Re. 'Population mental health in England, 2003–2022: Teasing apart psychological distress, mental illness and activity limitation'

Last month I was struck reading John Burn-Murdoch's regular opinion piece 'Data Points' in the FTWeekend.

This one 'What's really going on with mental health around the world?' concerned a report:

Henking, C. and Baumberg Geiger, B. (2026), 'Population mental health in England, 2003–2022: Teasing apart psychological distress, mental illness and activity limitations'. ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health, King's College London.
https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/8ygrz_v2

Below I have mapped some points to Hodges' model and added others. 

By accident or not, Mr Burn-Murdoch continued this theme last weekend, discussing pandemic lockdowns and how they never ended for some people (citations below):

individual

|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES             

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   

|

group

Getting stuck in a psychological minima. Becoming fixed in mindset, lack of self-development through others - empathy, rapport.  Subtle self-harm becoming more serious. What is character in the 21st C? Lack of measures. ^Lack of coherence - parity in health policy. Lack of assertiveness, self-advocacy, prone to self-stigma (non-help seeking!) Qualitative lived experience becomes self-reinforcing (and other - family?)

Getting fixed with a physique, posture - shaped by technology. Physical equivalent-complement  of 'mindset'. Getting stuck in a physical minima 'long-term'. Subtle self-harm becoming more serious. 'Systems medicalisation' PROCESSES Convenience (POLITICAL) of binary responses, e.g.  DISABLED -------- NOT DISABLED Search for 'answers' - diagnosis Search for 'solutions' interventions

Early effect of lack of external play, risk-taking with others, friends - testing - trust. Lack of social skills. Impact of social and other media - reduction of stigma. Social roles models - father-figure?  Lack of 'real' socialisation - meeting peers. Socio-Political Power, hence resort to 'sick role'. Social media - contribution to self-diagnosis.  Support inc. Social prescribing: "You're not listening! How dare you suggest walking, gardening, volunteering, discussion group .. as a way to deal with this!"

'It's life - get on with it!'  The compound effect of 'World News' on young people: cost of living; housing; cost of/access to education; employment options - related to AI; geopolitical events; climate change, state of economics since birth; COVID; housing; and isolation. 'Jobs' for teenagers? (I had a 7-day paper-round)  ^Parity of esteem (see above) Welfare traps -  especially by age xx Realisation of the importance of outdoors play. Streets being protected for children. Early Start Nursery

Imagine four characters called Harlequin meet for dinner. Halfway through another Harlequin gatecrashes the party, called spirit, then add psychiatry, anti-psychiatry, psychology, service users, policy-makers, the pharma-industry and education to the guest list and you are set for a marvellous time.

My source: John Burn-Murdoch, What's really going on with mental health around the world? FTWeekend, 11-12 July 2026, p.10.

John Burn-Murdoch, Pandemic lockdowns never ended for some people. FTWeekend, 15-16 August 2026, p.8.

Previously: 'young people' : 'mental illness' : 'behaviour' : 'Serres'

"Maslow's hierarchy of needs hides housing horror" c/o Gary Backler in FTWeekend

"John Burn-Murdoch sets out graphically the intergenerational horror story of housing in Britain since 1980 (Opinion, January 13). ...

Abraham Maslow, the American psychologist, placed the need for "shelter" at the very bottom of his famous hierarchy of needs. 
We used to know this. I have a photo of my newly married parents' first rentbook for the council house into which they moved in 1953. It is clear on the cover that after the "accountant to the council", the next most responsible officer is the "medical officer of health". ...

Individual
   |

      INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC  --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

 SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

|

Group

mental health emotional needs	physical health shelter/physical security
social needs - belonging social care society	Rentbook for council house in 1953 © Gary Backler

Backler, Gary, Maslow's hierarchy of needs hides housing horror, Letters. FT Weekend, 20-21 January 2024, p.8.
Ack. Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/3b8719f6-d8e9-4997-b9b5-7dd7ba96fc08

Previously: Maslow.

What sort of field is 'nursing'? (i)

. . . It is NOT 'relaxed'.

My copy of Harris (2015) is secondhand, £8.50 from 'Green Ink' in Hay-on-Wye last November. 

