Working with clients in inpatient services

The question of how to maintain appropriate professional boundaries with clients can be complex and further difficulties can arise for forensic inpatient nursing and healthcare workers. The literature in this area focuses mainly on boundary violations and there is little research on how staff members develop and maintain boundaries on forensic wards, despite this being beneficial for staff experience and client recovery. Interviews with eleven psychiatric nurses and healthcare workers were analysed using a grounded theory methodology, which led to the formation of a cyclical model of boundary development. Staff initially acclimatize to the forensic environment using their existing experiences and personal values and then enter a phase of calibration, where they constantly assess and address professional boundary issues in the course of their daily responsibilities. Staff members use this experience alongside reflection, social learning and supervision to undergo individual learning that parallels team development. In a fourth phase, staff members use this learning to recalibrate their views on boundaries, themselves and how they work with clients. This recalibration impacts on staff members’ further management of daily boundaries, which provides more material for learning, which leads to further recalibration. This study emphasises the consideration staff have for boundaries and echoes previous literature suggesting the importance of supervision and reflective spaces. The model is comparable to existing learning theory and highlights the importance of social and experiential learning. There are implications for training, team building, supervision and reflective spaces. Further research could explore cultural aspects of boundary development

Published work on freshwater science from the FBA, IFE and CEH, 1929-2006

A new listing of published scientific contributions from the Freshwater Biological Association (FBA) and its later Research Council associates – the Institute of Freshwater Ecology (1989–2000) and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (2000+) is provided. The period 1929–2006 is covered. The compilation extends an earlier list assembled by in 1979

Technological undercurrents and global information circulation

pp. 217-23

Knowledge retrieval in aquatic ecology and fisheries: Do we need (and can we afford) ontologies?

pp. 25-3

Humid, All Too Humid: Overheated Observations

I haven’t made a single mistake in my life. I’ve just made a lot of good decisions that went really badly. Try as we might, we simply can’t imagine what our world would now look like, had our forefathers decided to use asparagus instead of electricity. In Humid, All Too Humid, social commentator Dominic Pettman curates the overheated thoughts of his own feverish mind, in response to a world struggling with unprecedented levels of cultural climate change. Humanity is like that obnoxious bore that arrives at the party drunk — thinks he’s witty and charming and wise, but is in fact a complete psychotic loser. All the other creatures, however, are too polite to say anything. So they just watch us quietly, and hope that we disappear as quickly as we came. The book takes the form of aphorism, witticism, maxim, axiom, dictum, quip, jape, adage, proverb, pun, precept, reflection, suggestion, observation, paraphrase, bon mot, vagary, specificky, put-on, put-off, mummery, miscellany, aside, in-front, behind, knock-knock joke, one-liner, tweet, re-tweet, truism, and not-so-truism. When you think about it, how rude it is for people to get married in public. This whole ritual is set up so that one person can say they love this one other person more than you. More than anyone else in the room. Is this why people really cry at weddings? Is this why we cover their car with rubbish? A sublimated response to their ceremonial insult? Known for his scholarly work on love, sex, and the (post)human condition, Pettman now assembles this collection of humoristic micro-meditations on everything from the meaning of life to the “yoghurt of human unkindness.” Archaeologists in Turkey have uncovered a new fragment of Anaximander, which simply reads: “Because reasons.” Humid, All Too Humid reads as if Oscar Wilde had first written Minima Moralia, after binge-watching too many episodes of The Simpsons

The Humid Condition

The Humid Condition: (More) Overheated Observations continues on the clicking heels of Dominic Pettman’s Humid, All Too Humid (2016), providing a companion volume of pithy and witty observations for our overheated age. Covering topics from pop culture to academia to romance to politics to human mortality to everything in between, this collection of pointed musings aims to amuse, edify, instruct, provoke, tease, caution, and inspire. As with the first installment, the spirit of this book represents a fusion of Montaigne and Wilde; a mashup of Adorno and Yogi Berra; a parallel channeling of Marx and Marx (both Karl and Groucho). No doubt, Hannah Arendt would be appalled at the irreverence on display within these pages. Then again, “Heidegger has left the bildung.” And as the author himself notes: “I have nothing new to say. And I’m saying it!

The Mole and the Serpent: A Totemic Approach to Societies of Control

Animals are good to think with, or so they say. And animal totems have consistently found a hospitable ecosystem in Continental Philosophy. From Isaiah Berlin’s fox and hedgehog, to Friedrich Nietzsche’s menagerie of eagles and asses, to Donna Haraway’s companion species, different critters have been put to work at the service of The Concept. In Deleuze’s influential essay, “Postscript on the Societies of Control,” we encounter two particular animals: the mole and the serpent. (“We have passed from one animal to the other, from the mole to the serpent, in the system under which we live, but also in our manner of living and in our relations with others.” [2011: 140f]) The former is the emblem of the disciplinary society, which, according to Deleuze’s argument, is evolving swiftly into a control society, overseen by the oily coilings of the latter. What to make of this totemic distinction? What can the mole and the serpent tell us about the present moment, thirty years after Deleuze released them into our minds in this context? Since it is hardly more than a suggestive throw-away line in the original piece, we can only speculate

Evaluation of participants' experiences with a non-restrictive minimally-structured lifestyle intervention. CHERE Working Paper 2010/11

While there is increasing evidence that group-based lifestyle-focussed interventions may provide more realistic, effective and cost-effective alternatives to intensive, individualised dietary counselling and exercise training, relatively little is known about individuals? preferences for and perceptions of these programs. This paper reports the results of qualitative interviews conducted with participants of a lifestyle intervention trial (Shape up for Life? (SufL) aimed to improve body composition and metabolic health through long-term non-restrictive behaviour modification. Purposive sampling was used to identify 22 participants who participated in detailed interviews regarding their expectations of the intervention, perceptions of benefits and their experience post-intervention and capacity to maintain the lifestyle changes. The results indicate that in general participants are focussed on weight loss as a goal, even when the intervention offered and provided other benefits such as improved fitness and body shape and composition. The individuals who benefited most from the intervention typically had lower baseline knowledge about dietary and exercise guidelines. While the relatively non-restrictive nature of SufL provided flexibility for participants, many participants perceived that a more structured program may have assisted in achieving weight loss goals.Obesity, lifestyle intervention, weight loss, metabolic syndrome

“We deal here with grey”: a grounded theory of professional boundary development in a forensic inpatient service.

Background: The question of how to maintain appropriate professional boundaries with clients in mental health settings can be complex, particularly for forensic inpatient nurses and healthcare workers. The literature in this area to date has mainly focused on boundary violations with little research on how staff members develop and maintain boundaries in forensic inpatient units, despite safe working relationships being beneficial for staff experience and client recovery. Method: Interviews with eleven psychiatric nurses and healthcare workers from forensic inpatient wards were analysed using a grounded theory methodology. Results: A cyclical model of boundary development was developed in which staff initially acclimatize to the forensic environment using their existing experiences and personal values before entering a calibration phase, where they constantly assess and address professional boundary issues in the course of their daily responsibilities. Staff members use this experience alongside reflection, social learning and clinical supervision to undergo individual learning and team development. In the fourth phase, staff members use this learning to recalibrate their views on boundaries, themselves and how they work with clients. This recalibration impacts on staff members’ further management of daily boundaries providing more material for learning, which leads to further recalibration. Conclusions: This study echoes previous literature suggesting the importance of supervision and reflective spaces in professional boundary understanding. The model is comparable to existing learning theory and highlights the importance of social and experiential learning. There are implications for forensic psychiatric nurses in terms of training, team building, supervision and provision of reflective spaces