By Poul Rohleder, Xanthe Hunt and Leslie Swartz

When we interviewed Edward (not his real name), for a research project on disability and sexuality, we talked in his office at a large, maximum-security prison near a large city in South Africa. He spoke of a car accident that had left him paralysed and needing to use a wheelchair, and the impact that this incident five and a half years ago had on his life and sense of identity.

He told us: “I’ve struggled, because if you were born and you were active and now suddenly there’s a change, so you need to accept first that there is this change now.  And my movement is limited now and all those things,” he pauses, sucks air in between his teeth, and then adds, “The main thing with a spinal cord injury… you’re going to have a problem with your sexual life because now there’s nothing that is normal at all.” Continue reading →

This is a critical piece exploring research, interventions and mainstream narratives within Western cultures surrounding sport, exercise and war veterans. UK-based Nick Caddick critiques and overviews the current state of knowledge and approach to treatment of veterans, and follows this up with some innovative suggestions on how to move things forward at an individual and societal level in order to facilitate veterans’ healing and wellbeing. (Dee Lister & Neda Mahmoodi,  ISCHP Blog Editors)

By Nick Caddick (nick.caddick@anglia.ac.uk)

There’s a new story unfolding about how veterans are healing from the physical and psychological damage of war. Or rather, a new chapter in an older story. The birth of Paralympic sport over 60 years ago was stimulated by the need to rehabilitate wounded Servicemen. And the evidence suggests it had many rehabilitative benefits. Today, the use of sporting and other pursuits – surfing, sailing, fishing, skiing, archaeology, and the recent Invictus phenomenon, to name but a few – is expanding as a means of supporting veterans. Continue reading →

In this blog post, Neda Mahmoodi adds a commentary following a workshop held by Neda and Glen Jankowski at the ISCHP conference this year in Loughborough, UK. From this it is possible to get a taste of the workshop’s aims to illustrate the promise of doing research in engaging ways that use audio-visual textual forms. 

(Meme 1)

Time constraints, increasing job precarity, and a ‘publish or perish’ culture can lead many of us frustrated with the impact our research has. Traditionally, research and theoretical studies have been disseminated through articles published in journals, or via conferences presentations. Disturbingly, around 1.8 million journal articles were published in 2015 alone and yet it is estimated that only half of these were actually read (1). However, the rise of the internet, particularly social media, has broadened opportunities. In this year’s workshop sessions during the 10th Biennial ISCHP conference, Glen Jankowski and Neda Mahmoodi discussed some of the free and easy methods to disseminate research beyond traditional academic outputs, including the use of memes. A meme is a virally-transmitted cultural symbol, social idea or concept expressed in some form of content. It can be a photo, a video, a person, a fictional character, an event, a song, a belief, an action, a word or anything else. It’s social phenomenon of mass online sharing makes them ideal for a rapid dissemination of ideas in an open access way, and therefore one small step to putting our ‘work to work’. Continue reading →

In this moving and personal blog post, Wendy Stainton-Rogers explores her experiences of the meaningful everyday practice of getting her ears pierced. Wendy connects this with her experience becoming, and remaining, the medical subject and object due to serious illness and disability.

Three weeks ago I went into a jeweller’s shop in a busy shopping mall and got my ears pierced. It was on my ‘day out’ to celebrate my 71^st birthday. Possibly a bit of a weird thing to do at my age, but not that big a deal surely? Actually, for me it was a very big deal. It was the first time in years that I had got something done to my body for a frivolous reason rather than for a medical one.

In 2011 during a biopsy to see if I had cancer, my bowel was accidently punctured and, a day or so later, I felt dreadful and my temperature skyrocketed, the alarm was called and I needed to have many hours of emergency surgery to deal with the septicaemia that had ensued. From that point on my life changed dramatically and I became highly medicalised. Continue reading →

ISCHP has been kindly granted permission by Katie Bevans-Wright to re-post a piece of writing posted on July 16th 2017 after Katie attended this year’s ISCHP conference in Loughborough, UK. The original article can be found at https://drkatiewright-bevans.com/2017/07/16/sun-strawberries-and-social-representations-theory-ischp-2017/.

(1)

This week I attended my second International Society of Critical Health Psychology Conference – a good time for a first blog post!

It had been four years since my last ISCHP. Back then I was in the early days of my PhD research and the Bradford conference opened my eyes to a world of passionate critical health psychologists. I was very much looking forward to Loughborough 2017 and it certainly didn’t disappoint. From arriving on a sunny Sunday afternoon to a reception of bangers and mash, and strawberries and cream, to the final (and very inspirational) keynote on the Wednesday by Dave Harper the whole 3 days were just fantastic. Continue reading →