Hello and welcome to this week's edition of Free Your Mind. Let's talk about it with LKJ. This show is the continuation of part 1 with, um, our wonderful guest Anne, um, who's going to come straight in and continue this. And can we continue, um, on your specialty and go straight in, uh, so we can do more in depth on that, and if you can explain your speciality and lead us through trauma and what trauma is and the stages of trauma. Yeah, certainly. And my, my special interest really throughout my career has been in, in psychological trauma, particularly within the population who are, are involved in offending. Um, so, and, and also with people who've been victims of crime, that's where I've had most of my experiences, in that context. But here in Scotland, we are very keen. We've been rolling out what we call the trauma training framework, which has been endorsed by the Scottish— and the idea is that everybody in the Scottish workforce, but initially with health and social care frontline staff, everybody will become a little bit more experienced and knowledgeable about the impact of trauma particularly of complex trauma, which I'll go on to explain in a moment, so that we can better offer better, more effective interventions for people who have mental health difficulties where the abuse or trauma has been a factor. So that's a specialised overview of that. So are there many stages, you know, as a psychologist, that you would pick up and show as Stage 1, Stage 2? Is there variations in this on how you clarify? Yeah, yeah, it's not so much different stages, but we talk about different types of trauma. So if we think about something that's traumatic, and I think it's a word that's overused a lot, Because, you know, people have— we are hardwired as human beings to deal with things which are difficult for us. We're hardwired to deal with trauma, and we have a very efficient biological mechanism which kicks in, neurobiological mechanism which kicks in when we are faced with any kind of threat. We had this when we were crawling out of swamps, we had it when we were swinging through the trees, and we still have it now. And the idea is that when we're faced with anything which is threatening, the brain releases hormones which are designed to help us to fight something, to run away from it, or to even just to freeze, because sometimes freezing is a more adaptive and more helpful response than running away or fighting. So the brain is designed to do that, And with what we make a further distinction as well between what we call these Type 1 and Type 2 trauma, or Type 1 is also known as simple trauma, and it's referred to as simple because it's a one-off, isolated, out-of-the-blue event, such as a car accident, a family member being severely hurt or murdered, one-off sexual assault, even a housebreaking, a robbery, and you being involved in a a major incident such as, you know, an explosion, a terrorist incident. And we call it simple, not to diminish how distressing it can be for people, but just because we make a distinction between that and a complex trauma. And a complex trauma is where you are dependent on the individual to, um, who is meeting abuse, and examples of that are domestic violence and child abuse. Those are the most common examples that we give. Does that make sense? Yes, I was just, you know, absorbing that, you know, the difference, as you're saying, between Type 1, Type 2, on that, that, you know, how you differentiate between the two. Like we're saying, this simple one, which is stage 1, which you are involved in a car accident, which isn't normal for us to be. We're thrown into a situation and the post-traumatic stress syndrome from that. Yeah, the reason I went a little bit quiet, my brother unfortunately died in a car accident. You know, he was killed from that. So immediately, as you said that, it sent a trigger. So my apologies for being quiet at that time, but immediately triggered my own mind to think, I remember that, because I remember my own breakdown that I went through, through that, and can totally understand and grasp what he was talking about then, because, you know, it was an awful situation to be put in. And, you know, to hear yourself speak back to myself regarding, you know, trauma and understanding that, you know, it was a shock. It is— the brain has undergone a shock. Where you're saying with Stage 2, with the sexual abuse, you know, this is chronic, which is different. So you can really see in you know, when you're looking and we're discussing trauma, you know, how delicate our brains are and how you have to, you know, assess and, you know, diagnose correctly because, you know, it could be the wrong type. And I think a lot of the time people are very quick to diagnose. I mean, in your terrible situation, Kendall, you have to deal with the trauma, but you also have to deal with a bereavement. So often when the individual has a trauma and a bereavement, there's almost kind of two processes going on at the same time. The brain is in total shock, it takes a long while to assimilate that new information, to get to understand that your world isn't the same as it used to be. So it really is, it's a very, very complex process, and I think sometimes we're overeager to diagnose it as being something that's problematic, as diagnosing it as a mental health problem, when in actual fact I would challenge anybody to go through a situation such as you went through and not be severely impacted for quite a, quite a while afterwards. It doesn't necessarily mean every— you know, a breakdown, but it does mean that we have to be a little bit more, a lot more understanding as to what's going on for them in terms of their, their brain and their understanding of the world. Yes, well, it wasn't the only thing. The actual story for mine, I went