Welcoming The Black Dog

Andrew Solomon: Depression, the secret we share

http://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_solomon_depression_the_secret_we_share.html

I had a black dog, his name was depression 
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiCrniLQGYc

Nigel

Best Society

“When I was a child, I thought,
Casually, that solitude
Never needed to be sought.
Something everybody had,
Like nakedness, it lay at hand,
Not specially right or specially wrong,
A plentiful and obvious thing
Not at all hard to understand.

Then, after twenty, it became
At once more difficult to get
And more desired -- though all the same
More undesirable; for what
You are alone has, to achieve
The rank of fact, to be expressed
In terms of others, or it's just
A compensating make-believe.

Much better stay in company!
To love you must have someone else,
Giving requires a legatee,
Good neighbours need whole parishfuls
Of folk to do it on -- in short,
Our virtues are all social; if,
Deprived of solitude, you chafe,
It's clear you're not the virtuous sort.

Viciously, then, I lock my door.
The gas-fire breathes. The wind outside
Ushers in evening rain. Once more
Uncontradicting solitude
Supports me on its giant palm;
And like a sea-anemone
Or simple snail, there cautiously
Unfolds, emerges, what I am."

Philip Larkin, 1922-1985

Nigel

It Really Has Come To This

PUBLISHED: 12:30, 10 January 2013 | UPDATED: 15:56, 10 January 2013

Unemployed agoraphobic woman, 22, claims 'discrimination' after being told she can't attend job centre via videolink

"Jen Lant risks losing her £98 unless she attends monthly meetings in person

The 22-year-old says she is discriminated against because she is disabled

An unemployed agoraphobic who receives benefits by attending Jobcentre meetings via videolink claims she is the victim of discrimination after being told she must start turning up in person.

Jen Lant risks losing the £98 employment support allowance she gets from the monthly meetings and argues the new rules discriminate against her because of she is disabled.

The 22-year-old, who has a GP's letter explaining her condition, has 'good days' when she can leave her house for a couple of hours but is often unable to set foot outside."

Incarceration
 
Nigel

It's What They Do - Does Not Matter Who They Are

Friday 04 January 2013

Voters 'brainwashed by Tory welfare myths' (Independent)

"Survey shows public ignorance of the level of benefits and who gets them

Ministers were accused last night of demonising benefits claimants in an attempt to justify their controversial decision to increase most state handouts by less than inflation.

Polling commissioned by the Trades Union Congress suggests that a campaign by Tory ministers is turning voters against claimants – but only because the public is being fed "myths" about those who rely on benefits.

The criticism comes before a crunch Commons vote next Tuesday on the Welfare Benefits Uprating Bill, which will ensure that most benefits and tax credits will rise by only one per cent for the next three years. Labour, which will vote against the measure, will try today to answer Tory claims that it is "soft" on scroungers by announcing a "tough love" plan to force adults who have been out of work for more than two years to take up a government "job guarantee" or lose their benefits."

Editorial: Who said the nasty party had gone away? (Independent)

Friday 4 January 2013

Labour proposes 'tough but fair' jobs and welfare scheme (Guardian)
Labour urges temporary jobs for long-term unemployed (BBC)
Making work pay: Balls announces compulsory jobs guarantee for long-term unemployed (LFF)
Job Guarantees give hope to long-term unemployed (LFF)
Labour's job guarantee (PH)
Labour revisits old welfare ghosts with its jobs guarantee (Spectator)
The Trouble with a Job Guarantee
Ed Balls: Britain needs real welfare reform that is tough, fair and that works
Working reforms will introduce job guarantee plan for long-term claimants over 25, announces Ed Balls

"Shadow chancellor Ed Balls says the £1bn jobs subsidy would be linked to a cut in tax relief for higher earners' pensions. Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer

Labour will move to protect itself from the politically damaging charge that it is soft on welfare claimants, by proposing that every adult aged over 25 and out of work for more than two years should be obliged to take up a government-provided job for six months, or lose benefits.

The "compulsory work or lose benefits" announcement by the shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, and the shadow work and pensions secretary, Liam Byrne, comes ahead of what threatens to be a fraught second reading debate on Tuesday over Labour's refusal to back a government bill restricting increases in benefits and tax credits to 1% a year for the next three years – which is likely to represent a 4% cut in real terms."

Friday, 4 January 2013 

Back to the future?

