Early Eurostar to Brussels, then Leuven, to give a fairly radical talk for the big launch of #Coconuts ❤️🥳👀

Many exciting things are happening. Watch this space. #ACreativeTransformation @headwayuk.bsky.social @uclh.bsky.social @unibirmingham.bsky.social Coconuts, Belgium University of Messina, Sicily and more. #acquiredbraininjury #recovery #psychosis #organicpsychosis #art #community

Nevertheless, she persisted (see text in the picture)…

In the midst of #ACreativeTransformation in Manchester with workshop leader Eleanor May Blackburn. We all wrote something unique, but were united in our earnestness to express ourselves, given the opportunity, the stimulus and freedom to say what we want. A special moment. Report out soon🌟 #writing

Are you interested in #AI healthcare technology, #psychosis and #acquiredbraininjury? We are running an experimental workshop discussing these things with #ACreativeTransformation at Birmingham University on May 19. Very limited spaces, sign up now: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/act-2-in-b...

I am at Euston station heading up 🔝 for #ACreativeTransformation in Manchester! A writing workshop for young people with lived experience of #acquiredbraininjury. Epic 🌟☄️✨

I am absolutely thrilled to have a feature in @headwayuk.bsky.social's Spring newsletter. This is about my story of recovery, my work with #ACreativeTransformation and how I advocate using the arts to support living with acquired brain injury. www.headway.org.uk/media/12887/...

There are a few spaces left in the #ACreativeTransformation writing workshop for young people and young carers of people with lived experience of brain injury in Manchester on April 4. Don’t miss this opportunity, sign up here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/writing-fo... Please tell everyone you know!

I am featured on the @headwayuk.bsky.social soft launch/teaser of the 'Action for Brain Injury Week' campaign. More soon! www.headway.org.uk/news-and-cam... #acquiredbraininjury #ABI #traumaticbraininjury #TBI

My latest review for @thementalelf.bsky.social discusses the impact of traumatic brain injury on mental health. Research on this theme is limited & flawed. We need stronger science to support better treatments; the effects of TBI can be enduring & severe. www.nationalelfservice.net/other-health...

Yesterday I was squawking at Malorees Junior School! I gave 6 classes to little people in years 3, 4 and 6. We made up incredible stories, performed them and started writing. These sessions were based on my beloved “Squawk: A Book of Bird Adventures”, which you can buy here: amzn.eu/d/i4AmP08

Today I'm speaking with @roxanabaiasu.bsky.social at @phenolab.bsky.social on 'Transformative Paradoxes of Mad Sense', a talk based on lived experience, art practice & philosophical reflections (post-structuralism, existentialism, phenomenology) on madness and sense...being human. shorturl.at/oxw6S

#ACreativeTransformation live

Here it is: “ACT2 on NRU” Using visual arts to tell our stories after brain injury, a course of art workshops with inpatients at the Neurorehabilitation Unit, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, April-May 2025. Find out more: email [email protected] acreativetransformation.org

I'm very keen to connect with young people with lived experience of #acquiredbraininjury for a free writing for wellbeing workshop in #Manchester on March 7. Travel expenses paid (up to £30 per participant). Please connect, share info around all your networks: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/writing-fo...

Everyone needs a ginger cat in their lives. Here is Mr. Tigga, purring, determined to preen away all our worries or concerns. The phone is in the way, sorry Mr. T. He's determined to get as close as possible ...❤️‍🩹...

Making sense of one’s identity in the context of psychopathology is a question of such enormous difficulty that it eventually exhausts us. www.psychiatrymargins.com/p/psychopath...

Confessions of an Ambivalent Psychiatrist A guest essay by the psychiatrist Susan Mahler on her experience of depression (including treatments with ECT) and how she finds herself in a position where both lived and professional experience are failing her www.psychiatrymargins.com/p/confession...

International Merleau-Ponty circle on health and healing

It’s very wet and blowy…I’m in Stratford, bringing #ACreativeTransformation to @ucl.ac.uk. I'm meeting a student who is joining and evaluating the project, and giving a #LivedExperience seminar about the brain, trauma and creativity. It is always inspiring to meet the MASc #CreativeHealth students!

I will be a co-facilitator at this event. If you are in the UK and work with (or know any) young people who have experienced brain injury, please share 🙏

Tell me what you want, what you really really want: lived experience involvement in co-developing outcome measures www.nationalelfservice.net?p=212822 "Have you ever asked people with lived experience what they think the main outcomes of your study should be?"

Exciting update about our writing workshop for young people in Manchester. We can give each participant up to £30 to support travel expenses to attend the event. If you are interested in joining us do get in touch, we would love to support you to come along. Sign up here: shorturl.at/daPPU

Today I am at the Neurorehabilitation Unit, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, planning the course of workshops we are running for inpatients in the Spring. I am excited, grateful and feeling very creative with this opportunity. #ACreativeTransformation

Looking for young people and young carers (age 16-25) of people with lived experience of #acquiredbraininjury for a writing workshop in Manchester on 7th March, 13:00-15:00. For more information and to sign up for this free event: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/writing-fo... Please tell everyone you know!

