Connecting and Relating

Credit: Anthea Sieveking, Wellcome Images

For the project so far I have nominated two collaborators, who are both keen to take part:

Dr Leah Tomkins has a background in classics, then worked in industry for 20 years, including as Director of Change at the Cabinet Office. Like me, she retrained in psychology at Birkbeck and then completed her PhD. She now works in the field of Organisational Studies. I invited Leah because of her understanding of how organisations succeed, and particularly because of her work around the notion of the 'caring leader' and the Heideggerian idea of 'care'. I am also currently collaborating with Leah on a project about experiences of happiness. One area of interest is how achievement and happiness can be bound together - but can involve experiences of anxiety and shame as well. I see Leah's interests fitting well with Michael's and my work on relationships (Leah is also an expert in the IPA method and the phenomenological psychology approaches we use) and foresee her being involved the 'relationships and connectedness' stream, but also she will contribute to our stream on 'individuals and hierarches' as well.

Dr Andreas Aresti and the British Convict Criminology group are committed to developing critical insider perspectives on prison and the experiences of prisoners. Andreas is both an ex-prisoner and an academic. As such, he researches with communities and individuals who are impacted by the prison experience and co-founded the British Convict Criminology movement, which is an emerging theoretical perspective (originating in the US) led by ex-convict/non-convict academics. The group takes a critical perspective to existing criminal justice issues. In particular he has looked at resettlement. I am keen to work with Andreas and other members of British Convict Criminology on the 'relationships and connectedness' stream, to explore further how relationships succeed during time inside, and during the difficult resettlement period. Andy also shares expertise in the IPA methodology, but also works in more collaborative participatory ways with groups and individuals. As well as working academically, he is involved in shaping policy and doing community work, such as mentoring. With his personal and academic experience I also think Andy will be a great contribution towards the 'social contexts and alternative cultures'.

A Hub of Success

I've been thinking, dreaming, contemplating and moving towards action, in this case writing. The evolution of this project already represents success for me. It's almost ready. A group of people have come together (thank you Lisa and Michael) and developed something novel, each contributing unique insights and skills. Through a series of exchanges and interactions, many virtual, a programme of work has emerged. The discussions, (re) connections and interactions have reminded me of the importance of relational factors in achieving success. So, what are my plans for the project and who will I bring in to collaborate with?

My focus will be on creativity as a route to successful recovery from mental health problems. This addresses the Wellcome challenge of understanding the brain and how integrating humanities, arts and science approaches can contribute to this.


I will draw on my research focussing on engagement in creative activities and mental illness. Specifically my work on dementia that addresses another Wellcome challenge, that of investigating development, aging and chronic disease. This work is building evidence on how to provide and encourage supporting skills and resources in older people.


Success as an Outsider
I plan to engage with my colleagues and creators in the outsider art field to explore how creative endeavor can lead to success within the art world and the costs and benefits associated with this. Some, even those with severe and chronic mental health problems, have achieved considerable success as recognised artists. The current popularity of the ‘outsider’ art field is testimony to this. ‘Outsider’ art, a term coined by Roger Cardinal in 1972, defines artists as those outsider or peripheral to mainstream art training and infrastructure. It is now a contested term as it serves to reinforce differences between individuals within and outside the art world, and, implicitly, those with and without mental health issues or other challenges to social and cultural inclusion. Despite this, in 2013 there were at least 5 major exhibitions of outsider art in Europe alone which demonstrate success in the art world. The movement has its own dedicated art magazine: Raw Vision. There are now 2 commercial outsider art fairs in NYC and Paris each year where art made by untrained artists, many of whom have mental health or learning difficulties, exchange hands for substantial sums of money.

Whilst exhibitions, press coverage, and fairs increase the profile of artists and their work, it could be suggested that those benefiting are the art dealers rather than the artists themselves. Some artists indicate that commercial exposure can be exploitative and even damaging to mental health. I would like to explore relationships in this context, which would link to Zoe’s work stream. I will work with John Maizels, the editor of Raw Vision magazine. Coverage of artists and events in this publication represent an important marker of artistic success and wider recognition.

