Here is me: Fuck the pressure to be perfect - wherever it comes from. From cultural notions of "professionalism" from inner voices of inadequacy, from competitiveness, from envy, from academia and grading. Claiming your human frailty is your greatest power and wholeness.

Refugees have invariably suffered any manner of losses - family, loved ones, friends, jobs, homes, earnings, possessions, freedoms, standing, dignity, mental wellbeing, physical integrity. Merely to threaten them with the forfeiture of what little they still hold is sadistic, psychopathic even.

To be listened to, where it's genuine, is to be cared about. League tables aside, I'd like to get a sense of- are patients listened to, & are NHS staff listened to? Because so often this is the foundation for everything else. THIS is what I hear time & again talking with people in the hospital.

So happy to share that the "Guide to High-Quality Community Engagement" for help and wellbeing has been published by ADPH London: www.adph.org.uk/networks/lon.... Hat tip to @charliepsych.bsky.social @charlotteaugst.bsky.social and many, many other for inspirational conversations.

Happy to see this out in one of my fave journals - led by @crismontenegro.bsky.social We unpack distinct contributions of PPIE & qual sociology, suggest why they are at times conflated, and why they shouldn't be.

I was there as an access helper for a disabled friend and it was a NIGHTMARE.

I'd put it the other way round. Scientific method, as a human practice, is intrinsically value laden. What you choose to investigate, what you decide to measure, how you measure, what you ignore, how you deal with uncomfortable results, even who you allow to do it, are all soaked in values.

Good listening isnt just a skill you can pick up from a workshop or a list of '10 top tips'. It's an ongoing commitment to understanding our selves, e.g., being aware of what pushes our buttons in different situations, & having courage to be really present & embrace our own vulnerabilities.

Realised I just had an accidental Christmas poem published. Sending this out to all the uni students heading home for the holidays and realising nothing is quite who or how they left it #citylitbetweenthelines

Can’t. Stop Clicking. On more starter packs. So good.

It'd be a radical shift to have a healthcare system that enabled active listening & caring relationships at the heart of how we do things. It'd be smoother, more effective, & more human. As a concept, this is simple. But in practice? What infrastructure, what core conditions, would enable this?

I believe that everyone can write poetry. If I can, anyone can. I had no literary education, no mentor or courses. I 'may' have talent but what I do have lots of is tenacity, tenacity to make my poems better. All you need to start is a sense of wonder & love of words as spells

Loving this paper 'Rethinking barriers and enablers'. How many thousands of weak research studies have reduced complex change to 'identifying and addressing barriers and enablers'? Here's how to do better! journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Fascinating headline, as the analysis doesn't appear to show that AI-poetry is indistinguishable from human poetry, but that that non-expert and expert humans have a different idea of what poetry is. Also - whoa - 9/10 poets included are dead. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Give refugees autonomy to solve the asylum accommodation problem blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...

Plumping the pillows on the sofa and settling in. My interests include, but are not limited to... poetic listening emotional/social/cultural experience of health/care semiotics existential psychotherapy depth psychology community engagement foresight and futures leadership / innovation / design