Grand Rounds 2:36 Is Up

Submitted by tonyplant on May 30, 2006 - 15:49.

Grand Rounds 2:36 is up: this week it is hosted by a nephrologist who blogs on Kidney Notes. It's pathetic, I'm one of the most squeamish people that you could hope not to be the only person around the day you cut yourself or be in need of some First Aid, but I am utterly fascinated by the medblog insight into the working lives of people whose jobs make an obvious and direct difference.

There is the usual mix of the hilarious (a urologist discusses a surgical procedure with a porn star that may interfere with his 'money shot'), the poignant (what happens to patients can make you cry), the controversial (it's Dr Crippen on a controversy that arose from a controversy about home-births, need I say more?) to the thoroughly fed up (most stupid reason for duty calls and I have this problem that I want you to fix).

add new comment | medblogs | Grand Rounds

Laughter In The Park for BHF Laugh-A-Thon

Submitted by tonyplant on May 28, 2006 - 18:41.

The weather was kind and it was just the sort of warm, sunny day that encourages people to slough their inhibitions and laugh, just because it feels good. I probably have more opportunities than most people to be part of a laughter train but it is always good fun. I ran several sessions and the age of the participants was from 18 months upwards.

One of the participants was in his 80s: he gave us a spirited rendition of The Laughing Policeman. Getting a licence for this events involves so many considerations that I have to confess have a momentary concern about whether or not I needed a licence that specifically mentioned singing - and then I decided that the guy was a participant, it was up to him whether or not he sang in public on a sunny day in the park.

I had some interesting chats about laughter and happiness with people after the sessions. I also had some wry comments from people who were laughing at themselves for smoking while they took the British Heart Foundation balloons for their children.

My next large-scale event is August. I've been invited to be the warm-up for the Concert in the Park: apparently one of the acts is a T-Rex tribute band that actually has two of the original members of T-Rex. Is this a special hybrid-tribute category? Selfishly, the best thing about this event is that it is my first opportunity to run a laughter event for an audience of several hundred people. It wouldn't be safe to run the Laughter Train exercise but there are some exercises (like the Laughter Wave - like the Mexican Wave but involving different pitches of laughter) that are made for large numbers.

1 attachment | read more | add new comment | laugh-a-thon | event

Why The Politics Of Happiness Makes Furedi Mad

Submitted by tonyplant on May 27, 2006 - 17:30.

Somewhere or other, Frank Furedi claims that in the UK and US,

self-reliance and problem-solving through informal relationships have been gradually replaced by a therapeutic culture that, by medicalising everyday behaviour, encourages helplessness and promotes new forms of social control.

More recently, amongst various other protestations about the politicisation of happiness and the rise of the 'therapeutic state', Furedi writes:

Individuals are no longer seen as self-determining subjects capable of exercising democratic citizenship, but rather as potentially ‘damaged goods’ who need the support of professionals and Layard’s army of 10,000 counsellors to instruct them on how to be contented...The new therapeutic social contract is underwritten by the paternalistic assumption that the unhappy patient needs the management and ‘support’ of officialdom...Public policies delivered by thousands of therapists are likely to turn the public citizen into a helpless patient – and the focus on the self will likely reinforce people’s sense of atomisation...

I need to write a fuller response to Furedi's piece - amongst his other arguments is that

Rather than causing us to be unhappy, hard, purposeful work is often the means through which we cultivate our own sense of happiness.

I wouldn't disagree with him - and I doubt that the mainstream happiness researchers would either. Happiness is not solely concerned with hedonism, self-indulgence or the abdication of personal responsibility: it is not necessarily either ridiculous or politically dangerous. Authentic happiness (to use the Seligman term) encompasses the need for work and engagement in life. Happiness demands involvement, it is rarely something that can be delivered solely by external means.

read more | add new comment | Seligman | resilience | laugh-a-thon | happiness | furedi | Authentic Happiness

Laugh-a-thon for British Heart Foundation, May 28th And More Muda

Submitted by tonyplant on May 26, 2006 - 17:27.

The next big event on the laughter calendar is the national Laugh-a-thon on Sunday, May 28th which is being run in collaboration with the British Heart Foundation.

The Laugh-a-thon is sponsored in aid of the British Heart Foundation and is also an exploration of the health benefits of laughter. After some local difficulty, I managed to chat with my local BHF co-ordinators and organise an event for Spurriers Cafe, Harlow Park, this Sunday 28th at 1pm..

 

So, unless it is contra-indicated, and you have been warned off laughing - have a look at what is available in your local area and go along to a Laugh-a-thon event. Laughter really is good for you!

Never one to pass up the opportunity for a whinge, the local difficulty was that I went to my local BHF shop to find out more about the event, only to be told that the shops aren't allowed to participate in local fund-raising. I was told some probably-defensible but ludicrous-sounding story about how two local men had raised £1500 at an event and wanted to donate the money for use in the local area: anyway, you aren't allowed to make a directed donation for local use, so the shop couldn't accept the money. This whole area was obviously the source of ill-feeling but I am glad to say that the shop did accept some advertising material for the event once everything was sorted. I shall whinge about that in a separate paragraph.

read more | add new comment | muda | laughter | laugh-a-thon | event

Planning For Victory, Planning For Happiness

Submitted by tonyplant on May 24, 2006 - 18:11.

A lot of people ask whether Taking Our Pleasures Sadly is a british phenomenon. Apparently, my mother-in-law's response to any event such as taking an exam was to advise the candidate to pray to St. Jude (the patron saint of hopeless causes for those not in the know) and, having thus filled the person with confidence, instruct them to "hope for the best but expect the worst."