Outputs: John has agreed to work with us to develop an article or series of articles in his publication focussing on notions of success within the outsider art field. This will enable findings from our residency to reach an international audience in the specialist art field, a marker of artistic achievement (success).

Both the work on creativity and aging (dementia) and outsider art lead to many opportunities for public engagement. I plan multi art form activities working with Errol Francis. Errol is an artist, curator and researcher. He has recently established the research and creative consultancy –PSY- based at London College of Communication (I am a member of this group). Errol has a string track record of curating and directing festivals with mental health themes. Most recently the acclaimed ACE-funded Anxiety Festival 2014 and 'Acting Out' (2015) http://www.actingout2015.org (I am a curatorial consultant on ‘acting out’).

Outputs: An art exhibition and/or festival, across multi art forms and featuring new commissions on the themes emerging from the residency.

Success and Performance
I plan to explore creative expression through a phenomenological framework, informed by positive psychology. In particular I plan to look at artistic activity as a form of ‘flow’ state and one which results in enhanced wellbeing but also production of valuable aesthetic artifacts. Also, artistic activity may be viewed as a component of posttraumatic growth (PTG), that is a way that one’s life is enhanced as a result of traumatic experiences such as mental illness and events preceding it. I would also aim to explore how artwork made by those with mental illness may be used to successfully connect them to significant others and to the wider community. Here I plan a collaboration with the filmmaker David Bickerstaff. David has enjoyed considerable success with films on artistic, mental health and environmental themes. He has collaborated with the Wellcome Trust on numerous occasions e.g. Madness and Modernity and is working with them currently on a future exhibition that focuses on mindfulness.

Outputs: a short film on themes emerging from the residency and a peer-revised publication in Arts and Health.

I would like to broaden this work stream to include performance within sport and other arenas such as theatre working with Jules Evans and Hannah Gravestock.

Jules Evans is an author, philosopher and is policy director at the centre for the study of emotions at QMUL. He is also a broadcaster e.g. he recently presented a piece on flourishing on BBC Radio 3. He has been a BBC 'new generation thinker'. He is co-organiser of the London Philosophy Club and has been working with businesses, elite sportspeople e.g. Saracens football club and in prisons teaching flourishing and 'the good life'. His book Philosophy for life and other dangerous situations has been published in 19 countries. It has been #1 in Amazon.co.uk’s philosophy chart, a Guardian Books bestseller, and a Times book of the year. His next text (due 2016) focusses upon ecstatic experiences.

Output: Jules will develop a seminar series on flourishing and success in a variety of public, clinical and community settings.

Hannah Gravestock is a former elite ice skater. She provides performance coaching in theatrical and sporting arenas. She has established innovative training modalities e.g. drawing, to enhance success in the theatre and in sporting venues. She has worked with people with dementia in residential care settings.

Output: Development of performance and drawing based interactive training programmes.

Successful Ways of Relating

Two types of relating have been on my mind with regard to success...

Last week I was presenting some work on trust and suicidality at the British Sociological Association conference and it led me to thinking about Lisa's ideas on the politics of interdisciplinarity. I feel most comfortable working in the hinterlands between psychology, sociology and philosophy, but as a trained psychologist, I still experience myself as somewhat of a fraud outside of the psychology discipline. My 'outsider' status could be a fertile place of creativity, but the actuality of inhabiting material spaces across disciplines leaves me uncertain. I feel most 'at home' at those events that set themselves up explicitly as interdisciplinary.

But isn't there a problem here? If interdisciplinary-ism becomes a space in its own right, hasn't its project essentially failed? How can interdisciplinary work genuinely mesh and tether the disciplines together, in a way that opens out one field for those in another, if we silo ourselves off in special, private spaces? Working out how to work in a genuinely interdiciplinary way while maintaining connections to our various disciplines seems important. Perhaps because several of us see ourselves as having 'several hats' or 'past lives' where we do/did something different, we will be able to find news ways to straddle disciplines and negotiate the politics involved in these processes.