"On many forums, including the comments on newspaper articles, it has become commonplace for people to forecast a return to the workhouse.  As a historian, in an amateur sort of way, I have begun to see genuine parallels between the plans and attitudes of the current governing classes and the climate of opinion which brought about the Poor Laws of 1834.".

January 9th, 2013 

Labour’s real guarantee: Workfare

"Last week saw the Labour Party announce its own form of workfare: the Job Guarantee. Labour, who introduced workfare and welfare reform into the UK whilst in government, now guarantees a number of things: It guarantees that yet again politicians will give billions of taxpayers’ money to subsidise big private businesses – probably the likes of failing and government contract reliant A4E, and workfare-users ASDA – helping them to drive up their profit margins. It guarantees to further undermine real job vacancies as companies replace job roles with subsidised compulsory short-term placements."

Labour’s Job Plans, Concerns After Some Serious Thought

Isn’t it time Labour’s plan for jobs and growth was different from the Coalition’s?

Nigel

Mental Health Is Rooted In The Context Of People’s Lives

2012

Mental health in context: the national study of work-search and wellbeing (DWP)

Summary
Full report

"Conclusion

The findings indicate that CMDs contribute to poorer employment outcomes, because by their nature, they erode beliefs about abilities and optimism about the future. But entering employment can support recovery.

More broadly, the study has shown that mental health is rooted in the context of people’s lives. Poor physical health, low levels of social support, neighbourhood context and adverse life events all play a role in whether or not someone will experience a decline in mental health during a period of unemployment.

However, there is an important distinction for policy-makers to consider between people who arrive on JSA with relatively stable employment histories having developed symptoms of distress as a result of recent life events, and those for whom a mental health condition is one issue among an array of longstanding life adversities."

Nigel 

Rich, From A Tory

7:05PM GMT 18 Dec 2012

'Ban benefits claimants from spending on drink and cigarettes'

"Benefits claimants should be banned from spending welfare payments on “luxury” items like alcohol, cigarettes and satellite television, a Government aide has said.

Strain: the Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith is masterminding welfare reforms

Alec Shelbrooke said that claimants should be paid welfare via electronic cash cards that could only be used to buy essentials like food, clothing, energy, travel and housing.

Mr Shelbrooke, a Conservative MP, is a parliamentary private secretary at the Northern Ireland Office,

He made the suggestion as a backbencher in the House of Commons, but ministers are understood to be looking at similar ideas.

Mr Shelbrooke has drafted a Bill that would change the law to allow welfare payments to be made on a new “welfare cash card” whose use could be restricted by the Government."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9754188/120000-troubled-families-could-be-legally-banned-from-spending-benefits-on-alochol-and-tobacco.html

MP: Ban benefit claimants from buying alcohol

http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/house_of_commons/newsid_9779000/9779292.stm

No beer on benefits: Tory MP wants those on benefits banned from buying "unnecessary items" 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-mp-alec-shelbrooke-wants-1496523

We won't dish out benefits: Tories declares war on claimants by studying plans for welfare card

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/government-studying-welfare-card-plans-1499584

Alec introduces the Welfare Cash Card

http://www.alecshelbrooke.co.uk/index.php/home

Welfare cash card

http://blueconservative.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/welfare-cash-card-2/ 

*****

I contacted Mr Shelbrooke ...

Subject: Your Dangerous Madness

Dear Sir,

I will try to be brief, as I do not believe your offensive ideas warrant much effort.

JSA is deemed "the minimum amount one can live on".

Living is more than survival.

Many of us are likely to be on JSA (or equivalent), for the remainder of our 'working' lives.

Imagine a life, with no hope for anything other than state-sanctioned commodities.

Can you imagine that?

Does it ring a bell?

Is that the kind of country you believe in?

Yours,

NLO
http://criticalestoppel.blogspot.co.uk
(and, no, I do not 'drink' or smoke)

*****

Friday 21 December 2012 12.57 GMT

Welfare cash cards and spying: the Tory approach to unemployment

"An MP's proposal to stop claimants buying 'luxury goods' would fit with a new website that tracks job search activities."

January 14, 2013

Alec Shelbrooke: The need to reverse Labour’s destruction of the Welfare State is greater than ever

"This is a plea to the reader – it is not in my character, nor ever the intention of my Bill to play one section of society off against another. To suggest otherwise is not only false but damaging and disrespectful to the 5.8m recipients of DWP benefits who believe in the integral importance of the Welfare State."

