging.” — Elizabeth Lunbeck, author of The Americanization of Narcissism

“An erudite exploration of the high-stakes struggle to make space in the modern world for that part of our being we call our minds.” — Anne Harrington, Franklin L. Ford Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University and author of The Cure Within

“George Makari has written an all-encompassing and invigorated account of how we have come to think about the acts of thinking and feeling. This is a book brimming with knowledge and lucid observations, one that helps us to understand the evolution of our contemporary sensibility.” — Daphne Merkin, author of The Fame Lunches

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FROM www.bloomsbury.com/uk/disenchantment-9781472949745/ About Disenchantment Workplace disenchantment can cause major issues for organisations – productivity decreases, employees can turn actively destructive and individual health and well-being can deteriorate. Most people start a job happy enough and determined to do a good job – if they are lucky, they have found a job which suits their skills and values. They may be eager, hopeful and willing to be engaged. So when and why do they become disenchanted and demotivated?

In this new book, Adrian Furnham and Luke Treglown look at several theories into job satisfaction and workplace motivation. They explore how much of a motivator money really is, and which personality profiles are more likely to lead to a disruptive, disenchanted employee.

Disenchantment discusses the related and identifiable behaviours that very clearly lead to disenchantment, and how individuals and organisations can work to prevent this and boost motivation and engagement in a way that is practicable and sustainable. Keeping employees motivated takes more than just ensuring they're not unhappy, and Disenchantment outlines some of the ways that organisations can manage this.

Reviews “Superb insight into one of the most difficult areas of the workplace. This book should be required reading for C-suite and HR professionals alike.” – David Charters, Author and Founder of PartnerCapital

“Adrian and Luke's work is as timely as it is relevant, providing an analytical framework and practical advice to address disenchantment. Read this book to learn what motivates and what demotivates us at work.” – Ernst von Kimakowitz, Director and Co-founder of the Humanistic Management Center

“A great reference guide for leaders and organizations in understanding why people react the way they do, and breaks some popular assumptions about how to get the best and avoid the worst we often see around us or experience ourselves.” – Chris Roebuck, Visiting Professor of Transformational Leadership, Cass Business School

“In this briskly written and keenly observed book, Adrian and Luke toss aside the prevailing myths regarding the alleged power of Anglo-Saxon management techniques to explain why 70% of the modern workforce hate their jobs.” – Robert Hogan, CEO Hogan Assessments USA

“This book thoroughly explains causes and effects … and by implication suggests what can be done to change malpractices. The book is inspiring and well written and is hereby recommended.” – Professor Oyvind Martinsen, BI: Norwegian School of Management

“Nails the key characteristics of poor managers, from arrogance and volatility through to habitual mistrust, and the consequence of this in the cultures and environments they create. This book gives a great insight into the shadow side of people, organizations and culture.” – Chris Woodman, Founder of Leadenhall Consulting

“It is a very engaging, challenging and important book that should read by everyeone interested in managing and caring for people at work … a must-read for HR professionals.” – Professor Sir Cary Cooper, Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester

“If you want the kind of things that money can't buy, then this book, another real page-turner from the Adrian Furnham stable, will come closest to buying you love and happiness.” – Erik de Haan, Director of Ashridge Centre for Coaching & Professor of Organisation Development, VU University

“Adrian's and Luke's work is challenging, practical, thoughtful and accessible. Reading this work stimulates thinking about the challenges and complexities of managing people. It goes way beyond the simplistic solutions posed by many of their contemporaries.” – Mike Haffenden, CEO Strategic Dimensions London

“A thought provoking read and good primer for being able to deal with reality as it unfolds.” – Jason Devereux, PhD, Workplace Transformation Consultant, KPMG

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First published in 1946, Viktor Frankl’s memoir Man’s Search for Meaning remains one of the most influential books of the last century, selling over ten million copies worldwide and having been embraced by successive generations of readers captivated by its author’s philosophical journey in the wake of the Holocaust. This long-overdue reappraisal examines Frankl’s life and intellectual evolution anew, from his early immersion in Freudian and Adlerian theory to his development of the “third Viennese school” amid the National Socialist domination of professional psychotherapy. It teases out the fascinating contradictions and ambiguities surrounding his years in Nazi Europe, including the experimental medical procedures he oversaw in occupied Austria and a stopover at the Auschwitz concentration camp far briefer than has commonly been assumed. Throughout, author Timothy Pytell gives a penetrating but fair-minded account of a man whose paradoxical embodiment of asceticism, celebrity, tradition, and self-reinvention drew together the complex strands of twentieth-century intellectual life.

Timothy Pytell is Chair of the History department at California State University, San Bernardino. He published an abridged version of this biography, titled Viktor Frankl: Das Ende eines Mythos, in German in 2005.

REVIEWS “Pytell’s perceptive study should be read by any student of the Holocaust and any student of the postwar history of humanistic psychology. Pytell judges Frankl, but does so with generosity and compassion. Frankl, too, was a victim of the Holocaust.” · Holocaust and Genocide Studies

“This work is a great case study in the intellectual history of the twentieth century and the impact of the Holocaust therein.” · Journal of Austrian Studies

“The book has extensive notes and a major bibliography that includes interviews, periodicals, and unpublished documents. Frankl’s logotherapy—from logos, meaning—emphasizes creativity, love, and our attitude toward ‘unalterable fate.’ Some critics view logotherapy as superficial, offering consolation more than challenge. Intellectually demanding, this is a scholarly, commendable biography and intellectual history. Lay readers will be challenged; psychologists and historians will be grateful.” · Library Journal (starred review)

“Pytell’s book fills an important gap in the literature on one of the most famous and, until now, least controversial psychotherapists of the twentieth century. Unlike earlier works on Frankl, this book avoids hagiography and places Frankl in the full political, social, historical, and intellectual contexts of his times. It is the first work to synthesize Frankl’s life and work in his time and place.” · Geoffrey Cocks, Albion College

From www.berghahnbooks.com/title/PytellViktor

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Russell Grant Foster, CBE, FRS FMedSci is a British professor of circadian neuroscience, the Director of the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology and the Head of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute.

www.ox.ac.uk/research/research-in-conversation/healthy-body-healthy-mind/russell-foster

'Fundamentally, what I'm excited about and trying to understand is how the core mechanisms of sleep and 24-hour circadian rhythms are generated and regulated within the central nervous system, and then use this fundamental knowledge for translational studies – to inform therapeutic approaches that will improve the quality of life for individuals and their family across a broad spectrum of health conditions where sleep is severely disrupted, from eye disease to mental illness.

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      Professor Anthony David published a commentary in the *Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry* in September 2012 entitled, *Functional disorders, Cartesian dualism and stigma: where does the dualism really lie?*

         He was responding to a reappraisal of one of Oliver Sacks' lesser known books describing the doctor's own paralysis and body image disorder. He writes:         *This is a timely reappraisal of one of Oliver Sacks' less well-known works. The authors argue that the sense of detachment from his leg that Sacks felt after his injury and surgery was ‘functional/psychogenic’. Stone and colleagues take Sacks' account at face value and are at pains to label it repeatedly as ‘genuine’. Their aim is to go beyond Cartesian dualism, a common aspiration but one hard to achieve in practice, such is the hold it has on our explanatory frameworks. Stone et al approach the ‘case’ like the good clinicians that they are and attempt to ‘get above the lesion’. There is no mind–brain divide but there is a hierarchy: from the peripheral nerves up through the neuraxis to the cortex. But that is as far as it goes: in the materialist world, there is nothing else. A disorder of will seems the best formulation and is made without implied criticism or facetiousness...* *The piece continues and can be found at the link below - hear Professor Anthony David discussing his take on Oliver Sacks in this free to download podcast* *J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2012 Sep;83(9):869. doi: 10.1136/jnnp-2012-303051*       References 1. ↵   
1. Stone J,
2. Perthen J,
3. Carson A . ‘A Leg to Stand On’ by Oliver Sacks: A unique autobiographical account of functional paralysis. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2012;83:864–7.  Abstract/FREE Full TextGoogle Scholar

↵
1. Sacks OW . A leg to stand on. New York: Harper & Row, 1984.
↵
1. Ramachandran VS . The Tell-Tale Brain. New York: Norton and Co, 2011.

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Professor Kamaldeep Bhui works as a clinical academic psychiatrist in London. He qualified in Medicine at the United Medical Schools of Guy's & St Thomas in 1988, and subsequently worked at the Maudsley, Institute of Psychiatry, Guy's, King's, St Thomas' Hospitals and Medical Schools being appointed to his first consultant clinical academic post as a senior lecturer in 2000.

He was appointed Professor in 2003 at QMUL. Previously he was a Wellcome Training Fellow in Health Services Research and Senior Medical Officer in the policy research programme at Department of Health. He is Director at the Cultural Consultation Service at QMUL (Culturalconsultion.org) and Director of MSc Psychological Therapies, MSc Transcultural Mental Healthcare at QMUL and MSc Mental Health & Law.

He is also the co-founder of Careif (www.careif.org), an international mental health charity that promotes work for young people and their health through culture, sport and arts.

Professor Bhui is President of WACP and Public Health Lead at the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

He is editor of British Journal of Psychiatry, and International Journal of Culture and Mental Health.

He is on the editorial board of Transcultural Psychiatry, Ethnicity and Health, Int.J.Social Psychiatry, and Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology.

His recent paper is titled:

Pathways to sympathies for violent protest and terrorism

Kamaldeep Bhui, Maria Joao Silva, Raluca A. Topciu and Edgar Jones

and is published in The British Journal of Psychiatry

From the paper:

Radicalisation is proposed to explain why some individuals begin to support and take part in violent extremism. However, there is little empirical population research to inform prevention, and insufficient attention to the role of psychiatric vulnerabilities. In this study a cross-sectional survey of a representative sample of Pakistani and Bangladeshi men and women from two English cities were investigated. Depressive symptoms were associated with a higher risk of Sympathies for Violent Protest and Terrorism.

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Raj Persaud talks to Ardesheer Talati.

Ardesheer Talati’s research focuses on understanding long-term clinical, behavioral, and neurobiological problems in offspring that result from prenatal exposures. Two particular areas of interest are tobacco and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant exposures during pregnancy. Although the rates of smoking have decreased in the general population, about 5-10% of women smoke during pregnancy today. On the other hand, the rates of antidepressant medication use have been rising. When used in pregnancy, both nicotine and SSRIs cross the placental and the blood-brain barriers and thus can enter the developing fetal brain. His research focuses on trying to understand what (if any) the long term consequences of these exposures are, with a particular focus on brain development. For example, he tests whether maternal smoking or use of SSRIs during pregnancy impairs normative development of fetal brain structure, connectivity, and circuitry; and if so, whether those alterations persist through childhood development and increase risk for clinical or behavioral disorders.

American Journal of Psychiatry Volume 170, Issue 10, October 2013, pp. 1178-1185

Maternal Smoking During Pregnancy and Bipolar Disorder in Offspring

Ardesheer Talati, Ph.D., Yuanyuan Bao, M.S., Jake Kaufman, B.A., Ling Shen, Ph.D., Catherine A. Schaefer, Ph.D., and Alan S. Brown, M.D., M.P.H

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Dr Raj Persaud talks to Professor Myrna Weissman about what happens to the children of depressed people

HEADLINE FINDING OF THIS MAJOR NEW STUDY:

There was increased mortality in the children whose parents had serious depression (5.5% compared with 2.5%) due to unnatural causes, with a nearly 8-year difference in the mean age at death (38.8 years compared with 46.5 years in the control group - children of parents without depression).

From The American Journal of Psychiatry Volume 173, Issue 10, October 01, 2016, pp. 1024-1032

Offspring of Depressed Parents: 30 Years Later

Myrna M. Weissman, Ph.D., Priya Wickramaratne, Ph.D., Marc J. Gameroff, Ph.D., Virginia Warner, Dr.P.H., Daniel Pilowsky, M.D., M.P.H., Rajni Gathibandhe Kohad, M.D., M.P.H., Helena Verdeli, Ph.D., Jamie Skipper, M.A., Ardesheer Talati, Ph.D.

While the increased risk of psychological problems in the biological offspring of depressed parents has been widely studied and replicated, the long-term outcome through their full age of risk is less known. The authors present a 30-year follow-up of biological offspring (mean age=47 years) of depressed (high-risk) and nondepressed (low-risk) parents.

One hundred forty-seven offspring of moderately to severely depressed or non-depressed parents selected from the same community were followed for up to 30 years.

The risk for major depression was approximately three times as high in the high-risk offspring. The period of highest risk for first onset was between ages 15 and 25 in both groups. Pre-pubertal onsets were uncommon, but high-risk offspring had over 10-fold increased risk. The increased rates of major depression in the high-risk group were largely accounted for by the early onsets, but later recurrences in the high-risk group were significantly increased. The high-risk offspring continue to have overall poorer functioning and receive more treatment for emotional problems. There was increased mortality in the high-risk group (5.5% compared with 2.5%) due to unnatural causes, with a nearly 8-year difference in the mean age at death (38.8 years compared with 46.5 years).

The authors of the study conclude that the offspring of depressed parents remain at high risk for depression, morbidity, and mortality that persists into their middle years. While adolescence is the major period of onset for major depression in both risk groups, it is the offspring with family history who go on to have recurrences and a poor outcome as they mature. In the era of personalized medicine, until a more biologically based understanding of individual risk is found, a simple family history assessment of major depression as part of clinical care can be a predictor of individuals at long-term risk.

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Raising Body Temperature Relieves Depression Symptoms, Small Study Finds

www.med.wisc.edu/news-events/raising-body-temperature-relieves-depression-symptoms-small-study-finds/48472

Madison, Wisconsin — Raising the body temperature of depressed volunteers to the equivalent of a mild fever improved their symptoms of major depression for as long as six weeks after a single treatment, results from a new study show.

Researchers led by Dr. Charles Raison of the University of Wisconsin-Madison conducted a small, double-blind trial to test whole-body hyperthermia as a novel treatment for major depression.

They evaluated the depressed volunteers on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) and found that 60 percent of them had a response and 40 percent met the criteria for remission of depression during at least one assessment after having received the treatment.

“Our hope is to find better and faster-acting treatments for depression than the antidepressants currently in use,’’ says Raison. “We think that using heat to stimulate the skin activates serotonin-producing cells in the mid-brain, which then produce a change in how the brain functions. In a way, one might think of this pathway from the skin to the brain as a deep-brain stimulator crafted by evolution. We tap into this pathway because heat makes the brain feel happy.”

The researchers used a whole-body hyperthermia device to raise the body temperatures of 16 volunteers to 38.5 Celsius, the equivalent of about 101.3 degrees Fahrenheit. Another 14 were randomized to a “sham” procedure that had them lie inside the hyperthermia device with fans and lights, but only a small amount of heat, not the intense infrared heat that produced the full treatment.

“Our sham intervention was so realistic that most of the participants (10 of 14) thought they were receiving the real treatment,’’ says Raison. That is important, because it suggests the antidepressant response was not due primarily to placebo factors associated with the treatment.

The real hyperthermic treatment improved depression scores by a mean of 5.67 points more than the sham at week one and a mean difference of 4.83 points at six weeks after the treatment. The HDRS rates scores of 0 to 7 to be normal, 8 to 13 to indicate mild depression, 14 to 18 to indicate moderate depression and 19 and above to indicate severe and very severe depression.

Researchers screened 338 volunteers and wound up with 34 patients with HDRS scores of 16 and above. The two arms began with 17 volunteers each, but with dropouts, 15 wound up completing the whole-body hyperthermia and 14 the sham treatment.

Those receiving the active treatment were in a type of tent, and were heated on their chest by infrared lights and on their legs with infrared heating coils. After their body core temperature reached 38.5 degrees Celsius (usually after about an hour and half) the heat was turned off and they were allowed to cool for an hour.

A week after treatment, researchers who were blinded to whether the volunteers had the real treatment or not assessed their depression levels using HDRS. Further assessments were made at two, four and six weeks. Self-reports also showed lessening of symptoms, although not as dramatic. Both groups reported only mild adverse effects.

“We were surprised to see that the effect (of reduced depression symptoms) was still present six weeks after the initial treatment,’’ Raison says.

Co-author Christopher Lowry, associate professor of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado-Boulder, showed in an earlier study that whole-body heating activates neurons in the brain that synthesize the neurochemical serotonin, an effect that is shared by antidepressant drugs. In addition, Lowry said, “We know that warming the skin activates areas of the brain where activity is low in depressed patients.”

One brain area activated by heating the skin, the medial orbitofrontal cortex, is involved in the regulation of mood. This area of the brain responds to pleasant sounds, smells, images, tastes and other stimuli. A premise of the research is that certain sensory pathways evolved to mediate antidepressant-like responses. Lowry says depression is associated with over-activity of the brain’s default-mode network, which is engaged when a person is ruminating.

But throughout evolution, certain conditions made such a state of mind “extremely maladaptive,” Lowry observes. Extreme heat would demand that people shift their attention from internal thoughts to the external world.

Raison says that the current study extends results from an earlier open-treatment study his group did in Switzerland in inpatient volunteers with major depression. Hyperthermia has been used for many years, primarily in Europe, as part of a cancer-fighting regimen, although whole-body hyperthermia to treat cancer typically raises the body temperature to temperatures much higher than used in the depression studies.

According to Raison, the results of the small study are encouraging, but he cautions that because the sample size was small, more research is needed to determine how hyperthermia should be optimally delivered in terms of the temperature used and the amount of time patients are exposed to the heat. Additionally, the results may have been confounded by volunteers’ expectations that the treatment would work.

Raison is the Mary Sue and Mike Shannon Chair for Healthy Minds, Children & Families in the UW School of Human Ecology. He is also a member of the psychiatry faculty in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

The study was conducted at the University of Arizona and funded by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, the Depressive and Bipolar Disorder Alternative Treatment Foundation, the Institute for Mental Health Research, the Braun Foundation and Barry and Janet Lang and Arch and Laura Brown.

Clint Talbott, communications director at CU-Boulder’s College of Arts and Sciences, contributed to this report.

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From the Princeton University Press site:

From New York Times bestselling author and economics columnist Robert Frank, a compelling book that explains why the rich underestimate the importance of luck in their success, why that hurts everyone, and what we can do about it

How important is luck in economic success? No question more reliably divides conservatives from liberals. As conservatives correctly observe, people who amass great fortunes are almost always talented and hardworking. But liberals are also correct to note that countless others have those same qualities yet never earn much. In recent years, social scientists have discovered that chance plays a much larger role in important life outcomes than most people imagine. In Success and Luck, bestselling author and New York Times economics columnist Robert Frank explores the surprising implications of those findings to show why the rich underestimate the importance of luck in success—and why that hurts everyone, even the wealthy.

Frank describes how, in a world increasingly dominated by winner-take-all markets, chance opportunities and trivial initial advantages often translate into much larger ones—and enormous income differences—over time; how false beliefs about luck persist, despite compelling evidence against them; and how myths about personal success and luck shape individual and political choices in harmful ways.

