Webchat with Professor Tanya Byron: Tuesday 8 July, 1-2pm.

[RachelMumsnet]

Professor Tanya Byron will be joining us for a webchat at 1pm on Tuesday 8 July. Tanya is a practicing consultant in child and adolescent mental health and author of several books including her latest, The Skeleton Cupboard, our June non-fiction book of the month.

The Skeleton Cupboard is Professor Tanya Byron's fascinating account of her years training as a clinical psychologist. The Skeleton Cupboard recounts the period when she found herself in the toughest placements of her career. Through the eyes of her naive and inexperienced younger self, Tanya shares remarkable stories of the people who came to her for help with a multitude of difficulties. The patients she sees suffer from loneliness, anorexia and anxiety, as well as severe cases of dementia and a psychopath with a knife.

Find out more about the book, read an extract here

Come and chat to Tanya about her experiences training and working as a psychologist, her book or tap into her expertise and ask her a question about any psychological and emotional issues that may be affecting you or your family.

[lovinglifewithlittleones]

I loved reading the book, I added my blog review onto the linky, I couldn't put it down and wanted more. a brilliant read.
Not sure if i will be able to make the chat tomorrow so I will ask my question now.
Dr Byron, What is your favourite area/setting to work in and why?

[alemci]

my question would be which was the most difficult area to work in?

it sounds like they were all very challenging.

[Ruby6918]

can you recommend where to get help for a teenager who is self haring with cutting and piercing i dont know where to start any info would be very helful

[dannydevitoiloveyourwork]

I loved this book. It is totally gripping - I was hooked from the first page and read it all in one day. Every story is different but all are equally fascinating.

I found it very moving in places and shed a few tears.

The ONLY thing I disliked was not knowing which bits were totally fictional and which bits really happened. Obviously I totally understand why it had to be written that way but I can't help it, I like to know whether something actually happened in real life or not!

Maybe if the book was marketed as purely a work of fiction it would have sat better with me...I can't really explain it, I love reading both fiction and non-fiction but I feel I need to know which one I'm reading!

All in all though I really enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone who wants an easy, absorbing read. I've already lent it to my sister. Thanks MN for my free copy

[maryburrows]

Thank you for my free copy.I too would have preferred a book that was non-fiction rather than a mish mash designed to illustrate various types of patients with the blur between fiction and non-fiction. Can I ask which came first the journalism or the clinical psychology and why did you decide to train for such an emotionally challenging job? Is it possible to switch off and enjoy the rest of your life without the demands of your job constantly intruding on your thoughts? Thank you- I am constantly impressed amidst all the selfishness in the world by the dedication of individuals who do such work. One day it may be me knocking at your door for help- I would like to think if it is that I too would find someone to listen.

[Theseus]

Hello - I thought the extract was brilliant and will be getting the book.

I wondered if you had any advice for helping a 9yo girl who is currently being assessed for HFA. I think she's probably borderline. She is suffering with anxiety, with constant physical symptoms for the last 3 months.

I am v worried about her. I don't know whether to just address the anxiety and am scared of what the assessment will throw up. I don't know whether a child who is borderline is better off with or without diagnosis (if she even gets one that is) and whether it's better to just deal with her as anxious on its own. IYSWIM.

She is very academically bright, gifted in some areas, and does have good friendships but is always somehow on the periphery of social interactions. I think school is stressful for her. I am not sure how best to help her.

[OutsSelf]

Hello, I've read the book in a single guilty binge. Guilty because I've a million things I should be reading plus two young children. Yet here I am MNing...

I just wondered why you wanted to equate sex with power in the relationship between your supervisor and her partner. It sort of suggests that we can't imagine female agency without having somehow to make some equivocation about that agency. She was a fascinating character without the lesbian kissing scene which did rather read like an 'explanation' of her extraordinary agency. Which isn't to say I'm against lesbian kissing scenes, I think they are great But not as an explanation of how this woman and her partner realised interest in each other and agency in their world. Isn't it possible that their sexuality was like, not at all relevant to their obvious intellectual interest in each other?

[Ifyoubuildit]

Hi, I have two questions:

1. what do you think is the biggest issue in modern parenting?
   
   
2. do you believe in Attachment Parenting?
   
   I love your column in The Times!
   