Apparently, the (professional - high-level) study of mathematics is a relaxed field. McCleary reviews the book and the good, truth, and beauty of mathematics; 'relaxed field' relates to the latter:

Mathematics without Apologies:
Portrait of a Problematic Vocation

"That leaves beauty, the deepest source for Hardy, and the most challenging motivation for mathematical activity. Challenging because it calls into question how external support of mathematics is justified. Hardy tells us that “a mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns.” Throwing mathematicians in with the painters and poets leads to justification of mathematics as an art. Harris situates his discussion of beauty in the notion of play. Play needs to take place in a “relaxed field,” a notion introduced by ethologist Gordon Burghardt to describe animal behavior when not preoccupied with food, mating, territory, or predators—'the opposite of stress.'"

John McCleary, Book Review, NOTICES OF THE AMS VOLUME 65, NUMBER 10 pp.1280-1283. https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201810/rnoti-p1280.pdf 

Talk of absolutes is common in mathematics. There is absolutely no mathematician involved in the writing of this post and others. That said, I have been privileged to work in a 'relaxed' manner.* When I trained mental health and then general nursing, we were part of the 'numbers' on the duty-rota. Your presence was not just a matter of learning, there were concrete things - tasks - to do. Completing the Community Psychiatric Nursing Certificate course 1987-8, involved a secondment to another community team (thank you Bolton!). My caseload was left to the support of colleagues, so I could concentrate on the course. A course in which Brian Hodges (not Wilfred Hodges - the  logician) taught his eponymous model. Post-Project 2000 with nurse education an undergraduate pursuit, students were designated supernumerary. Student nurse finances are precarious, worthy of a post in itself. 

If relaxed and stress are opposites, nurses would seek to be 'relaxed'** suffice to have the time and resources to deliver care safely, professionally and to a high standard. Adequate time + resources also brings a dividend: person-centredness, health promotion and education, preventing relapse. As it stands, however, for nurses be they students or qualified, nursing is far from relaxed.

tbc... ii

Harris, M. (2015) Mathematics without Apologies: Portrait of a Problematic Vocation. Princeton University Press.

*But without the charisma Harris describes.

**The notion of slack resource could be applied, space for creativity and innovation in assessment, planning, interventions (case formulation) and evaluation.

See also: 'Four Fields'

'Health' is a Many-Splendoured Thing c/o BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 - Money Box Live: Rental Health Special

 INDIVIDUAL
|

 INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

|

GROUP

Mental health, Well-being Quality of Life Lived experience Anxiety, Stress, Distress Debt fear Individual vulnerability	Life in Cities Built environment - Urbanisation Human Geographies (Social) Housing Air Pollution, Repair, Damp, Mould, Noise Access to Green S pac es Land-
Social Housing Community - Family, Social cohesion Social inclusion - Social justice Group - Population vulnerability Socio-Economic - Determinants of Health Social poverty 'Living' Wage Good/Bad Tenants/Landlords?	-Lords

Money Box

"Felicity Hannah and Winifred Robinson take questions on the legal rights of renters with experts Jasmine Basran from the housing and homelessness charity Crisis and Tessa Shepperson founder of the The Landlord Law Services she advises landlords of their legal rights and responsibilities.

The number of people renting across England, Wales and Scotland has more than doubled in the last decade.

The picture in Northern Ireland is similar with the numbers of people renting is up by nearly 2 thirds in the last 20 years."

See also: Rental Health

Read in FT Weekend - hopefully the link will work for you:
Lessons from Vienna: a housing success story 100 years in the making

Previous posts: 'Homeless'

Patient navigation model - Paper: mapped to h2cm

On twitter I learned of an EU project @CANCERLESS_EU and an initial paper:

 Exploring the application of the navigation model with people experiencing homelessness: a scoping review, Journal of Social Distress and Homelessness, DOI: 10.1080/10530789.2021.2021363

Phrases like 'navigation', 'architecture', 'maps' are a trigger so after some tweets, I was kindly directed to the above paper.

Here, I'm mapping patient navigation and related concepts I have added, to Hodges' model.

"Patient navigation is a community-based and person-centered intervention, whereby a named worker – the navigator – supports and guides individuals to overcome the barriers they face in accessing healthcare services and works to facilitate timely and appropriate access to care for the individual as well as their relatives, and caregivers, when needed (Freeman, 2012; Wang et al., 2015)."

 INDIVIDUAL

|

 INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

|

GROUP

psycho- depression, anxiety, distress, trauma (psyche) serious mental health substance misuse dual diagnosis vulnerability isolated difficult to engage, missing appointments, no designated point of access - Address Personally reliant on welfare/benefits for finance - phone contact sporadic. providing emotional support, phone, transport Hit by energy costs/rent (pre-payment) if finding a place. hopelessness, lack of trust - let down many times? Stigmatized attitudes towards treatment? tailored health education asocial (due to lived experience, trauma..?)

