Warriors ~ CoCo and the Butterfields

'In the hands of others: the nightmare begins' Lin Cochrane #Psychosis Journal

'In the hands of others: the nightmare begins' Lin Cochrane; Psychosis Journal

Pages 225-227 | Received 02 Feb 2018, Accepted 02 Feb 2018, Published online: 04 Apr 2018

link to journal

From first page:

"With the little insight and foresight I had at the time, I saw the life I once had and appreciated become endless years of control and power.  And the medication and the fear of the medication.  The endless trials and various types of medication.  The continual side effects of all the drugs I have been trialled on, which over the past 38 years has cost me my physical well-being, the loss of friends and the worst isolation I have ever had to bear up to date.  Then, at the age of 29, none of this was apparent to me, except for a gut-wrenching feeling that nothing would ever be the same again."

my tweets about the religion of psychiatry and the cult of clinical psychology

Engaging with Dr David Healy and others this morning (a lecture):

I don't get paid to give therapy

Dec14 I was bullied off this group. I met with Gumley in his office after 4Jul CUSP group & was told that when I left Dec14 it was very hard for him. Well it was very hard for me. I don't get paid. He said I wasn't "more than". I responded saying I wasn't "less than". https://t.co/aaeWpQIsM5

— Chrys Muirhead (@ChrysMuirhead) November 9, 2017

ClinPsy male academics in Scotland are angry; I've felt the brunt of it; not pleasant; I don't get paid to give therapy, to put up with angry men; if they paid me £50/hr then I might consider it https://t.co/LtSF59BFmY

— Chrys Muirhead (@ChrysMuirhead) April 15, 2018

I don't get paid to give therapy

— Chrys Muirhead (@ChrysMuirhead) September 12, 2018

why do psychotherapists encourage people to kneel at their feet?

Or maybe the question should be, why don't they discourage it?  

I've witnessed this on a number of occasions, in person and on social media, where therapists, clinical psychologists, psychotherapists and the like make pronouncements as if they were gods, expecting their followers to obey without question.

I first saw this in around 2005/6 at an event in Kirkcaldy where a Professor of psychotherapy and his wife gave a presentation then afterwards sat on chairs at the front of the large reception room, people came to speak with them, kneeling on the floor at their feet.  I thought: what's going on there?  What's that all about?  Couldn't understand it.  Have seen a lot more of it since, working in mental health matters, and not just with "therapists".  I saw it at the Minorities Conference 5 July 2016 after Lucy Johnstone's talk when coming back into the room and seeing a young guy at her feet and I told him to get up.  Johnstone should have told him.

Prof Gumley said I'd be in my "element" at this event; he was correct

I suspect it's to do with the psychological training giving therapists the ability to manipulate vulnerable people while also distancing themselves from the "other".  Setting them above the people they work with, believing their celebrity status and the power they have to hold an audience and peddle their wares.  

I had further dealings with the Fife psychotherapist and his wife over the years and it was useful to have seen that first engagement from afar, how they expected adulation as their due, a disrespect for those they perceived as "less than".  It helped in the 8 years of trying to be meaningfully involved as a person with "lived experience" in DClinPsy programmes at both Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities.  From 2009 when I attended a Service User Research Group at the red brick Admin building Gartnavel Hospital with Ross White and Andrew Gumley.

I can still remember that meeting, having a photographic recall.  Coming in late, the 2 academics giving "therapy" to a woman who didn't seem to be mentally well, a FT paid worker with ACUMEN, or maybe she was just taking advantage of having 2 therapists available, for free, manipulating the occasion.  I wasn't happy, the meeting was meant to be about user research and I never did get my travel expenses from White.  Of course the meeting was really about research fodder for academics, we were just a means to their end.  This pattern went on for years at both DClinPsy institutions.  It's probably still going on, ad infinitum.  A tokenistic, tick box affair.  Not my cup of tea.

4July17 leaving DClinPsy Programme

in the front row at the Minorities Conference BPS London 5Jul16

the manipulation of clinical psychology

This is a problem and I think it starts in the DClinPsy training, the indoctrination of mostly females by men at the top and other women who are under them.  Based on my experience of engaging with the academics at Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities.  Eight years of trying to be meaningfully involved as a psychiatric survivor Mother voice.  But I didn't fit the criteria, being a good mother who had a good mother and supportive upbringing.

I was subject to their manipulation, a lesson in resistance, a battle of sorts.  I think the ClinPsy discipline attracts people who are into "hands on" interventions and have egos like bottomless pits.  Got to be honest.  The successful academics and practioners who I've met didn't get there by intellectual abilities alone, or even, rather, I have gathered, by being able to hide behind a mask of incongruence, mindfulness (switching off) and/or superiority.  