But, Frank argues, we could decrease the inequality driven by sheer luck by adopting simple, unintrusive policies that would free up trillions of dollars each year—more than enough to fix our crumbling infrastructure, expand healthcare coverage, fight global warming, and reduce poverty, all without requiring painful sacrifices from anyone. If this sounds implausible, you'll be surprised to discover that the solution requires only a few, noncontroversial steps.

Compellingly readable, Success and Luck shows how a more accurate understanding of the role of chance in life could lead to better, richer, and fairer economies and societies.

Robert H. Frank is the H. J. Louis Professor of Management and Professor of Economics at Cornell University's Johnson School of Management. He has been an Economic View columnist for the New York Times for more than a decade and his books include The Winner-Take-All Society (with Philip J. Cook), The Economic Naturalist, The Darwin Economy (Princeton), and Principles of Economics (with Ben S. Bernanke). He lives in Ithaca, New York.

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Professor Jeremy Coid completed medical training at Sheffield University and training in Forensic Psychiatry at the Maudsley and Broadmoor Hospitals.

He was trained in research at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, where he completed his MD.

As Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist he established the medium secure service to East London for mentally disordered offenders.

He has extensive experience of giving evidence in court as an expert witness in cases of serious violence, sexual offending, and on childcare. He has been an advisor to the Department of Health, Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Defence on management of high risk offenders.

He was appointed Senior Lecturer in Forensic Psychiatry in 1987 and awarded a personal chair in 1995.

This Podcast focuses on the recently published paper entitled: ‘Extremism, religion and psychiatric morbidity in a population-based sample of young men’ published in the British Journal of Psychiatry by Jeremy W. Coid, Kamaldeep Bhui, Deirdre MacManus, Constantinos Kallis, Paul Bebbington and Simone Ullrich

Background (from the paper)

There is growing risk from terrorism following radicalisation of young men. It is unclear whether psychopathology is associated. Aims: To investigate the population distribution of extremist views among UK men. Method: Cross-sectional study of 3679 men, 18–34 years, in Great Britain. Results: Pro-British men were more likely to be White, UK born, not religious; anti-British were Muslim, religious, of Pakistani origin, from deprived areas. Conclusions: Men at risk of depression may experience protection from strong cultural or religious identity.

FROM THE PAPER:

The prevalence of depression was significantly higher among Pakistani and Black minority groups than UK-born White men...

The key finding was that men... with neutral or undecided views, were more likely to be depressed. Anti-British extremist views may have offered protection against depression, specifically among men of Pakistani origin. These findings correspond to the hypothesis that lack of personal identity and meaning, with unfulfilled need for belonging, create psychological vulnerability both to extremism and anxiety and depression. Within this theoretical framework, attributing blame, identifying responsible perpetrators, strong national or other cultural identity, and active support for or opposition to a cause, may protect against depression. For some men, depression may be a precursor to ‘mobilisation’, leading to active support for and consideration of involvement in terrorism or armed conflict along a pathway of radicalisation. Lack of identity and uncertainty, together with depression, may contribute to a vulnerable state in which personal crisis can act as a trigger, resulting in an opening for new beliefs and values, encouraged by people holding similar values that legitimise violence. Relatives’ and friends’ experiences of social exclusion, including poverty and reported experiences of racism, may have influenced these individuals to take a more active position. Factors such as turning to religion or new political beliefs triggered by a war (against people with similar cultural and religious characteristics) could result in a protective sense of empowerment involving new meaning, belief systems and identity along a pathway ultimately leading to violent action. However, since we cannot determine the direction of association in this cross-sectional survey, respondents with depression may simply have been less likely to fight for or against their country or to hold extreme views because of their depression.

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Ego Is The Enemy is a new book published by best-selling author Ryan Holiday and is a philosophical exploration of difficulties we create for ourselves in life. Early in our careers, Ryan argues, ego impedes learning and the cultivation of talent. With success, ego can blind us to our faults and sow future problems. In failure, ego magnifies each blow and makes recovery more difficult. At every stage, ego holds us back.

The book draws on a vast array of stories and examples, from literature to philosophy to history. Using the stories of people like William T. Sherman, Katharine Graham, Bill Belichick, and Eleanor Roosevelt, all of whom reached the highest levels of power and success by conquering their own egos.

http://ryanholiday.net/announcing-ego-is-the-enemy-how-you-can-get-involved/

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Dr Kelly Diederen is a neuroscience researcher based at the University of Cambridge and has recently published a paper in the academic journal ‘Psychological Medicine’ which follows up a group of adults who hear voices but who are not formally diagnosed as psychotic – what happens to these people over a period of time?

Daalman K, Diederen KMJ, Hoekema L, van Lutterveld R, Sommer IEC (2016), “Five year follow-up of non-psychotic adults with frequent auditory verbal hallucinations: are they still healthy?” Psychological Medicine 1-11

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Professor Michael Farrell FRCP FRCPsych is the Director of NDARC (National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre). He moved to Sydney from London in March 2011 following his appointment to NDARC. Prior to joining NDARC he was Professor of Addiction Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London. His extensive research interests include treatment evaluation, including the development of the National Treatment Outcomes Profile, a brief outcomes measurement instrument for drug and alcohol dependence. He has a long standing interest in drug dependence in prisons and within the wider criminal justice system. He has been a member of the WHO Expert Committee on Drug and Alcohol Dependence since 1995 and chaired the WHO External Evaluation of the Swiss Heroin Trial.

From the paper presented at the Annual Congress of the Royal College of Psychiatrists:

FROM AN ORIGINAL PAPER ENTITLED:

Crystalline methamphetamine use and methamphetamine-related harms in Australia

EXCERPT:

Concerns about crystal methamphetamine use and harm have increased in multiple countries. The harms of regular methamphetamine use include mental disorders such as anxiety, depression, dependence and psychosis, physical health problems, violent and aggressive behaviour, involvement in criminal activity, injecting and sexual risk, and in some cases, overdose deaths.

The types of methamphetamine used range from amphetamine-type-stimulant pills and amphetamine powder to high purity crystalline methamphetamine. ‘Ice’ is the street name given to the relatively pure preparation of methamphetamine hydrochloride salt because its translucent crystalline appearance resembles ice (also referred to by the street names ‘shard’, ‘crystal’ and ‘skates’). This pure preparation of methamphetamine originated in Taiwan and South Korea, and subsequently spread to the USA where it was dubbed the ‘drug of the 1990s’.

The increased use of crystal methamphetamine raises concerns because the high purity of the drug allows a new route of administration, inhalation. Crystal methamphetamine vaporises when heated, and can be inhaled, affording high bioavailability and an almost immediate drug effect because the drug is rapidly absorbed into the blood stream via the lungs, bypassing the metabolic processes that reduce the proportion of the drug that reaches the brain.

Louisa Degenhardt1, Grant Sara2, Rebecca McKetin3, Amanda Roxburgh1, Timothy Dobbins1, Michael Farrell1, Lucinda Burns1 and Wayne D. Hall4,5

National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre

UNSW Australia

Sydney NSW Australia 2052

Sydney Medical School

Northern Clinical School

University of Sydney

Sydney NSW Australia

National Drug Research Institute

Curtin University

Perth WA Australia 6008

Centre for Youth Substance Abuse Research

University of Queensland

St Lucia QLD Australia

National Addiction Centre

Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience

Kings College London

London England

Corresponding author: Louisa Degenhardt

l.degenhardt@unsw.edu.au

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The “Euthanasia “ Program in Nazi-Psychiatry

Dr Michael Von Cranach, an eminent German Psychiatrist, discusses with Dr Raj Persaud his research into the Nazi era, at the Royal College of Psychiatrists Annual Congress, London, 27th of June 2016.

More than 200000 psychiatric patients and handicapped persons where murdered in Germany between 1939 and 1945 by doctors and nurses. Alexander Mitscherlich, rapporteur of the Nuremberg Medical Trials wrote 1947, but published decades later,:
” Their atrocities were so unrestrained and at the same time organised with such technical bureaucratic coldness, malice and bloodthirstiness, that no one can read about it without feeling shame”.

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Professor Frank Schneider, M.D., Ph.D. Chair, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, University Hospital Aachen and Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, also Past President of the German Society for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, talks to Dr Raj Persaud about the role of the German Society for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy in the mass murder of psychiatric patients which occurred in Germany during the Second World War at the hands of Nazis and Nazi ideology. How was it that elite doctors and psychiatrists, caring and highly accomplished clinicians, could so rapidly be transformed into killing machines? Some 200,000 psychiatric patients eventually lost their lives, often at the hands of their own doctors – could the same thing happen again? The interview occurs at the Royal College of Psychiatrist Annual Congress 2016 just before Professor Schneider takes part in a panel discussion on how German psychiatric patients suffered during the Nazi era partly as a result of the rise in eugenics or genetic theories concerning the spread of mental illness. Is it possible that the modern rise of biological psychiatry could presage the same atrocities occurring again?

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What is it like to be stalked? In this astonishing interview a victim of stalking describes in vivid detail what it feels like to be stalked. Do her experiences explain why stalkiing has been described as a kind of psychological rape or terrorism?

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Walk into any health food shop and you would think that omega-3 highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFAs) were a panacea for all ills - the hype for these dietary supplements arises from recent research which appeared to find various benefits but now a study published by Brian Hallahan and colleagues attempts to pool all the data accumulated on the subject and cut through to the truth.

From the original recently published paper by Brian Hallahan and colleagues

Efficacy of omega-3 highly unsaturated fatty acids in the treatment of depression* Brian Hallahan, Timothy Ryan, Joseph R. Hibbeln, Ivan T. Murray, Shauna Glynn, Christopher E. Ramsden, John Paul SanGiovanni and John M. Davis

The British Journal of Psychiatry 1–10. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.114.160242

Many randomised controlled trials (RCTs) have reported beneficial effects for omega-3 highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFAs) in bipolar and major depressive disorder, but others have reported essentially no effect.... possible explanatory factors: (a) that only eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA)-predominant formulations of omega-3 HUFA have an antidepressant effect;37,38 and (b) that the putative antidepressant effects of omega-3 HUFAs only occur in episodes of diagnosed clinical depression...

The study found that:

Among participants with diagnosed depression, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA)-predominant formulations (450% EPA) demonstrated clinical benefits compared with placebo... whereas docosahexaenoic acid (DHA)-predominant formulations (450% DHA) did not. EPA failed to prevent depressive symptoms among populations not diagnosed for depression.

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Interview with Ruth Wells - lead author on new paper on mental health of Syrian Refugees published in the British Journal of Psychiatry - From the introduction in the paper:

The United Nations (UN) has labelled the current Syrian conflict as the worst humanitarian crisis that has occurred within the first part of the 21st century. It is estimated that there are in excess of 4 million displaced Syrian refugees in the Middle East and over 629 000 who have been displaced to Jordan, the focus of this review. Although many displaced Syrians live in refugee camps, the largest being Za’atari camp which is home to over 120 000 people, the vast majority live in the host community. In Jordan, people from Syria have limited access to work permits and are often required to work in the informal sector to secure livelihood. Those registered with the UN are eligible to access some cash assistance, food vouchers and education and health systems, although the health system has struggled to keep up with demand. Stressors inherent in forced displacement,5 combined with exposure to potentially traumatic events (PTEs) during conflict, are likely to contribute to the development of heightened mental health difficulties in such settings.

From the introduction to this new paper

Psychosocial concerns reported by Syrian refugees living in Jordan: systematic review of unpublished needs assessments Ruth Wells, Zachary Steel, Mohammad Abo-Hilal, Abdul Halim Hassan and Catalina Lawsin

The British Journal of Psychiatry 1–8. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.115.165084

Ruth Wells, BSc, University of Sydney, Australia; Zachary Steel, PhD, MClinPsych, School of Psychiatry, University New South Wales, The Black Dog Institute, Hospital Road, Prince of Wales Hospital, New South Wales, Australia; Mohammad Abo Hilal, MD, Syria Bright Future; Abdulhalim Hasan, MD, American Medical Center, Erbil, Iraq; Catalina Lawsin, PhD, Department of Behavioral Sciences, RUSH Medical Center, Chicago, USA

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| TONY WOOLFSON, PH.D. Editor The Philemon Foundation From the Philemon Foundation website: philemonfoundation.org/about-philemon/about-the-foundation/ Tony was a university teacher of arts and humanities until he decided to accompany his partner, Judith Harris, to Zürich where she trained at the C. G. Jung Institute. While in Zürich, Tony undertook intensive study of depth psychology and religion both independently and through attending classes at the Institute. He taught at the Zürich Institute and continues to study, write, and teach in the area of psychology and religion. He collaborated with Ernst Falzeder in the translation of Jung’s seminar on Children’s Dreams (Philemon Series), the Jung-Schmid correspondence (Philemon Series), and Jung’s German 1931 seminar (Philemon Series, forthcoming).The Quotable JungCollected and edited by Judith HarrisWith the collaboration of Tony Woolfson From the Princeton University Press website press.princeton.edu/titles/10550.html Hardcover | 2015 | $29.95 | £19.95 | ISBN: 9780691155593376 pp. | 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 eBook | ISBN: 9781400873340 |

| C. G. Jung (1875–1961) was a preeminent thinker of the modern era. In seeking to establish an interdisciplinary science of analytical psychology, he studied psychiatry, religion, mysticism, literature, physics, biology, education, and criminology. He introduced the concepts of extraversion and introversion, and terms such as complex, archetype, individuation, and the collective unconscious. He stressed the primacy of finding meaning in our lives. The Quotable Jung is the single most comprehensive collection of Jung quotations ever assembled. It is the essential introduction for anyone new to Jung and the Jungian tradition. It will also inspire those familiar with Jung to view him in an entirely new way. The Quotable Jung presents hundreds of the most representative selections from the vast array of Jung’s books, essays, correspondence, lectures, seminars, and interviews, as well as the celebrated Red Book, in which Jung describes his own fearsome confrontation with the unconscious. Organized thematically, this collection covers such topics as the psyche, the symbolic life, dreams, the analytic process, good and evil, creativity, alchemical transformation, death and rebirth, the problem of the opposites, and more. The quotations are arranged so that the reader can follow the thread of Jung’s thought on these topics while gaining an invaluable perspective on his writings as a whole. Succinct and accessible, The Quotable Jung also features a preface by Judith Harris and a detailed chronology of Jung’s life and work.* The single most comprehensive collection of Jung quotations ever assembled * Features hundreds of quotes * Covers such topics as the psyche, dreams, good and evil, death and rebirth, and more * Includes a detailed chronology of Jung’s life and work * Serves as the ideal introduction to Jung and the Jungian tradition

Judith Harris is President of the Philemon Foundation and a Jungian analyst in private practice. She is a supervising and training analyst at ISAPZURICH and a senior analyst at the Ontario Association of Jungian Analysts. She is the author ofJung and Yoga: The Psyche-Body Connection. She lives in Zürich and Toronto. Endorsements: "An ideal resource for anyone seeking to find Jung’s most fertile ideas succinctly and powerfully stated."--John Beebe, author of Integrity in Depth "This comprehensive selection of quotations provides a pathway into the complex world of Jung’s thought while never reducing his ideas to oversimplified formulas. The Quotable Jung is an extremely useful volume for anyone coming to Jung for the first time."--Paul Bishop, author of Reading Goethe at Midlife: Ancient Wisdom, German Classicism, and Jung Raj Persaud and Peter Bruggen are joint podcast editors for the Royal College of Psychiatrists and also now have a free app on iTunes and Google Play store entitled ‘Raj Persaud in conversation’, which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. Download it free from these links: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.raj(link is external) https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id9274662(link is external) Dr Raj Persaud’s new novel, Can’t Get You Out Of My Head, is based on a unique UK police unit that really does protect Buckingham Palace from fixated obsessives. The psychological thriller poses the question: Is love the most dangerous emotion? |

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Hugh Middleton discusses his new book 'Psychiatry Reconsidered', with Dr Raj Persaud - his book is a n exciting critique of many of the serious problems with modern psychiatry, including fundamental questions he raises over issues such as diagnosis, treatment and the medical model.

Hugh Middleton is both an Associate Professor of the School of Sociology and Social Policy and an NHS Consultant Psychiatrist. Hugh qualified in medicine in 1974 (Cambridge and St George's), became a Member of the Royal College of Physicians in 1976, completed an MD (Cambridge) in 1980, became a Member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1986 and was elected a Fellow in 2009.

Hugh led organisation of the third and fourth Qualitative Research in Mental Health conferences which took place in Nottingham in 2010 and 2012, contributed to the fifth in 2014 and is due to give a keynote address at the sixth in May 2016, which will be held in Crete. He has organised a monthly University of Nottingham seminar providing "Critical Perspectives on Health and Social Care" in the form of visiting speakers and multidisciplinary discussion and debate. He has supervised six successful PhDs exploring various aspects of mental health difficulty from a social sciences perspective and his undergraduate teaching is a popular elective third module, "Sociological Perspectives of Medicine: the Case of Psychiatry".

From Palgrave Macmillan website:

http://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781137411365

Psychiatry Reconsidered From Medical Treatment to Supportive Understanding Psychiatry suffers a lot of criticism, not least from within its own scientifically founded medical world. This book provides an account of mental health difficulties and how they are generally addressed in conventional medical circles, alongside critical reviews of the assumptions underpinning them to encourage more humanitarian perspectives.

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Dr Raj Persaud talks to a lady who received ECT or shock treatment after a prolonged and severe bout of depression. What is it like to be treated with this therapy? What kind of problems lead doctors to consider using it? Are there side-effects? In the long-run is it worth it? Does this treatment work? Is the reality of such a treatment anything like it's portrayal in Hollywood films? All these questions and more are tackled in this rare interview with someone who has actually received ECT.

Follow Dr Raj Persaud on Twitter: www.twitter.com/(link is external)@DrRajPersaud

Raj Persaud and Peter Bruggen are joint podcast editors for the Royal College of Psychiatrists and also now have a free app on iTunes and Google Play store entitled ‘Raj Persaud in conversation’, which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world.

Download it free from these links:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.raj...(link is external)

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id9274662...

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From The Great Courses website:

http://www.thegreatcourses.co.uk/courses/writing-great-fiction-storytelling-tips-and-techniques.html

Whether you’re huddled around the campfire, composing an email to a friend, or sitting down to write a novel, storytelling is fundamental to human nature. But as any writer can tell you, the blank page can be daunting. It’s tough to know where to get started, what details to include in each scene, and how to move from the kernel of an idea to a completed manuscript.

Writing great fiction isn’t a gift reserved for the talented few. There is a craft to storytelling that can be learned, and studying the fiction writer’s techniques can be incredibly rewarding—both personally and professionally. Even if you don’t have ambitions of penning the next Moby-Dick, you’ll find value in exploring all the elements of great fiction.

