When the editorial board of BJPsych International acceded to the launch of a web-based monthly arts blog, I volunteered as the commissioning editor. I did this partly because I already straddled the worlds of psychiatry and the creative arts. But also because it was an opportunity to be a part of something new.
The March edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – features Nigerian poet Pamilerin Jacob who writes about being diagnosed with mental illness, his recourse to poetry, poetics and poetic language for therapy, meaning and vocation. He also pays a moving tribute to a friend who was instrumental to his survival.
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has the youngest population of any region in the world with 70% under the age of 30 years. This youthful demographic profile can be both a blessing and a challenge. While the youth have the potential to drive economic development, meeting their educational, social, and health needs can over-stretch already limited human and material resources.
Alison Wilding has always been fascinated by deadly, beautiful things, either found in nature or when manufactured, and specifically in regard to the latter, the realm of the military machine.
In March 2017, a medical doctor ordered his driver to stop on the Third Mainland Bridge, came down from his car and jumped into the Lagos Lagoon. Traditional media platforms and social media buzzed with this tragic news. It was not the usual fare: that cocktail of pernicious poverty, drug use, and wanton criminality; this was a gentleman. It unveiled a severe concern about that taboo subject, mental health.
I sat on a Zoom call with a psychologist from Edinburgh. My mental state, not my autistic son's, was in question.
Sue Morgan completed a doctorate in German philosophy and worked in the city as a corporate tax lawyer before being forced to retire in 1998 because of a diagnosis of schizo-affective disorder.
I am bipolar. Diagnosed at age 18. Since I received my diagnosis of Bipolar Affective Disorder, I have relied on friends during my relapses when I am unable to look after myself and be responsible for my actions.
The Akan people of Ghana, like many other collectivist cultures, have deeply engrained concepts of interdependence and support for each other. These concepts have been passed on for generations in the Adinkra symbols. Each symbol possesses an intrinsic meaning and represents virtues, values or beliefs critical to the Akan experience of life.
The opioid crisis is a complex and multifaceted problem that affects millions of people around the world. It is not only a medical issue, but also a social, economic, cultural, and educational one. As psychiatry trainees from different parts of the globe, we wanted to share our perspectives on the opioid crisis and how to improve our practice and education in this field.
As Pictures Editor, I selected Peter Eddie's art for the August cover because of his intriguing drawings of faces and his enthusiastic use of any surface, here water cups. The rows of faces appear like an audience, looking out on us the viewer and reader of this journal.
The July 2023 edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – features an article by Dr Olasunkanmi Onifade, Oral Medicine Consultant, Nigeria.
My life as I knew it changed in the autumn of 2019. I started a new job in a new city in a new country. To further tip the scale, my aisle-destined engagement began to fail that summer, with unresolved conflicts sporadically rearing their heads in five cities on three continents. That summer, my laptop (and all my precious writing and dissertation) was stolen on a flight from London to Lagos.
From my Māori world view, wairua or spirituality is our essence. Everything else flows out from there. If we don’t get spiritual wellbeing right, other approaches will have only limited benefit. It seems to me that psychiatry offers treatments that are focused on the brain, addressing physical and psychological wellbeing. I notice that western talking therapies often don’t address spiritual values that are of critical importance to Māori and other Indigenous peoples.
As pictures editor, I selected Peter Grundy's art for the February cover because of his striking designs that simply portray complicated issues. Peter Grundy is one of the world's leading information designers. Peter Grundy states his designs and illustrations aim to turn complex information into simple visual stories in a world of modern messiness.
The April edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – features an interview with Tunmise Kuku, a Nigerian radio broadcaster and mental health advocate who has been open about her diagnosis of Type II Bipolar Affective Disorder. Three years ago, she took a deliberate career break to write Living Mindfully: A Journey of Being, a memoir that draws from her experiences and stories. It has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
No writer’s life and work has had a more profound impact on me than that of Bessie Head, a woman who was born in a psychiatric hospital in South Africa, raised in foster care and later exiled to Botswana, a country she simultaneously loved and hated. By the time she died in 1986, Head had published several novels, including A Question of Power, which she described as “almost autobiographical” in its account of the life of Elizabeth, a woman in the midst of a psychological crisis against the backdrop of her country’s political struggles. I am afraid of readingthis novel againbecause of how vividly it evokes a memory from my medical school days, of a psychiatric evaluation with a patient exhibiting dissociation symptoms and who was later diagnosed with comorbid schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder.
