Author: Suzanne Conboy-Hill

UncategorizedLeave a comment

Halloween: What’s wrong with evoking the “scarey mental patient” stereotype?

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Originally posted on Sectioned:
. Update: Scroll down for new additions (flagged with the handy yellow update picture), including links to numerous other people’s posts, a defence by a theme park enthusiast & an overview by a theme park industry website . On Thursday, it came to the attention of the lovely twitter people that one of Britain’s major theme parks, Thorpe Park, had a “scary mental patient” experience as part of its Halloween offering. It was called Asylum. Just as when, a few weeks ago, Asda, Tesco and Amazon marketed their “mental patient fancy dress costumes”, the mental health… Continue reading Halloween: What’s wrong with evoking the “scarey mental patient” stereotype?

Rate this:

academic, avatar, Facial disfigurement, psychology, Sussex University, virtual worldLeave a comment

Facial Disfigurement: a study using the virtual world, Second Life

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

We found differences among the coping styles identified by participants’ responses on the BICSI and their behaviours in-world. … The discrepancies between the BICSI scores and behaviours in-world suggest future research directions evaluating the longstanding problem of divergent expressed and reported attitudes.   This is a first for Ether Books: ‘Facial Disfigurement in Second Life‘ is a research paper detailing a study in which participants responded to the application of a facial scar to their avatar. A free download for smartphones. http://catalog.etherbooks.com/Products/3014 Related articles Facial disfigurement (slideshare.net)   Continue reading Facial Disfigurement: a study using the virtual world, Second Life

Rate this:

short storyLeave a comment

It’s a Dog Day on Ether

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Dog Day Within the hour, all four were done up like dogs’ dinners, installed in a stretch limo with cheesy piped music, and deposited in front of a gilded reverend of questionable denomination. ‘Dog Day’ is the story of an easy marriage that rumbles along until the social wheels fall off. For Alice and Frank, this could be a breaking point. On Ether Books today. Continue reading It’s a Dog Day on Ether

Rate this:

writers, writing6 Comments

Writing well and coathangers

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

You’ll recognise all those descriptions of how easy it is to write – ‘stare at the page until your eyes bleed’, that kind of thing – and they work for writers because we have been there. But what about the people who can’t? How do you describe the process in a way that puts them in your space? And what about really understanding it ourselves so that we can be more efficient about our own writing process? Bleeding eyes is not a good marker for success. Yesterday, struggling first to get ‘out of the room’ as it were, because someone … Continue reading Writing well and coathangers

Rate this:

poems, poetry6 Comments

For National Poetry Day: ‘Philosopher Stoned’

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

I wrote this in a poetry workshop so it must be a poem, yes? But when I sent it out into the world to be appraised for publication (I know, delusional) they said it wasn’t really. It’s been hanging around on my blog ever since, puffing out its chest and posturing to make up for its perceived inadequacies. So in honour of, or more likely a threat to, National Poetry Day, I give you: Philosopher Stoned He is brazenly, brilliantly, brassed off by the polished politics of the righteous right. He heats arguments on pupils bright as buttons of molten … Continue reading For National Poetry Day: ‘Philosopher Stoned’

Rate this:

capacity to consent, cognitive interview, decisional capacity, Good Question, Grace Eyre Foundation, health care, mental capacity, vulnerable adultsLeave a comment

Decisional capacity: Good Question demo videos now available

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

This is from our blog post after meeting with the two people from Grace Eyre who helped us make the videos: Keith and Mikey had their first look at the videos today and it’s safe to say they were pretty pleased with them. I said we would be posting them up on the site by the end of the week and Mikey wanted to know where that would be. Keith said that they would be on the internet so ‘everyone’ could see them. He was even more pleased to think that his rather fine self would be preserved on film … Continue reading Decisional capacity: Good Question demo videos now available

Rate this:

capacity to consent, decisional capacity, Good Question, mental capacity, mental capacity act 2005Leave a comment

Good Question interview prompts go live on Ether Books

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

I get very excited when something I wrote is published. Mostly these days, that’s fiction but today Ether has gone the extra mile and taken a chance on something quite different. Capacity to consent is a difficult quality to assess but the law requires us to do it. Mostly, clinicians have been using rather haphazard methods but since 1999 I’ve been developing, with colleagues, a more reliable approach. Good Question is the result, and today a set of prompts for interviewers went live on the Ether app. The prompts can be downloaded free to iOS and Andriod devices (with Kindle … Continue reading Good Question interview prompts go live on Ether Books

Rate this: