Change Your Mind

Is it me, or are there an awful lot of really interesting sounding books being published at the moment?  Thanks to reviews in the weekend papers and the wonders of the LibrariesWest app, I have a lovely selection of non-fiction lined up covering everything from free speech to the NHS.  One fascinating book I was glad to read about was 'It's All in Your Head' by Dr Suzanne O'Sullivan.  I finished it earlier today.

Written by a consultant neurologist, 'It's All in Your Head' explores the complex and misunderstood subject of psychosomatic illness with a combination of compassion, pragmatism and professional experience.  Throughout her working life, Dr O'Sullivan has encountered patients suffering symptoms with no clear biological cause.  They have often endured countless invasive and comprehensive tests and spent decades taking heavy duty medication, yet their lives have been destroyed by apparently incurable illness.  Visiting a neurologist can be the last step on a journey that includes everything from debilitating headaches to epileptic-type seizures to complete blindness to chronic fatigue.  But once all the tests have been done, the results analysed and every physical cause ruled out, is it really possible it could all be in your head?

This book was absolutely fascinating.  Dr O'Sullivan's expert deployment of case studies to illustrate her points made the book both readable and humane,  In this economic climate, it would have been very easy for someone to go on a political rant and use this as a platform for blaming clearly ill people for wasting money and destroying the NHS.  Even the reviews I read used it as a stick to beat people with ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome because there is one paragraph in which the writer sticks her neck out and suggests that psychological factors may contribute to the prolonging of some cases of ME/CFS.  She's a scientist for crying out loud, she's looked at the research and evidence and drawn a logical conclusion.  She freely admits she could be wrong, but she's made a judgement on what information is currently available and in no way belittles the suffering of others.  Whether influenced by psychology or not, these patients are clearly suffering through no conscious choice of their own and need help, support and understanding, not blame.

Reading the heart rending stories of different patients, sometimes angry, sometimes pitiful, always relatable, made it easy to understand the subject and recognise how serious the consequences of stress and trauma can be for certain people.  According to Dr O'Sullivan, at the root of all psychosomatic symptoms lies some undealt with and unrecognised cause, buried away in the mind but making itself felt in the most terrifying way.

Doctors are frightened to diagnose such psychological causes for physical illnesses because they might have missed something or a new test in the future could prove them wrong or the patient might simply get angry (a common and understandable response).  Meanwhile the patient thinks they're being called a liar, a faker or a fantasist.  And all this in the context of a society that has so firmly separated the mind from the body that mental health is neglected and everyday twinges are over medicalised.  It's a toxic cocktail that lets many people down.

My only complaint about this book is its subtitle; 'True Stories of Imaginary Illnesses'.  In the very least, the jury is still out on that.  These patients are clearly suffering from something, their symptoms are involuntary and do exist.  The cause may be in the mind, but 'imaginary' suggests a stereotype that the author clearly wanted to undermine, that of the patient who is making it all up.

Before jumping to conclusions, I encourage you to read this book.  Whether right or wrong, it is genuinely fascinating and full of ideas that could really change your mind.

Now, what next...? 

Why I Owe Andy Cope £10.99

Just under a year ago, I read the superlative 'The Art of Being Brilliant' by Andy Cope and Andy Whittaker.  My employer had booked Mr Cope to do a Brilliant workshop with us and I was a bit sceptical, so I decided to do the swotty thing and read the book to find out what it was all about.  I enjoyed the book so much that I had to say something to our guest speaker at the end of the workshop.  Being brilliant and realising who I was (blush), he kindly gave me a free copy of the sequel, 'Be Brilliant Everyday' - with a cheeky smile as he asked for a good review in return.  Skipping back to my office, I felt sure I could keep my side of the bargain.  Oops.