I was reminded of this today when I read about the fuss concerning whether or not England should put together plans for a World Cup victory parade. The Times expressed the matter admirably:

To hope for the best is one thing. But we British do not like to plan for success. There are good reasons. First, it goes against the national grain. We welcome triumphs, the more effortless the better. But we have tasted too much defeat on foreign fields to plan for victory. We bear the scars of dashed hopes. We know better. Secondly, and more pertinently in most people’s minds, to tempt the sporting gods is to invite inevitable disaster. And so, with wisdom and history on our side, we prepare mentally for the worst.

However, it could be argued that this is definitely one of the times for wearing your rose-tinted spectacles with pride if you are of a partisan persuasion and care about football.

 

1 attachment | read more | add new comment | resilience | happystance | happiness

Grand Rounds 2:35 Is Up!

Submitted by tonyplant on May 23, 2006 - 18:02.

Grand Rounds 2:35 is up. If there is an online male-equivalent for the real-life magazines that crowd the Women's Interest sections of supermarkets or newsagents, then Grand Rounds is it for me. It's pathetic, I'm one of the most squeamish people that you could hope not to be the only person around the day you cut yourself or be in need of some First Aid, but I am utterly fascinated by the insight into the working lives of people whose jobs make an obvious and direct difference.

Thanks to the host, Dr. Emer of Parallel Universes, I have enough reading to dip in and out of for a full week. It is fascinating and has a clever layout along the style of a journal frontispiece. Dr. Charles has developed a protocol for identifying the Charles Sign. The Cheerful Oncologist extols the virtues of exercise (in a roundabout sort of way). Why taking medicine to treat heart-disease is seen as preferable to patients changing their lifestyle habits. There's an encounter between a jazz musician who doesn't like doctors and the doctor whom he consults. All in all, it is a fascinating read.

add new comment | medblogs | Grand Rounds

We Eat Well, Exercise But Die Before 30...

Submitted by tonyplant on May 23, 2006 - 16:31.

I came across this cartoon that inspired the title and reminded me of something that I've seen attributed to Terry Pratchett:

You can't make people happy by law. If you said to a bunch of average people two hundred years ago "Would you be happy in a world where medical care is widely available, houses are clean, the world's music and sights and foods can be brought into your home at small cost, travelling even 100 miles is easy, childbirth is generally not fatal to mother or child, you don't have to die of dental abcesses and you don't have to do what the squire tells you" they'd think you were talking about the New Jerusalem and say 'yes'.

As ever, I fall back onto consideration of Ben Friedman's The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth. Friedman persuasively argues that economic growth is essential to moral, social, political and cultural progress.

I wonder why we are not happier or more satisified. Are we meant to compare ourselves to others or to an idea of what we wanted for ourselves and find our lives lacking? Or has economic growth given us more diverse and intense sources of hedonism but not provided comparable opportunities for engagement or a meaningful life? I find the latter difficult to believe. Yet I meet so many people who are relying upon an external or a change in circumstance (such as a lottery win) before they will be happy. The idea that we can change ourselves and be happy seems to be ridiculous or dangerous.

1 attachment | read more | add new comment | resilience | happystance | happiness | ethics | consumption

The Role Of Supportive Communities

Submitted by tonyplant on May 20, 2006 - 10:46.

 

Dr Crippen has written several entries in his diary for this week that elicit both sadness and anger. Sadness for the predicament of the patients who consult him and anger that the resources are not available to help them. In the Thursday 18th entry for the diary, Dr Crippen poses the question:

What happens to children with learning difficulties? They become adults with learning difficulties. Because they are grown up, people do not realise and are less tolerant.

We learn about Patrick who is 42 and has learning difficulties. Patrick is currently not working and when he is cross he hits people. Patrick does not meet the criteria for help from the local mental health departments. His local 'regular' psychiatrists do not work with people with learning difficulties: his local learning difficulties psychiatrist had diagnosed a Borderline Personality Disorder which Dr. Crippen translates as, "I can't help you and I don't like you."

5 attachments | read more | 2 comments | well-being | Steiner | dr crippen | depression | communities

The Relief of Like Minds

Submitted by tonyplant on May 18, 2006 - 17:28.

The notion that happiness can be taught sometimes leave people feeling baffled by the language (like the translations in the accompanying photograph) or even outraged. I participated in a fascinating Like Minds event last night. I had the opportunity to present some of the work that I do with positive psychology to an audience of battle-hardened GPs, Community Mental Health workers, psychiatrists and even a Mental Heath Commissioner (I think; he was up until last Friday, but from bits and pieces last night it seems as if he was so successful and innovative there that he has been appointed to a different post).

The GPs were concerned with the medicalisation of unhappiness and patients' requests for anti-depressant medication. There was some discussion of claims that GPs don't know how to make appropriate referrals for depression. The GPs felt that they had limited resources rather than limited knowledge: in terms that were reminiscent of Dr. Crippen they felt that they were being treated like the dinosaurs of medicine and asked to become more and more remote from their patients rather than giving them the one-on-one time that so many of them need.

1 attachment | read more | add new comment | unhappiness | positive psychology | happiness | depression

Grand Rounds 2:34 Is Up!

Submitted by tonyplant on May 17, 2006 - 07:16.

Grand Rounds 2:34 is up at Dr. ibear's Doc Around the Clock.

Dr. ibear (sic) is an Emergency Department doc insomewhere in the Midwest. He has chosen an excellent range of posts, including some inspirational ones like J. Stands Up to See the Light at The Mote in the Light, which tells us about quite a remarkable 4 year old.

Living the Scientific Life discusses a poll showing us the sacrifices people would be willing to make all in the name of obesity.  Check out Mind Over Matter.

His stuff is very funny. I enjoyed the drawings, but by my standards they are quite skilful...

1 attachment | add new comment