   Thanks

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

Do you have any advice of how we can all begin to move on following a recent devastating family bereavement?
I think I'm feeling a little over-whelmed by a sense of responsibilty and concern for everyone on top of my own feelings of sadness. Think I probably need to find someone (outside the family) to lean on and talk things through with. Fortunately my DC seem to be doing OK and ds in particular (at 12) showing remarkable resilience (and does talk about things sometimes, so not just keeping it to himself)

• I've probably just answered my own question there haven't I? I love the talking therapies!
  BTW Am a huge fan of yours - loved tiny tearaways Fascinating viewing

[alemci]

so sorry I meant to come and chat, brilliant book thoroughly enjoyed it and learnt alot from it. my daughter does encounter mental health issues in her student placements so I will definitely be passing it on to her.

[lionheart]

I pre-ordered this on Amazon and it still hasn't arrived --something to do with the supplier (bugger it). But I have read some extracts in The Times and found it fascinating.

I would like to ask what you found to be most challenging about writing the memoir, especially since it is so different to the other things you have published?

[DrTanyaByron]

Hello everyone, I'm here! Looking forward to our chat, hope you're all well!

[alemci]

yes thanks Tanya

I was really pleased to be chosen to read the book from mumsnet

I really liked the school stuff as I could relate to that as I am the same age as you and went to a school not that far away from yours and the lacrosse as well.

[WhenSheWasBadSheWasHorrid]

Hi like josie I also have a three year old who keeps waking in the night. She has always been a high need baby and clingy toddler.

We practiced attachment parenting and co sleeping (didn't plan to but it seemed to be what was needed). Any advice would be appreciated.

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

Hi Tanya. Thanks for coming in to Mumsnet Towers for the webchat - look forward to keeping you company, especially if there's biscuits!

[DrTanyaByron]

@DuchessofMalfi

Just finished reading this evening. I really enjoyed it. Even though the "case studies" were fictional representations of the kind of cases she encountered during her training, and presumably still does in her professional life, I found them very moving especially the girl with the eating disorder (DD was a food refuser from about the age of 2, and still struggles with food aged 8, and quite likely always will have "issues" with eating).

I also read the Stephen Grosz book, The Examined Life, and really enjoyed that too. But I think I preferred this one. Anything that looks at what makes people tick has always interested me. This book has made me realise that, if I had my time over again, I'd want to study psychology. Absolutely fascinating.

But, as has been mentioned above, were the episodes with "Chris" her supervisor also fictionalised to fit in with the fictionalised case studies, or were they real to some extent?

Thank you MN for the free copy. Will think of a question for the webchat :)

Thank you for your comment, and thank you to everyone who has read the book. I wanted to start with a comment about the issue of fictionalisation, because I know some people have struggled with the idea of whether the characters are 'real'. This is non-fiction in the sense that it is about real experiences that have come from my own clinical training and the theoretical and applied approaches are evidence-based. However, anyone working in my profession or the medical profession who writes about their work cannot breach confidentiality by basing the clients on actual people they have worked with. However, the characters in The Skeleton Cupboard are people who are living lives based on events and narratives of actual patients I saw during my years of training. Therefore they exist for me and I care about them.

[DrTanyaByron]

@Bonsoir

Hello Tanya

I haven't read your book but I did read the extract on Imogen that was linked to in the OP to this thread.

Imogen's story is a damning indictment of poor parental care - parents too busy pursuing their own exciting lives to ensure that their children are physically and emotionally safe. I, sadly, know several families first hand where "(upper) middle class neglect" has resulted in protracted psychiatric inpatient stays for teenagers. My experience is that parents find it very hard to back track and pay more attention to parenting, even when disaster has struck more than once. What can be done to raise awareness among a population that has been primed for very public measures of success in life?

Hi Bonsoir,

I do find in our time-starved lives often the basic nurture within families can be squeezed out. Clinically we're also finding that children from families where one would not classically expect difficulties, i.e. children from comfortable, aspirational families are showing growing difficulties with anxiety. I think this sits around a number of issues including academic pressure valued over emotional development, risk-averse society where children are not given the opportunity to learn the value of challenge, risk and most importantly failure, a fear of failure, a narrow preoccupation with success in childhood and adolescence defined by exam results. Suniya Luthar has just published a paper looking at this phenomenon in 'high-achieving families' in Psychology Today.