In this edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – Dr Tim McInerny, Pictures Editor, BJPsych International introduces Albert, the artist whose portrait is on the cover of the February 2023 issue of BJPsych International.
The January edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – features a review of a memoir about mental illness and recovery by UK-based Nigerian psychiatrist Victoria Olasegha.
The RCPsych Article of the Month for December is ‘Mental health of indigenous people: is Bangladesh paying enough attention?’ and the blog is written by author Md. Omar Faruk and published in BJPsych International.
I once met a woman admitted following a suicide attempt. She spent four weeks in the psychiatric hospital where I had many interviews with her during my morning rounds. During one of such interviews, she said to me, “I was a writer and I love to read and write poetry, like Alejandra Pizarnik.” I found this interesting because I also love literature.
In the November edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – Dr Tim McInerny, Pictures Editor, BJPsych International introduces Sarah Kogan, the artist whose portrait is on the cover of the November edition of BJPsych International.
The October edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – features a short blog by Motswana visual artist, Sedireng Mothibatsela, who writes about a crucial moment in her artistic development which coincides with her parent’s separation. It is a moving piece about how visual arts intersects with trauma and healing. I can recall the afternoon that changed how I create. I was 12 years old and in my last year of primary school and the looming high school years ahead presented many questions about how I wanted to proceed with my art. I had painted a watercolour still life and I was bored with it. Although my art received praise from my family and peers, my handling of watercolour was juvenile at best. I needed more; technically and conceptually. It was then that I began to question the art making process. Like most young artists in primary school we were simply taught that “good art is pretty art.”
The September edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – features an article by Sabrina Coleman-Pinheiro, a visual artist of Nigerian, British and Sudanese lineage.…
In the August edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – Dr Tim McInerny, Pictures Editor, BJPsych International introduces Gemma Anderson, the artist whose portrait is on the cover of the August edition of BJPsych International.…
The July edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International –features a short interview with Nora Awolowo, a Nigerian film director whose documentary film Baby Blues: Trials of Childbirth is a 74-minute-long exposé about maternal mental health in Nigeria.…
The June edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International –features an article by Remi Olutimayin, a Nigeria-born voice director of animation.…
The RCPsych Article of the Month for May is ‘Undergraduate psychiatric education: current situation and way forward’ and the blog is written by author Gaia Sampogna published in BJPsych International.
In the May edition of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International – Dr Tim McInerny, Pictures Editor, BJPsych International introduces Mr X, the artist whose work is on the cover of the May 2022 issue.…
As pictures editor I selected Courtney’s art as it is a powerful, beautiful, enigmatic image of identity and mental health. It is difficult to make an artwork that sensitively visualises the experience of illness and recovery. Courtney’s work does both, in a strong portrait that immediately gains attention. It is a fitting cover and I am proud that a patient artist has created this work that speaks so clearly to the international audience of the journal.
The March article of Muses – the arts blog from BJPsych International is the first blog of the series. The blog is written by Dr Dami Ajayi, Specialty Doctor, Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust and Trainee/Blog Editor, BJPsych International.…
The RCPsych Article of the Month for December is ‘Stressors and Mental health in Bangladesh: Current situation and Future hopes‘ and the blog is written by author Dr Uriel Halbreich published in BJPsych International.…
The RCPsych Article of the Month for May is from BJPsych International and is entitled ‘Mental Health in Malawi’ by Philippa Lilford.
The RCPsych Article of the Month for December is from BJPsych International and is entitled ‘Headaches in Moria: a reflection on mental healthcare in the refugee camp population of Lesbos' by Tom Nutting.
We were delighted to welcome delegates to our Cambridge University Press/RCPsych Publishing stand during Congress where they were able to explore our impressive portfolio of books and journals and meet the Journal Editors-in-Chief and Managing Editors during “Meet the Editor” sessions.