through several things and then was hit with that trauma of my brother, is why I just, you know, had to stop and get myself well. Because I was pregnant and I lost my child, you know, she died and I had to give birth to her. I couldn't have a funeral because it was only— I was only you know, not in that stage. I was just before, it's about 23 weeks if I remember. It's something I've blocked out. So excuse me on dates or anyone that knows me that think, well, actually, was that how many times? Because, you know, like you say, I did that flight, a freeze mode. So I lost her. And then the next day they gave me an emergency hysterectomy. Took my ovaries away, lining of my stomach, had a temporary colostomy bag fitted, and then was sent home, um, 2 weeks later. Um, and my brother visited me and was killed leaving my house. Oh gosh. So, and also, I, you know, I had all the guilt from my parents if I hadn't, you know, and I, I struggled, you know, with that trauma. And then people just thinking, you know, everybody loses a child, somebody lose that. And but I had guilt, I had lots of issues that I had to deal with and breaking down. That's why this has triggered an episode. And I think the best way to— when you do face a trigger like I've had when I went quiet on that— is to talk about it. So unfortunately, this trigger has come out. So who best is to reach out? And for any listener that if there is a trigger, don't hold it in, you've got to get it back, otherwise it will sit and it will un-stable you for that day. So yes, it was hard, and for a long time. And I, you know, you just feel, you know, worthless in that. I just felt the guilt that if my brother hadn't— if I lost my child, my brother wouldn't have visited, you know. And this happened, and you were going through a massive thing. So I was forced into early menopause, no longer be a mother, could never carry a child again. You have a brother. So it was a magnitude. So obviously I would have fitted in your category of number one. But it's nice to hear when we're having this conversation with yourself, even though I studied myself, like you were saying, the flight to freeze, that you do hold that back. And no matter how long you live your life, it can come back and a trigger can set this off, which is very different to, you know, the chronic one. But if that had persisted on, then things go wrong, don't they? You know, if I had— you don't get result, then it could have turned into something a lot more. It could have gone into chronic. I could have crossed over into chronic then, could I? You— it's— I mean, I think what you had is— was— and thank you very much for Trusting me and being able to share that, Kendall, I think that— and I know that takes a lot of courage. I think what you had was two very serious traumatic incidents very close together, which both involved not only trauma to you in terms of, you know, the life-threatening element of what you went through, but also, um, because we know that the loss of a child, um, even an unborn child, is, is as traumatic as the loss of, of, of, you know, somebody you've known for a long time such as your brother. So what you had was was multiple simple trauma. The difference would be that with complex trauma is it's, it's trauma being perpetrated by somebody who you depend on, so a husband, a parent, a carer. That's, that's the difference between that and complex trauma. But your, your experience must have been hugely, hugely difficult for you. What, what helped you at that time, Kendall? I just shut down and didn't speak to anybody and basically had a breakdown. That's the only way I could do it. I was angry with myself, I was angry with the world, I wanted to punish myself, I didn't want anyone around me, you know. And when I wrote The Broken Girl in the Red Shoes, it was probably only at that time that I could release my own trauma. And it has taken, crikey, nearly 30 years to release that. It must be almost 30 years, you know, when that happened. But I found writing the book was the only way. I went to a bereavement thing, but I wasn't prepared to listen to what they wanted to say. I just looked at them as if to say, You don't know what I'm feeling. You might be a trained person, you don't know what I'm feeling. Nobody can know what I'm feeling. How could you? Because you're not me. You know, you— how do you know? You're going to sit there and say people lose people and for that reason. And, and through that, you know, it was difficult. You know, my father, my family would say, I just couldn't work. I just shut myself away, you know, just didn't bother. I just— it was like I was looking at myself in a glass bubble. It's the only way I can explain that. And look at that person inside out and thinking, what are you doing to yourself? You know, as if you've got an out-of-body thing looking at it. Why are you destroying yourself? You know, because I didn't feel there was any reason that, you know, I was saying it's the worthlessness. That, can I? What good? I, you know, I caused my brothers to die and I couldn't even carry a child. Now I'm not fit to carry a child. All these mental health issues going through. And, you know, for the listeners that are listening, it does take a lot of courage to come out and say that when you've got a trigger. And so personally, to 5 million people to open up. But if I can do it, you can do it because you have to address these. And like we're saying, how did I address them? Many ways. I— it— that is why the only way I felt I could understand what I was going through and doing it, no matter what anybody said to me, I had to get myself out of this. And through that, getting out of it was understanding. It's why I took— I'm now qualified in bereavement counseling because I needed to understand that the psychologists, the