Bazinga! Busting the OCD Myth
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YOUR COMPLIMENTARY COPY MC Bazinga! Busting the OCD myth Therapy Sweet Dreams Are Prescription Behind Bars Made of This Drug Addiction Autumn 2016 MAGAZINE MAGAZINEMC 3 WELCOME 4 THERAPY BEHIND BARS 8 PAY ATTENTION! 10 BAZINGA! 12 MAKING A DRAMA OUT OF A CRISIS 14 A SPECIAL TYPE OF CARE 18 THE HIDDEN EPIDEMIC STREET WISE The man whose soccer skills took him from despair to glory. 21 STAY WELL FEEL GREAT 30 27 SWEET DREAMS ARE 18 MADE OF THIS THE HIDDEN EPIDEMIC Prescription drug abuse. 10 30 STREET WISE MAKING A DRAMA 32 X FACTOR’S GOT 8 OUT OF A CRISIS NOTHING ON MY JOURNEY PAY ATTENTION Anthony Richardson has Rory Bremner talks created a stage production 34 DAY IN THE LIFE... candidly about his life based on his life with 35 ACROSS THE UNIVERSE with ADHD. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. MC magazine team: Contributors: Graham Hignett, Myles Hodgson, You can contact us at: Rebecca Kelly. Managing Editor: Steve Murphy. [email protected] Editor: Jackie Rankin. Editorial: Julie Crompton, Joanne Cunningham. Photography: Joel Goodman. MerseyCareNhsTrust Design: Jo Hadfield. Mersey_Care If you have received this magazine as a member of Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust, we’d like to be sure that the information we hold for you is current and accurate. If you have moved house, changed your email address, or have a new phone number please email [email protected] with 2 your name, date of birth and details that need to be amended. WELCOME utumn has a lot going for it. It’s about focusing on what’s important Early autumn landscapes are easy and enjoying what’s around you. Our Stay Aon the eye. Even the light is Well Feel Great feature includes practising different. It’s a novelty to put some layers mindfulness, the art of enjoying the on and get out for a walk. moment. There are ideas to keep your mind and body upbeat and healthy. Granted when the clocks go back we all curl up and it’s much harder to motivate This issue also focuses on a topic yourself to go outside. All the research that affects untold numbers of people – shows it’s worth it, even for a short time. prescription drug addiction. A GPs are even prescribing walks and other heartbreaking wonderful story of a outside activities. woman who overcame her addiction to common over the counter drugs. Here at MC magazine we try to go for a lunchtime walk when we can, just short So let’s all prescribe ourselves a dose of bursts, some of us counting our steps on willpower, a woolly jumper, gloves, sturdy our fit bits. We’re a competitive lot! Focus on shoes, friends and a destination (preferably with a healthy lunch on offer) and we It can be hard though if you’re not feeling what’s important should come home feeling tired but at your best, to motivate yourself. You can energised. read inside what people have told us they and enjoy what’s look forward to in winter – curling up with Here’s to rustling leaves and roaring fires! a good book, letting your thoughts drift, around you. to football and roast dinners. (We’d like to The MC editorial team. hear your winter ideas.) 3 THERAPY BEHIND BARS In a quiet Lancashire village Jim, a 25 year old from Blackpool arrives at Garth Prison to begin a two year stay. When he goes onto the prison wing he’s welcomed by a prison officer, a psychologist and a mental health nurse. 4 Because of how we work here they don’t see me as a ‘screw’. I’m not a clinician but I know that what matters is the interaction. Prison Officer Pete Townson There to shake Jim’s hand is Danny, a prisoner who knows exactly how Jim THERAPY BEHIND BARS feels - because he’s been there It’s not a typical prison STRUGGLES they came in. The chances are welcome but this is not a WITH TRUST they’ll offend again because typical situation. Jim has been we haven’t addressed the Around seven in ten prisoners selected to join the Beacon, a underlying problems. Is that nationally are diagnosed with specialist psychological treatment fair on them, their victims or Personality Disorder, a condition programme for convicted men the community?” that can be made worse by who have personality related traumatic life events. They Wouldn’t it be cheaper to needs or who have been have problems in managing treat people within NHS units? diagnosed with Personality their emotions; they can struggle Tony: “It’s much more cost Disorder. to develop trusting positive effective to bring the treatment A report by the Prisons’ and relationships