Credit: Wellcome Library London

Secondly, Michael and I have just been awarded a grant from the Independent Social Research Foundation for a small project on Relatedness and Relationships in Mental Health. The project will bring together psychologists, philosophers (including Lisa), sociologists, a social policy researcher and a psychiatrist to think conceptually about the roles of relating in experiencing and recovering from mental health difficulties.

This work which will run from July 2015-July 2016 will be an excellent platform for the work I am planning for this project around relational success in adversity - especially in mental health and addictions contexts. I hope to be able to develop some of the ideas we will explore here, particularly, around the relational factors that contribute to successful recovery, and the recovery factors that facilitate successful relationships, particularly in a context that privileges individualism and independence.

Bricolage

It's been a very interesting couple of weeks.

I've been writing and speaking to potential collaborators about getting involved in our planned project, and that has been a very positive experience. It has been really good to be able to make plans with long-standing collaborators, but the scope of a new project means that I've also been able to open up conversations with new collaborators, too, which is very exciting. One of the nicest discoveries has been the opening up of the grey area between 'new' and 'old' though. The Hub proposal is a license to pick up conversations with some of those people that one always means to work with, but for one or reason or another, never quite sets up the opportunity. The importance of picking up these loose ends and good intentions while they are meaningful has sadly been underlined for me this month, with the untimely death of a greatly admired and very successful colleague. I had shared a great many of these 'let's catch up and make a plan' conversations with this colleague, and I liked him very much: the intentions were genuine. There's a big hole in the clinical psychology community at Birmingham, and there are a lot of people (including me) trying to make sense of its sudden and unanticipated appearance.

A happier dimension of the process has been the permission to 'cross over' into non-academic territory. With Victoria thinking about visual arts, and Zoë reflecting on dance and performance, I've been thinking about successful co-production and collaboration, so I'm really pleased that Geoff Farina and Chris Brokaw (two very experienced and articulate musicians) have agreed to join us for an event and performance exploring these phenomena:

https://vimeo.com/18949930

As a sometime musician myself, it will be quite liberating to work in zone where it is possible to draw on connections from my 'other life.'

Transformation and Success

me on the couch

I am writing this at a time that I am emerging from a period of intense personal and professional challenge. The themes of striving and thriving therefore resonate with me on many levels. Having explored the concept of Post Traumatic Growth (PTG) during my doctoral research I now have gained experiential as well as empirical knowledge of the concept. Indeed, at a time of striving to overcome difficulties I find myself in a position where I have a greater sense of gratitude for my family and friends, I have gained new insights, knowledge and compassion, and I have developed different and, I'd argue, enhanced future priorities. It wasn't an easy process however I do feel transformed. I hope that the Hub residency is part of that future and that we are 'the dream team'!

On re-reading the blog posts to date I am filled with anticipation and a sense of the possibilities that Zoë articulated. Like all of you I am in awe of the Wellcome space and the opportunities it presents. What a space in which to develop, debate, and transform. See me above on 'Freud's' couch in the new Reading Room, striving in a straightjacket, my daughter laced me into it, she thought it hilarious...

I'd like to explicitly link planned work to positive psychology, where PTG is a core concept as is the idea of 'flow' both of which relate to thriving. I've explored the flow state in athletes a creative way previously. When I read Michael's description of the Hub event in March it struck me that the experience shared elements of flow:

an unusual rhythm, alternating between periods of quiet reflection (or stunned silence - gloss as you prefer!) where we all tried to process the overwhelming surge of ideas and possibilities, and other periods of intense discussion where we worked together to give these ideas some shape

Interdisciplinary Work and its Politics

Credit: Wellcome Library, London

In the last few days I have been thinking about several aspects of success, inspired by the other posts on the blog and by new readings. Today I'll write about one aspect, inspired by previous posts by Michael and Matteo: what success means when applied to interdisciplinary work. Here I'm not interested in whether interdisciplinary work is successful in terms of fulfilling research objectives and making progress with a complex issue. Rather, I'm interesting in whether reflection on interdisciplinary work can succeed at changing the politics of research and the sense of what is acceptable and desirable at the stage in which research is presented and disseminated.

