The following is a work-in-progress. I will add to and edit this table of contents over the coming days until I have itemised all twenty-four parts of the first chapter of my blog.
FOUR AND TWENTY DEAD CROWS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOUR AND TWENTY DEAD CROWS #1 'Emergency!' Published Aug 19, 2024 My daughter, Meg, is first admitted into CAMHS services after more than two years on a waiting list and we are introduced to Mark Birbeck who is appointed as her psychotherapist.
DEAD CROWS 'A bit about informed consent and transference, counter-transference and idealised transference.' Published Sept 15, 2024 References and citations from the British Association of Art Therapy and the Health and Care Professions Council and psychotherapy theories fundamental to understanding what happened to me during ‘art therapy’ with Sally Mungall.
FOUR AND TWENTY DEAD CROWS #2 'Meeting art therapist, Sally Mungall, for the first time.' Published Sept 5, 2024 The process of understanding and improving of family relations is usually covered in the CAMHS setting through what is called ‘parent work’. What was about to be offered to me was NOT ‘parent work’
FOUR AND TWENTY DEAD CROWS #3 ' Masks and mark-making'. Published Sept 29, 2024 Some early comments about wearing facemasks in therapy and the first reference to Joy Schaverien’s book ‘Desire and the Female Therapist’, one of the first full-length explorations of erotic transference and countertransference from the point of view of the female therapist.
FOUR AND TWENTY DEAD CROWS #4 'Far beyond the remit of 'Parent Work'. Published Oct 4, 2024 The sessions became exponentially more harrowing as art therapy proceeded and intergenerational trauma became the focus of psychotherapy. This wasn’t ‘Parent Work’.
FOUR AND TWENTY DEAD CROWS # 5 'Idealised therapist, less than ideal therapy'. Published Oct 20, 2024 Sally grew in my imagination as a veritable earth goddess, walking barefoot under soughing trees, beating heart in time with beating shamanic drums even as her frustrations with me escalated.
FOUR AND TWENTY DEAD CROWS # 6 'False promises'. Published Oct 22, 2024 As the end of art therapy sessions loomed we finalised a plan to meet later in the New Year. I told her that I would ask to see her socially at the end of our therapeutic relationship which she accepted. I took her at her word which to me was as good as a promise but, words are cheap and lying comes easily, apparently.
FOUR AND TWENTY DEAD CROWS # 7 'That letter'. Published Nov 3, 2024 Published for the first time, ‘that letter’, the private and personal 12 page letter that I wrote to Sally Mungall during the week between the 16th and 23rd of December, 2021, the same letter that ignited so much unfounded hysteria among so many mental healthcare professionals.
FOUR AND TWENTY DEAD CROWS # 8 'Reviewing Mark Birbeck'. Published Nov 9, 2024 The first of two assessments of Mark Birbeck’s therapeutic work with Meg. The mental health issues that were adversely affecting my daughter’s psychosocial functioning remained worryingly unaddressed by Mark Birbeck.
FOUR AND TWENTY DEAD CROWS # 9 'Enmeshment, apparently'. Published Nov 17, 2024 An impromptu meeting alone with Mark Birbeck to discuss Meg’s lack of progress in therapy and I bristle with irritation at his suggestion that my daughter and I are ‘enmeshed’.
FOUR AND TWENTY DEAD CROWS # 10 'When Sally met Meg'. Published Nov 24, 2024 Despite being the Lead Practitioner overseeing my daughter’s mental healthcare, Sally Mungall only ever met Meg twice. The first time was during a ‘final review’ before Meg was to be discharged from CAMHS.
FOUR AND TWENTY DEAD CROWS # 11 'The thing about Facebook...'. Published Nov 28, 2024 The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy offers guidance on the use of social media. ‘It’s not unusual for clients, their families and potential employers to look for information about a practitioner online – searches will bring up social media profiles’.
FOUR AND TWENTY DEAD CROWS # 12 'Kicked to the curb, almost’. Published Dec 1, 2024 The second and last of my daughter’s ‘final review’s at CAMHS with Sally Mungall and Mark Birbeck when it became appallingly apparent that they were washing their hands of Meg. I felt like screaming.
FOUR AND TWENTY DEAD CROWS # 13 'Crisis peaked'. Published Dec 7, 2024 Bill, from the Crisis Resolution Home Treatment Team, phones me and assesses my mental health. I am downgraded from an acute ‘crisis’ status and referred to the Community Mental Health Team.
FOUR AND TWENTY DEAD CROWS # 14 'My first mental health assessment'. Published Dec 21, 2024 My first experience of CMHT, The Bridge Centre in Basingstoke is a formal mental health assessment with Kirsty Henry and I am totally disarmed by her warmth, sincerity and sympathy.
FOUR AND TWENTY DEAD CROWS # 15 ‘iTalk’. Published Dec 22, 2024 The Community Mental Health Team refers me to iTalk, a farcical recommendation doomed from the outset. iTalk don’t take on patients ‘presenting with a high risk of harm to themselves.’
FOUR AND TWENTY DEAD CROWS # 16 ‘Ghosted’. Published Dec 29, 2024 I was labouring under the firm conviction that some conspiracy was at hand, that maybe clinicians at CAMHS and CMHT The Bridge Centre were colluding against me in secret. I resolved to write to Sally Mungall.