From evoking a scene to charting a plot to selecting a point of view, Writing Great Fiction: Storytelling Tips and Techniques offers a master class in storytelling. Taught by acclaimed novelist James Hynes, a former visiting professor at the famed Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the University of Michigan, these 24 insightful lectures show you the ins and outs of the fiction writer’s craft.

Raj Persaud talks to Professor James Hynes on why people write.

http://www.thegreatcourses.co.uk/courses/writing-great-fiction-storytelling-tips-and-techniques.html

Professor James Hynes is a published novelist who has taught creative writing as a visiting professor at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the University of Michigan, The University of Texas, Miami University, and Grinnell College. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Michigan and a Master of Fine Arts from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Professor Hynes is the author of five works of fiction: Next, which received the 2011 Believer Book Award from the Believer magazine; Kings of Infinite Space, a Washington Post best book for 2004; The Lecturer’s Tale and Publish and Perish, which were both New York Times Notable Books of the Year; and The Wild Colonial Boy, which received the Adult Literature Award from the Friends of American Writers and was a New York Times Notable Book for 1990. In addition to his work as a novelist, he has also written book reviews and literary essays, which have appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Boston Review, Salon, and other publications.

Professor Hynes has received several literary grants and teaching fellowships, including a James Michener Fellowship from the University of Iowa, a Teaching-Writing Fellowship from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a Michigan Council for the Arts writer’s grant. He currently lives in Austin, Texas, and is writing a new novel.

For more information on Professor Hynes and his books:

http://www.jameshynes.com/

You can listen to the interview via a free app on iTunes and google play store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. Download it free from these links

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id927466223?mt=8

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Raj Persaud Talks to Carlos Fraenkel - an academic philosopher at the University of McGill in Canada about his new book - Teaching Plato in Palestine.

From the Princeton University Press website:

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/104...

Teaching Plato in Palestine is part intellectual travelogue, part plea for integrating philosophy into our personal and public life. Philosophical toolkit in tow, Carlos Fraenkel invites readers on a tour around the world as he meets students at Palestinian and Indonesian universities, lapsed Hasidic Jews in New York, teenagers from poor neighborhoods in Brazil, and the descendants of Iroquois warriors in Canada. They turn to Plato and Aristotle, al-Ghazālī and Maimonides, Spinoza and Nietzsche for help to tackle big questions: Does God exist? Is piety worth it? Can violence be justified? What is social justice and how can we get there? Who should rule? And how shall we deal with the legacy of colonialism? Fraenkel shows how useful the tools of philosophy can be—particularly in places fraught with conflict—to clarify such questions and explore answers to them. In the course of the discussions, different viewpoints often clash. That’s a good thing, Fraenkel argues, as long as we turn our disagreements on moral, religious, and philosophical issues into what he calls a “culture of debate.” Conceived as a joint search for the truth, a culture of debate gives us a chance to examine the beliefs and values we were brought up with and often take for granted. It won’t lead to easy answers, Fraenkel admits, but debate, if philosophically nuanced, is more attractive than either forcing our views on others or becoming mired in multicultural complacency—and behaving as if differences didn’t matter at all.

Carlos Fraenkel teaches philosophy and religion at the University of Oxford and McGill University in Montreal. He is the author of Philosophical Religions from Plato to Spinoza, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Nation, the London Review of Books, and the Times Literary Supplement, among other publications.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id927466223?mt=8

Review:

"What unites [the classroom conversations] is [Fraenkel's] skill in the art of posing questions designed to perplex and provoke. He lets us overhear the Socratic form of dialogue that Plato invented and that Mr. Fraenkel practices much to his students’ pleasure, and ours."--Benjamin Balint, Wall Street Journal

"Fresh, iconoclastic, stimulating debates."--Kirkus

"The author urges religious people who aren’t bound by literalism, secularists who don’t dismiss all religion as anachronism, and inquisitive types of all persuasions to try something. First, accept freedom of expression, recognize your fallibility and prepare yourself to revise received assumptions. And then plunge into debates about morality, faith, governance, rights and other matters that divide us . . . the discussions you engage in, as suggested by his and his students’ experiences, will likely broaden your horizons and nourish your intellect."--Rayyan Al-Shawaf, Toronto Star

"If you read one book published this year, then you might make it Teaching Plato in Palestine: Philosophy in a Divided World."--Aminatta Forna, The Independent

Endorsement:

"Carlos Fraenkel thinks that philosophy is essential to a culture of debate that gets us out of our cultural, religious, and intellectual cloisters. We understand ourselves by arguing with others, and understand others by arguing with ourselves. Fraenkel takes these convictions out of the classroom and tests them around the world—from Makassar to East Jerusalem, from Bahia to Brooklyn. The result is a wonderful, engaging, and readable book about the power of philosophy."--Joshua Cohen, coeditor of The Norton Introduction to Philosophy

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/104...

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Dr raj persaud talks to dr matthew broome on latest thinking about delusions Dr Raj Persaud talks to Dr Matthew Broome at the Royal College of Psychiatrists Annual Conference and International Congress - Birmingham 2015. Dr Broome was chairing a session on the very latest developments in thinking about delusions and discussed the presentations after the conference session.

are delusions a kind of 'emergency treatment' by which the mind seeks to take care of a crisis but it has unfortunate longer term consequences?

FROM http://www.psych.ox.ac.uk/team/PIs/matthew-broome matthew broome is a SENIOR CLINICAL RESEARCH FELLOW * Consultant Psychiatrist * Associate College Tutor, Oxfordshire

Research into the early detection of mental illness brings clear benefits as not only may new cases be prevented, but those who do develop the disorder yet are able to receive appropriate early treatment may have better clinical outcomes, including lower rates of admission and suicide, as well as greater function. Such an approach is not only clinically advantageous, but economically brings cost benefits to the NHS.

Current ongoing work involves collaborations with colleagues in the Department of Psychosis Studies at the Institute of Psychiatry using multi-modal imaging techniques to examine those at risk of developing psychosis, funded by the EU and the Wellcome Trust, and, with Stephen Wood in Birmingham, a new MRC-funded study looking at structural brain changes serially over time. Additionally, with Nick Dale at Warwick, I am working on developing a bedside technique of examining D- and L-Serine, a marker of the NMDA receptor function, dysfunction of which has been implicated in schizophrenia. Together with Steven Marwaha, we are beginning to pilot measures of mood instability in clinical populations with different diagnoses to try and determine whether the experience is the same in different disorders and continue our work examining mood instability in the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey.

Until 2012, I was Chair of the Philosophy Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and am part of the Maudsley Philosophy Group and have an active interest in the philosophy of psychiatry and neuroscience. I recently co-edited The Maudsley Reader in Phenomenological Psychiatry and have an ongoing programme of work examining delusions as well as responsibility in mental illness with Lisa Bortolotti at the University of Birmingham. I am one of the series editors for International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry and on the editorial board for the British Journal of Psychiatry.

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Raj Persaud talks to Richard Bentall at the Royal College of Psychiatrists Annual Conference and International Congress - Birmingham 2015. Professor Bentall was taking part in a session on the very latest developments in thinking about delusions and discussed his presentation after the conference session.

The conversation begins with Professor Bentall reminding us that how to understand what a delusion is, and what it isn't, in terms of strange beliefs, is not so straightforward, in certain 'tricky cases'.

Richard Bentall is Professor of Clinical Psychology at Liverpool University and has previously held chairs at Manchester University and Bangor University. He graduated with a BSc and then a PhD in experimental psychology at the University College of North Wales (now Bangor University) and then completed his clinical training at Liverpool University. He also holds an MA in philosophy applied to health care awarded by University College Swansea (now Swansea University). His research interests have mainly focused on psychosis. He has studied the cognitive and emotional mechanisms involved in psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations, paranoid delusions and manic states, using methods ranging from psychological experiments, and experience sampling to functional magnetic resonance imaging. Most recently, his research has focused on why social risk factors (for example childhood adversities such as poverty, abuse, and bullying) provoke the cognitive and emotional changes that lead to these symptoms. In collaboration with colleagues at Manchester and elsewhere he has also conducted large scale randomized controlled trials of psychological interventions for people diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and prodromal psychosis. He has published over 200 peer-review papers and a number of books including Madness explained: Psychosis and human nature (Penguin, 2003) and Doctoring the mind: Why psychiatric treatments fail (Penguin, 2009).

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Dr Philip Wilkinson talks to Dr Raj Persaud about Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation - a new promising treatment in Psychiatry?

from http://www.psych.ox.ac.uk/team/senior-researchers/philip-wilkinson

Dr Philip Wilkinson: I am a consultant old age psychiatrist with Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust. Related to my work with inpatients, I have an interest in the management of late life depression and am currently working with colleagues in the Neurobiology of Ageing Group on transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).

I have an interest in psychological treatments with older people. I have recently worked with the Oxford Mindfulness Centre on developing a mindfulness intervention in dementia care and am a Trustee of the Oxford Mindfulness Foundation.

FROM: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/psychiatry/specialty_areas/brain_stimulation/tdcs.html

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), is a non-invasive, painless brain stimulation treatment that uses direct electrical currents to stimulate specific parts of the brain. A constant, low intensity current is passed through two electrodes placed over the head which modulates neuronal activity. There are two types of stimulation with tDCS: anodal and cathodal stimulation. Anodal stimulation acts to excite neuronal activity while cathodal stimulation inhibits or reduces neuronal activity.

Although tDCS is still an experimental form of brain stimulation, it potentially has several advantages over other brain stimulation techniques. It is cheap, non-invasive, painless and safe. It is also easy to administer and the equipment is easily portable. The most common side effect of tDCS is a slight itching or tingling on the scalp.

Several studies suggest it may be a valuable tool for the treatment of neuropsychiatric conditions such as depression, anxiety, Parkinson’s disease, and chronic pain. Research has also demonstrated cognitive improvement in some patients undergoing tDCS. Currently, tDCS is not an FDA-approved treatment.

You can listen to the interview with Dr Philip Wilkinson via a free app on iTunes and google play store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. Download it free from these links

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Raj Persaud talks to Phillip Corlett Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Yale University about the latest thinking on delusions.

From http://psychiatry.yale.edu/people/philip_corlett.profile:

Dr. Philip Robert Corlett trained in Experimental Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychiatry with Professors Trevor Robbins and Paul Fletcher at the University of Cambridge. He won a Wellcome Trust Prize Studentship and completed his PhD on the brain bases of delusion formation in the Brain Mapping Unit, Department of Psychiatry. After a short postdoc, he was awarded the University of Cambridge Parke- Davis Exchange Fellowship in Biomedical Sciences which brought him to the Yale University Department of Psychiatry to explore the maintenance of delusions with Professors Jane Taylor and John Krystal. He was named a Rising Star and Future Opinion Leader by Pharmaceutical Marketing Magazine and joined the Yale faculty in 2011 where he will continue to explore the cognitive and biological mechanisms of delusional beliefs as well as predictive learning, habit formation and addiction.

From: http://medicine.yale.edu/lab/corlett/

Delusions are odd beliefs. They accompany many psychiatric illnesses, notably schizophrenia. A major challenge is to understand delusions in terms of changes in brain function.

Our lab attempts to meet this challenge by investigating the neural basis of human associative learning and belief formation, relating these processes to the formation of delusional beliefs.

Dr. Corlett’s findings have shaped the development of a novel mechanistic model of delusion formation.

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Dr Paola Dazzan Reader in Neurobiology of Psychosis explains to Dr Raj Persaud the latest theory that psychosis may be related to an inflammation of the brain. Inflammation and metabolic changes in First Episode Psychosis: Preliminary results from a longitudinal study Contribution to journal › Article

Alice Russell ; Simone Ciufolini ; Poonam Gardner-Sood ; Stefania Bonaccorso ; Fiona Gaughran ; Paola Dazzan ;Carmine M Pariante ; Valeria Mondelli

Overview
Citation formats

Bibliographical note

King's Authors

Alice Russell (Psychological Medicine, Stress, Psychiatry and Immunology Laboratory & Section of Perinatal Psychiatry,Psychological Medicine Clinical Academic Group)
Simone Ciufolini (Psychosis Studies, NIHR Biomedical Research Centre)
Poonam Gardner-Sood (Psychological Medicine, Psychological Medicine Clinical Academic Group)
Stefania Bonaccorso (Psychosis Clinical Academic Group)
Fiona Gaughran (Psychosis Studies)
Paola Dazzan (Psychosis Studies, NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, Psychosis Clinical Academic Group)
Carmine M Pariante (Psychological Medicine, Stress, Psychiatry and Immunology Laboratory & Section of Perinatal Psychiatry, Centre for Affective Disorders , NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, Psychological Medicine Clinical Academic Group)
Valeria Mondelli

Abstract

Metabolic abnormalities are commonly observed in patients with psychosis, and may confer greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease later in life. Such abnormalities are associated with inflammation in the general population, and there is increasing evidence for elevated inflammation in patients with first episode psychosis (FEP). The aim of this preliminary study is to examine the effect of changes in inflammation, as measured by high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP), on metabolic changes in a three-month longitudinal study in a FEP sample. Fifty-three FEP patients from in- and out-patient services in South London, England, were included in this longitudinal study. Social and clinical data were collected, and fasting blood samples and anthropometric measurements (weight, Body Mass Index (BMI), lipid profile and gluco-metabolic parameters) were obtained at baseline and at three-month follow-up. Correlation analyses showed that those with increases in hsCRP over the three-month period also had increases in triglyceride levels (r = 0.49, p = 0.02). No association was observed with other lipid profile, or gluco-metabolic parameters. Increases in weight and BMI were also associated with increases in triglyceride levels (r = 0.33, p = 0.02; and r = 0.31, p = 0.03, respectively); however, a multiple linear regression analysis found that the effects of inflammation on triglycerides were independent from the effect of changes in weight, and from the baseline inflammatory state. Our preliminary findings suggest that those patients experiencing greater increases in inflammation early on in the course of their illness may be at greater risk of developing short-term metabolic abnormalities, in particular dyslipidaemia, independent of weight-gain. Future work should investigate the use of inflammatory markers to identify patients in greater need of physical health interventions.

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From http://chimpmanagement.com/thechimpmodel.html

The Chimp Model is a Model for understanding and managing the functioning of the mind. The Model is not a hypothesis nor strict scientific fact but based on the neuroscience of the brain. The model is fun but meant to be taken seriously when it comes to applying it.

The model sees the brain as being divided into three teams. The first team is you, the Human (headed up by the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex). You are a conscious thinking analysing being that works with facts and truth and then makes deductions using logical thinking. The second team is the Chimp, an independent thinking brain that is not under your control. It works with feelings and impressions and then puts the ‘information’ together using emotional thinking. The third team is the Computer. This is really a brain that is at the disposal of the Human and Chimp to put information into for reference. It acts as a memory and can also act as an automatic thinking and acting machine that is programmed to take over if the Chimp or Human is asleep or if they allow it to run ahead of them with preformed decisions and beliefs that it can act with.

As the resident psychiatrist at GB cycling, Steve was described as a genius by Dave Brailsford. Working in several sports, he has an unparalleled reputation for giving people an edge – as well as the confidence to overcome defeat. As in his book The Chimp Paradox, Steve shows how to deal with fear and ‘become the person you want to be’. He explains how to visualise and break each challenge into small stages, focusing on the process rather than the outcome.

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Dr Lena Palaniyappan qualified as a medical doctor from Stanley Medical College, Chennai, India along with a concurrent BA in Psychology. Since 2004 he has trained as a clinical psychiatrist, initially at the Maudsley Hospital, London and later at Nottingham where he obtained his M.Med.Sci. in Clinical Psychiatry. Between 2007 and 2009 he worked as an Academic Clinical Fellow (NIHR funded) at the Regional Affective Disorders Unit at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Following a HEFCE funded clinical lecturer post during which he coordinated a MRC funded neuroimaging study in psychosis led by Prof. Liddle, he obtained a Wellcome Trust funded Clinical Research Fellowship in Translational Neuroimaging in Psychiatry.

He recently assumed the role of Associate Director of the Centre for Translational Neuroimaging in Mental Health. He is also a member of the editorial board for Frontiers in Neuropsychiatric Imaging and Stimulation. As a consultant psychiatrist, he works with young people who experience a psychotic episode for the first time in their lives.

My present clinical research aims to apply brain imaging to investigate symptom burden, treatment response and prognostic accuracy in major psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression.

To this end, my work focuses on understanding the intrinsically organized, large-scale brain networks in psychosis using structural, functional and electrophysiological imaging techniques. I am interested in the clinical application of neuroimaging observations made at an individual level (rather than group level) using advanced statistical approaches and mathematical models. I am also interested in developing hypothesis-driven neuromodulatory approaches that target resistant symptoms of depression and psychosis through the manipulation of dysfunctional brain networks (e.g. using magnetic stimulation and cognitive training approaches).

The major goal of my work is to understand the pathways that lead to poor long-term outcome in certain individuals with serious mental disorders.

PLEASE SEE BONUS CONTENT GIFT WRAP ICON AT TOP OF PAGE ON THE APP FOR A DOWNLOAD OF AN ORIGINAL PAPER ON TMS PUBLISHED IN THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY

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Anna Ruddle and Sarah Dilks consider whether therapists should talk about themselves in therapy

Psychologists Anna Ruddle and Sarah Dilks discuss with Psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud when therapists should talk about themselves, and whey they shouldn't.

FROM THE ORIGINAL PAPER PUBLISHED IN THE PSYCHOLOGIST

As psychologists, we are increasingly encouraged to work

as equal partners with people to overcome problems or facilitate

recovery, as defined by the individual. There is an emphasis

on the common human experience of all parties. So should we be

behaving differently with clients, opening up more, sharing our own

experiences of stress, anxiety and resilience? Or would this be

considered unprofessional and even risky?

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What can Helen teach us about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder? Interview with Helen Barbour by Dr Raj Persaud

In the new novel ‘The A To Z of Normal’ by Helen Barbour - Clare Thorpe's need for order and symmetry governs everything she owns - from tins and toiletries, to cushions and clothes. Yet she has always managed to hide the compulsions dominating her world. Until now. When long-distance boyfriend Tom proposes, her secret life begins to unravel. How can she share a future with the man she loves, if she can't even share her space? And when the only way forward brings a threat greater than any compulsive behaviour, do they have a future together at all? A poignant and humorous story of love, family, secrets...and military precision.

The book is available to order here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/A-To-Normal-Helen-Barbour/dp/178132381X

Helen's blog 'The Reluctant Perfectionist' is available here:

http://helenbarbour.blogspot.co.uk/

Reviews

'Clare loves her boyfriend, Tom. So why is she panic-stricken when he asks her to marry him? Because marriage means living together. And that means he will find out what she’s really like...

