Lessons from Oxford.
MINDFUL MOMENTS # 128
I’d like to share with you how I’m feeling at the moment:
Angry.
Hopeful.
Confused/slightly overwhelmed.
Let’s break it down.
Anger. The anger part may surprise you, depending on what ‘anger’ means to you and how it looks. I’m not talking about violence or hatred, but rather passionate disagreement and frustration. Yesterday, I listened to ‘Book of the Week’ on Radio 4 (see here), presenting extracts from Dr Ben Cave’s reflections on life as a forensic psychiatrist. I was so frustrated after listening to it that I had to quickly scramble to find instead the audiobook of The Railway Children and soothe myself with this childhood classic. The ideas presented are such a two-dimensional approach to psychiatry and whilst I respect him for his years of service, I have to question how much good he really did. That may seem quite “strong”, but perhaps I may be able to explain these emotions better by telling you that last week I was in Oxford learning about trauma from the world-leading experts in the field. Apart from psychedelics, there was no mention of any pharmaceutical interventions at the conference; no mention of the anti-psychotics and anti-depressants that Dr Cave lauds in his book. I won’t be so foolish as to suggest they don’t have a role at all, but let’s not confuse that with them being a treatment. So much of what I heard in that Radio 4 series is in direct contradiction to what I learnt last week, and - if we can use Dr Cave’s experience as a microcosm of that of NHS Psychiatry; a proxy measure of how psychiatry is being conducted - that is the source of my anger and frustration. Of course, as Bessel Van Der Kolk repeated at the conference on numerous occasions: “It’s all political”…
Hopeful. I feel hopeful because I was in a room with 1500 people (mostly trauma therapists) all clamouring to devour as much wisdom as they could from Bessel Van Der Kolk, Peter Levine, Stephen Porges, Deb Dana and Richard Schwartz - to name a few of the world-renowned experts who were present. I feel hopeful that the world of psychiatry is changing; that those 1500 of us who descended on the Sheldonian Theatre will go back to our various parts of the world and use what we learnt to empower change within the field of psychiatry, internationally.
Confused/slightly overwhelmed (but not in a bad way). I say this because I came away from the conference with a head (and matching notebook) completely full of inspiration and ideas - and I don’t know where to begin. I went to work the next day, and three of the 15 people I saw that day had PTSD: this work is so relevant. I went to the conference largely because I see so much ‘trauma’ (it’s hard to define, but largely anything that puts us in a fight/flight mode) of which some of commonest symptoms are depression and anxiety and for which I felt I had very few tools to offer patients - other than six sessions of talking therapy and some anti-depressants. I hope to write about it in more depth in the upcoming weeks, but suffice to say that the role of doctor as therapist is somewhat controversial: is it the role of the GP to know about trauma? There are some who think not.
Mindful moment: I will spend the next few weeks both re-listening to some of the talks and trying to figure out my role as a primary care physician within that (I just wrote ‘psychician’ which seems a rather wonderfully well-timed Freudian slip of the keyboard). Currently I have equal numbers of questions and answers, but I would ask you simply to remain open. In whatever field you are working in currently, what you know of it is a dynamic process. Remain open to the possibility that things can be done differently and can be thought of differently. In the words of Michael A. Singer, “Stay open. Don’t close”.
YOGA
Mindful Movement with Laura
Join us every Saturday from 11am-12.15 at the Cornerstone Community Centre in Hove for an all-levels vinyasa yoga flow class, meditation and mindfulness (mats provided or bring your own).
£6 per class or £24 for 5.
Upcoming classes: Classes will resume September 23rd - YAY!
MOVE
Drugs may not have been mentioned much at the conference, but I tell you what was: yoga! Yoga is a fundamental part of recovering from negative experiences as it enables us to reconnect with our body and actually change the physiology of our nervous systems. For this reason, I cannot wait to be teaching again! There are so, so many benefits to yoga that can be explained through neuroscience - but we don’t need to know the science to experience it.
Mindful movement: What constitutes yoga? There is plenty masquerading as yoga,but which is not. At its core, there is a simple connection to the breath and the body. A few simple movements to ground you back to your body with an awareness of your breath, particularly the exhale, may be all that your nervous system needs.
REFLECT
“Was I courageous? No, I was just curious”
- Bessel Van Der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps The Score, when asked about how he overcame rejection and disapproval of his ideas
Mindful moment: How curious are you? Are you able to invite in more curiosity - to question, to learn, to be interested and intrigued? Stay open; remain curious. We can do this in the way we move by noticing what’s going on and how we move, and we can do this in our conversations with others and ourselves.
Have we met?
Welcome to the Community.
I'm Laura, a yoga teacher and NHS doctor. With this weekly newsletter I aim to help you incorporate mindful moments into your week. I want you to feel inspired, empowered and creative. I promise to always be authentic; to only include content that speaks to me and which, therefore, I hope will do the same for you.
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Thank you for reading! Until next time, Laura x