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Brain fog: How trauma, uncertainty and isolation have affected our minds and memory

Brain fog: How trauma, uncertainty and isolation have affected our minds and memory

Before the pandemic, psychoanalyst Josh Cohen’s patients might come into his consulting room, lie down on the couch and talk about the traffic or the weather, or the rude person on the tube. Now they appear on his computer screen and tell him about brain fog. They talk with urgency of feeling unable to concentrate in meetings, to read, to follow intricately plotted television programmes. “There’s this sense of debilitation, of losing ordinary facility with everyday life; a forgetfulness and a kind of deskilling,” says Cohen, author of the self-help book How to Live. What to Do. Although restrictions are now easing across the UK, with greater freedom to circulate and socialise, he says lockdown for many of us has…
Dr Neil Thompson
April 20, 2021
Neil Thompson’s Lessons for Living – Set out your stall

Neil Thompson’s Lessons for Living – Set out your stall

If you are skilful at engaging with people and winning their trust, convincing them that you are a helpful and reliable person there is a danger that they will come to rely on you more and more and bring more and more of their problems and concerns to you. This can easily lead to you being overloaded, stretching yourself too thinly and potentially getting yourself into difficulties. So, it is important to be clear about what we can help with and what we can’t – to ‘set out our stall’, as it were. If we lose sight of the boundaries of our role and become a general helper, it can be confusing all round. It can also prove stressful, as…
Dr Neil Thompson
April 6, 2021
New UK partnership to improve Adult Social Care

New UK partnership to improve Adult Social Care

IMPACT (IMProving Adult Care Together) is the first of its kind in the UK and will bring together 37 agencies across the four countries of the UK including universities, the public and voluntary sectors and has secured £15 million in funding over the next five years. The aspiration of the partnership is: Good support isn’t just about services – it’s about having a life. Social work is an essential part of the wider social care field. BASW has been active in the partnership bid from the beginning and Luke Geoghegan, Head of Policy and Research at BASW and a registered social worker, will be a member of the IMPACT leadership team. IMPACT will bring together people with lived experience of…
Dr Neil Thompson
April 6, 2021
The experience of being ‘tolerated’ rather than accepted, leads to lower wellbeing among ethnic groups

The experience of being ‘tolerated’ rather than accepted, leads to lower wellbeing among ethnic groups

Tolerance is often touted as a progressive value, a way of ensuring that society offers equal opportunities to all. But it can also imply “putting up with” something or someone you fundamentally disagree with or dislike — being tolerated isn’t the same as being genuinely valued or respected, for example. As one writer puts it, tolerance has echoes “of at best grudging acceptance, and at worst ill-disguised hostility”. Now a new study in the British Journal of Psychology has found that the experience of being tolerated takes its toll on the wellbeing of ethnic minorities in the United States. Sara Cvetkovska from Utrecht University and colleagues find that the experience of being tolerated is closer to discrimination than it is…
Dr Neil Thompson
April 6, 2021
What is a Dementia Friends champion?

What is a Dementia Friends champion?

A Dementia Friends Champion is a volunteer who encourages others to make a positive difference to people living with dementia in their community. They do this by giving them information about the personal impact of dementia, and what they can do to help. It's easy to get involved. Dementia Friends Champions will attend an induction, receive support when they need it, and be part of thousands of other volunteer Dementia Friends Champions creating dementia friendly communities together. Click here to read more
Dr Neil Thompson
April 6, 2021
Neil Thompson’s Lessons for Living – Don’t speak (or write) officialese

Neil Thompson’s Lessons for Living – Don’t speak (or write) officialese

The level of formality at which we speak or write is known technically as the ‘register’. Sometimes it is appropriate to communicate fairly informally (informal register), while at others a more formal register is what is needed. However, some people confuse formal register with officialese. Perhaps this is a confidence issue: feeling not very confident about using a formal register may lead to stilted language use. Officialese is a style of language that is full of clichés and jargon terms and is unnecessarily convoluted. It is the opposite of plain language. It is perfectly possible to write formally within the bounds of plain language without resorting to officialese. In any form of communication, the major emphasis needs to be on…
Dr Neil Thompson
March 23, 2021