'Be Brilliant Everyday' aims to develop on the theories and themes of 'The Art of Being Brilliant'.  It draws on the slightly more complex ideas Mr Cope is exploring for his PhD on happiness, ranging from Occam's Razor (basically, the simplest theory that makes the fewest assumptions is usually the best) to Quantum Physics (don't ask!) and a variety of things in between.  Above all, it wants to reinforce what readers learnt from 'The Art of Being Brilliant' - beginning with that to be happier, you have to decide to change.

I loved the first book.  It was quirky, funny and full of simple things that could make a real change to your life and attitude.  It made a genuine difference to my outlook, helping me realise why I felt more positive sometimes and not others without making me feel like a fool or a failure.  And once I understood where I was going right and where I was going wrong, I could do more of the right things and fewer of the wrong ones.

If 'The Art of Being Brilliant' was a lovely, light, fluffy sponge cake, 'Be Brilliant Everyday' was a dense, heavy, fruit cake that sits on the stomach and makes you realise you've literally bitten off more than you can chew.

I found it really heavy going and far too easy to put down.  It felt as though there wasn't an overall structure, like the authors were just dashing off another chapter when they had enough ideas to fill it.  While there were some great ideas in there, I found it hard to put them together into something cohesive and applicable.  In fact, I feel that both Brilliant books are at their best when they're relating theories to ordinary lives and experiences.  To me, the title just screams of something practical that helps readers find a way to attack each day, rather than letting each day attack them.  I'm hoping that will be book three.  Or better still a handy desk calendar!

You often hear about the 'difficult second album', forced out of the artists at the demand of the record label, and that's pretty much what this book feels like.  So, sadly, I can't give 'Be Brilliant Everyday' a good review and feel that I owe Mr Cope the £10.99 RRP.

On the plus side, I would thoroughly recommend both the workshops and the first book - I've given copies to so many people already! Read it. Think about it. Do it. It will change your life.

Related Links

'The Art of Being Brilliant' by Andy Cope and Andy Whittaker

Andy Cope on Twitter
Andy Whittaker on Twitter

The Art of Brilliance website

Gag About

I love the comedy on Radio Four and Radio Four Extra.  From the wicked wordplay of 'Just a Minute' to the affectionate farce of 'Cabin Pressure', these stations have kept me entertained for hours at home and on my travels.  Two of my favourite programmes are Mark Steel's 'Lectures', which look at historical figures with awe, fascination and an eye for the human behind the name, and 'In Town', which kind of does the same thing for British towns and cities.  So I was delighted when I discovered that there was a book to go with 'Mark Steel's In Town'.

Mark Steel has criss-crossed the country performing stand up inspired by the many different and unique places he's visited.  But this is a travelogue with a difference.  Instead of despairing at the sameness of modern high streets and telling jokes which make audiences laugh at broad, shared experiences, he's been on the hunt for each place's passion and individuality.  From Penzance to Kent, Orkney to Portland and Merthyr Tydfil to Norwich, the comic and writer finds local stories of heroes and villains, explosive celebrations and historic eccentricity.  Above all, he discovers that all is not lost and that people and communities are defiantly idiosyncratic, despite the best efforts of big retail businesses and growing standardisation.

This is a great book to dip in and out of, but, to be honest, it was a bit tough to read as a whole.  Mr Steel often writes as he speaks, so some of the sentences ran over so many lines that I had to go back and read them again to make sure I'd not missed anything.  Fortunately, I could get around this by imagining him actually saying them, but this might be a bit hard for anyone who doesn't know what he sounds like!

It was also very tempting to just skip to the places I know.  Because there's no overarching structure as such, i.e. Mr Steel is not trying to win a bet or reach a specific destination, I suppose there was nothing to stop me doing this, but I always want to do each book justice.

Overall, this book was OK and I really feel that Mr Steel's hopeful message - that despite bland modern standardisation, many communities remain as defiantly different as ever - is an important one, but, really, it's the shows that make this come across best.  So, the next time Mark Steel's in town, why don't you pop along and see him for yourself?

Now, what next..?

Related Links

Back Catalogue of 'The Mark Steel Lectures'
Current Series of 'Mark Steel's In Town'