In The A-Z of Normal, Clare inhabits a world in which extreme order and ritual rule. She arranges her belongings with military precision. The simplest of acts have to be done in a particular manner with dizzying attention to detail. It’s no wonder that keeping her compulsive behaviour secret from those closest to her proves exhausting. She wants to change. She tries to change. As she searches for a ‘cure’, however, her life becomes ever more complicated and, at times, she appears bent on throwing away her happiness. The way she is going it seems less and less likely she will ever make things work with Tom.

Helen Barbour understands the nature of obsessive behaviour and writes about it brilliantly. She explores a tricky subject with sharpness and humour. I found myself willing Clare on, wishing she could free herself from the stranglehold of her destructive compulsions. The A-Z of Normal is a funny and poignant story. If ever anyone deserves their happy ending, it’s Clare.'

Maria Malone, Author and Ghostwriter (Cheryl Cole, Tony Hadley, Eamonn Holmes, Mica Paris), www.mariamalonebooks.com

‘I loved The A-Z of Normal, by Helen Barbour. The author uses an intelligent blend of both humour and poignancy to journey with the protagonist through something inherently challenging. It's an intriguing exploration and clever observation of a challenging and touching personal struggle that leaves the reader satisfied...and yet hungry for more by the end of the book. I hope there will be a sequel!’

Tina Cadwallader

‘The A to Z of Normal is a well-paced book which I found difficult to put down.

Clare is finding it difficult to overcome her Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) behaviour before she marries Tom. Her family, each occupied with issues in their own lives, know nothing of her struggle so are unable to offer her any help. She joins a group in the hope that others suffering from OCD can offer support and there she meets Michael who creates additional problems in her life.

This captivating story explores the difficulties faced by OCD sufferers in a sensitive and humorous way.’

Carol Sampson

You can listen to the interview with Helen Barbour via a free app on iTunes and google play store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. Download it free from these links

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Raj Persaud talks to Timothy Verstynen about his new book on what Zombies can teach us about the brain, co-authored with Bradley Voytek Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep?A Neuroscientific View of the Zombie BrainTimothy Verstynen & Bradley Voytek   Winner of the 2015 PROSE Award in Biomedicine & Neuroscience, Association of American Publishers

Hardcover | 2014 | $19.95/ £13.95 | ISBN: 9780691157283

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10305.html

Even if you’ve never seen a zombie movie or television show, you could identify an undead ghoul if you saw one. With their endless wandering, lumbering gait, insatiable hunger, antisocial behavior, and apparently memory-less existence, zombies are the walking nightmares of our deepest fears. What do these characteristic behaviors reveal about the inner workings of the zombie mind? Could we diagnose zombism as a neurological condition by studying their behavior? In Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep?, neuroscientists and zombie enthusiasts Timothy Verstynen and Bradley Voytek apply their neuro-know-how to dissect the puzzle of what has happened to the zombie brain to make the undead act differently than their human prey.

Combining tongue-in-cheek analysis with modern neuroscientific principles, Verstynen and Voytek show how zombism can be understood in terms of current knowledge regarding how the brain works. In each chapter, the authors draw on zombie popular culture and identify a characteristic zombie behavior that can be explained using neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and brain-behavior relationships. Through this exploration they shed light on fundamental neuroscientific questions such as: How does the brain function during sleeping and waking? What neural systems control movement? What is the nature of sensory perception?

Walking an ingenious line between seriousness and satire, Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep? leverages the popularity of zombie culture in order to give readers a solid foundation in neuroscience.

Timothy Verstynen is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and at the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition at Carnegie Mellon University. Bradley Voytek is assistant professor of computational cognitive science and neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego. They are both members of the Zombie Research Society and are preparing grant applications to research the coming zombie apocalypse.

Review:

"If you've ever wondered which pathologies are responsible for the stiff and murderous personalities of zombies, this actual scientific explainer is the book for you."--Mental Floss

"Verstynen and Voytek's entertaining book uses zombies to help illustrate human neuroscience. . . . Zombie fans will want this book, and anyone concerned with neuroscience will find the topic made accessible by this lighthearted exploration."--Library Journal

"Neuroscientists and zombie enthusiasts Timothy Verstynen and Bradley Voytek have recently come out with a new book called Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep?, in which they apply their neuroscience backgrounds to an investigation of the undead. It's filled with pages of increasingly nerdy explorations of zombie behavior, and I highly recommend it, but what really caught my eye was the authors' conclusion: All the walking dead have Consciousness Deficit Hypoactivity Disorder, or CDHD."--Kyle Hill, Nerdist

"Voytek and Verstynen serve up an introduction to neuroscience but through the guise of zombies. Each chapter tackles a different zombie behavior and breaks it down through the current neuroscientific understanding of it. It's a kind of Neuroscience 101 that tackles complex ideas in a fun, enjoyable manner."--KPBS.org

"[Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep? is] a quick, cheeky read told by the sort of people who toss out punchlines while watching films such as 28 Days Later and World War Z."--Gary Robbins, U-T San Diego

"[Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep?] is smart, informative, historically riveting, well referenced, and like all good zombie stories, wonderfully fun. . . . If you want a sophisticated primer of neuroscience, coupled with a Halloween spin, then there can be no other book."--Steven C. Schlozman, Science

The interview on the neuroscience of zombies can be listened to on a free app on iTunes and google play store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. Download it free from these links

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Dr Joel Gold, Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, NYU School of Medicine, talks to Dr Raj Persaud about his new book which includes vivid descriptions of what may be a completely new delusion - The Truman Show Delusion - where a patient delusionally believes they are taking part in an all-encompassing reality TV show where they are the unwitting star as in the Jim Carrey movie 'The Truman Show'.

Suspicious Minds

How Culture Shapes Madness

A new book By Psychiatrist Dr Joel Gold and Philosopher Professor Ian Gold

What if you woke up with the alarming suspicion that you were being watched?

One day in 2003, a patient unlike any other that Dr. Joel Gold had seen before was admitted to his unit at Bellevue Hospital. This man claimed he was being filmed constantly and that his life was being broadcast around the world like The Truman Show—the 1998 film depicting a man who is unknowingly living out his life as the star of a popular soap opera. Over the next few years, Dr. Gold saw a number of patients suffering from what he and his brother, Dr. Ian Gold, began calling the “Truman Show delusion,” launching them on a quest to understand the nature of this particular phenomenon, of delusions more generally, and of madness itself.

The current view of delusions is that they are the result of biology gone awry, of neurons in the brain misfiring. In contrast, the Golds argue that delusions are the result of the interaction between the brain and the social world. By exploring the major categories of delusion through fascinating case studies and marshaling the latest research in schizophrenia, the brothers reveal the role of culture and the social world in the development of psychosis—delusions in particular. Suspicious Minds presents a groundbreaking new vision of just how dramatically our surroundings can influence our brains.

Order the book from here: http://books.simonandschuster.com/Suspicious-Minds/Joel-Gold/9781439181553

A related article which may be of interest:

Was it a Psychotic Episode in L. Ron Hubbard That Led Him to Found the Church of Scientology? http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-raj-persaud/scientology-l-ron-hubbard_b_1656883.html

by Raj Persaud and Peter Bruggen

A French Psychoanalyst, Dr Thierry Lamote, claims in a book (La Scientologie déchiffrée par la psychanalyse. La folie du fondateur, Universitaires du Mirail Press), and in a paper just published in the academic Journal 'L'Évolution Psychiatrique', that L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the religious group, The Church of Scientology, suffered a psychotic episode, which appears to be the foundation for the multi-million pound worldwide movement.

Scientology claims a host of celebrity followers, such as film star Tom Cruise. The unswerving devotion of many adherents alarms some people. Jenna Miscavige Hill, said to be an ex-Scientologist whose uncle is a Scientology Church leader, is quoted inThe Daily Telegraph Newspaper on 6 July as having publicly warned Katie Holmes, currently divorcing Tom Cruise, that Scientology was "no place for an innocent child", like her daughter Suri. Cruise and Holmes are said to be starting a custody battle, and it's possible that Cruise's high profile following of Scientology, might become a factor in the dispute.

Analysing the founder of Scientology's writings and biographical material, Dr Lamote's research contends it was Ron Hubbard's battle with psychotic symptoms that partly drew him to therapy approaches advocated by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. It seems he then exploited Freud to create a movement which its adherents would find difficult to leave.

In his paper entitled 'Scientology: A systematized delirious inspired by Breuer and Freud's Studies on hysteria', Dr Lamote claims Hubbard subsequently re-named various old techniques and ideas used by Freud (some dating from before Freud founded psychoanalysis) and incorporated them into Scientology. Part of the continuing power of the movement may lie in these Freudian approaches, Dr Lamote's analysis suggests. Supposedly unlocking and exploring the unconscious, can become psychologically 'addictive', explaining why so many find themselves drawn into Scientology, become dependent on it, and then are unable to understand why so many others remain suspicious of the movement.

Towards the end of the 1930s, Dr Lamote writes that Hubbard had a tooth extracted under nitrous oxide, also referred to as "laughing gas", used during general anaesthesia, but which can cause disturbing mind-altering effects. Lamote then points out that Hubbard, in a letter written on 1 January 1938, and other writings, relates a set of strange experiences as result, including hearing voices repeating enigmatic sentences such as, "Do not let him know!". They could sound like the kind of hallucinations Doctors associate with a psychotic illness.

Lamote found that Hubbard frequently returned to this painful experience, indicating how profoundly important it was to him, maybe a turning point.

Dr Lamote contends a psychotic process within Hubbard's mind had begun, but lay largely undetected by the outside world until possibly 1943 when Hubbard was a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. He was put in charge of a naval gun ship, the USS PC-815, a submarine chaser. In what remains a controversial episode, Lt. Hubbard, shortly after setting to sea, appears to have heard things through the sonar and hydrophone indicating contact with an enemy submarine.

Over the next three days, he launched 37 depth charges, and claimed to have sunk an enemy submarine, while critically damaging another. But no other official in the Navy seems to have agreed. Instead Dr Lamote's research suggests that Hubbard was fighting a battle with delusional enemies.

Dr Lamote wonders if this was part of his developing a paranoid picture of the universe?

Around this crucial time, Dr Lamote's paper points out, the exploding of the Hiroshima bomb perhaps profoundly shook and maybe further destabilised him. Formerly a science fiction writer, Hubbard appears to have become disillusioned, even perhaps frightened by the power of science. This combined with his mounting anxiety that society needed to be controlled, otherwise war and total annihilation was inevitable, possibly laid the seeds for the controlling nature of the movement he founded.

Lamote's paper contends that Hubbard turned to the science of cybernetics of control, in order to build a religious movement at the heart of which would be control over large numbers, in order to reduce the risk of self-destruction, which appeared to him to be mankind's destiny.

Into this mix Lamote believes Hubbard threw in teachings from psychoanalysts' Freud and his colleague Breuer, who were some of the earliest proponents of the idea that psychological distress arose out of repressed memories from earlier in life, which required access, through therapy, in order for us to achieve well-being. Hubbard had many physical symptoms and Lamote wonders whether the early psychoanalytic idea, that some physical symptoms had a psychological cause buried deep in the unconscious, may have influenced him. Through this approach, he may have found relief from his own physical symptoms.

Dr Lamote argues that Hubbard pioneered an idea of an 'engram' which is a kind of memory of pain which goes back so far into the past to include the pain of cell division, when we first started as an organism, but could retreat even further, to past or parental lives. The techniques of Dianetics, contends Dr Lamote's paper, include many which resembled counterparts in psychoanalysis such as hypnosis and abreaction, where past trauma is encouraged to be emotionally ventilated.

Tom Cruise did jump up and down in apparent agitation on Oprah's sofa during a televised interview.

It is this borrowing from psychotherapy and psychoanalysis that Dr Lamote work suggests partly explains the powerful appeal of Scientology to so many, and ironically enough, its founder Ron Hubbard. Just as therapy can be addictive, so can Scientology, because it borrows similar techniques but re-labels them. Like psychoanalysis it offers a universal therapeutic method, supposed to solve all human ills.

Dr Lamote points out there is almost a sense in which Freud has been re-discovered and re-packaged by Scientology.

Back in 2005 Tom Cruise was reported to have condemned the actress Brook Shields after she went public on the benefit she received from anti-depressant medication, while suffering from serious postpartum depression. Scientology is traditionally virulently anti-psychiatry, and anti-psychiatric treatments such as its medication.

It might be ironic, therefore, if Hubbard, founder of a strongly anti-psychiatric movement had been heavily influenced right back in the beginning, by what some would regard as the most famous psychiatrist of all, Sigmund Freud.

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The Devil Wins:A History of Lying from the Garden of Eden to the EnlightenmentDallas G. Denery II From the Princeton University Press website: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10323.html

| Is it ever acceptable to lie? This question plays a surprisingly important role in the story of Europe’s transition from medieval to modern society. According to many historians, Europe became modern when Europeans began to lie—that is, when they began to argue that it is sometimes acceptable to lie. This popular account offers a clear trajectory of historical progression from a medieval world of faith, in which every lie is sinful, to a more worldly early modern society in which lying becomes a permissible strategy for self-defense and self-advancement. Unfortunately, this story is wrong. For medieval and early modern Christians, the problem of the lie was the problem of human existence itself. To ask “Is it ever acceptable to lie?” was to ask how we, as sinners, should live in a fallen world. As it turns out, the answer to that question depended on who did the asking. The Devil Wins uncovers the complicated history of lying from the early days of the Catholic Church to the Enlightenment, revealing the diversity of attitudes about lying by considering the question from the perspectives of five representative voices—the Devil, God, theologians, courtiers, and women. Examining works by Augustine, Bonaventure, Martin Luther, Madeleine de Scudéry, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and a host of others, Dallas G. Denery II shows how the lie, long thought to be the source of worldly corruption, eventually became the very basis of social cohesion and peace. Dallas G. Denery II is associate professor of history at Bowdoin College. He is the author of Seeing and Being Seen in the Later Medieval World: Optics, Theology, and Religious Life and the coeditor of Uncertain Knowledge: Scepticism, Relativism, and Doubt in the Middle Ages. Review: "[The Devil Wins is] an informative, sophisticated, and thought-provoking account of the efforts of theologians and philosophers from the early Christian era to the Enlightenment to define lies and understand their ethical, social, and political implications."--Glenn Altschuler, Psychology Today "Denery explores analyses of an enormous variety of deceptions, and does so with an erudition that is never pedantic or monotonous. He is an entertaining writer, with a healthy skepticism about the dogmatic condemnation of lying as always, or even mostly, morally blameworthy. . . . I think Nietzsche would have loved this book."--Clancy Martin, Chronicle of Higher Education Endorsement: "In this exquisitely written book, Denery draws on centuries of rumination on the moral issues surrounding lying to address the question of how we should live in a fallen world. The serpent in the Garden of Eden led humankind astray with lies. The Devil is the father of lies. Premodern sources agonized constantly over the act of lying. Denery not only superbly narrates the long history of this obsession, but also locates the conditions that reveal an Enlightenment shift toward a not entirely comfortable modernity."--William Chester Jordan, Princeton University "Can God lie? Are women ‘born liars’? These are just two of the questions Denery asks--and answers--in his wide-ranging, erudite study. Written in an engaging and accessible style, The Devil Wins sheds a new and fascinating light on a mendacious world stretching from the Book of Genesis to the dawn of the Enlightenment."--Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, author of Poets, Saints, and Visionaries of the Great Schism, 1378–1417 If you are viewing this podcast from inside the free mobile phone app 'Raj Persaud in Conversation' you can click on the 'gift box' icon which might be on the top right hand corner of your screen to download bonus content - an original paper by Dallas Denery "From Sacred Mystery to Divine Deception: Robert Holkot, John Wyclif and the Transformation of Fourteenth-Century Eucharistic Discourse," Journal of Religious History, June 2005:129-44. Article in PDF» You can also find this bonus content in the initial main menu screen that comes up when you open the app on the top right hand corner of the screen under a menu icon that reveals 'extras' - click on extras to see the bonus content. A related article which may be of interest first published in The Huffington Post by Raj Persaud and Aldert Vrij http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-raj-persaud/how-to-tell-who-is-lying-to-you_b_1550456.html How to Tell Who is Lying to You - The Latest Psychological Research Syria's UN envoy has condemned what he called a "tsunami of lies" being told by some members of the United Nations Security Council. Bashar Jaafari is arguing Syrian forces were not to blame for a massacre in which 108 people were killed and 300 injured, but for which the UN blames heavy weapons by Syria's government.