The challenge is to get behind the mask or to agitate enough so that they resort to even more manipulation, with gritted teeth and clenched fists, the men that is.  The academic women I've met who are "under" the men appear to be ineffectual, dittery, lacking in insight, disorganised and not the sharpest tools in the box.  Why is this?  In my opinion, because the men chose them for just these reasons!  I said this to Schwannauer, November 2016, after he mucked me about in his office, Doorway 6 of the old Medical Quad, at a PhD preparation meeting.  Raised expectations at our meeting in September then dashed them 2 months later.  I was very angry with this game play and got him telt.

As for his double act partner Gumley (Staying Well After Psychosis) his mask dropped when we engaged virtually 2015-17 after years of a poker-player face at CUSP user/carer meetings since 2011, before that 2009 at a service user research meeting in the red brick building at Gartnavel led by Ross White.  I came to the conclusion that Gumley was gay as he said nothing about his personal life, wore tight fitting shirts with a flowery pattern, fancy jeans, lycra when cycling, had a "partner" and no children.  In my defence I've met many gay men in mental health matters since 2008.  I just thought that the Professor wasn't "out".

Then after Gumley dunted me when coming into the 25Jun15 Schizophrenia Support in Mind Scotland event and was waiting outside after, we had "words" and I gave him a telling off, he offered me a lift down in his taxi, marched off to the end of the street muttering about the driver not coming to the door, left his phone in taxi and looked as if he had something wrong with him.  I felt sorry for him and befriended him soon after, by Email, like a penpal.  I did this with Prof Ian Reid from 2012-14, engaging with him right up to and shortly before his death in the June.




I shared these Emails with my Psychiatrist friend on occasion, to keep myself right, and he was a witness to many of the virtual exchanges with Prof Gumley as I journeyed through another psychosis after a near death experience and complete breakdown on 31 July 2015 when I thought my number was up.  This is when I took up knitting, swimming and fitness again, also doing some dressmaking, having bought a Singer sewing machine from Castle Furniture in Cupar.  However we had to give up the car end of 2015 and dressy outfits aren't suitable on public transport, it's more lycra Tshirts and jeans made of denim or cord, for comfort not fashion. 

3Nov15 after delivery of sewing machine

In a sense my engagements with Gumley were about "therapy".  I was teaching him a lesson in how to behave.  It wasn't easy duelling by Email as you don't know intentions and words can have double meanings.  I do think that you have to go through it to know it, to have the experience, to feel the pain.  To come out the other side stronger and more secure.  

That's how it was for me when engaging with psychiatry in 1978, 1984 and 2002.  It was similar with the ClinPsy Professor and his cohort academics from 2015 until the end of 2017 when I retreated from the Edinburgh DClinPsy programme.  Gumley went in the huff after 4July17 CUSP meeting.  I dunted him back (for 25Jun15) on 25 October 2017 at the NRS MH Network Annual Scientific Meeting in the Queen Elizabeth Teaching & Learning Centre, Glasgow.  Tit for tat.  He was in my road as I went to the Ladies so I bumped into him on purpose as he did with me.  I didn't go out of my way to pay him back.  It wasn't a priority.  I'm a busy person.



That's not an end of it for me, in terms of Clinical Psychology in Scotland.  It's not good enough for people in psychosis and mental distress.  I will continue to campaign and agitate for improved training of psychologists and challenge the dominance of male academics and their manipulation of trainees, Mothers and others, the switching off and superiority of practioners in Fife and elsewhere.  In my opinion they are not fit for purpose and are in need of a complete overhaul.

Cycling by River Tay on path to Tiso from North Inch, Perth 8Sep18

Simple Life @Ed_Sings [my Son!]

5th Dimension - Last Night I Didn't Get To Sleep At All

attachment theory, crying Mothers; leading by example, strong Mothers

I got up a bit earlier this morning to write this post as I'm off to Edinburgh for the Alliance Scotland conference on digital health and care then to Scottish Parliament to watch the First Minister speak.  Writing to make sense of it.

Upon waking I was thinking again of the (negative) influence of Professor Andrew Gumley in the field of psychosis, his Attachment Theory and Risk of Relapse dogmas which in my opinion and experience keeps in place the blaming of Mothers for mental illness and scaremongers people into staying in the system when they could be breaking free, enjoying life to the full.   It creates dependence rather than independence, and is egotistic although anyone who knows Gumley would likely say that he is a caring person.  I've not found him to be so and have been at the receiving end of his displeasure.  You might describe it as discipline from a father heart.  I don't appreciate it as a strong Mother and Grandmother.  He's not my Dad, neither is he my son.  I deserve respect for the woman I am, his equal.

