Max Carlish

One of my latest publications - coauthor of chapter in Handbook of Psych Therapies for Bipolar Disorder

Just got off the phone with someone who got an OBE for personally getting dozens of people off heroin addiction, hundreds when you factor in their work with a worldwide recovery organisation. Of course that’s the hardest bit. But keeping off drugs is as important. And it’s the incredible unpaid, untrained sponsorship network that is doing this day after day for millions of people all over the world. I cannot understand why mental health services can’t use this model in supporting so many desperate people who aren’t getting the help they need because of terrible resource shortages within the NHS. I’ve been criticised for using the glib metaphor of a pyramid scheme of mental health wellbeing. But I can’t think of how else to highlight the benefit to the sponsor as well as the sponsee. As we know, ‘the quality of mercy is twice blessed .,,, both to them that gives and them that receives’

65 years since my dad graduated from Birmingham University Medical School, I’m back there today to use my 40 years lived experience to help these brilliant mental health Masters students better understand treatment resistant depression and its corrosive variants. Although my parents - both mental health professionals - I’m sure would be proud, it’s an index of the persistence of stigma both then and now that the majority of them are still fearful of disclosing mental ill-health to their colleagues. But speaking as a patient- it could make a huge therapeutic difference- for the better #woundedhealer

When you tell a virtual room full of people that you have serious depression and only one person checks in with you afterwards … the lesson is to ‘just reach out’ as the song says. Everyone can do it - everyone can be a healer and I guarantee it will make an enormous difference to the sufferer. Even if you reach out in the smallest way #reachout

Prof Laura Jones with the fabulous Faye Ambler who has been my steadying and tireless co-chair (along with Lydia) of the ⁦@NIHRresearch⁩ Pre-doctoral Network - the closest thing we have to a peer support group 😀 watch this space for details of meetings and how to join

Video of my heartfelt vote of thanks 🙏 to the NIHR Academy for supporting us all so magnificently during the adventure that has been our Pre-doc

The irrepressible Dr Jim Turner (@jamestu63039875) chair of Mental Health Nurse Academics UK welcoming me to the conference last month in Oxford. Jim and Fiona Nolan (@FionaNolan6) who organised it have managed to make it truly welcoming for mental health service users like me.

One of the best things about the MHNAUK conference is the number of great research heroes that you can meet in person. For instance, Professor Alan Simpson (@cityalan) has been a pioneer in developing patient and public involvement (PPI), and is a personal inspiration to me.

Simon Cain from Westbourne Consulting is a great ally to the ⁦@NIHRresearch⁩ Academy. With hundreds of successful ‘assists’ for academic presenters from Pre-docs to professors, he delivered the most valuable advice on presentation I’ve ever heard: less is more

The MHNAUK conference is a great chance to hear the most exciting thinkers speak. Mick McKewon (@mickmckeown2016), prof of democratic healthcare and another personal hero, delivered a dissection of the ‘bullsh*tisation’ of the role of the mental health nurse in late capitalism.

Yesterday I was privileged to attend the @NIHRresearch Academy Pre-Doctoral conference in Leeds. Pictured: the fantastic Academy team: Dr Peter Thompson, who leads the Fellowship Programmes, senior programme mgrs Liz Taylor and Harriet Cox and Assma Masood from the NIHR who has been working on the conference for 18 months. Also pictured Temilola Adeniyi who was one our brilliant speakers and awardees

As well as delivering brilliant speeches, these senior ⁦@NIHRresearch⁩ Academy Pre-doctoral board members Professors Laura Gray and Jones as well as Dr Jamie Sergeant were present for the whole conference and were extremely approachable

Talk about impostor syndrome! These were the three incredibly accomplished three Pre-doctoral Fellows I had the honour of introducing at the conference - (from left) Kyra Edwards, Abraham Contreras and Lucy Hives. And one of them also managed to fit in being an Olympic rower 😂

Kyra has used her Fellowship to develop the fascinating field of ‘Genletics’, while Abraham is using advanced statistics to predict the risk of cardiac arrests (a subject of increasing interest to me as I get older 😂). Meanwhile Lucy is using both qual and quant research to investigate pregnancy social media influencers. At the @NIHRresearch conference

The mild-mannered and amazingly informative Dr David Cairns, @NIHRresearch Academy’s Dep Head of Doctoral Programmes showed great generosity in answering our many questions about the Doc Fellowship (I had to be politely asked to stop asking them because of the packed schedule 😂). David is a great example of the quieter you talk, the more people (especially us) will listen!

X hive mind: I have written a 500 word blog. What is the best place to self-publish (e.g. LinkedIn) and how do I tag it on X? Thanks 🙏 in advance 😀

Listening to strong, talented, nurses at the SLaM nursing conference talking about their development, support and values. Class! #SLAMNursing24