Well it has taken a little while to post this, but still worth a little read:
Joint Congress of the European Association for Mental Health and Intellectual Disability and IASSID Challenging Behaviour and Mental Health SIRG
1-3 September 2011, Palace Hotel, Manchester
Well, it was always going to be a good conference with Nigel Beail organising it… and I am not just talking about the Social Programme (although the Casablanca Steps were rather fabulous!).
It was a conference where I could not find a slot in the programme to have a break, so I attended throughout, despite my weariness (noting the good social programme again!).
My highlights were hearing: Noelle Blackman presenting a case study of an eight year psychotherapy with a woman with learning disabilities who initially displayed some very disturbed and dangerous (self-injurious) behaviour; Valerie Sinason raising our awareness of the presence of Dissociative Identity Disorder in people with intellectual disability in her wonderful expressive and heartfelt style (which prompted me to buy the new edition of her book Mental Handicap and the Human Condition); and overall, Pat Frankish giving her keynote speech considering the Paradigm Shift that has happened over the last thirty years from a position where psychological therapies were not considered appropriate for people with intellectual disabilities, whereas now they are widely used, and this was reflected in the congress programme.
Pat has worked hard over the last thirty years… I guess it’s time for us to keep the momentum going!
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