[DrTanyaByron]

@lionheart

I pre-ordered this on Amazon and it still hasn't arrived --something to do with the supplier (bugger it). But I have read some extracts in The Times and found it fascinating.

I would like to ask what you found to be most challenging about writing the memoir, especially since it is so different to the other things you have published?

Hi lionheart,

From the outset I was very clear that if I was going to write a book about other people's lives, I also needed to write about my own in the sense of my anxieties, insecurities and at times naive arrogance when training as a mental health practitioner. I found the book easy to write (I wrote it in 3 and a half months), but the focus was always on the narrative of the patients I was treating, and so it is not a 'memoir' per se. Therefore, I was not going to write about my own life in any detail, but merely wanted to reflect via my own struggles during training, that we all sit somewhere on a spectrum of mental health vulnerability and so challenge the line between 'us' and 'them', i.e. those that are mentally healthy and those that are mentally not.

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

Yes, I think there is a growing problem of anxiety for teenagers today Tanya - I'm sure the increased focus in society and schools on targets and exam success cannot help. As you say it's a too narrow focus compared to what's needed as preparation for life

[DrTanyaByron]

@maryburrows

Thank you for my free copy.I too would have preferred a book that was non-fiction rather than a mish mash designed to illustrate various types of patients with the blur between fiction and non-fiction. Can I ask which came first the journalism or the clinical psychology and why did you decide to train for such an emotionally challenging job? Is it possible to switch off and enjoy the rest of your life without the demands of your job constantly intruding on your thoughts? Thank you- I am constantly impressed amidst all the selfishness in the world by the dedication of individuals who do such work. One day it may be me knocking at your door for help- I would like to think if it is that I too would find someone to listen.

Hi maryburrows,

Just to reiterate, it would not be ethical to write actual patient stories and I have talked about this in an earlier post. Thank you for your question, i actually feel incredibly privileged to do a job like mine and as I try to show in the book, get to meet some of the most extraordinary, brave and courageous people. During training, the personal/practitioner boundary is thought about a lot, but to some degree it develops with age and experience. Certainly when I was working in child protection services, when my children were little, I did struggle and decided to take a career move to an area where I felt more able to manage that boundary. Clinical psychology was what I trained in and I started writing columns and books, partly because I wanted to work less clinical hours and find ways to earn money while being at home with the kids (I'd write during their nap and sleep times!). I enjoy having platforms as a public health practitioner to make evidence-based information available to anyone who is interested and might benefit.

[GoogleyEyes]

Hi!

I'm here in real time (at least until the little one wakes up!), though I posted my question yesterday.

[Bonsoir]

Thank you for your reply and for the further reading recommendation.

[lionheart]

Thank you, Professor. I look forward to reading the whole book.

[DrTanyaByron]

@OutsSelf

Hello, I've read the book in a single guilty binge. Guilty because I've a million things I should be reading plus two young children. Yet here I am MNing...

I just wondered why you wanted to equate sex with power in the relationship between your supervisor and her partner. It sort of suggests that we can't imagine female agency without having somehow to make some equivocation about that agency. She was a fascinating character without the lesbian kissing scene which did rather read like an 'explanation' of her extraordinary agency. Which isn't to say I'm against lesbian kissing scenes, I think they are great But not as an explanation of how this woman and her partner realised interest in each other and agency in their world. Isn't it possible that their sexuality was like, not at all relevant to their obvious intellectual interest in each other?

Hi OutsSelf,

Thank you for reading the book! Sorry if it took time away from other things! I am really interested in your comment and did not write the characters and their relationship as anything more than aspects of who they were as women and nothing to do with sex and power. I see their intellectual prowess and career success as separate from their sexual orientation in the same way as I do for myself. Your comment got me thinking - thank you for raising the issue.

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

Also completely agree with your thoughts on a spectrum of mental health vulnerability. I think it's fear of mental health issues that prevents people from not recognising this, but holding on to an idea that mental illness is something that happens to "others" We all seem much more content to accept that our physical health sits somewhere on a spectrum of well-being and fitness. I'm sure that our minds are at least as complicated and unique as the rest of our bodies.