'Psych Action' is celebrating being in action for one year! Psych Action is a series of knowledge exchange workshops hosted by the Psychology Department at Middlesex University. The series includes a range of psychological topics relevant for external professionals, practitioners and business audiences. We bring to these settings the latest academic evidence, focused on policy-relevant issues, tailored to the professional development needs of the organisation. The endeavour involves making links with the local community by sharing our expertise and our thinking, as underpinned by our research findings.

Over the past year Psych Action has run a range of workshops successfully for North London schools, on the following topics:

 ·        Attachment in children: identifying relationship need and exploring strategies 

·        Emotional well-being in children: evidenced-based strategies for dealing with challenging pupils 

·        Understanding literacy development in multilingual children: current practice and future directions 

·        Dyslexia and motor coordination in children: identifying risk in early years 

·        “Hertfordshire Steps”: How attachment theory and research can help local authority approaches in schools topics such as 

The series has also hosted workshops for other professions, including: 

•        EEG training for the University of Bedfordshire 

•        Introduction to Coaching Psychology 

•        Clinical diagnosis & supervision for the Latin American Women’s Rights Service (LAWRS) 

Feedback from the current series of workshops has bene excellent, and we look forward to developing Psych Action in the next academic year.

Research by Prof Antonia Bifulco and Dr David Westley on Radio 4

Research by Professor Antonia Bifulco and Dr David Westley was picked up by Radio 4 recently in their show called “The Science of Resilience”, you can listen to it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07cvhrs

 

Presenter Sian Williams used the discussion by psychologists expert on resilience to relate to her own recent experience of breast cancer and invasive surgery. She looked at bio-psycho-social aspects of both stress and resilience.

Professor Bifulco told presenter Sian Williams about the new measure developed by the Centre for Abuse and Trauma Studies. The Computerised Life Events Assessment Record (CLEAR) is an online measure, that collects personal information about the self and close others. It looks in detail at life change, particularly that stressful, experienced over the past year related to relationships, health or lifestyle. 

The measure provides a feedback report that identifies the number of stressors the respondent has experienced as well as which ones are contextually the most severely threatening.  It also identifies vulnerability through looking at insecure attachment style, and provides a depression symptom count. A measure of wellbeing also enables an assessment of resilience to be made in the face of stress.

Dr Westley discussed the mechanisms within the brain that are affected when someone experiences a challenging event. Including the importance of the amgydala and what techniques might be able to boost resilience by training yourself to focus away from threat and towards more positive stimuli.

Research Seminar: Dr Richard Barry (Middlesex University)

*** Everyone Welcome! No need to book in advance *** 

Date: Thursday 19th May 

Time: 16:00-17:00  

Room: Town Hall Committee Room 2   

Dr Richard Barry (Middlesex University) 

"Psychiatric Stigma and Dehumanisation" 

Abstract: The denial of humanity to outgroups is a well-established phenomenon.  It has been explored from a variety of perspectives and with a wide range of targets, including national, ethnic, and cultural outgroups, immigrants, the homeless and drug addicts, political opponents, and the ‘mentally ill’.  The negative effects on those attributed lesser humanity include absolution of ingroup responsibility for harsh treatment of outgroup members, lower guilt for past misdeeds of the ingroup, reduced forgiveness , willingness to help, and empathy, as well as increased discrimination and avoidance of outgroup members.  It’s not a good thing.  This talk will provide an overview of the main approaches to conceptualising dehumanisation, addressing some key issues in operationalisation and analysis that make interpretation of current findings challenging.  Recent studies examining dehumanisation of people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder will also be presented.  These explore the question of whether there is a relationship between humanity denial, stigma, and the desire for social distance from people with a psychiatric diagnosis.

http://unihub.mdx.ac.uk/i-3-mdx/events/mental-health-awareness-week 

In case you have not seen it, the link for MHAW commencing 16^th May has been updated ( with more to come) and press releases have now gone out to local newspapers. Many thanks to all of you who are offering your time. It is greatly appreciated by the Mdx  Health and Well Being Let’s Talk team and across the University.

The week culminates in, ‘diversity jam’, a mental health  fair in the Quad on Friday 20^th , 1-4pm. There will be a head to head conversation/interview between Brett Kahr (well-known psychotherapist, commentator and author)  and Andrea Oskis at 2.30pm in CG48.

Do get in touch with Fiona Starr (f.starr@mdx.ac.uk) if you would like to know more and spread the word to MDX staff, students and the wider community.

There will be more information going up, so keep an eye open.

Mental Health Awareness Week

Fiona is busy organising some amazing guest speakers from within and outside Mdx university for Mental Health Awareness Week. Thanks to all who have been involved and please circulate these links to anyone who may be interested. Mental Health Awareness Week is a national event set up by the Mental Health Foundation. Middlesex University are laying on a whole load of events following on from last year's success. Look out for Brett Kahr, Aaron Balick and  Ariel Nathanson  for starters.

https://twitter.com/mdxletstalk

www.mdx.ac.uk/events/2016/05/mental-health-awareness-week

Do contact Fiona if you would like any information f.starr@mdx.ac.uk

Fiona Starr

Fiona will be running a day in her committee role as  BPS SPIG (Special Interest Group for Independent Practice)  on working in Independent practice at the BPS on Wednesday 25th May. Sorry to miss the staff away day.