My research has always been at the intersection of philosophy and psychology. I think some issues cannot be investigated successfully within one discipline, because one way of thinking about them needs to be constrained by the theories and empirical findings that another discipline generates. Recently I have become less apologetic about my methodological commitments, and I have started submitting thoroughly interdisciplinary work to those journals that are known as "core philosophy journals", that is, they have an excellent intra-disciplinary reputation (they are good for the REF), but do not have a history of publishing inter-disciplinary work. This was in part an experiment. The result has been fascinating.


In the two recent cases I have in mind, feedback has been overall of excellent quality, and my work has been by and large favourably reviewed. No objections have been raised to the research methodology, but I have received comments such as:

• "One cannot write a paper on x without mentioning work by philosophers A and B on x" (notice that there is no requirement that the work to be referred to is also discussed in depth or integrated into the proposed account);
• "Too much of the paper is spent describing the psychological evidence, surely the author can summarise the results without going into so many details" (notice that there is no suggestion that the references to the psychological evidence are irrelevant). 

I find it interesting that there is no substantial objection to the methodology, but there are reservations to the way the argument is presented. The attempt is to make one's work more respectable (more publishable?) but limiting the extent to which it appears (as opposed to is) interdisciplinary. One of the issues that I would love to discuss as part of the residency in the Hub is the politics of interdisciplinarity and its implications for success: When our methods change does our style also need to change to reflect that? How can interdisciplinary work succeed at pioneering new ways to present argumentation, communicate results, engage different audiences?

I think that within a collaborative and interdisciplinary project like ours we would be able to uniquely address such questions because it would require people from different disciplines to talk, think, and write together, but also make things happen. How does an interdisciplinary team jointly interviews an expert, commissions a play, elicits ideas from the public, moderates a debate, invites artists and performers to work together? How would the interdisciplinary (and individual) differences that would characterise any core team play out in such contexts? For the team members, each public engagement event will be like throwing a party where one person may take the lead in the organisation, but the space to be filled and brought to life is essentially shared, and the rules of engagement need to be negotiated.

My guess (hope?) is that the natural reaction of defensiveness I encountered in my "experiment" with submitting work to core journals will give way, and creative solutions will be explored to doing and presenting research. I envisage creating space for research that challenges common assumptions about success, and moulding new modes of presentation to fit the research questions and methodology, rather than imposing a mode of presentation that satisfies previously codified criteria of acceptability.

Possibilities

I've really enjoyed reading the other posts on the blog, and it has given me a lot to think about. Mostly, I have been a little overwhelmed by the options. Earlier this week, however, I think my ideas began to consolidate, and today I spent several hours writing to potential collaborators. Some of them are people that I've worked with for years, and some of them will be new collaborations, opened up by the interdisciplinary remit here. It has been very exciting writing to these latter ones. Looking forward to the replies now, and hoping that they're as enthusiastic as I am!

Successful Research

Credit: Tim Ellis, Wellcome Images

The open event at the Wellcome Trust was for me, as for Michael and for Zoë, a very powerful experience for a variety of reasons. It gave me a chance to explore the space where Hub residents research and know more about what opportunities a genuinely collaborative and interdisciplinary research group can offer.

I also got to brainstorm with people who want to reflect on the theme of success from different disciplinary backgrounds from mine, but have partially overlapping research goals.

Thinking about the theme strengthened my motivation to embark in the journey of exploring success.