Attachment theory in mental health matters, in psychosis, is a reaction and response to biological psychiatry which I can understand but don't approve of, as a survivor Mother, having overcome psychiatric treatment on 3 separate occasions, following puerperal psychosis in 1978 and 1984, then menopausal psychosis in 2002.  I did it for my family, my 3 sons, coming off the neurotoxins which had been forced into me as a voluntary mental patient.  And I've supported my 3 sons when they experienced psychosis and had to take them into psychiatric wards because there were no other choices and they needed help.  That was very tough as I knew what they would have to go through but I also knew that it had to be done.  And so I advocated for them in and out of psychiatry, caring for them, leading by example.

with my 3 Sons, Oct99 at my sister's wedding

[In the photo above my two older Sons had already been psychiatric patients, my youngest was still to go through it.]

I've not been respected by Clinical Psychology in Scotland and this grates.  I think it comes down to attachment theory dogma, a misrespresentation of family relationships and the experience of psychosis.  Which leads to the marginalisation of mothers like me who are strong, capable, independent thinkers and have survived psychosis and psychiatric treatment.  Maybe there's not many of us around who speak out but that doesn't mean we are "less than".  I really don't appreciate Gumley and his patriarchal colleagues preferring mothers who cry on their shoulders and make them feel big.  They need to start giving respect to strong Scottish Mothers who shoulder responsibilities, lead from the front and are good examples to their sons (and daughters) by living it, surviving psychosis and psychiatry.  

I will continue to protest at my treatment by Clinical Psychology in Scotland.  They are not helping the movement for positive change in Psychiatry and mental health care.  Their egos are getting in the way and need brought down to size.  Reductionism.  Have these well paid academic DClinPsy men learnt their lesson yet?  I don't know, they have gone in the huff.

with Prof Gumley 4April17 after PhD mentoring meeting Edinburgh

At this meeting with Gumley in Dr Stenhouse's office, Doorway 6 of old Medical Quad it seemed as if I was speaking to one of my sons.  Andrew behaved like a boy with his Mother.  Then upon leaving the doorway we came upon Angus McBeth and Prof Gumley went up to him, hugging him like a father.  I observed this and pondered the difference.  After this I took the selfie of us together, capturing the moment.  It brings back how I felt.  Wondering why I got the wee boy behaviour while McBeth got the father treatment.  I don't have an answer, just questions.  I didn't want hugged, don't need a father figure, I just wanted to be treated like an equal.  Surely that's not too much to ask?

Loch Leven Castle boat trip 28Aug18

my faith sustains me

I woke up this Sunday morning in my birthday month of September feeling positive, as usual, after a good night's sleep, thinking how my faith in Christ sustains me.  I'm often praising God when playing music at the PC, pop tunes from the past or more recent songs, so much to be thankful for.  I seldom play "Christian" music but that's ok, I don't need to.  

I wake up to this Bible verse on my bedside table, in cross-stitch I did in the 1990's:

Beside Monkey which I've had since a baby, photos of my boys, a crochet cross I got from somewhere.  Monkey's very well worn, his foot and hand were sewn on again by me in childhood, also his eyes, nose and mouth, I must have played with him a lot.

Here's more cross-stitch beside my computer, the Jesus oval frame was one of the first creations, maybe 1993 or thereabouts, family photos, gifts received from friends over the years, the bone china oval dish with the Tangipahoa necklace resting in it is from 1975, Aberdeen, a guest house on the King's Gate where I worked, in the last year of my husband's BSc Agriculture, when we lived in Gordon House, 27 Rubislaw Den North, married students' accommodation, mostly with international couples:

I don't attend church at present which is fine, I don't need to.  I may go back in the future, it depends.  I've got a strong faith but I'm not religious, and as a Christian of 37 years (saved on my birthday in 1981 when reading the Word of God) I find it difficult to sit in a church where the Minister isn't doing the job right, without speaking out.  I've had to sit in too many churches where men in leadership were out of order, misbehaving or making a fool of God.  I cannot put up with it any more.  

Fortunately my faith doesn't depend on church attendance. I had a faith before joining the church which is just as well, considering what I've seen and heard from "men of God".  

I'll end on a positive note!  Which is where I began, grateful for feeling so hopeful about life and the future even though the last 10 years have been particularly challenging.  At times I didn't think I'd survive but I'm nearly 66 and looking forward to my 70's 😊.  Bring it on ....

Enjoying The Proclaimers Angry Cyclist album: