Insomnia and five nights of zero sleep is what triggered my first episode – though psychiatric professionals saw it as a symptom of the psychosis. I disagree. Life stresses set off insomnia: worries; fears; betrayals; job losses; relationship problems; you name it. We’re hard wired to be able to quickly deal with threats through our fight or flight mechanism. And… Read more →
I am a psychology graduate with extensive experience of psychosis. I’ve had 15 episodes over the course of 25 years. I write, therefore, as a someone with lived experience, who has been through the psychiatric system but also as someone with someone who has studied brain and behaviour and abnormal psychology at university. I have been hospitalised, sectioned, as well… Read more →
What is the Secret to being an Amazon Best Seller – without spending ANY money or doing ANY extra promotional work? First you need a well written book that has a good title and an eye catching cover…obviously. Once you have that… …the SECRET is to put it in the RIGHT category. By ‘right’ I don’t mean the most appropriate… Read more →
I’m super excited to share my FIRST EVER VLOG with you all! The benefits of Vlogging have already surprised me beyond expectation. Equipped with only a GoPro and an old mobile phone, it shows you don’t need to spend a fortune on kit to tell a good story. My First Vlog in Buenos Aires is an introduction—a little background on… Read more →
Eight years ago I went to see a psychic. Don’t judge me. I needed some reassurance at the time. This is what the psychic medium Dorothy Chitty said: I started writing when I was first discharged from hospital way back in 1996. But, like psychic Dorothy said, I put it aside. It sounded self pitying and nothing I could feel… Read more →
After 6 months of sending out proposals to agents, looking for someone else to believe in me, and receiving either rejections or worse still, no response at all, I’m feeling despair.
I sent a total of 34 proposals out: 18 of which received rejections and 16 I never heard back from. The standard response went something like this:
“Thank you for sending us this material, but I’m afraid it isn’t suitable for us. I’m sorry to disappoint, and wish you luck with your future writing.”
Only one agent gave me feedback as to why they didn’t go for it:
“Thanks so much for contacting us. I’ve read the sample material with interest. While I liked the chapters I wasn’t sufficiently swept along by the narrative to know that I’d be the best advocate for the book. Sorry! Best of luck elsewhere.”
The email I cherished the most, which I devoured like a drop of rain in the desert, came from Cara at the HHB Agency:
“Dear Emma, Thank you for your submission to HHB. I enjoyed reading your work, you write well, with intensity and style. However, as a small agency we are only ever able to take on a limited number of authors and I am afraid in this instance, we were not able to take you work further. I wish you all the best. All best, Cara”
One of the reasons I wanted to find a publisher was because I felt I wanted support to get the book out into the world. It is an entirely different process from writing the actual thing and requires very different skills. I’ve come to accept that I’m going to have to climb that particular mountain alone.
Thankfully there is help online at every step of the way.
The first thing I’ve done is to learn about cover design. I had a meeting with a graphic designer friend who very humbly said she wasn’t up for the job. I found a designer online, called Derek Murphy, who shared the secrets to designing a bestselling book cover. I’ve talked with bookshop assistants to find out what they think. I’ve played with different ideas and now, with a drum roll, I unveil the cover of my first book.
A huge thanks goes to artist Adriane Vinter from Norway for permission to use her image ‘Straight Jacket’.
The first time I was about to lose my ego, I had this sudden terrifying thought that I was going to die. A feeling of impending annihilation took hold of me. It seemed totally illogical because there was no actual physical threat. It was as if a part of me knew that my ego was about to shatter. Because in… Read more →
Open Dialogue is revolutionising the way people are treated in the mental health system. This new system of healthcare emerged in Finland after their mental health service collapsed under the weight. Finland used to have the worst statistics in Europe for schizophrenia. Now it has the best.
After the mental health service collapsed, a group of family therapists got together and asked how can they do it better? Open Dialogue is the answer. It is based on a totally different model to the current one, which adopts the brain chemical imbalance theory. Instead, it sees mental health problems as a symptom of the social network breaking down and so it aims to repair that. Bringing together the social network of the person at the centre of concern (they are not called the patient) the job of the practitioner is not to diagnose and treat but instead to encourage all of the voices to be heard. It taps into the power of the social network, so that everyone takes an active part in the healing of the family member. It is a social model that believes in the power of the individual to heal with the help of the collective.
Open Dialogue is being introduced into the NHS by Dr Russell Razzaque author of the radical book Breaking Down Is Waking Up. And Green Lane Films (my production company) has been asked to film it. My personal and professional life have finally joined and had children! And this video is the offspring.
Melinda Messenger features in this clip that I shot at the Open Dialogue Conference in London earlier this year. Melinda is doing a Transpersonal Psychotherapy training and is the Patron of the UK Spiritual Crisis Network.
If you want to know more about Peer Supported Open Dialogue sign up to the POD Bulletin.
You must be logged in to post a comment.