narrow corridors and pet projects

The strapline sums up what I've experienced when engaging, or trying to be meaningfully involved, as a survivor Mother voice on the DClinPsy Programme at the University of Glasgow, situated at Gartnavel Hospital, red brick Admin Building, having first attended a Service User Research Group there on 9 September 2009.

link to Prof Pell's uni page

I've been banned from teaching Trainees on the Glasgow DClinPsy programme by Prof Hamish McLeod after I'd appealed to Prof Jill Pell for a meeting to discuss my concerns about the lack of level playing fields and the years of constraints.  My Stage 2 complaint was not upheld.  [blog post containing letters from McLeod, Senate Office and my response]

I contend that the narrow corridors are influenced by the pet projects of the lead academics, namely Attachment Theory and Risk of Relapse (Prof Andrew Gumley), together with attributing flatness or Anhedonia to Schizophrenia or mental illness (Prof McLeod) rather than, in my experience and others, to the psychiatric drug treatment, often coercive.  ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy) is another corridor which can keep a patient/person corralled inside an abusive system, rather than helping them break free.

It's disappointing after 8 years of hoping that my survivor voice might be valued within Glasgow DClinPsy, to find out that they saw me as "less than", favouring others who fit their agendas and could comply, or pretend to comply, with the constraints of the narrow corridors.  The last user/carer (CUSP) meeting I attended on 4 July reminded me of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party.  At any moment I might be faced with a Shrink (drink) Me potion and transported back to 2014 when I "belonged", prior to winning the Ombudsman case and an apology from NHS Fife.  

It's not a game when your children have been abused in psychiatric settings, forcibly drugged and locked in a cell with no toilet, water or light, in the dark for hours at a time, unobserved.  Very risky practices.  I didn't see any Clinical Psychologists speaking out about this.  Or standing with whistleblowing Mothers campaigning for justice.  They prefer to constrain, manipulate or silence our voices.  A misuse and abuse of academic power, in my opinion.  And I'm entitled to have an opinion and to state it.  Even if it results in banishment from Glasgow DClinPsy.  So be it.