A good week

It started off badly with a bit of stress, but finished great so I must remember this week. Monday taught Expert Patient Programme course which was good, although I was so worried about my work in my day job that I was a bit preoccupied.

Tuesday was ok ish - managed to go through in tray in about ten seconds, but then got a rollicking as covering reception due to staff bereavement. Then Wednesday was Stress Managemnt training which was excellent. One of the best training days I have ever been on.
There are three stages of 'burnout' apparently. Stage one - where you feel stressed to yourself, ie worried thoughts etc. Stage Two is when you appear stressed to some others - ie palpitations, lack of sleep etc. Stage three is the crash stage - where your symptoms (whatever they are) are apparent to everyone. The key thing is your sense of humour - once that goes you've had it.

At stage three a lot of people develop the five anxiety illnesses (although some don't and just go back to normal).

Obsessive Compulsive, generalised anxiety disorder (distress all the time), panic disorder - panic attacks, four is post traumatic stress disorder and five (apparently the most common) - depression.

Then he (Martin Davies) went through the thought, feeling, behaviour 'vicious cycle'.

Then he went through transaction analysis. PArent, Child Adult. Interesting, not sure I agreed with all that though,but useful of course. It's very freud-ish, famildynamics. The whole concept of what a child is is only about a hundred years old of course.

The upshot was I decided I was potentially on stage one of burnout so I have tried to book a week off at Christmas.


Union stuff going well. Everyone's up in arms and I'm one of the people who know most about what's going on! Watch out George Bush, Tony Blair and Patricia Hewitt!