Awesome day with #ACreativeTransformation at Headway Surrey. We were recruiting participants to make films called 'User guides to acquired brain injury', made by and for people with lived experience. Great to work with project partner Beth and the Headway team in this exciting, creative venture.

‘Writing for wellbeing through lived experience of brain injury’, a workshop on March 7th for young people + young carers (aged 16-25) of people with #livedexperience of #braininjury, led by neurodivergent actor/poet Eleanor Blackburn at 42nd Street, Manchester. Sign up here: bit.ly/WritingForWe...

It is a strange experience to be reading a review of the immensely stimulating 'Too Mad to be True III: The Paradoxes of Madness' conference, only to discover a discussion of my very own intervention. MAD FAME! open.substack.com/pub/awaisaft... #madsky #philsky #philosky

A different plane of seeing, expressed clumsily — impossible to capture.

There, where the danger is greatest, the saving power grows

Anyone else in need of a rescue after Christmas? Mr. Tigga has your remedy. Rest up and be calm…

…the dogs’ Christmas, in front of the fire 🔥 ❤️

A recent commission of a young horse whose untimely, horrific death really touched me. I felt very emotional as I painted his beautiful profile and reflection, dancing away but somehow always here. Watercolour, pastel, graphite on paper. #artsky #paintersky ❤️‍🩹

Happy winter solstice everyone! Six months ago, for the summer solstice, I went on BBC Radio 4 to talk to @drmatthewsweet.bsky.social about time and, you guessed it, Henri Bergson! You can listen here: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

The new logo for #ACreativeTransformation, ACT 2. What do you think? We have much to do in 2025. Watch out for creative outbursts in #film, #poetry, performance, visual arts, #storytelling in eXtended Reality with #AI Technology and more -- for people with lived experience of acquired #braininjury.

youtu.be/4CFiT1E_S3w?... my movie 10 days in a madhouse has reached 1.4 million views on Cinema cinemas streaming on YouTube. You can watch it for free with ads or on one of dozens of other platforms. Starring Christopher Lambert with Kelly LeBrock.

A bear I saw, with clawed paws that were stamps of my own handprints. Curious. So I drew it.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal... Great paper by @awaisaftab.bsky.social . Detailed and nuanced. Ends with a call for personalised treatment - something every clinician agrees with in theory, but in practice, there's often a paternalistic "meds for all" regime.

Top beat news! #ACreativeTransformation #ACT2 = funded by @artscouncilengland.bsky.social. The project begins on 1/1/25 making films, working with artificial intelligence, performing poetry with young people + visual art workshops with inpatients, always supporting people with acquired brain injury.

Suggestions please: I’m looking for a place to take my beloved registered Pets As Therapy dogs Wilby and Foxy, ideally a centre supporting people with brain injury, or I’m open to suggestions…a place around Buckinghamshire or Oxford. Wilby and Foxy give so much…I just want to share this. ❤️‍🩹

Making sense of the literature on antipsychotics and long-term functioning: taking natural history and personalization seriously My new article in Psychological Medicine (open access) www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

...meanwhile...in case you were wondering how Wilby did in his first canicross dog race yesterday...he was absolutely paw-some. Sorry. Amazing running! #dogsky #canicross #whippet

Remnants from the few minutes I spoke at the #madstudies symposium- madness, art and non/sense. Our cracks make us stronger and more beautiful; art provides existential support. Thank you Guattari + the ancient Japanese art of kintsukuroi. Merry Christmas everyone. 2025 is going to be even better...

Before the conference, with Wilby, our debut at Cani-cross!

Today I'm talking about mad art, mad non/sense and living, with a little Guattari + Nietzsche, at the #madstudies symposium. This event launches the momentous 'Mad Studies Reader' with a cocktail of very colourful people speaking from multiple perspectives. Join us: www.idha-nyc.org/mad-studies-...

I saw her and then I drew her…is she a puppet on strings pulled by somebody else’s grand narrative? Or a decapitated head hanging/swinging on her skin’s taut edges? Or is she in fact me? Do I see versions of myself? #hallucination #madsky #psychsky #philsky #artsky

Morning all. Here you see Wilby and I in the dress rehearsal for our debut running race (together) on Sunday! Fingers crossed we don't drown or get blown away by Storm Whateveritscalled. Time to reflect upon the transience of b/Being. #runnersky #philsky #dogsky #naturesky

I will never, ever get over this.

My brainy 🧠 friends @proftonydavid.bsky.social @matthewbroome.bsky.social @awaisaftab.bsky.social @jrbneuropsiq.bsky.social this is for you…have you read Liveing or Oliver Sacks on Liveing or do you know my neurologist friend Klaas Arts?

For #neuropsychiatry #neurology #madness birds in the bluesky, I received this wonderful rare book in the post, Liveing's 'On Megrim, Sick-Headache...Pathology of Nerve-Storms' from Klaas Arts, signed by and with correspondence from the maestro, my hero #OliverSacks. Thanks Klaas! What a sheer gem!