Successful research

What makes an interdisciplinary research project successful? Some of the psychological research I am reading right now identifies the characteristics of successful agency with preparedness (being ready for set-backs and responding well to challenges) and with engagement (interacting with the physical and social environment in a productive and supportive way). Those also strike me as plausible criteria for the success of interdisciplinary research projects that aim at addressing (and learning from) the public.

As researchers, we need to be ready to step out of our comfort zones and learn to speak other languages (the language of other disciplines, or the language of the layperson) when we want our ideas to move beyond the constraints of our labs, offices, studios, and classrooms. We need to embrace new ideas, follow up new connections, be creative with our methods of investigation. These activities usually occupy a mental or virtual space (the space in our minds, the space of our inboxes, websites or blogs) but wouldn't it be much more exciting if they could also occupy a physical space, a space that changes together with the ideas that are being explored within it?


Striving and thriving

When the phrase "striving and thriving" was mentioned by Michael and Zoë at the meeting, it brought it all together for me. I have been interested in what success entails and in the extent to which success, intended (very roughly) as pursuing and achieving the goals we set for ourselves, contributes to wellbeing and mental health.

From personal experience and by reading psychological research, literature, and the popular press, it seems clear to me that achieving the goals we set for ourselves (as individuals and groups, or as a society) is a source of satisfaction and helps us see our lives as meaningful and coherent, as going somewhere. However, the pursuit of such goals (the striving) can carry considerable psychological costs (e.g., the yellow lady in the picture seems very happy about losing weight, but I bet all the dieting that contributed to her 'success' was not much fun).

Even the attainment of our own goals may be ultimately disappointing, as we often do not know ourselves well enough to identify goals that would lead us to genuinely thrive (see this post on unintended consequences of our actions and choices). For instance, we may underestimate the role of supporting personal relationships in enhancing our wellbeing and in enhancing the sense that our lives are meaningful. Or we may overestimate the value of those goals that are promoted in the society where we live at the expense of goals that would fulfil our less popular aspirations.

Now, the need to unpack what we take success to be and to explore the tension between wellbeing and success applies to agency in general, and this is the level at which I would like to investigate success and its limitations. But, by entering this conversation with Victoria, Michael, Zoë and Matteo, I realised that some of the most interesting aspects of success are brought into focus in specific domains, such as the capacity to bounce back after the experience of mental distress; the need to survive a goal-driven culture in the competitive environments of academia, elite sports, business, and politics; the struggle to be original, creative, and 'different' in fashion and the arts.

I am looking forward to examining the connections between these strands of research and imagining or project as the place where existing notions of success are dissected, and new notions of success are proposed and tested!

Some Reflections on the 'Success' Theme and Team

On the train back from London last week, I made a lot of notes in order to try to capture some of my initial thought about a collaborative project on success. Lisa, Zoë, Matteo, and myself had lunch together before an event about interdisciplinary research collaborations at the Wellcome Collection, and discussed some of our ideas. It struck us that there was a promising set of overlaps in the topics and questions which we wanted to address. After lunch, we attended the event, and heard from Wellcome Trust staff, and from Felicity Callard, leader of the current ‘Rest’ Hub residency.

In the breaks between presentations we had a lot to think about, and a lot to talk to each other about. When we had arrived, we were told that the event was being time-lapse photographed. On the train home, it occurred to me how much time we had spent together as a four, rather than dispersing ourselves around the room. We also spent that time in an unusual rhythm, alternating between periods of quiet reflection (or stunned silence - gloss as you prefer!) where we all tried to process the overwhelming surge of ideas and possibilities, and other periods of intense discussion where we worked together to give these ideas some shape. I came away convinced that Lisa’s initial idea of ‘success’ was going to work really well as a means of facilitating interdisciplinary research, and that we already had enough in common (in terms of interests in experience, ethics, 'the good, healthy life,' and 'the good society') to make that research cohere.

