Our Trojan Horse

‘Personality Disorder’ thinking (short live the name!) is a trojan horse being slowly incorporated into the belly of the beast. The annual conference was in Cardiff this year, 20-22 March 2018, and the opening keynote talk was Janine Roderick, from Public Health Wales. It was a fresh (though not overly academic) angle on changing the discourse to one where everybody understands about ACEs (adverse childhood events).  Do watch the video - click here. Trauma-informed practice is coming - even if not to DSM, ICD or RCPsych! With titles of symposia and workshops like ‘The Quiet Revolution’ (for the general model being consulted on and written up by myself and Nick Benefield) and ‘The Golden Thread’ (for the way we are extending relational practice in Slough to the relationship between sectors), and numerous synergies between the positive riskified clinicians, the gloriously creative gang of experts by experience, and the inscrutable reseachers – it was a rich mix that felt at least like a break from the grim reality of NPM (new public management), and possibly even a glimpse of a different way of doing it all. As well as that , there was a spectacular dinner in the Welsh Museum being sung to by a male voice choir; a last-minute election for change of BIGSPD president (which continues the three year term principle, which has been in place since the organisation began just before the millennium; midnight meetings in quiet bars to plan and scheme for a campaign and lobby function; and numerous research papers presented by the young and nervous, the established and confident, and the old and dotty. But the thing I’ll take away – and push around the place – is that ‘relational practice’ captures something that we do well in the ‘PD field’, and not many others recognise as being as important as we think it is. I’m not sure we’ve got the language right yet, though…