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Reflections on 50 Editions of Clinical Psychology Bite-Size

Written by Steven Coles on . Posted in Clinical Psychology Bite-Size

Reflections on 50 Editions of Clinical Psychology Bite-Size

Issue 51 – September 2017 Authors: Steven Coles and Phil Houghton (steven.coles@nottshc.nhs.uk and philip.houghton@nottshc.nhs.uk)

Key points

  • Trauma and adversity are significant factors in mental health issues
  • Power is key to understanding the cause of people’s difficulties and the potential to overcome them through access to resources and supportive relationships
  • Making sense of experiences such as fear, sadness and madness is important. Bite-size has advocated for models beyond those which locate the problem inside the person
  • Clients can experience services as supportive and nurturing, or as controlling and coercive. The latter may mirror and trigger previous experiences of disempowerment.
  • Supportive and therapeutic conversations with clients are important as are positive connections to peers                                                                                          

Liberation Psychology

Written by Steve Melluish on . Posted in Clinical Psychology Bite-Size

Liberation Psychology

Issue 50 – June 2017 Author: Steve Melluish (contact via steven.coles@nottshc.nhs.uk)

Key points

  • Liberation psychology is a framework for taking account of how people and communities are shaped by their experience and history of oppression.
  • Oppression results from an unequal society where social structures based on differences of race, gender, and class disadvantage large numbers of people
  • Psychological distress is understood not solely in terms of the individual’s immediate circumstances but in the context of these wider social structures and injustices. 

Anxiety and Social Factors

Written by Bob Diamond on . Posted in Clinical Psychology Bite-Size

Anxiety and Social Factors

Issue 49 – March 2017

Author: Bob Diamond (robert.diamond@nottshc.nhs.uk)

Key points

  • Anxiety, along with other mental health difficulties, are frequently caused by traumas in earlier life and socio-economic difficulties, such as poverty, poor housing and living in impoverished environments.
  • Anxiety appears to be on the increase in the Western world and this increase may well be influenced by the mismatch between social expectations on how we ought to live and the reality that we confront.
  • Increased anxiety typically leads to an increase in arousal and awareness. Responses to heightened anxiety include, fight, flight and freezing (passivity, submission). 

Understanding Biology in Adult Mental Health

Written by Steven Coles on . Posted in Clinical Psychology Bite-Size

Understanding Biology in Adult Mental Health

Issue 47 – April 2016

Author: Steven Coles (steven.coles@nottshc.nhs.uk)

Key points

  • There are differing views as to the importance of biology in causing mental health issues
  • Staff tend to favour biologically based models, the public psychosocial
  • There is no firm evidence base for biology being the primary cause of mental health issues
  • Biology’s importance is in enabling what we do, rather than necessarily causing what we do.