and may often teams into the prison where Probation Ombudsman found use self-harming, violence and the security is already there. that one in five prisoners substance use to cope. We can spend more on the diagnosed with a mental clinical support that’s key to Those selected for Beacon sign health problem receives no the success of the up to receive an intensive care from a mental health programme.” programme including professional while in prison. The psychological and other therapies. To be admitted to the Beacon Beacon has been established as The programme sees the man as a prisoner must demonstrate part of the National Offender an individual and his behaviour some personality related Personality Disorder (OPD) in the context of his life and needs and/or be diagnosed Strategy which seeks to address experiences. with a Personality Disorder; the needs of men and women personality needs must also whose personality difficulties It recognises the strengths of play a part in his offending. contribute to their risk and the men as well as the problems It’s a psychologically led offending behaviour. that led to his offending. Men approach with a focus on work with doctors, nurses and relationships and a man having occupational therapists as well the ability to change and as prison officers. practice new learning and skills Manager Tony Carradice in a supportive therapeutic explains: “There are many environment. A number of people in prisons who have the first cohorts have just a personality disorder; yet we moved on after successfully send them out at the end of completing their programmes. their sentence the same way There are many people in prison who have a Personality Disorder yet we send them out the same way they came in. 5 CLOSE KNIT COMMUNITY The prison wing that houses Beacon participants is like any other but that’s where the similarities end. In what is a close knit community up to 48 men live on a self contained landing. They sleep in cells but their days are spent undergoing individual and group therapies. We make every contact count. Asking someone ‘are you ok’ is massive in here; they’ve never had that before. NHS mental health trust Mersey Care provides a highly specialised clinical team that works shoulder to shoulder with prison officers. The aesthetics of the wing shout ‘prison’ – but talk to those involved He admires men who stick with the violent, even in prison I was in segregation and the message is clear - they want to programme. “It’s the tough option. It and I got kicked out at one point. would be easier to stay on a normal prison make people better. My probation officer told me therapy wing than to be in a group discussing Staff are hand picked for the qualities might be a good thing, but it wasn’t till your past; they really do put themselves needed to cope with this intense I’d had the interview I realised how good through it.” programme. “We are changing people’s it was. A prison officer had come in on his personalities. They need time to grow, For Lynn Russell, 17 years a prison officer, day off to meet me. the approach has its challenges. But she to develop patience and resilience to There isn’t anywhere else like it. I feel like shares her colleagues’ belief that it works. knockbacks. It takes a special kind of I’m taking control, achieving something. person to fix them and in this team we “It can be a juggling act. We have to I’m facing things head on, no-one’s ever told have those people. follow prison procedures, but for many of me I’ve done well. It feels strange but good. these prisoners too much discipline can We make every contact count. Asking I don’t want society to be frightened of cause a setback in their progress. But our someone ‘are you ok’ is massive in here; me, if that means staying in prison two team instinctively knows what’s right for they’ve never had that before. more years I’ll do it. I can’t keep running the situation. We exhaust every avenue. for ever. I’m making a flyer to tell people We don’t give up.” in here who’ve been sexually abused how SHOULD WE WASH OUR to get help. Everyone should have the HANDS OF THESE PEOPLE? support I’ve had. PETER Psychologist Simon Crowther believes it’s I was a weird kid. I was kicked out of our duty as a society to provide services like Peter is from the North East. Well built and home, lost my family and friends and my the Beacon. “We have to ask who is responsible heavily tattooed he was just a month from mind. I ended up doing something silly when a child has an unimaginably horrific parole.