大象传媒

MENTAL HEALTH BLOGGING
The number of blogs written by people with mental health problems has grown significantly in the past couple of years. One of the best-known blogs is The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive, written by Seaneen Molloy.

Another prominent blogger, Mandy Lawrence, even continued writing her blog when she was an in-patient on a psychiatric unit. Both Seaneen and Mandy join Claudia Hammond to discuss why blogs about mental health have become so popular.

THE SCIENCE OF PERSUASION
Managing to persuade someone to do something has always been seen as an art. Now, however, policy makers are getting interested in the psychology, or science, of persuasion. One of the leaders in the field of influence and persuasion is Dr Robert Cialdini, Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University. He tells Claudia what common mistakes we make when we鈥檙e trying to get make people do what we want.

SEXUAL ABUSE BY THE CLERGY
During the last twenty years the scale of sexual abuse by priests and clergy in churches of all denominations has come out into the open.

Now, a new study of those who have been sexually abused by Roman Catholic priests, nuns and monks raises questions over the way that their trauma has been identified and treated. Victims of such abuse are usually diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but Dr Derek Farrell, who conducted the research, believes that abuse by a priest, as God鈥檚 representative on earth, creates a unique set of circumstances, affecting the survivor鈥檚 whole view of this world, and, for them, also the next. Dr Farrell lectures in mental health at the University of Birmingham and as a counselling psychologist he specialises in working with survivors of religious abuse. He describes his findings.

VIDEOING PSYCHOTIC EPISODES
When somebody has a psychotic episode they might hallucinate, hear voices and have delusions. Despite the serious nature of these symptoms, however, once people begin to recover they often have no idea just how unwell they were, which often means they're reluctant to continue their treatment. St Bernard鈥檚 Hospital in West London has tried out a remarkably simple way of helping people to gain that crucial insight into their condition, by videoing them when they鈥檙e having an episode and then playing it back to them later. Consultant Psychiatrist Dr Michael Maier, who ran the pilot, explains how the practice has helped his patients.