-geography low-income areas, or areas with a high proportion of ethnic minorities or migrants USA - other nations - terminology? method: scoping review, literature search, inc. exc criteria interventions tailored to age and gender respiratory conditions, trauma (physical) excess winter mortality "homeless population having an average age at death of just 47, 30 years lower than that for the general population" exposure to activities known to increase risk of cancer HIV patients data - inc. no-show rates in-person / phone Timeliness of screening, intervention

Navigators - lay persons, or clinical professionals Lived experience, "near peer" family Training for Navigators organizing and attending appointments and facilitating self-care/self-management clinical and community settings, parks, pavements, and homeless encampments, home visits, walking and support groups *risk of stigmatization and experienced discrimination navigation less successful with certain groups?

Underserved, marginalized people Homelessness High-risk of poor health-related outcomes reported barriers access to appropriate healthcare for this population are also often compounded by lack of insurance, legal problems*... ...the PN model has been associated with a reduction in hospital costs, and even in some cases, increased revenue histories of offending and/or care women in rural areas non-specific vulnerable populations reduce incarceration, vocational and volunteering activities, access to housing

Christina Carmichael, Lee Smith, Edelweiss Aldasoro, Alejandro Gil Salmerón, Tamara Alhambra-Borrás, Ascensión Doñate-Martínez, Radhika Seiler-Ramadas & Igor Grabovac (2022) Exploring the application of the navigation model with people experiencing homelessness: a scoping review, Journal of Social Distress and Homelessness, DOI: 10.1080/10530789.2021.2021363

Peine Perdue, Lost Cause* c/o Anaïs Charras

INDIVIDUAL

|

 INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

|

GROUP

Peine Perdue/Lost Cause (2021) Drypoint on copper, chine collé (Bunkoshi paper), 340 x 500 mm. Edition: 12

 

My source: Anaïs Charras [image], Artist's Eye. Printmaking Today, Vol 31, Issue 121, Spring 2022, p.50.

*We - the people - can, must and will prevail.

Related post: https://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2020/11/self-care-tree-girl.html

 

Undocumented

individual
| 

 INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ----------------------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

	Essential Worker by Carlos Barberena. Linocut on Shopping Bag. 2020

My source:

Pig, C. WARNING: Art Is Dangerous, Profile, Carlos Barberena De La Rocha, PrintMaking Today, Summer 2021, 30: 118. pp.14-16.

https://www.cellopress.co.uk/page/printmaking-today

Image:

https://www.bandoleropress.com/propaganda/category/printmaking

A sentence in a word - precarity - and a bad spell of 'whether'

In the past couple of months I've acquired three books to review. One of them is:

Philosophical And Theoretical Perspectives For Advanced Nursing Practice, Cody.

I'm pleased to say that over half the book now has extra notes (in pencil). Within the text and my reflections there are a great many potential posts. In chapter 18 though Doane and Varcoe write:

Subsequently, there has been little discussion about what is required to develop and enact that sensitivity and/or the knowledge, capacities, and skills required for ethical and responsive nursing relationships within the complexities of current health-care milieus. For example, as social inequalities deepen and neoliberal ideologies hold individuals responsible for their own health and well-being regardless of how poverty, disability, remote geographical locations, or other inequalities determine health, notions of obligation, responsibility, accountability, and efficiency are as vital to nursing relationships as are notions of compassion, responsiveness, trust and respect. Thus, nurses require a broader understanding of relationships and their significance to ethical nursing practice. p.204.

The sentence in (my) italics can be summed up in one word - a recently discovered concept for me - that of: precarity.

Here the definition on Wikipedia (c/o the above link):

Precarity is a condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare. Specifically, it is applied to the condition of intermittent or underemployment and the resultant precarious existence. The social class defined by this condition has been termed the precariat.

Nursing is bound to be affected by the socio-economic environment. Caution is needed as the weather impacts, puts pressure on nursing's values.

Doane, G.H., Varcoa, C. (2013). Relational Practice and Nursing Obligations. In Philosophical and Theoretical Perspectives for Advanced Nursing Practice (5th ed.), by W. K. Cody (Ed.). (Burlington, MA: Jones and Bartlett.