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After meeting a friend and discussing the highs and lows of PhD life and academia recently, I then went to see the Enduring Eye exhibition at the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. The exhibition is a stunning display of photographs of Sir Ernest Shackleton's 'Endurance Expedition' of 1914-1917.  Being in academia right now kind of feels like being trapped in an iced-in ship, that is, in a hostile environment not suited to human beings. By no means do I intend to underplay the harsh experiences faced by the crew of the Endurance. But neither should we underestimate the mental and physical levy that is currently the “norm” of academia.  Here is the optimistic part of my post, working conditions are what we decide to make them. As we move into post-Brexit times it has never been more important to create good working conditions… at the forefront of this emphasis should be our universities, which are supposed to be focused on education ...

My PhD had changed alot since the very beginning when I had what seems like a really vague idea now about storytelling and mental health. I then became interested in how stories teach people about their culture, including emotional language and understanding. I have clarified my thesis statement to: The civilisation of emotion: does traditional storytelling or do stories have an effect on how young people identify and understand the language of emotion? So in my thesis I am going to explore Arlie Hochschild’s concept of how society uses feeling in relation to young people and traditional storytelling. I intend to use Hochschild’s ideas to form a link between Jack Zipes’ application of Elias and civilitie and Bruno Bettelheim’s discussions on the possible meaning and understanding of fairy stories. While Zipes debates the behavioural influences of fairy tale literature on civilization Bettelheim’s focus was on children’s psychological maturity (which is important to well-being ...

‘what we are born with is what worked best for the last 50,000 human generations’ (Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence , p5)   In Emotional Intelligence Goleman discusses what happens when ‘passions overwhelm reason.’ Our reactions to the world around us have evolved over time. These ‘automatic reactions’ are extremely important in dangerous situations. Reactions that don’t always make logical sense, such as the two parents that gave up their lives to rescue their daughter in a train crash; but it could be argued biological and emotional sense. They saved her to protect their genes, as Dawkins might say, and the way this decision was reached was through love. Goleman called emotions ‘impulses to act’, determined by biological and cultural acts: unconsciously when you feel tenderness or love towards a person the body undergoes a relaxation response ‘a general state of calm and contentment’; and how we display this emotion is also determined by our culture. In this...

‘We carry with us every story we have ever heard and every story we have ever lived, filed away at some deep place in our memory. We carry most of those stories unread, as it were, until we have grown the capacity or the readiness to read them. When that happens they may come back to us filled with unexpected meaning.’ (Rachel Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom , xli) Remen’s words touch on the idea of an ‘inner library’ which is expressed in Arthur W. Frank’s book, Letting Stories Breathe a Socio-narratology . They articulate a similar notion, that we may carry the kernel of a story with us for a long time until something triggers its memory and in doing so uncovers new meaning. When the right conditions prevent themselves old ideas we have carried with us but never really understood, acknowledged, or accepted, take root; blossoming into a new series of neural networks that can forever altar the idea of who we are. Story and the human brain have grown together over a long time. In our ...

I can now confirm my guest blog for Youngminds is active via the following link: http://www.youngminds.org.uk/news/blog/979_mental_health_and_story_telling They asked me to write about the inspiration that got me interested in a PhD linked to mental health.

‘People’s access to narrative resources depends on their social location: what stories are told where they live and work, which stories do they take seriously or not, and especially what stories they exchange’ (Frank, 3). I had been looking at socio-psychology as a form of analysis when Jack Zipes suggested a book that he had just reviewed himself. ‘This is a splendid book, and anyone who takes storytelling seriously should find the time to explore’ (Jack Zipes, Living Through Stories, Review by email, April 2012). I had already heard a few people mention Arthur W. Frank’s book The Wounded Storyteller , but this one seemed more relevant for my research. I didn’t know anything about dialogical narrative analysis prior to reading this book. Like socio-narratology, dialogical analysis includes what a story does, how it connects and disconnects people, and that there are numerous possibilities when it comes to interpretation. Socio-narratology is practiced via dialogical analy...

Great news, The Society for Storytelling is interested in my research and my research aims. Which is to see storytelling in schools throughout the UK. "I'm pleased to confirm that the trustees agreed at last week's meeting that supporting your research would be a worthwhile cause." (Chip Colquhoun, Chair). They are going to sign a letter of support to help me fund raise. At present I am seeking funding from 2013 to cover my 2nd and 3rd PhD years. With funding being so competitive this year I am thinking of new ways to raise funds. For example I am looking into a collaborative project with others. Being involved in research with more experienced persons is very exciting. I have already learnt a great deal and look forward to what is ahead--despite it being challenging. More information will follow once something is confirmed.

‘some methods are more useful for the questions they offer’(Arthur W. Frank, LettingStories Breathe , p72) My question is how can traditional storytelling be used to support emotional health? It’s a tough one. The term narrative therapy was coined as a result of the work of two men, Michael White and David Epston (see Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends ). Though they didn’t want to be associated with any formal definitions. What exactly they did, I don’t know yet, because I am waiting for their book to come into the library. However in my search, of what felt like every periodic journal in an electronic maze, I found Pennebaker. In the United States, Pennebaker took the idea of narrative and health further by attempting to test it empirically. He and his colleagues did experiments on writing therapy and discovered that writing had a positive effect on not just mental but also physical health! Which brings me to another question, how do we test this? Pennebaker used qualitative dat...