I wrote this short article to correct a widespread prejudice among mental health practitioners and the general public alike to the effect that psychoanalytic theory and therapy are not ‘evidence based’ -- in the sense that, say, CBT and psychopharmacology are considered to be.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) and Cambridge University Press are pleased to announce the formation of a new publishing partnership beginning in January 2018.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at how the prêt-à-porter industry in France and the ready-to-wear industry in Italy evolved from their beginnings to their growth stages during the 20th century.…
Ethics Right From the Start The end of the year 2021 brought an extraordinary announcement that a technological genie was being shoved back into its bottle: Facebook (now: Meta) stopped using the facial-recognition software that allows it to automatically detect and tag people in photos and videos.…
Circadian rhythms are timekeeping mechanisms responsible for the cyclic repetition of metabolic, behavioural and psychological processes in all living organisms, typically over a 24-hour period.
Frederick Douglass said: “Once you learn to read you will be free.” On this World Book Day (7 March, 2024) Cambridge hopes to help spark that enquiry.…
More and more research is finding inflammation as a potential contributing factor towards to the development of various mental illnesses. A systematic review was conducted to determine the association between parasitic infection and mental illnesses in various African populations. Two parasite groups were evaluated; helminths and protozoans, and four mental illness classifications; depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, schizotypal disorders and unspecified mental illnesses.
How unequal were ancient Maya societies and what lessons can we learn from them about our own unequal world? Modern inequality metrics often focus on monetary wealth and financial statements, but other methods exist and inequality can manifest itself in multiple forms.…
Tamer Zaki (Johns Hopkins University) has recently joined the Journal of Fluid Mechanics Editorial Board for JFM Rapids. To celebrate, Tamer participated in a Q&A with the Journal.
More and more research is finding inflammation as a potential contributing factor towards to the development of various mental illnesses. A systematic review was conducted to determine the association between parasitic infection and mental illnesses in various African populations. Two parasite groups were evaluated; helminths and protozoans, and four mental illness classifications; depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, schizotypal disorders and unspecified mental illnesses.
In 1996, then-President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) into law, with the goal to “end welfare as we know it.”…
In 2012, a Conservative-led coalition implemented austerity measures to restore the UK’s finances. The measures aimed to address the increase in public spending that had occurred during the Great Recession and included significant cuts to public services in the form of the 2012 Welfare Reform Act.…
National parliaments had been for long time losers of European integration with only very limited competences of information on new EU initiatives and of rubber-stamping transposition law compared to the national governments, which often negotiate EU law at the supranational level and propose its transposition acts at the national level.…
At the end of the Greek Bronze Age, between c.1400-1200 BCE, the Mycenaean palaces of Crete and mainland Greece used small clay tablets to keep their accounting documents.
As Douwe Truijens and Marcel Hanegraaff have recently remarked (Truijens and Hanegraaff 2023), interest groups can play a very large role at the implementation stage of the policy cycle, potentially even reversing decisions made earlier in the cycle.…
With 2023 on the horizon, and the landscape of academic publishing in flux, Cambridge University Press spoke to the Editors of the SAA’s journals to find out what topics and questions are currently front of mind – for archaeologists, researchers and publishers alike.…
Congratulations to Michael Byers, Aaron Boley and Ignacio Cofone who have been shortlisted for the 2023 Donner Prize.
The award, for the best public policy book by a Canadian, will be announced in May.
🔗 https://cup.org/4aEq4ZN
'We are aware that infusion fluids can both save and hurt patients'.
Find out about modern Fluid Therapy in this week's featured author blog by Professor Robert Hahn
🔗 https://cup.org/3Q5YVqa
Take a seven-stop literary tour of Dublin! @BBC_Travel teamed up with Professor Morash, author of 'Dublin: A Writer's City', to mastermind a whistle-stop literary adventure of Ireland's capital.
Read more 🔗
An Irish writing professor's seven-stop literary crawl of Dublin
Christopher Morash, Trinity College Dublin's Seamus Heaney Professor of Irish Writing, takes you on a tour of litera...
cup.org
;
