Thursday 15 January 2009
Thoughts
I was at a course today on how to supervise PhD students (I don't expect to get the chance to do this for many years as I am the only one in my university researching in my area and it's not exactly known in the area, but it's a requirement of my probationary period). It was one of those courses I thought would be terrible but was pleasantly surprised at it. One thing really stuck with me though. Apparently under new disability legislation aimed specifically at educational establishments, if a student tells us they are thinking of self-harming we have to tell someone in order not to be considered negligent should they then self harm. The ins and outs of the legislation is the subject of another course (which I have since signed up for) so the course facilitators weren't sure to whom we had to report this but they thought the occupational health person in the university. It shocked me as it made me think what any colleagues would do if they found out that I self harm. An appointment has been made with my GP to discuss doing something about it.
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Having worked for over twenty years in schools, dealing with increasing numbers of self-harming teenagers (is it a response to exam-factory pressure?) this sounds familiar. In the case of minors, of course, it has more justification perhaps, but when a boy or girl simply wanted me to 'know' as a first step to making some sort of progress, it was so, so hard to have to tell them that 'others' need to be informed. My solution (when at school) was to get promotion, so that - effectively - I become the 'other' that had to be kept informed of such disclosures. But it was never very satisfactory.
I wrote about teenage self-harm in my first novel, Writing Therapy (set in the eighties, long before such legal niceties!).
Btw, with a PhD you're more of a 'real' doctor than a medic, for whom the title 'doctor' is merely honourary!
Love the blog, and will be back - have linked you on my Writing therapy site.
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