Nigel

All In The Mind

Wed Aug 29, 2012 2:08pm BST

Insight - Neuroscience in court: My brain made me do it

"He was once a respected pediatrician, loved by patients and their parents for over 30 years. Now DM faces trial for pedophilia [sic], accused of making sexual advances towards little girls in his care.

Scientific experts will argue in court that his damaged brain made him do it, and his lawyers will ask for leniency.

It's the latest example of how neuroscience - the science of the brain and how it works - is taking the stand and beginning to challenge society's notions of crime and punishment.

The issue has been thrown into the spotlight by new technologies, like structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET) scans and DNA analysis, that can help pinpoint the biological basis of mental disorders.

A series of recent studies has established that psychopathic rapists and murderers have distinct brain structures that show up when their heads are scanned using MRI.

And in the United States, two companies, one called No Lie MRI and another called Cephos Corp, are advertising lie-detection services using fMRI to lawyers and prosecutors."

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/08/29/us-neuroscience-crime-idUKBRE87S07020120829?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=healthNewsMolt&rpc=401

Neuroscience in court: Can we blame the brain? 

http://www.tradearabia.com/news/HEAL_222522.html

Nigel

With Tragic Consequences For The Sufferer And For Society

June 2011

Perspectives on depression, gender and crime: Depression sometimes masked, missed and misunderstood

"This article offers both a literature review, and perspectives on the definition and nature of depressive illness, its various modes of presentation, and its significance in male, female and adolescent populations.

It provides a brief review of some of the ideas about the aetiology of depression, outlines how to recognize it and discusses its relevance to forensic populations.

Finally it suggests how early detection of depression and, consequently, more adequate access to treatment intervention, can be facilitated.

Unfortunately, the presence of depression is sometimes overlooked and therefore missed (particularly in males) sometimes with tragic consequences for the sufferer and for society."

Sarah Hodgkinson and Herschel Prins, University of Leicester
Probation Journal, June 2011, (58)2, p. 137-154

Nigel 

But, Not A Lot

Stress 

"Stress is an unavoidable consequence of life. As Hans Selye (who coined the term as it is currently used) noted, "Without stress, there would be no life". However, just as distress can cause disease, it seems plausible that there are good stresses that promote wellness. Stress is not always necessarily harmful. Winning a race or election can be just stressful as losing, or more so, but may trigger very different biological responses. Increased stress results in increased productivity -- up to a point. However, this level differs for each of us. It's very much like the stress on a violin string. Not enough produces a dull, raspy sound. Too much tension makes a shrill, annoying noise or snaps the string. However, just the right degree can create a magnificent tone. Similarly, we all need to find the proper level of stress that allows us to perform optimally and make melodious music as we go through life."

AIS
http://www.stress.org

"Like a thief in the night, work stress robs millions of workers of their health and happiness, then goes scot-free while the blame lies elsewhere."

Veninga, R. L. and Spradley, J. P. (1993) The Work-stress Connection: How to Cope with Job Burnout, Boston: Little, Brown and Company

MBS?

Nigel

The Black Dog

Depression

"Pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it, and it kills in many instances because it cannot be borne."

Darkness Visible, William Styron, 1991, Picador, London

"Normal Sadness is to depression what normal growth is to cancer."

Malignant Sadness – The Anatomy of Depression, Lewis Wolpert, 2001, Faber and Faber

"Depression is a word ... “That has slithered through the language like a slug, leaving little trace of its intrinsic malevolence and preventing by its very insipidity, a general awareness of the horrible intensity of the disease out of control.”"

Darkness Visible, William Styron, 1991, Picador, London

"I've been to hell, young man ... you've only read about it."

Marquis de Sade to Abbe de Coulmier, Quills

MBS?
MBS?

Nigel

So It Continues

During the middle of Summer, 2002, I was taking digital pictures, quite innocently, in a public place, but, even I have to admit, a part of it appeared to be far from 'innocent'; this led to 'arrest'.

Ultimately, I was far from innocent, when it came to the contents of one of my computer's hard drive.

During the past decade, I have devoted much of my time, to exploring the issues, related to my offence and further afield. I had considered (and have the facilities for) a full CMS website, but, for now, this medium will do nicely; transfer is always possible, later.

This blog is the retrospective and continuing story, of the consequences of The Eventful Day, what preceded it, imprisonment and the return to society.

MBS?

Enjoy the ride, where you can.

Nigel.