'Facilitated permeability'

As we listened to the presentations, I was struck by the enthusiasm of the Wellcome staff. Some of my more recent research involves understanding organisational change processes in healthcare, and particularly the psychological aspects of that (in terms of identity, status, group dynamics and processes, for example). I’m quite used to being an ‘outsider’ who is coming into an organisation for research purposes. Usually this process is a cautious negotiation; sometimes it is characterised by defensiveness and obstruction. The thing that really struck me about the attitude of the Trust staff was how open and encouraging they were. I came away with the idea of the Trust as a very permeable space. I think part of our conversations about how to proceed from here will need to be about how we can demonstrate our ‘good faith’ and trustworthy-ness (it’s good to be invited in, but it’s also right - and polite – to get a sense of the boundaries and expectations before accepting such an open invitation). I also think we need to give a lot of thought to how we use that permeability in our plans for a project on success. It’s clearly a critical feature of the concept: who will join us in the project, and in what sequence, and what will they do there?

Planning

A less positive aspect of the event was the sense of ‘ordeal’ which seemed to be associated with the application process for funding for large collaborative projects when Felicity Callard spoke about her team’s experience of that. I can’t say that this didn’t dent my enthusiasm for a time. On reflection, however, I think we can perhaps make our experience of that process a bit more positive if we take the opportunity to learn from past experience and the experience of others. We can do this partly by using this blog to ‘stay ahead of the curve,’ and to keep track of our ideas and plans. And we can align our diaries and block out some chunks of time for meetings and development work at key times. 

Interdisciplinary and Public Engagement

Here are some of the question relevant to what we want to achieve from our proposed project:

• What kinds of events and processes can we set up during our project?

• How can we make sure that each of these activities presents us with an opportunity to learn something about the meaning and quality of ‘success’, and for our partners and collaborators to learn something too?

• How can make sure that we gain as many insights as possible from taking an interdisciplinary approach to these activities?

• And finally, how can we structure this so that it combines to form a coherent programme of work, and adds to our cumulative knowledge about success and health?

The possibilities afforded by this seem very exciting, but I also feel a bit of trepidation about it. If we are successful, then we will be embracing a really new way of working for a couple of years. I can imagine that this will be transformational in terms of integrating art and performance in the project. I have begun to appreciate just how important it will be to have Victoria’s curatorial experience as part of our team!

It was really useful for four of us to all be in the same place, I thought. The link between the interdisciplinary component and the curatorial elements really started to take shape in our discussions that afternoon. On the train home, I could see that we’d had a small sample of the sort of thing that a project of this form might offer up every day. Through our conversation, we opened up some avenues for including some aspects of our research interests that we hadn’t initially considered relevant. I’m now quite keen to think about the Experience-Based Co-Design (EBCD) work as part of this scheme, for example. Partly this arose through getting a better sense of Matteo’s interests in empowerment, and in access to social and structural resources, and partly it arose from a ‘lightbulb’ moment. Bringing people together – with the purpose is to improve health – and bringing them there to engage with the idea of success is an opportunity to ‘learn from what works.’ In terms of service-user involvement and healthcare improvement, EBCD fits really with that agenda. 

Structure

As we talked, I began to visualise a structure to our theme. The project is going to be segmented (there are elements of work on success at the personal, interpersonal, social and cultural-structural) and layered (we can foresee themes on success as a response to negative feedback, costs of success, the relational context of success, the different meanings and values associated with different definitions of success, the notion of ‘succeeding against the odds,’ success in elite domains, success in the arts as a source of wellbeing - and so on). Zoe described ‘thriving and striving’ as one of our interests and this certainly seemed to capture the dynamic very well.

Spokes reach out from this hub, connecting the core members to various partners and collaborators. Each of these spokes captures a different strands of work, linking to a likely output. Our task now is to add some detail to these strands, so that we begin to see how they might fit together, and how they might best be structured. I’m really excited at the prospect of so many different levels of activity – co-produced ‘events,’ insights into processes through performances, development and delivery of some innovative research outcomes, opportunities for engaging with some new audiences,  and many of those potentially leading to co-authorship/co-presentation.