Politics, hearts and minds

In the aftermath of the election Maggie Gibbons muses on loss, acceptance and mindfulness without navel gazing

I initially wrote this blog for https://dayinthelifemh.org.uk/, a project which clusters together the experiences of people with mental health difficulties during four ordinary days over a year. I wrote this for 10 May 2015, sent it to a few people and it seemed to resonate. So I’ve decided to share it more widely, with a few tweaks. It is, I stress, a very personal take.

Mindfulness can help with much worse Ed

I’m tired after weeks of hard work. I stood as an election candidate locally and shared others’ sense of shock, anger and bewilderment at the scale of Labour’s defeat. Coincidentally, it’s also the day before Mental Health Awareness Week. This year the theme is mindfulness. There’s an interesting debate going on in Buddhist, mental health and other circles about the ‘McDonaldisation’ of mindfulness – is it becoming detached from its origins in Buddhist teachings and practice, sold as a panacea for wider social ills and discontents, exploited for commercial gain, a way of keeping workers compliant? And so I have been thinking politics, hearts and minds all day.

Cognitive impairment and voting: the capacity to be heard

Alexandra Richards

Who gets to Vote?
Image: Every Vote Counts

The upcoming election is an opportunity for the population to have their say in the future running of the country. We live in a democracy and the right to vote feels fundamental. But two thirds of all people in the UK with learning disabilities do not vote. Many may not even know that they are entitled to a vote. UK-based statistics are not available but research suggests that for individuals who have cognitive impairments of other causes (e.g dementia, brain injury), voting rates may be similarly low.

Though there are many jokes about the intellectual functioning of the average voter abound in the run-up to an election, the reality is that voting eligibility is not determined by intellectual ability. It appears though that this is not common knowledge. Many health and social care professionals (see here and here) are not fully aware that their clients are actually allowed to vote.  The presence of a cognitive impairment may make the process of voting challenging, but is this really sufficient reason to not support people from doing so? Assumptions about whether someone can and should vote may be informed by the ideas around their mental capacity.

Is supporting populist political parties a mental disorder?

John McGowan makes the case

Commitment? Or sign of illness?

It’s just over a month until the UK general election and many Brits seem to have lost trust in their traditional politicos. Whether it’s the UK Independence Party (UKIP) scapegoating the European Union and immigrants, a rise in nationalism (the Scottish National party), or  Russell Brand’s teenage anarchism, faith in facile, and sometimes ugly, solutions is on the march.  It’s a huge relief, therefore, to hear that the editors of the DSM (the main reference book for psychiatric classification), are considering a new category of disorder to cover this condition. Clearly many critical things have been said about the burgeoning amount of psychiatric diagnosis, here and elsewhere. However, I’ve just looked at the DSM draft entry (reproduced below), and think that this time, the American Psychiatric Association might really be onto something. In fact, all I can say is bring it on.