In the face of what can seem like a 'tsunami of lies' on every horizon, we appear in dire need of the skill to spot who is actually telling the truth, to keep our heads above the rising tide. For example, the Leveson Inquiry continues to pursue the facts, yet some newspapers now prefer body language analysis when reporting what witnesses have said, apparently in order to glimpse the reality behind the words. The latest psychological research on deception detection casts doubt as to whether the way the inquiry poses questions is likely to penetrate the defences of dissemblers. It may come as a surprise that so-called experts are not good at spotting lying, but a review of 39 scientific studies by Professor of Applied Social Psychology, Aldert Vrij, a world authority on the science of deception, reveals an average accuracy rate of just 56.6% - in other words for over a third of the time lies go undetected. Men and women are no better than each other, Professor Vrij reports, and professional lie catchers such as police oﬃcers and customs oﬃcers are generally no superior to the lay public in detecting deceit. One of the reasons we are so bad at spotting deception is there are widespread erroneous beliefs about what behaviours betray the telling of lies. For example, one of the commonest mistakes is that liars increase their body movements, the famous shiftiness, gaze aversion and fidgeting of a dissembler. In fact scientific research on this demonstrates the opposite is more true, liars more often decrease their body movements and tend to hold your gaze. So can we learn from the psychological research into deception, to improve our ability to detect deception, and can these techniques help inquiries such as Leveson to sift fake answers from truth? In fact there are many psychological strategies pioneered by experts such as Professor Vrij, who is based at the University of Portsmouth, which would help us all become better lie detectors, and many are detailed in his book Detecting lies and deceit: Pitfalls and opportunities (published by Wiley). Space only allows two to be mentioned here, both of which are notable in their absence from the style of questioning thus far in the Leveson Inquiry. The first is called the 'Baseline Method', and it's based on the important principle that there is in fact no one behaviour that is universally characteristic of liars, but when any particular individual starts to stray from the truth, various cognitive, emotional and physiological processes kick in, which it is possible to detect. But you can only spot these if you already have the 'baseline' of how someone behaves when they are telling the truth, and then compare that with the moment when you wonder if they have begun to lie. Professor Vrij quotes a real-life example of a videotaped police interview with a murderer being asked to describe a whole day, not just the key moment the police believed he committed the homicide. Detailed analyses of the tape revealed a sudden change in behaviour as soon as the suspect started to describe his activities during the particular time of forensic interest. It was the contrast between his description of times when he didn't have to lie as he spoke, as no crime had occurred then, compared with the period the police were most interested in which was significant. During his description of the part of the day when the police knew the murder had occurred, he spoke slower, added more pauses, and made fewer movements, compared to the baseline, the other parts of the day the police had patiently asked in detail about. He met the victim and killed her during the period where his behaviour changed when covering up. Professor Vrij cautions that often interrogators misunderstand the true subtlety of this research finding and misapply it. Crucial in the use of the baseline technique is that correct parts of the interview are compared. Unfortunately, too often in police interviews 'small talk' at the beginning is used to establish a baseline. This is an incorrect way of deploying the technique as small talk and the actual police interviews are totally diﬀerent situations. Both the guilty and innocent tend to change their behavior the moment the actual interview starts, not least because both are bound to become more nervous then. Another psychological technique for better spotting lies pioneered by Professor Vrij and colleagues is called 'Devil's Advocate'. Interviewees are first asked questions inviting them to argue in favour of their personal view (eg "What are your reasons for supporting the US in the war in Afghanistan?"). This is followed by a Devil's Advocate question that asks interviewees to argue against their personal view (eg "Playing Devil's Advocate, is there anything you can say against the involvement of the US in Afghanistan?"). The 'Devil's Advocate Question' is an attempt to flush out what the interviewee truly believes, as if they are lying about their position on the war in Afghanistan, for example, the Devil's Advocate Question is actually what they really believe, but are covering up. As we think more deeply about, and are more able to generate, reasons that support rather than oppose our beliefs, this leaks out during the answer to the Devil's Advocate Question. In effect, for liars the Devil's Advocate approach is a set-up where they first lie when answering the opinion-eliciting question, and are then lured into telling the truth when answering the Devil's Advocate question. Normally we aren't very good at giving reasons for a position we don't hold, so most people aren't good at being a 'devil's advocate' in this situation. Liars however are caught out because they now tend to give fuller and better answers in response to being asked to be a devil's advocate than non-liars. Using this technique Professor Vrij and colleagues found 75% of truth tellers and 78% of liars could be classified correctly. But before we are too quick to judge those in the headlines who find themselves accused of lying, the psychological research indicates that ordinary people tell an average of 1.5 lies a day, but this rate can climb dramatically because how likely you are to deceive depends a lot on the situation you find yourself in. For example, studies find that 83% of students would lie to get a job and 90% are willing to lie on ﬁrst dates to secure favorable impressions. Raúl López-Pérez and Eli Spiegelman, academic Economists, point out in their paper entitled Why do people tell the truth? Experimental evidence for pure lie aversion, soon to be published, that one of the downsides of living in an acquisitive free market economy is how much we constantly gain materially by providing false information. From doing our accounts, auditing, insurance claims, job interviews, negotiations, regulatory hearings, tax compliance, and all sorts of other situations we stand to gain if we lie, these economists point out, and indeed we are penalised if we are honest. Given all the incentives to lie, López-Pérez and Spiegelman from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and Université de Québec a Montréal, believe the more interesting question is not why do we lie, but instead, why do some people tell the truth? Perhaps more precisely, why do some stick to the truth even when it's not in their interests? In their research 38.76% of subjects taking part in their experiments, chose to tell the truth even when they would suffer a penalty as a result. López-Pérez and Spiegelman come up with an intriguing new theory of lying where they believe there is a minority of the population who suffer from what they call 'pure lie aversion'. This means some tell the truth because of an innate abhorrence for lying. López-Pérez and Spiegelman argue this is a significant force behind honesty which has hitherto been neglected by science. It's certainly a factor we should perhaps look for more in our politicians, but then again, maybe we get the lying leaders we deserve because we're constantly seduced into voting for the best con artists. Perhaps all electorates should become more educated in Professor Vrij's techniques before casting their vote. López-Pérez and Spiegelman also found that those who lied were significantly more likely to believe that others would lie as well. This means the more our politicians and authority figures, even friends or colleagues lie, the more deception will continue spreading. Dr Raj Persaud is a Consultant Psychiatrist based in London and Aldert Vrij (PhD) is a Professor of Applied Social Psychology who has published almost 400 articles and 7 books on the above topics, including his 2008 book Detecting lies and deceit: Pitfalls and opportunities (published by Wiley), a comprehensive overview of research into nonverbal, verbal and physiological deception and lie detection.

Follow Dr Raj Persaud on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@DrRajPersaud Raj Persaud is joint podcast editor for the Royal College of Psychiatrists and also now has a free app on iTunes and google play store entitled ‘Raj Persaud in conversation’, which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id927466223?mt=8 |

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What is it like to be committed to a psychiatric hospital against your will? This is surely one of the most frightening experiences anyone could endure? Claire was placed under a variety of sections of the Mental Health Act and as a result found herself committed on several occasions to various psychiatric institutions. Raj Persaud talks to her to get her story out to the world on what it's like to be 'sectioned'. The interview was organised thanks to assistance from Mind - the mental health charity. Many thanks to Aimee Gee of Mind for assisting in making this interview possible.

A related article which may be of interest first published in The Huffington Post by Raj Persaud and David James

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-raj-persaud/nhs-complaints_b_4108370.html

How Having, or Not Having, an NHS Psychiatric Bed Can Kill You

An investigation by BBC News and Community Care magazine into 53 of England's Mental Health Trusts reveals that 1,711 mental health beds have been closed since April 2011, including 277 between April and August 2013, representing a 9% reduction in the total number of mental health beds available in 2011/12.

The BBC News website reports possible consequences including the tragic case of 39-year-old Mandy Peck who told clinicians she was feeling suicidal, but her local mental health service centre initially claimed no beds were vacant. She jumped to her death from a multi-storey car park shortly afterwards.

As psychiatrists who have worked in the NHS, we have both experienced the chaos of trying to find a bed for a patient who needs one urgently.

The enormous pressure on the staff to find a bed means that the modern NHS becomes a constant fight for beds, creating stressful conflict with other clinicians. Even if you (eventually) secure an admission for your patient, this is at the expense of the patient who was previously in that bed, who, in order to accommodate the new admission, gets moved to another part of the country, or is discharged, or sent on leave prematurely.

Providing any kind of therapy in this frenzied environment is not possible. Admitting someone in a fragile mental state into this siege atmosphere means you are only arranging an admittance to prevent suicide or harm to others, rather than offering help to the mentally ill in need of care. You have become a form of warder, not a clinician.

The National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness at the University of Manchester, published in July 1013, reports that during 2001-2011, in England, 13,469 deaths (28% of general population suicides) were patient suicides. These are persons who had been in contact with mental health services in the 12 months prior to death.

There has been a projected rise in 2011 (the last year for which data is available). In 2001 there were 1261 suicides by people in contact with mental health services and this figure had risen to a projected number of 1333 by 2011, during a period when it now looks like more beds were being lost.

Patrick Keown, Gavin Mercer and Jan Scott published a recent analysis in the British Medical Journal, finding that between 1996 and 2006 in England the number of NHS psychiatric beds decreased by 29%. Entitled Retrospective analysis of hospital episode statistics, involuntary admissions under the Mental Health Act 1983, and number of psychiatric beds in England 1996-2006, their investigation found involuntary patients occupied 23% of NHS psychiatric beds in 1996, but 36% in 2006.

The authors conclude that inpatient care transformed considerably in the decade from 1996 to 2006; more involuntary admissions to fewer NHS beds. The case mix shifted further towards psychotic and substance misuse disorders, altering the atmosphere of inpatient wards.

One interpretation of this data, and our personal experience supports this, is that the ambience on wards has changed, and for the worse, in terms of providing a therapeutic environment. Psychiatric in-patient units are now much more likely to be precarious containment areas for the extremely seriously mentally ill, not a haven, nor asylum from stress for those who need help.

For these reasons, being admitted to a psychiatric ward today may in fact be an added source of stress - not a therapeutic experience at all.

Some evidence for this comes from a recent investigation of a consecutive series of individuals aged 18 to 65 who died by suicide between the 1 January 2001 and 31 December 2006 in England, the date of death being within seven days of the date of admission to a psychiatric ward.

The study entitled, Suicide in recently admitted psychiatric in-patients: A case-control study, found around a quarter of all in-patient suicides occurred within the ﬁrst week of admission to psychiatric in-patient care. 46% of cases died on the ward itself; the majority by hanging. 40% of suicide cases died within the ﬁrst three days of admission. A ﬁfth of all suicides were on authorised leave at the time of death, but 34% were off the ward without staff agreement, compared to only 1% of controls.

The authors, Isabelle Hunt, Harriet Bickley, Kirsten Windfuhr, Jenny Shaw, Louis Appleby and Nav Kapur, conclude that contrary to previous relevant research, this investigation examining wards in England found a short length of illness (less than 12 months duration) was independently predictive of suicide in the immediate admission period.

The study, published in the 'Journal of Affective Disorders' in 2013, contends that it may be that receiving a psychiatric diagnosis requiring in-patient treatment is particularly stressful, plus the experience of entering an environment that patients have described as ''frightening'' and ''intimidating' probably increases, rather than diminishes, suicidal feelings.

The authors considered there could also be an association between being admitted to a psychiatric ward and a heightened sense of being stigmatised.

Given that those on authorised and unauthorised leave account for such a large proportion of in-patient suicides from their data, the authors of this study point to two recent court cases in England after the suicide of a detained patient who absconded (Savage v. South Essex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, 2008) and a voluntary patient who died by suicide whilst on leave (Rabone v. Pennine Care NHS Trust, 2012).

The authors of the study point out that these cases were viewed as a breach of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (which safeguards the right to life), resulting in a new obligation for health authorities and hospital staff to protect patients where there is a ''real and immediate'' risk of suicide.

The danger of the current headlines over fewer beds is that it's not just the numbers that are important - the quality of the bed, as it were, is vital. What is the point of offering a bed if the quality of the experience is so poor, aspects of it contribute to feeling worse?

The NHS neglects quality of care, which has been sacrificed on the altar of numbers, because numbers are so political.

Numbers of beds dominates the debate - and numbers are important because we have had too few beds for the system to be safe for some time now. And the decline in bed numbers appears to continue inexorably. But we should be looking beyond numbers to human beings, focusing as well on the quality of what patients get, when they actually get anything at all.

Follow Dr Raj Persaud on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@DrRajPersaud

Raj Persaud is a Consultant Psychiatrist in Private Practice in Harley Street, London UK and author of several best-selling books including ‘The Mind: A Users Guide’ published by Bantam Press. Dr David James is an eminent Forensic Psychiatrist.

Raj Persaud is joint podcast editor for the Royal College of Psychiatrists and also now has a free app on iTunes and google play store entitled ‘Raj Persaud in conversation’, which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id927466223?mt=8

His books are available on amazon.co.uk here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Mind-A-Users-Guide/dp/0593056353

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If you are viewing this podcast from inside the free mobile phone app 'Raj Persaud in Conversation' you can click on the 'gift box' icon which might be on the top right hand corner of your screen to download bonus content - the original paper by Magda Osman published in 'The Psychologist' entitled 'Does our Unconscious rule?' You can also find this bonus content in the initial main menu screen that comes up when you open the app on the top right hand corner of the screen under a menu icon that reveals 'extras' - click on extras to see the bonus content.

From the Palgrave Macmillan website:

http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/futureminded-magda-osman/?K=9781137022264

Future-Minded The Psychology of Agency and Control Magda Osman

What drives us to make decisions?

Future-Minded explores the psychological processes of agency and control. If you've ever wondered why we think of coincidences as matters of fate rather than the result of the laws of probability, this book provides the answer. From memory and reasoning to our experiences of causality and consciousness, it unpicks the mechanisms we use on a daily basis to help us predict, plan for and attempt to control the future.

A related article which may be of interest first published in The Huffington Post 02/08/2012 16:32 BST

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-raj-persaud/inside-the-mind-of-the-ol_b_1731758.html

Inside the Mind of the Olympic Gold Medal Winner By Raj Persaud and Adrian Furnham

Winning the Gold Medal in the Olympics appears a pinnacle in any elite athlete's career, but physical fitness or technical skill may not, in fact, be the crucial factor. Increasingly sports scientists are becoming convinced that it's grit and determination, resilience and desire, which separates winners from losers.

Motivation triumphs over muscle.

But what precisely are these mysterious, hidden, but crucial mental aspects which separate the winners from the rest, who appear to be trying just as hard? Can the rest of us benefit as well from the psychological strategies of our Olympic Gold Medal winners?

Dr David Fletcher and Mustafa Sarkar, sport and performance psychologists at Loughborough University, (where much of the science behind the training of Team GB's current medal campaign has been developed) have just published one of the most in-depth studies ever, getting inside the mind of Olympic Gold Medal winners.

The investigation, published in the academic journal 'Psychology of Sport and Exercise', involved an analysis of 12 Olympic Gold Medal winners' accounts to the researchers of how they used their minds to win.

The first startling finding is that all these champions' lives were not dominated by accomplishment before getting Gold. Instead they constantly encountered obstacles and set backs on the path to success, yet it was their mental resilience in the face of adversity, which is what seemed to separate them from the rest of the field, and pulled them through to eventual victory.

One champion's reaction to being de-selected for a major international competition illustrates relentless optimism and a proactive approach, characteristic of Olympic Gold Medal winners; 'There were four of us challenging for these ﬁnal two places and I got told I was on the reserve list. And at the time it was devastating but it's one of those things; if you don't take a ticket in the rafﬂe, you're never going to win a prize. So you have to take the ticket that's part of life and it just makes you think "well, what can I do differently to make sure I do get success"?

Paradoxically, not being selected for major international competitions was frequently cited by Gold Medallists as the foundation for increased endeavour and exertion. Competition losses were viewed as learning opportunities, enabling future improved performances. Set-backs were re-interpreted in ways which meant they merely re-doubled their efforts, and didn't become disheartened.

Failure didn't break them - it made them.

One of the most intriguing findings from Fletcher and Sarkar's study is that while journalists love to wheel out the cliché of 'sacrifice' when invoking elite performance, it wasn't a concept these Gold Medal winners understood.

Instead the world's best athletes take huge personal responsibility for their choices, and are surprisingly uncomplaining about how much they forfeit for their sport. They accepted they actively chose the challenges they encountered, and as a result endured a wildly different work/life balance to the rest of us, as one commented to the researchers; 'We all worked. But in terms of the build up to the Olympics, we didn't bat an eyelid in doing it... it was our choice to do it. I don't like the word sacriﬁce... Sacriﬁce to me is about last resort and there's no alternative... that's rubbish. We made a choice to do that and I think that choice in what we did we highly valued and I think that inspired us, motivated us to perform on the pitch and as a group.'

One Gold Medal winner's reaction to training during unsociable hours is characteristic; 'I remember one of my coaches saying to me what was I doing over Christmas and I said 'Oh, I'll be training twice on Christmas Day . I know [opponent's name] won't be training on Christmas Day twice and that will give me the edge'. It was more the mental side of things because I knew that I'd be doing something that he wasn't doing.'

These private dimensions of winning tend not to be confided to the microphones thrust in winners' faces as they step down from the victory podium. Their sharing of such intimate secrets to success is therefore what makes this Loughborough University study so rare and valuable.

An example of their incessant thinking and re-thinking of every fine detailed aspect of their lives is this quote from a champion cyclist to the researchers; 'Initially, training was just something to get out of the way. And then gradually I'd do training and I'd think, "Am I getting the most out of this? Am I exploiting the session?" And, you know, if I did take a bad lift in the gym I'd think, "I could have done that better. That's a missed opportunity. What have I got to do to be better?" So I had an obsession on getting everything right rather than just waiting for the day of the ﬁnal and then hoping. It was about getting everything right before the ﬁnal so I had all the tools ready for when I was racing.'

Another undisclosed aspect of the mind of winners is what almost seems a sense of destiny - as this comment to Dr David Fletcher and Mustafa Sarkar illustrates; 'I don't know if there is going to be a theme where timing and luck have been in the right place, but I'm a great believer in it. I wasn't selected for the original trip... and on the Thursday night before they [the team] were leaving, I was called up because an individual's wife had gone into labor [and I was told] 'be at [the airport] the next day: we're playing [country] on the Saturday'.

They believe they make their own luck and that those who persevere will eventually benefit from chance.

Perhaps the greatest shock that is going to come from Fletcher and Sarkar's study entitled, 'A grounded theory of psychological resilience in Olympic champions', is that these Olympic Gold Medal winners were not as fixated, as the media and the nation appears to be, on winning gold.

Instead, it was fulﬁlling their athletic potential which primarily motivated them, rather than becoming an Olympic champion. Some involved in this research pointed out, amazingly, that their gold medal performance was not, in their view, the most outstanding moment in their career.

The following comment illustrates an athlete's viewpoint on her gold medal performance in the 2000 Olympic Games; 'This may come as a bit of a shock but I didn't have a great competition in Sydney. I was consistent... but it wasn't a great performance... '

The research on competitors who are most likely to cheat, via doping or any other means, is that if it's being on the podium, waving the Gold Medal and soaking up the applause which is what is primarily driving you, then you will be tempted to take a short cut to get there.

But there are competitors, and this may sound strange after a week when the nation became obsessed with getting a Gold, for whom the Gold Medal doesn't represent what it does for the rest of us praying for one. Instead the Gold Medal to these elite performers is merely an acknowledgement of excellence, and it's that total mastery of self and sport which has always been the primary ambition. For these athletes coming first would still be vital, no matter if there was no audience, no media and no medal.

The medal is merely a measure, not a goal.

These contestants, research has found, are much less likely to cheat in any way, no matter what temptation is placed in front of them.

In a week where various forms of 'cheating' have dominated the sports news agenda, there is a danger in our obsession for Gold, that we could forget this fundamental aspect of the Olympic ideal.

Follow Dr Raj Persaud on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@DrRajPersaud

Raj Persaud is joint podcast editor for the Royal College of Psychiatrists and also now has a free app on iTunes and google play store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. Download it free from these links

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id927466223?mt=8

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Margaret talks to Raj Persaud about her frightening experience of being admitted to a psychiatric hospital against her will with no idea as to why this was happening. This interview was made possible by 'Mind' - the mental health charity and particular thanks go to Aimee Gee of 'Mind', for her assistance in making it possible.

A related article which may be of interest:

Should Anorexics Be Force-Fed?

By Raj Persaud and Peter Bruggen

first published in The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-raj-persaud/should-anorexics-be-force_b_1608531.html

Should Anorexics be force fed? The latest legal ruling could kill the patient - but doing nothing might also condemn her to death.

The Daily Telegraph has reported that a leading judge who sits in the Court of Protection, Mr Justice Peter Jackson, has ruled that a former medical student suffering from severe anorexia nervosa, and who is at a life-threatening low weight, should be force-fed against her wishes by doctors.

Dr Evan Harris, the former Liberal Democrat MP and member of the British Medical Association's ethics committee, is quoted by the Daily Telegraph to have responded: "The implications of force-feeding are really significant because she would need restraining or sedation and the treatment would last a year... It might not succeed and is itself life-threatening. To impose that on a patient who might be competent in refusing treatment is a very major step."

The 32-year-old woman is described as not having eaten solid food for a year and her parents are reported by the Daily Telegraph to have told the court: "It upsets us greatly to advocate for our daughter's right to die... We feel she has suffered enough..."

Mr Justice Jackson is reported by the newspaper to have conceded the woman stood only a 20% chance of recovery even if she was put on an invasive force-feeding programme that would last at least a year.

Is it really true that medical intervention can be as dangerous as leaving people with an eating disorder to starve themselves to death? And is it also true that it's pretty pointless anyway?

In a 2010 study by Dr Marie Vignaud from the University Hospital of Clermont-Ferrand, France, all patients with Anorexia Nervosa admitted to 11 Intensive Care Units in France between 2006-2008 were investigated, and of 68 admissions, seven died during the admission.

The study published in the academic medical journal Critical Care, found the commonest cause of death was 'Refeeding Syndrome'. This is a potentially fatal shift in fluid and electrolyte levels (minerals such as sodium, potassium and calcium which are distributed around the body where the delicate balance across cell membranes is vital for life) that may occur in the malnourished receiving artificial nutrition.

Precisely because of the dangers of re-feeding, Dr Vignaud and colleagues contend oral re-feeding is the best approach to weight restoration. But faced with absolute refusal to eat, or in cases with extreme malnutrition, feeding via a nasogastric tube may be life-saving, the authors argue. In even more extreme cases, or when the digestive tract itself is no longer functioning, intravenous feeding should be used despite the risks, they believe.

Vignaud and colleagues point out the dangers of medical re-feeding have to be balanced against the fact that Anorexia Nervosa is in itself one of the most fatal psychiatric disorders, with a mortality rate of almost 6% for every 10 years of having the illness; 12 times the rate expected for similar age- and gender-matched groups.

It's perhaps sobering to realise in the light of these statistics that rates of anorexia appear to have been going up since the 1930's. A 2007 study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry by a group lead by Anna Keski-Rahkonen at the University of Helsinki, Finland, found that up to 50% of Anorexia Nervosa cases remain undetected by healthcare systems. Current estimates are that lifetime prevalence rates for Anorexia Nervosa in 20-40-year-old women are estimated between 1.2% and 2.2%. The rates for other milder eating disorders would be much higher.

In a study yet to be officially published, Daniel Rigaud and colleagues from the Service d'Endocrinologie-Nutrition, in Dijon France, followed up 41 severely malnourished anorexia nervosa patients and compared them with 443 less malnourished Anorexia Nervosa patients. The severely malnourished group of 41 had reached an average seriously low weight of 26 kilograms (four stones 1.3 pounds) with an average height of 160 cm (5.2 feet) which translates to an average Body Mass Index of 10 (bear in mind the normal healthy range is roughly 20-25).

Body Mass Index is the measure nutritionists use to calculate whether your weight is healthy as it takes into account your height. The formula is your weight in kilograms divided by your height in metres squared. A BMI lower than 10 kg/m2 in adults is widely considered incompatible with life.

Rigaud's study, due to be published in the academic journal 'Clinical Nutrition', found that all of the 41 severely malnourished anorexia patients received tube-refeeding: but during the in-patient stay, one patient died, two others suffered from myocardial infarction, two others from acute pancreatitis, and five from mental confusion.

Compared with the other 443 less severe Anorexia Nervosa patients (average weight in this less severe group was 40 kg or six stone 4.2 pounds), the 40 remaining patients (one died shortly after admission) had a worse six year outcome: a further two died (7% versus 1.2% in the 443 less ill group), and only 41% recovered (versus 62% in the less ill group).

Rigaud and colleagues conclude that in Anorexia Nervosa patients with a Body Mass Index of less than 11 kg/m2, prudent tube-refeeding could avoid short-term mortality, but long-term, the prognosis remains ominous.

Perhaps part of the problem lies in the very battle against the fervent desire of the anorexic; perhaps something is being missed. Jill Holm-Denoma and colleagues at the University of Vermont, USA, in 2008 proposed a theory that the high death rate in anorexia nervosa may be linked also to an especially high suicide motivation, which may have been previously missed by clinicians and relatives. Their study is based on previous research which finds the risk of death by suicide among anorexic women is approximately 57 times the expected rate.

The study, published in the 'Journal of Affective Disorders', considered the suicides of nine women with Anorexia Nervosa. They were found to be more likely to use highly lethal methods, with low rescue potential, that would likely kill anyone. Three died by throwing themselves in front of a train, and two more died by hanging.

Another reason courts may have to intervene against the wishes of severely anorexic patients, doctors argue, is their brains are likely to be incapable of reasoning rationally because the mind itself begins to be affected by the malnutrition. Brain imaging studies find reduced cerebral volume and the greater and faster the weight loss, the smaller the total brain volume. Refeeding, if it leads to weight gain, can largely reverse this brain shrinkage.

The latest study to report this kind of finding was conducted by a group lead by Boris Suchana from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany, in a study published in the journal 'Behavioural Brain Research' in 2010. This intriguing brain imaging study found a particular reduction in gray matter density with anorexia sufferers in a specific part of the brain associated with body size misjudgement. This raises the possibility that sufferers from anorexia get caught in a vicious cycle whereby losing weight might produce brain changes which in turn alter perception, and thus encourage more weight loss.

Anorexia Nervosa is a serious and complex disorder for which treatment must be tailored to the needs of the individual, but where 'the system' seldom allows this. Life saving intervention is required more than in most other psychiatric disorders.

Patrick Keown from Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Gateshead, and colleagues, published in the British Medical Journal in July 2011 an analysis on the impact of the dramatic reduction in UK NHS psychiatric hospital beds between 1988-2008 - a period when alternatives to hospital admission in the form of community care was supposed to be provided.

Keown and colleagues found the rate of involuntary admissions (being 'sectioned' under the Mental Health Act) per year in the NHS increased by more than 60%, while the provision of mental illness beds decreased by more than 60% over the same period. The authors calculated the closure of two mental illness beds contributes to an additional involuntary admission in the subsequent year. This data referred to all of psychiatry - not just eating disorders - but it might also contribute to our understanding of why anorexia has ended up in the courts, and in the news now.

A dramatic rise in the use of compulsory admissions over the last two decades does not mean that psychiatric disorders have in their nature got worse, but that the prospects for those who have them seem more bleak.

This is because a progressively starved, more disorganised NHS is less effectively caring.

Those desperately trying to look after patients who've reached the end of this road, are therefore forced to seek help from sources outside the health service.

So now we dispense with the doctors, and retain the lawyers.

Follow Dr Raj Persaud on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@DrRajPersaud

Raj Persaud is a Consultant Psychiatrist in Private Practice in Harley Street, London UK and author of several best-selling books including ‘The Mind: A Users Guide’ published by Bantam Press.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id927466223?mt=8

His books are available on amazon.co.uk here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Mind-A-Users-Guide/dp/0593056353

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An Atheist's History of Belief: Understanding Our Most Extraordinary Invention Matthew Kneale From Random House website:

http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/editions/an-atheists-history-of-belief-understanding-our-most-extraordinary-invention/9781448163311

What first prompted prehistoric man, sheltering in the shadows of deep caves, to call upon the realm of the spirits?

And why has belief thrived ever since, leading us to invent heaven and hell, sin and redemption, and above all, gods?

Religion reflects our deepest hopes and fears; whether you are a believer or, like Matthew Kneale, a non-believer who admires mankind's capacity to create and to imagine, it has shaped our world. And as our dreams and nightmares have changed over the millennia, so have our beliefs - from shamans to Aztec priests, from Buddhists to Christians: the gods we created have evolved with us.

Belief is humanity's most epic invention. It has always been our closest companion and greatest consolation. To understand it is to better understand ourselves.

Follow Dr Raj Persaud on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@DrRajPersaud

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a related article which may be of interest: Does 'Pure Evil' Exist? Psychologists Investigate the Devils (and Angels) Amongst Us Raj Persaud and Adrian Furnham

originally published in The Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-raj-persaud/does-pure-evil-exist_b_4134835.html

Are these examples of pure evil? Anders Breivik bombed buildings in 2011 killing eight people, then shot 69 others, mostly teenagers. He showed no remorse and took pride in his actions. In May 2013, three women and one six-year-old girl were rescued from kidnapper, Ariel Castro, having been held in captivity for around a decade in the USA. Following over 900 criminal counts, he killed himself just one month into a prison term of 1,000 years.

Psychologists Russell Webster and Donald Saucier have just published the most comprehensive scientific investigation into our beliefs over whether unadulterated wickedness exists. One interpretation is that accepting the existence of 'Pure Evil', reveals the true nature of deepest malevolence itself.

Those who believe in 'Pure Evil' consider bad or criminal behaviour is wilful, conscious and driven primarily by the wish to inflict harm, merely often for pleasure.

The psychologists, based at North Central College and Kansas State University in the USA point out that the 'Belief in Pure Evil' holds profound consequences for believers. As there would be no point in being patient, tolerant and understanding, when confronted with unalloyed villainy, then the only response should be eliminating such evil-doers, even if extreme actions are required.

If you believe in 'Pure Evil', you also deem that evil-doers will implacably continue being dangerous. This necessarily follows if certain culprits are indeed the embodiment of undiluted viciousness. On both sides of conflict, if each sees the other side as 'evil', this inevitably results in reciprocal and escalating prejudice with violence.

Perhaps scientists had been reluctant to study evil before because it seems religious, yet Russell Webster and Donald Saucier point out that cultures all over the world and throughout history, have a surprisingly similar "personal archetype of evil". This includes the conviction that "behind evil actions must lie evil individuals".

Their study entitled Angels and Demons Are Among Us: Assessing Individual Differences in Belief in Pure Evil and Belief in Pure Good, focused on the shape of malevolence in people's minds. The research found beliefs over the existence of 'Pure Evil' could reveal key aspects of character.

The series of investigations involving hundreds of participants found believing that others can be completely immoral, in turn leads to more aggressive plus hostile attitudes and behaviour. Believers in the existence of 'Pure Evil' are more pessimistic generally, see the world as a more vile and dangerous place, are more opposed to equality, endorse torture, the death penalty and pre-emptive military aggression.

Believers in 'Pure Evil' consider that trying to understand evil is futile, because 'Pure Evil' is a deeply ingrained part of character, and understanding will only foster greater empathizing with perpetrators, condoning their harmful behaviour.

This most comprehensive investigation, to date, into our views on deep malevolence, published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, also found 'Belief in Pure Evil' was not associated with being religious.

Instead another conviction - the 'Belief in Pure Good' was. It appears from this study that those who believe in 'Pure Good' are fundamentally different from those who believe in 'Pure Evil'.

Believers in 'Pure Good' accept the existence of pure altruism, that some people, though rare, intentionally help others just for the sake of helping, with no personal benefit or hidden agenda. They also judge that even the most ghastly perpetrators - ie wayward criminals, can see "the error of their ways" and reform, ie they are not 'Purely Evil'. Those who more strongly believed in 'Pure Good', supported criminal rehabilitation and opposed the death penalty.

Those who score higher in 'Belief in Pure Good' are more likely to believe that doing good means not harming others (unless one's country or allies are directly endangered). People scoring higher in 'Belief in Pure Evil' feel that pre-emptive violence and aggression are justified to root out evil-doers.

'Belief in Pure Good' was associated strongly with being religious, as well as those reporting more secular volunteering. The authors speculated that 'Belief in Pure Evil' and religiosity were not as strongly associated as might be expected, because organized religions may recently be downplaying the role of battling evil. But perhaps the sample studied did not contain enough evangelical or fundamentalist participants.

Believing strongly in 'Pure Good' was related to less aggression, supporting diplomacy over violence as an approach to foreign affairs, and being against torture.

Russell Webster and Donald Saucier point out that part of the belief in 'Pure Good' is that it surely cannot be corrupted by the forces of evil. 'Pure Good' can resist temptations over joining the "dark side" (using 'Star Wars' terminology).

Yet apparent do-gooders like Mother Theresa and Gandhi, may have had their reputations tarnished in recent years by various re-evaluations, casting doubt that both these characters, (and many others apparently 'Purely Good'), were in fact as virtuous as first thought.

This modern drive to doubt that 'Pure Good' really does exist, could have grave and far-reaching implications, in terms of our pessimism about each other.

Doubting 'Pure Good' exists may justify people's apathy over helping others: If 'everybody is selfish', then theoretically we need not feel guilty about our own self-interested behaviour, or endeavour to be more helpful.

Believers in 'Pure Good' tended to think more deeply about the causes for other's behaviour, while believers in 'Pure Evil' scored significantly lower on this.

So, do you know of selfless good work epitomizing pure good ("angels")? Or are you aware of others who because of their selfish hostility appear to display pure evil ("demons")?

If you believe 'angels' and 'demons' live amongst us, that pure good and pure evil exist, this conviction has just been found by this research to profoundly influence your own behaviour and outlook on life.

If you believe in 'Pure Evil' it seems you are not convinced 'Pure Good' exists - perhaps because you suppose it will be overcome by 'Pure Evil'. If you feel there is 'Pure Good', then it appears you tend not to accept 'Pure Evil'; maybe you consider 'Pure Good' will triumph over 'Evil'.

If you believe in 'Pure Evil' you are more likely to react aggressively to wrong-doing, while if you deem 'Pure Good' exists, you're more optimistic about human nature, and believe that the bad can change, supporting programmes that see the better side of people.

One interpretation of this study is that Believers in 'Pure Good' and 'Pure Evil' end up behaving a bit like the angels and demons they perceive as existing in the world.

We become the very Demons and Angels we think exist.

We make them come true.

Follow Dr Raj Persaud on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@DrRajPersaud

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Will therapists be replaced by Virtual Reality Technology? Psychiatrist Raj Persaud talks to psychologists Wesley Turner and Leanne Casey from Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia who have just published an analysis of how effective the latest Virtual Reality psychological treatments are.

Their study is entitled 'Outcomes associated with virtual reality in psychological interventions: where are we now?' and is published in the academic journal Clinical Psychology Review (Volume 34, Issue 8, December 2014, Pages 634–644)

If you are a professional and interested in further information on CPD Online or wish to earn CPD credit points, particularly from listening to this podcast, please visit the Royal College of Psychiatrists CPD Online website for further information at www.psychiatrycpd.co.uk

After listening to this podcast if you go to the College site and answer the mcq questions there about the interview, you can obtain on line CPD points.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-raj-persaud/religious-beliefs-and-depression_b_5165183.html

A recent article on other ways new technology is changing psychiatry and psychology: Does Brain Scanning Research Reveal Your Real Religious Belief - More Than Church Attendance? RAJ PERSAUD AND PETER BRUGGEN

A new brain scanning study has found that high personal importance of religion or spirituality in your life is associated with thicker cortex in several brain regions.

Some of these same regions were found to be associated with a higher risk for developing clinical depression, if that part of the brain cortex was thinner.

The study, entitled, Neuroanatomical Correlates of Religiosity and Spirituality - A Study in Adults at High and Low Familial Risk for Depression, concludes that a higher importance of religion or spirituality was associated with thicker cortex in certain brain regions, possibly conferring greater resilience to the development of depressive illnesses.

The study, published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association - Psychiatry, focused on those with a high or low familial risk for developing clinical depression, because of a previously strong family history of this psychiatric diagnosis.

The team of academics who conducted this Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) study, led by Dr Myrna Weissman, from Columbia University, argue that this brain finding could account for why being religious or spiritual, in certain circumstances, might contribute to improved resilience to depressive psychiatric illnesses.

Being religious or spiritual, possibly by expanding a physical brain reserve, counters to some extent the vulnerability that brain thinning in those areas poses for developing depression that runs in families.

For those attending church services this Easter weekend it may be surprising that the study found it was the personal importance of religion or spirituality in your life, but not the frequency of attendance of church, that was associated with thicker brain areas. In a sense the brain scans revealed your true faith more than church attendance did.

The same team had previously reported a 90% decreased risk, assessed over a 10-year period, of developing clinical depressive disorder in those from families where there was a high incidence of depression, if religion or spirituality was highly important to the adult studied.

Several others studies have found that intensity of religious experiences is associated with increased blood flow in similar brain regions found to be structurally thicker in this study.

The authors of this new study, Lisa Miller, Ravi Bansal, Priya Wickramaratne, Xuejun Hao, Craig Tenke, Myrna Weissman and Bradley Peterson, found that, oddly, a high frequency of attendance of religious services was not associated with brain thickness, yet rating religion or spirituality as personally important in your life was.

This appears a paradox - people who go to church a lot were not reaping the same benefit in their brains, in terms of protecting from depression, as those who believed that religion or spirituality was important to them.

The authors point out that although some may go to church in order to promote their spirituality, others may attend whether or not religion is genuinely personally important to them. In this study 49 participants reported high church attendance, yet only 21 of those also reported high importance of religion or spirituality in their lives. The remaining 28 participants may be attending services for a host of non-religious reasons, which may include social support.

This research found that the participants who frequently attended religious services were in fact at increased risk of depression, suggesting that a subset of participants may attend religious services for comfort or management of depressive symptoms.

Although frequent attendance may express, sustain, and cultivate personal importance of religion or spirituality, these findings suggest that religious beliefs and experiences, and not overt behavior (such as attending church a lot), are associated with brain thickness.

That going to church might not be the key to the protective effect of religion or spirituality on those predisposed to depression, through a high risk family history, is further bolstered, according to Myrna Weissman and her colleagues, by other recent research. For example, those who regularly meditate also have certain thicker brain regions. Another recent study found that meditation training for eight weeks increased cerebral gray matter density in specific brain areas.

The authors of this study, from Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, are not claiming that religion or spirituality generally protects you from depression. Instead, they are suggesting that if you consider that religion or spirituality in your life are important, then that appears to confer a neuroanatomical resilience. And that is in those who otherwise are predisposed to developing depressive illness, due to a strong family history for this kind of psychiatric problem.

Previously, we reported some other new research, from a team of academics led by Professor Michael King from University College London, where over 8,000 people were investigated, revealing that those who held a religious or spiritual understanding of life, had a higher incidence of depression compared with those with a secular life view.

Entitled Spiritual and religious beliefs as risk factors for the onset of major depression: an international cohort study, the investigation had been published in one of the most respected academic psychiatric journals, Psychological Medicine.

Perhaps one way of resolving the differing results is that the Psychological Medicinestudy was conducted on populations outside the USA - in the UK, Spain, Slovenia, Estonia, the Netherlands, Portugal and Chile. It could be that how important religion is in your country and culture, as well as the particular population studied, also has an impact on your brain and psychology.

Generally speaking Europeans are perceived as less religious than North Americans.

In the Psychological Medicine study, their findings varied by country; in particular, people in the UK who had a spiritual understanding of life were the most vulnerable to the onset of major depression. Yet, regardless of country, the stronger the spiritual or religious belief at the start of the investigation, the higher the risk of onset of depression over the next year.

In the specific situation of where you inherit a brain that might be predisposed to developing depression, it appears that higher importance of religion or spirituality in your life, perhaps in the USA at least, could be protective. It is also notable that the more recent brain scanning study found it was sustained interest in religion or spirituality, over a longer period, which was most strongly associated with thicker brain structures, rather than reporting a high level of spirituality at only one point in time.

However, given the not dissimilar findings on the brain effects of meditation, whether these structural brain changes and protective effect of religion or spirituality, are something specific to beliefs in God, is open to question.

Science is revealing that merely attending religious services may not deliver brain or mental health benefits, instead these appear linked to what you really believe.

Neuroscientists might now be able to tell, by examining your nervous system using the latest brain scanning technology, what you really believe, in the inner depths of your 'soul', but which you keep hidden from the rest of the congregation.

A private inner space that was supposedly only before accessible to God?

Follow Dr Raj Persaud on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@DrRajPersaud

Download it free from these links:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud

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Most people tend to become compliant when ordered to do so by a police officer in a high-stakes type of predicament. But perhaps those suffering severe mental illnesses are more likely to be non-compliant - maybe due to decreased awareness of what is going on around them? Could this explain the seemingly apparent proneness for tasers to be used by the police in these predicaments? Dr Raj Persaud - consultant psychiatrist - discusses the way the metropolitan police use tasers with police officers Matthew Fox and Adam Smith of the Specialist Firearms Command.

If you are interested in further information on CPD Online or wish to earn CPD credit points, please visit the Royal College of Psychiatrists CPD Online website for further information at www.psychiatrycpd.co.uk

Check out the taser website for the metropolitan police:

http://content.met.police.uk/Site/taser

FROM THE MET POLICE TASER WEBSITE:

A Taser is a non-lethal single shot weapon used by MPS officers to temporarily incapacitate a suspect through the use of an electrical current. It is a hand-held weapon similar in shape and size to a pistol, but is bright yellow and black in colour.

ALSO FROM THE MET POLICE TASER WEBSITE:

Welcome to the Taser site Welcome to the Taser website. I’m Dave Musker, Commander in charge of armed policing and Taser within the Metropolitan Police.

Taser has been available in the UK since 2003 and is probably one of the most discussed and controversial topics on the use of force agenda. It is with this in mind that I think its essential we provide as much information we can regarding Taser through all forms of media and this website.

The Metropolitan Police has acknowledged the controversy surrounding Taser and have implemented a raft of measures to ensure we get it right. I believe we have the best training in the world with extremely robust policies and procedures to manage the day-to-day operational deployment of the device.

Whilst we are confident we have such comprehensive procedures in place, we are not complacent and we have a dedicated team of officers who continually review what we do and how we do it. I am also keen to continue to engage with all communities and interested parties in London as this will help us to understand the concerns that are out there and deal with any emerging issues.

We have formed a Taser Reference Group with a wide, independent and constructively critical membership to help me oversee the use of taser in London - see related link within Professional training and scrutiny section.

I would also like to point you in the direction of some interesting documents and pages in this website. You will find a recent document published by the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee called ‘Arming the Met’ - see related documents. We are engaging with the committee to ensure we meet, discuss and address the recommendations within. We are grateful to the Committee for their suggestions which are constructive and provide a good direction for the MPS to follow.

The College of Policing website, which details how police officers across the UK are trained is also a valuable source of information - see related link for College of Policing website.

Raj Persaud is joint podcast editor for the Royal College of Psychiatrists - you can listen to this conversation and others with a new free app on iTunes and Google Play Store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world.

Download it free from these links:

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THE ARTICLE BELOW MAY BE OF INTEREST - ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE HUFFINGTON POST

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-raj-persaud/great-train-robbery-villians-as-heroes_b_3718501.html

Does The Great Train Robbery Explain How Villains Became the New Heroes? RAJ PERSAUD

The anniversary of the Great Train Robbery is being marked in various ways - The Times newspaper reports that a Monopoly set, played by the Great Train Robbers using real cash, while they eluded capture by hiding on a farm, has turned up on the TV programme Antiques Roadshow. Apparently, The Times reports, it was fingerprints on this board game, which later helped convict the gang.

That such an item could become revered, might be part of a modern glamorisation of villainy. Ronnie Biggs and fellow gang members began to be portrayed as romanticised folk heroes. Was the Great Train Robbery the beginning of a process which lead to popular TV series such as The Sopranos and Dexter, where hero and villain often appear inverted?

If heroes were supposed to be moral enough to still do the right thing, despite facing difficult predicaments, does the modern transformation of criminal to hero reveal something deeply troubling about our era?

Psychologist Derek Rohleder has published a dissertation entitled The shadow as hero in American culture: A Jungian analysis of the villain archetype transformed.His thesis is that in modern popular culture the villain has frequently been transformed into a heroic figure. Dr Rohleder uses examples including Hannibal Lecter the cannibal psychiatrist who has become the 'hero' of blockbuster movies including The Silence of the Lambs.

The 'rogue' or 'rebel' has long been a key element of heroic character in fiction and real life, perhaps part of the confusion here is that we assume the outlaw is naturally an underdog.

George Goethals and Scott Allison from the University of Richmond, Virginia, USA, in their analysis of who the public regards as heroic, have found that a key ingredient is the notion of the underdog. In a paper entitled Making Heroes: The Construction of Courage, Competence and Virtue, they state how they found people root for, identify with, and are most fond of, underdogs. Those who must struggle to achieve their objectives.

Their paper published in the journal Advances in Experimental Social Psychologyexplains that this liking and rooting for perceived underdogs, is so deep-rooted, it even holds for inanimate objects, whose movements on a computer screen activate scripts of struggle and effort against more powerful rivals.

They discovered in their own surveys of the public that when asked if they had any heroes, 95% listed at least two heroes, and two-thirds listed six or more in just a few minutes. Roughly a third of heroes, from this research, are family members, a third are real public figures, but the last third are fictional, often from TV and film.

This indicates the media representation of heroic status is extremely important.

Political strategists now make a standard attempt to cast even the most wealthy, institutionalised candidates as actually battling rebels, fearlessly taking on vested interests.

Our deep psychological needs for heroic individuals to idolise, who triumph over adversity, is revealed by the structure of modern popular stories in fiction and film. It's never 'systems' or 'committees' which ride out of the sunset, to the rescue of those in distress, but instead it's the rebel loner.

Disobedience and defiance are also deliciously childish pleasures, which the Freudians would probably contend are part of the romantic allure of those who disregard rules.

Modern cynicism about our rulers is revealed in anti-heroes who dissent and refuse to follow edicts.

The rise of the vigilante hero - who takes the law into their own hands and meters out justice themselves, without waiting for due process to creak into action, also reveals a lack of faith in 'the system' to see injustice is punished.

But the reality of criminals, beneath the veneer of glamour which Hollywood and paperback fiction likes to gloss over them, is that these are often the immature and inadequate who want to take short-cuts.

They yearn for comfort and luxury without sweating through hard work or delaying gratification required by scrimping and saving. There is a part in all of us who is attracted to the short cut, which might partly explain the allure of the criminal as hero. It's the same draw as 'get rich quick' schemes.

However, Hollywood blockbusters today depict heists of labyrinthine complexity, requiring such complex skills and hard work from the heroic con artist or criminal, one wonders why they didn't just get a high paying job that rewarded them legitimately for their breath-taking sophistication.

Instead, the plots require us to believe that being an outlaw, dodging and diving outside the system, might be an inherently preferable. The villain as hero is also more free than the law-abiding rest of us, they don't care what others think of them and this liberty from constraint or judgement suggests they possess an independence of spirit, the rest of us crave.

The irony is that in pursuing this supposed self-determination, the criminal ends up behind bars. How free is a fugitive anyway - someone who has to keep looking behind his shoulder?

But the recent inversion of criminal and hero is important if the heroic are vital in guiding and inspiring us. Should our idols become those who are self-indulgent and selfish, we should beware. True heroes are those who make huge personal sacrifices for noble causes.

In the film Casablanca, at first it seems that Rick Blaine, played by Humphrey Bogart, will not assist the Allied war cause. He famously declares "I stick my neck out for nobody" and "I'm the only cause I'm interested in". He appears the archetypal anti-hero, sulky, self-centred and running what appears to be a shady night-club.

But in the climax of the story, he makes huge personal sacrifices for someone he loves, and the Allied side.

It's psychologically intriguing that for Bogart to play one of the greatest cinematic heroes of our time, he has to at first appear bitter, selfish, dodgy.

The danger is, if we get confused over who are true heroes, as opposed to those who just look rebellious, dangerous and glamorous, we will lose out on truly inspiring figures.

We will end up being robbed.

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Raj Persaud discusses new research on the mortality of comedians with Dr. Gil Greengross an evolutionary psychologist and anthropologist at Concordia University in Montreal and formerly at the University of New Mexico. His interdisciplinary research bridges traditional fields of study such as psychology, anthropology and biology, and his studies focus on the adaptive value of humor and laughter, mainly in the context of sexual selection and mating.

Dr. Greengross is also fascinated by the life and personalities of stand-up comedians as we can learn a lot from people who have extreme humor ability.

Dr. Greengross won the 2007 Graduate Student Award at the International Society for Humor Studies conference and was invited to give two lectures at the International Summer School and Symposium on Humor and Laughter. He has also designed and taught several popular college level classes on the psychology of humor.

Dr Raj Persaud is now joint podcast editor for the Royal College of Psychiatrists and also now has a free app on iTunes and google play store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. You can hear this interview on the app and read the article below on this subject.

Download it free from these links:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rajpersaud.android.rajpersaud

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dr-raj-persaud-in-conversation/id927466223?mt=8

Why the funniest comedians die first

Raj Persaud and Professor Adrian Furnham

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-raj-persaud/comedian-early-deaths_b_6269176.html

A study about to be published in the ‘International Journal of Cardiology’ has found that the funniest comedians suffer dramatically reduced longevity, compared to their relatively less funny counterparts.

The research, from the Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Australia, analysed the life span of 53 male British comedians born between 1900 and 1954. A key finding is that the higher the score by which the comedian was rated as funny, also the higher the mortality rate.

Of the 23 ‘very funny’ comedians, 78% had died, versus 40% of the rest. Average age at death for the comedians adjudged as ‘very funny’ was 63.3 years old versus 72.3 for the rest.

Those working in comedy duos (e.g. Morecambe and Wise) or teams (e.g. Monty Python) were also designated, for the purposes of this research, as the “funny” or “straight” man in that comedy team.

Within comedy teams, those identified as the funnier member(s) of the partnership were more than three times more likely to die prematurely when compared to their more serious comedy partners.

Examples that bear out this newly established macabre law that the funny man in a comedy team always dies first, include Ernie Wise being the straighter comedian in the duo, living to 73, while his funnier partner, Eric Morecambe died at 58. Ronnie Barker died at 76 while his straight man Ronnie Corbett is still alive and now past 84 years old.

Graham Chapman died at 48, while all the other original members of the Monty Python comedy team, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones remain alive, yet it is widely understood that Chapman was the most surreal, or the funniest, of this uniquely surreal comedy team.

For example, perhaps the most famous Monty Python sketch of all, the ‘Dead Parrot’ sketch started off being written by John Cleese as about a man returning a toaster, and it is reported that it was Chapman who inspired the idea it should be about the attempt to return a dead parrot.

The findings of this study are particularly intriguing because, consistent with the inherent nature of comedy tandems and teams, individual members were predominantly born around the same time, and come from the same social class and economic background.

The authors of the study, Dr Simon Stewart and Dr David Thompson, conclude that elite comedians are at increased risk of premature death, compared to their less funny counterparts.

The study involved ranking all 53 comedians according to their ability to make people laugh on a scale of 1 to 10. Those scoring 5 and below were considered to be relatively funny, 6-7 pretty funny and 8-10 ranging from very funny to hilarious. This last group would be considered ‘elite’ comedians and include John Cleese and Billy Connolly.

The study used a popular website that ranks the best of only British and Irish Comedians, on purpose, because the researchers focused on a group of comedians from one geographical part of the world. This ensured the similarity of background meant the key issue being investigated was whether there was something about purely being funnier, as opposed to any other differences between comedians, is linked to higher mortality rates.

Dr Simon Stewart and Dr David Thompson argue that a preliminary examination of the comedy scene outside of the UK suggests that their study reveals a more universal phenomenon.

For example, the survival profiles of famous and celebrated comedy duos such as Abbott (funny man who died aged 52) and Costello (straight man who died aged 78) suggest these findings may hold true across the Atlantic.

Dr Simon Stewart and Dr David Thompson point out that previous research has established that comedians score high on measures of psychotic traits, and display an unusual personality structure characterised by ‘introverted anhedonia’ combined with ‘extraverted impulsiveness’.

One theory is that there is something about the kind of personality and psychology involved in being particularly funny, which is also linked to this high mortality rate.

The authors of the study point out that many comedians have publically admitted to being depressed, or manic, or sometimes even both.

Examples include John Cleese, Peter Cook, Stephen Fry, Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan and Kenneth Williams. In the case of some like Tony Hancock (widely regarded as a genius comic) this resulted in taking his own life.

The study was partly inspired by the recent suicide of comedian Robin Williams.

But suicide alone cannot account for this finding, as many of the comedians who died early, did so from natural or medical causes, not suicide, including the recent death, aged just 56 years old, of funny man Rik Mayall.

However, it may be they manifest self-destructiveness in some more long term ways – Graham Chapman died of cancer possibly secondary to smoking, and was reportedly a heavy drinker.

Psychologists Gil Greengross and Geoffrey Miller from the University of New Mexico, United States, compared the personalities of 31 professional stand-up comedians with those of nine amateur comedians, 10 humour writers and 400 college students.

The study entitled, ‘The Big Five personality traits of professional comedians compared to amateur comedians, comedy writers, and college students’ found that, surprisingly, comedians are more introverted than other people.

Gil Greengross and Geoffrey Miller argue that you would expect comedians’ pursuit of fame and attention to mean they are bound to be highly extravert, like we know actors tend to be.

The intriguing result, published in the journal ‘Personality and Individual Differences’, suggests that comedians do not seek fame the same way as actors.

While the authors of the study acknowledge that the public perceive comedians as ostentatious and ﬂashy, perhaps their persona on stage is mistakenly seen interchangeably with their real personality.

The jokes they tell about their lives might be considered by many to contain a grain of truth in them, however, the results of this study suggest that the opposite is true.

Gil Greengross and Geoffrey Miller speculate that perhaps comedians use their performance to disguise who they are in their daily life. Comedians may portray someone they want to be, or perhaps their act is a way if defying the constraints imposed on their everyday events and interactions with others.

The authors speculate that ‘impulsive dis-inhibition’ is at the core of the comedic personality, and is necessary to come up constantly with weird new ideas that are funny. Comedians also need this to violate social rules by publicly declaring unconventional sentiments. But does this ‘impulsive dis-inhibition’ end up killing them, because they then don’t look after themselves properly?

The very funniest, who bring the house down, also seem to pull the curtain down early.

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Michael Schmidt is editor of a new book entitled: 'The NovelA Biography' published by Harvard University Press.http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.ph...http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Novel-Bio...Amongst the topics of conversation with psychiatrist Raj Persaud include: whether novelists are more prone to mental illness - why do we appear to have an insatiable psychological appetite for stories - can novels serve a psychological function - can they cheer us up? Can they be therapeutic? Novels are meant to be about the human condition, or human conditions, and yet so also are psychology and psychiatry, but the two don't seem to intersect - novels don't drive psychological research and are novelists moved by developments in psychology and psychiatry?From the Harvard University Press Website: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.ph...The 700-year history of the novel in English defies straightforward telling. Geographically and culturally boundless, with contributions from Great Britain, Ireland, America, Canada, Australia, India, the Caribbean, and Southern Africa; influenced by great novelists working in other languages; and encompassing a range of genres, the story of the novel in English unfolds like a richly varied landscape that invites exploration rather than a linear journey. In The Novel: A Biography, Michael Schmidt does full justice to its complexity.Like his hero Ford Madox Ford in The March of Literature, Schmidt chooses as his traveling companions not critics or theorists but “artist practitioners,” men and women who feel “hot love” for the books they admire, and fulminate against those they dislike. It is their insights Schmidt cares about. Quoting from the letters, diaries, reviews, and essays of novelists and drawing on their biographies, Schmidt invites us into the creative dialogues between authors and between books, and suggests how these dialogues have shaped the development of the novel in English.Schmidt believes there is something fundamentally subversive about art: he portrays the novel as a liberalizing force and a revolutionary stimulus. But whatever purpose the novel serves in a given era, a work endures not because of its subject, themes, political stance, or social aims but because of its language, its sheer invention, and its resistance to cliché—some irreducible quality that keeps readers coming back to its pages.

A related article which may be of interest - first published in The Huffinton Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-raj-persaud/edinburgh-international-science-festival-aliens_b_2951974.html

At the Edinburgh International Science Festival: Aliens as Revealed by Hollywood

By Raj Persaud and Adrian Furnham

Janne Korhonen from the Department of Organization and Management at Aalto University in Finland has just published an academic paper exploring whether we should really be trying as hard as we currently are, to make contact with extra-terrestrial intelligences; our assumption that aliens 'out there' would be benign, could be wrong.The history of our own planet is that civilizations boasting advanced technologies have subjugated and exploited the vulnerable. Should that guide our thinking on how aliens might treat us?The paper, published in an academic journal, 'Acta Astronautica' (sponsored by the International Academy of Astronautics and devoted to the scientific study of space) advocates that we should be getting inside the minds of extra-terrestrial intelligences, before we naively continue to send probes, and high powered communications, out into space, attempting to make contact with whoever, or whatever, might be out there.The possibility that extra-terrestrial intelligences (ETIs) could be hostile means we should be lying low, and not signalling our presence to the universe.

One theory as to why when we currently peer into deep space, we can't see any evidence of other civilisations, although statistically speaking just our own galaxy should be teeming with life, is that everyone else out there is camouflaged, and hiding.All except us in the universe have already calculated the inherent risks of making contact with strangers.The paper entitled, 'MAD with aliens? Interstellar deterrence and its implications' contends that the risks of an extra-terrestrial attack are not properly debated because of an assumption that we cannot analyse the decision making of an alien civilization.Janne Korhonen argues, however, we can draw some inferences from the history of deterrence and war on our planet. The acronym 'MAD' in the title of the paper comes from 'Mutually Assured Destruction' - which was the poker game that appeared to keep the Soviet Union and the USA from blowing the world to bits during the Cold War.In particular, Korhonen advocates special caution for proposed interstellar missions, as star-faring capability itself might be seen as a threat. Paranoid ETIs might also consider the possibility that our messages are a deception designed to lure out hostile civilizations, and pre-emptively destroy them. This would explain why no one has been answering us back, as we try ever harder to make contact.Even if a superior civilization found our technology appeared puny compared to theirs - it's possible they might be wary - considering this a classic military deception strategy. We could be appearing weak and vulnerable to draw out the enemy, before striking with overwhelming previously concealed firepower.Novels and movies have portrayed aliens as compassionate and helpful (eg ET and Close Encounters of the Third Kind), but extra-terrestrials don't have to be particularly paranoid or xenophobic, according to Korhonen, for it to be simply logical to preventively destroy other species, before they can pose a threat.Korhonen analyses the risks of the most disquieting scenario: that an ETI would, upon detecting advanced civilization on Earth, launch an unprovoked preventive attack, aimed at destroying humanity.The paper points out an expansionist civilization which is busy 'strip-mining' solar systems for resources, is unlikely to be interested in our fragile globe, as the resources available across galaxies are so vast.However, a species of extra-terrestrial confined to just a few planets would likely feel more vulnerable.

Korhonen assesses that just ordinary interaction between two inter-galactic adversaries could inadvertently destroy or seriously damage one of them, through transmission of diseases, invasive species, computer viruses or even, merely undesirable information (there is no God).Also any spacecraft capable of interstellar voyages in reasonable time becomes an inadvertent weapon of mass destruction through sheer momentum. Relatively simple interstellar probes -within our capability soon - would be devastating warheads.To illustrate this argument Korhonen calculates the kinetic energy for each 1000 kg of spacecraft mass at different velocities, demonstrating how easily one simple probe could exceed the entire global nuclear stockpile. So even primitive interstellar probes, travelling at an appreciable fraction of light speed, could be extremely dangerous to planet-bound civilizations.Given human history's tendency for 'cock up' as a cause of killing, it is easy to imagine a scenario where a human 'ﬂy-by' probe to a supposedly uninhabited system accidentally damages a civilization that had chosen to remain quiet, perhaps due to paranoid fear of detection. Said civilization might strike back in order to stop further ''attacks.''

But Korhonen contends it's the possibility of retaliation which renders preventive attacks a ﬂawed strategy. Interstellar civilizations would be disinclined to knowingly initiate hostilities using this logic.Yet this reasoning appears to have escaped those here on earth who are currently planning a pre-emptive strike against Iran, and who launched these against Iraq and Afghanistan. The psychology of war-mongering governments is to persuade the public to sanction pre-emptive strikes. This is achieved by avoiding considering post attack consequences in the propaganda for war.Korhonen acknowledges his analysis does not cover irrational attacks - including those motivated by ideology or xenophobia - but why might alien civilizations not be prone to the same irrationalities as we have been?Korhonenn relies on previous calculations from astronomers and planetary scientists that there may be between a hundred thousand to one million other civilisations in our galaxy alone. In which case the key question is not why have we not detected other civilizations out in space, but how come we haven't yet been eradicated?He believes the aliens have made a critical calculation - which is around fear of retaliation. This is the essential deterrence and also explains why no state has yet initiated a preventive nuclear attack against another on our own planet. Deterrence is reliable if it can inﬂict ''unacceptable'' damage to the attacker.Apparently in the poker game of 'Mutually Assured Destruction' between the Soviet Union and the USA, it was the capability to destroy any ten cities in retaliation after a surprise attack, which was seen as reliable and adequate nuclear deterrent.However, the miscalculation of those who advocate pre-emptive strikes is that survivors and witnesses, in the longer term, take revenge and eventually strike back. This is why we must discourage our leaders from the irrationality of pre-emptive strikes. We are still alive today, and have not been wiped out by a bolt from the sky, because intelligence in outer space has already calculated the foolhardy nature of the pre-emptive strike.If Korhonen is right, we do have something to learn from the silence of the aliens.If you are interested in taking part in a brief on-line psychology experiment in collaboration with the Edinburgh International Science Festival, exploring how Hollywood handles science with the implications for us - plus attend a talk on the subject - visit this link here www.sciencefestival.co.uk/whats-on/categories/talk/creating-a-monster-geeks-on-film

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Cowards and Cowardice - Chris Walsh bravely discusses with Raj Persaud his new book Cowardice - a brief history - published by Princeton.

FROM PRINCETON PRESS WEBSITE

Coward. It’s a grave insult, likely to provoke anger, shame, even violence. But what exactly is cowardice? When terrorists are called cowards, does it mean the same as when the term is applied to soldiers? And what, if anything, does cowardice have to do with the rest of us? Bringing together sources from court-martial cases to literary and film classics such as Dante’s Inferno, The Red Badge of Courage, and The Thin Red Line, Cowardice recountsthe great harm that both cowards and the fear of seeming cowardly have done, and traces the idea of cowardice’s power to its evolutionary roots. But Chris Walsh also shows that this power has faded, most dramatically on the battlefield. Misconduct that earlier might have been punished as cowardice has more recently often been treated medically, as an adverse reaction to trauma, and Walsh explores a parallel therapeutic shift that reaches beyond war, into the realms of politics, crime, philosophy, religion, and love.

Yet, as Walsh indicates, the therapeutic has not altogether triumphed—contempt for cowardice endures, and he argues that such contempt can be a good thing. Courage attracts much more of our attention, but rigorously understanding cowardice may be more morally useful, for it requires us to think critically about our duties and our fears, and it helps us to act ethically when fear and duty conflict.

Richly illustrated and filled with fascinating stories and insights, Cowardice is the first sustained analysis of a neglected but profound and pervasive feature of human experience.

order the book here: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10318.html

Chris Walsh is associate director of the College of Arts and Sciences Writing Program at Boston University and has also taught at Emerson College, Harvard University, and the University of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. His work has appeared in Civil War History, Essays in Criticism, Raritan, and the Yale Review.

A related article which may be of interest

Inside the Mind of the Twitter Troll

Raj Persaud

Under headlines such as ‘McCann 'Twitter troll' found dead in hotel’, the media have widely reported that Police were called after the body of a woman was found in a Leicester hotel room.

The woman, now reported in the press as found ‘likeable’ by her neighbours and ‘churchgoing’, had been confronted by a reporter, who put to her she had posted many messages attacking the McCann family on Twitter.

A few days earlier, in response to the widespread internet abuse they have suffered from numerous ‘trolls’, and following reports that police were reviewing a dossier of abusive social media messages, Gerry McCann, gave an interview declaring, ‘Clearly something needs to be done about the abuse on the internet’.

But new research suggests that if trolling arises out of deeply ingrained and very ‘dark’ personality dispositions, it may be more difficult for the law to be effective.

The press have tried to probe the background of the woman, only to find her behaviour largely mysterious and inexplicable, given her benign public persona in her home village.

The latest scientific study on internet trolls finds them to suffer from a unique constellation of manipulativeness (cunning, scheming, unscrupulous), sadism (pleasure from inflicting pain on others) and psychopathy (lacking empathy and remorse), which may only be properly illuminated by psychological testing.

Rather than subject this particular case to trolling, as speculation rages over the web and in the press over motivation, what has been revealed about the psyche of internet trolls from objective research?

The motivation which lies behind the apparently growing phenomenon of internet trolling has been recently explored by the ﬁrst psychological research to examine comprehensive personality proﬁles of trolls.

This study was titled ‘Trolls just want to have fun’, and was published by academics at the University of Manitoba, University of Winnipeg and the University of British Columbia, Canada, involving 1215 respondents completing personality tests, and an investigation of their internet commenting styles.

The first finding of the study, published in the academic journal ‘Personality and Individual Differences’, is that trolls and trolling are a real and rather ‘dark’ psychological phenomenon of particular personalities, not just random behaviour from a group who might dabble in this a bit, and then move on to other more innocuous internet activities.

Strong positive associations emerged among frequency of online commenting, trolling enjoyment, and troll identity. The Daily Telegraph reports that the woman currently at the centre of press interest sometimes posted more than 50 tweets a day, beginning at 7 am and going on until midnight.

Trolling in this new study, published in September 2014, was found to be surprisingly strongly associated with what are widely considered by psychologists to be the ‘darkest’ aspects of personality - including sadism, psychopathy, and manipulativeness.

Of all personality measures, however, it was sadism which showed the most robust associations with trolling. And, importantly, the relationship was speciﬁc to trolling behaviour. Enjoyment of other online activities, such as chatting and debating, was unrelated to sadism.

The authors of the study, psychologists Erin Buckels, Paul Trapnell and Delroy Paulhus conclude that cyber-trolling is an Internet manifestation of everyday sadism.

If sadism is a feature of your personality psychologists describe you as disposed to enjoy hurting others. You would tend to respond in the affirmative to test questions such as ‘‘Hurting people is exciting’’ and ‘‘I enjoy hurting people’’. You are also likely to suffer from vicarious sadism (e.g., ‘‘In video games, I like the realistic blood spurts’’).

But trolls also scored high on manipulativeness or Machiavellianism (e.g., ‘‘It’s not wise to tell your secrets’’), and subclinical psychopathy (e.g., ‘‘Payback needs to be quick and nasty’’). These two personality features may explain some aspects of trolling which have hit the headlines over the recent alleged case, including the use of internet names which disguise identity, and possibly the pursuit of revenge.

Some might be surprised that receiving national attention or notoriety would be linked with an adverse outcome, but in fact this study found that of all the ‘darker’ aspects of personality there was one on which trolls did not score highly, and this was narcissism.

Trolls tend not to be narcissists. Narcissists love attention and tend to answer affirmatively to questions such as ‘‘I have been compared to famous people’’. So trolls don’t appear to be performing for the attention.

Because the associations between sadism and trolling were particularly strong, the investigators tested a theory that sadism leads to trolling, because those behaviours are pleasurable, and the data provided some support for this.

As sadists tend to troll because they enjoy it, this might explain why victims revealing their suffering might merely further encourage trolls.

The authors found that the association between sadism and trolling was so strong that they conclude it might be said that online trolls are ‘prototypical everyday sadists’.

The authors suggest that their ﬁndings add to accumulating evidence that excessive technology use is linked to anti-social attitudes. The antisocial might deploy technology more than others because it facilitates their nefarious goals.

However, some psychologists go further to argue that use of internet technology actually pushes us in an anti-social direction. If this is the case then the internet could be said to be turning a significant proportion of recent generations into psychopaths.

This is because for the first time in human history a universally accessible anonymous environment has been created, where it is easy to seek out and explore one’s niche, however idiosyncratic.

The authors of this study point out that the antisocial now have greater opportunities than they ever did to connect with similar others, and to pursue their personal brand of ‘‘self expression’’. The problem is both trolls and sadists feel sadistic glee at the distress of others and this is now unfettered.

The web may also provide an opportunity to shape and develop an aspect of our personalities which might otherwise remain more hidden from our neighbours and friends. Online we can construct a new identity which may be more antisocial and may reflect parts of us we normally suppress from the outside world.

This 'double-life' idea might help us understand how extreme stress could follow exposure: the 'internet' persona may be compared with the 'real life' one, leading to the sort of tragedy which seems to have happened.

Follow Dr Raj Persaud on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@DrRajPersaud

Raj Persaud is now joint podcast editor for the Royal College of Psychiatrists and also now has a free app on iTunes and google play store entitled 'Raj Persaud in conversation', which includes a lot of free information on the latest research findings in mental health, plus interviews with top experts from around the world. Download it free from these links

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In conversation with Ummni Khan - Sado-Masochism in popular culture and the law.

Ummni is the author of a new book entitled 'Vicarious Kinks - S/M in the socio-legal imaginary'

FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS WEBSITE:

Who decides where “normal” stops and “perverse” begins? In Vicarious Kinks, Ummni Khan looks at the mass of claims that film, feminism, the human sciences, and law make about sadomasochism and its practitioners, and the way those claims become the basis for the legal regulation of sadomasochist pornography and practice. Khan’s audacious proposal is that for film, feminism, law, and science, the constant focus on taboo sexuality is a form of “vicarious kink” itself.

Rather than attempt to establish the “truth” about sadomasochism, Vicarious Kinks asks who decides that sadomasochism is perverse, examining how various fields present their claims to truth when it comes to sadomasochism. The first monograph by a new scholar working at the juncture of law and sexuality, Vicarious Kinks challenges the myth of law as an objective adjudicator of sexual truth.

http://www.utppublishing.com/Vicarious-Kinks-S-M-in-the-Socio-Legal-Imaginary.html

If you are viewing this podcast from inside the free mobile phone app 'Raj Persaud in Conversation' you can click on the 'gift box' icon which might be on the top right hand corner of your screen to download bonus content - an article by Raj Persaud and Professor Adrian Furnham on the psychology of attraction. You can also find this bonus content in the initial main menu screen that comes up when you open the app on the top right hand corner of the screen under a menu icon that reveals 'extras' - click on extras to see the bonus content.

Women's Sexual Fantasies - the Latest Scientific Research

Dr Raj Persaud and Dr Jenny Bivona

A team of psychologists led by a woman has uncovered some surprising findings on one of the most secret aspects of female sexual fantasy.

While almost everyone has sexual fantasies, previous research into the subject has found between 31 and 62% of women have rape fantasies. To be sexually aroused by such an imagined scenario represents a psychological mystery. Why fantasise about a criminal act which in reality is repulsive and harrowing?

To investigate these and other riddles at the heart of female erotic fantasy, a team of researchers based at the University of North Texas and the University of Notre Dame studied 355 young women.

A part of the research involved the participants being read a rape fantasy scenario over headphones, to investigate how aroused they became.

In the study, published in the academic journal Archives of Sexual Behaviour, participants were instructed to close their eyes while listening and to try to imagine themselves as the woman described in the narrative. This scenario was derived from story lines typically found in much women's romance literature, so it portrayed an erotic rape fantasy, rather than a literal portrayal of actual assault.

This was the scenario: a male acquaintance is strongly attracted to the female character. He expresses a yearning for sex with her, but she's clearly unresponsive. He attempts without success to convince her. When she continues to openly refuse, he overpowers and rapes her.

The female character is resistant throughout the interaction and at no time gives consent. However, as the man is attractive and he provides erotic stimulation, she does experience gratification from the forced sex. The scenario places more emphasis on the use of coercion than on the sexual pleasure.

The results of the study, (which also explored other sexual and aggressive fantasies, self esteem, attitudes to sex and other personality testing) are that 52% of the women had fantasies about forced sex by a man: 32% had fantasies about being raped by a man: 28% - forced oral sex by a man: 16% - forced anal sex: 24% - incapacitated: 17% - forced sex by a woman: 9% - raped by a woman: 9% - forced oral sex by a woman. Overall, 62% reported having had at least one of these fantasies.

The team of researchers lead by Dr Jenny Bivona, based at the University of North Texas found that overall, 62% of participants reported having a rape fantasy of some type.

Of the women who reported having the most common rape fantasy rape fantasy, ''being overpowered or forced by a man to surrender sexually against my will,'' 40% had it at least once a month and 20% had it at least once a week. The authors conclude these results indicate rape fantasies play a significant role in the sexual fantasy lives of many women.

It's important to note that while headline writers may focus on the fact women have sexual fantasies about coercive sex, this research finds it's an occasional daydream, not a preoccupation. It would be similarly unfair to tar men with the brush of an occasional fantasy they may have. When these female fantasies are erotic in character, the male protagonist is always described as highly attractive or otherwise desirable.

According to this study, entitled Women's Rape Fantasies: An Empirical Evaluation of the Major Explanations, a previous common psychological theory as to why women should fantasise about rape or forced sex was termed 'sexual blame avoidance'. This theory was about women avoiding taking responsibility for sexual desires. The hypothesis argued that women have been socialised by our culture to work hard at not being perceived as promiscuous or overly sexual. For example, stigmatising labels, such as ''tramp'' and ''slut,'' are invoked which control or restrict female sexuality.

'Sexual blame avoidance' theory argues that, for some women therefore, fantasies of consensual sex could generate self-blame, guilt, and anxiety. So by letting the fantasy take the form of rape, the woman in the fantasy is being forced to do something she doesn't want to. It follows then she can't be blamed for the occurrence of sex. In contrast to a consensual sexual fantasy, a forced sex theme enhances sexual gratification by allowing the fantasiser to avoid blame and guilt.

The results of this study found no support for this theory.

The authors of this new ground-breaking research concede that 'sexual blame avoidance' may have been true in the past when we lived in more sexually repressed times, so it's possible that over recent decades changes in attitudes to sex means the stress for women of being viewed as overly sexual has disappeared. Now few women appear to have rape fantasies to avoid blame from having openly consensual sexual fantasies.

In direct contrast to 'sexual blame avoidance', is the 'openness to sexual experience' theory. Instead of being driven by repressed sexuality, this supposition is rape fantasies derive from a generally open, tolerant and guilt-free attitude toward sex. It was this theory which received the strongest support in this new research by Dr Bivona and colleagues.

A notable finding is that women who reported being less repressed about sex were more likely to have rape fantasies, but were also more open to fantasy in general, more likely to have consensual fantasies, and more likely to report a higher level of arousal to rape fantasies.

Interestingly, the women who reported having frequent rape fantasies were also likely to report having fantasies about "overpowering or forcing a man to surrender sexually against his will."

Fantasising about being a stripper also predicted a tendency to fantasise about rape. Another intriguing result is women who report rape fantasies were more likely to have high self-esteem.

These results suggest that having fantasies about things we would never endorse or choose to do in reality, are not necessarily signs of psychological disturbance. In fact, according to this research, women who have rape fantasies also tend to have more positive attitudes toward sex, high self esteem, and more frequent consensual sexual fantasies.

This study in no way condones or tries to justify rape, which remains a violent and reprehensible crime no matter what the research on sexual fantasy of either gender might turn up. While some may even believe that publishing results such as these is going to assist some rapists in justifying their actions, the reality is these violent criminals are not scanning erudite academic research searching for justifications for assault. The editors and armies of academics who consider research submitted for publication in academic journals such as Archives of Sexual Behaviour also clearly believe this kind of study deserves publication, and wider dissemination in the field.

Fantasy is a deeply problematic area for many people and for psychiatry and psychology - why do some people convert strange ideas into actual deeds - as in the case of Brievik the Norway mass murder scenario - while others just enjoy their vivid, creative and somewhat unusual imaginations without taking action. Why do various individuals become disturbed about fantasies of which they don't approve? As a result much psychosexual therapy involves exploring and confronting the mysteries of sexual fantasy.

We don't yet know the answers to many of these questions, but this kind of scientific investigation is assisting in our search for understanding.

Dr Raj Persaud is a Consultant Psychiatrist based in London, Dr Jenny Bivona graduated from the University of North Texas and now works as a clinical psychologist.

Follow Dr Raj Persaud on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@DrRajPersaud

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This podcast has been made on behalf of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (UK) by Raj Persaud and Peter Bruggen

For more general podcasts visit: www.rcpsych.ac.uk/discoverpsychiatry/podcasts.aspx

Raj Persaud in conversation - the podcasts: Recent Episodes

Dr Raj Persaud FRCPsych Psychiatrist, Author and Broadcaster