bereavement counselors, and psychiatrist, the doctor. It was too— the doctor was too easy to say, you know, why don't you have some Prozac? I didn't want a tablet. A tablet wasn't going to make me better. I had to deal with this and I had to face it. And by studying bereavement counseling, actually, and understanding what you were going to try to talk to me about, enabled me to understand what grief meant, what mental health meant. It's why I'm such an advocate for mental health because of having dealt with trauma and grief and mental health myself. And, you know, as I say, there's no shame if you fall. You have to stand and look for your umbrella of support. And that's where my thesis came in and continued studying. And then I found going back and slowly going back, reliving that experience, but slowly writing it down. Was my way of fixing myself, I suppose, with help. So I could understand, as you said, I wasn't the perpetrator, it wasn't my fault, you know. My brother came to visit, he was coming to visit there, but it wasn't my fault that person came along and killed him, you know, which I believed that that happened. Until you can rectify that, you cannot in any shape or form deal with it and fix yourself. That's it. That's my view. And Felicity, you were saying, Kendall, about, um, understanding it, because one of the first line— first lines for any psychological treatment should be understanding and becoming educated about the impact of, of of, in your case, trauma, but understanding about why and how the brain reacts the way it does. Because I firmly believe that if people could understand more about their mental health, then actually we might be better, we might be more healthy in terms of our psychology if people understood this. I'm particularly interested to get and we're pushing quite hard here in Scotland to try and help the legal profession and the criminal justice system to become more aware of the impact of trauma and to become more trauma-informed. Not just to help people to understand a little bit better about how this might work and why they might have done what they've done, but also because if we can get better evidence which we, which we know trauma-informed practices do. If we get better evidence, then we get better decision-making. But a lot of that is really about helping people to recognise that we all have experiences that are traumatic. Not everybody is as unlucky as you've been, Kendall, in terms of what happened to you, but everybody will have had something difficult happen to them at some point in their lives. It's really important that we all understand how that works. Yes, completely. Because, you know, as a child is born, a grandparent or someone will die. It's, it's the way of the world. And, and we have the joy and we have the grief. But to, to understand love, I would go through that grief. And what I've taught myself, I would go through that over and over again to have had the love that was given. And that's something that I, where my, you know, you study and you look and you educate your mind through mental health and why people should understand. You know, we must educate, everybody must be educated on trauma, on mental health, what you're saying. And I said, when I wrote the book and it was published and you express your story with somebody who's abused, as soon as you start to open up and, and realize things aren't— you can go forward. So for me, having now trained and doing psychology, everything has helped me because I've educated my mind to the understanding what mental health does, what the brain does, what trauma does. But for somebody in yourself as a consultant, forensic clinical psychologist, you know, you, you specialize and go deeper in these fields. But I found for me And if anybody listens out there, you must speak out. You must talk. Because like, even for myself doing this show in that moment of a trigger, this— even though we were having that conversation, the show to go on, you've just helped me and brought me back in to say, this is— and I said, yep, fine, I've had that trigger, you know, and I can understand it. Now we're talking freely, we're talking openly and honestly, but you have to learn to expel and express your feelings. And you have— I totally agree, and I don't think we're very good at doing that. I think we feel we've got to present— I think there's a perception often with much younger people as well that, you know, everything's got to be good, happy, and we've got to be up and on a high all the time. And the reality is that the human condition is one where we go up and down on a regular basis. And that's, that's normal. But I think if we understood more, if we educated young people and children more about how to recognize their feelings and how to manage their feelings, then actually we might find that we've got people who are less inclined to have major breakdowns. Because a lot of the time, a breakdown can be helped, but it can be prevented from becoming more severe by that simple ability to actually think, hold on a minute, I am reacting Yes. Normally, to an extreme stressful and unusual and atypical experience event. So if I'm feeling a bit shocked and a bit frazzled and a bit sad and a bit angry and a bit detached for a few weeks, then that's entirely normal. I have to get my head around this new situation. Yeah, so do you think, you know, obviously as we're going through, when you're, you're dealing, you know, as a clinical psychologist in, um, and for those things that are going in there, I mean, you have dealt with female mentally disordered offenders in prison, male mentally disordered offenders, you've dealt with children, you've dealt with women, so So, and even like myself doing that to help, and you're passionate about that. We saw the passion in your interview in one, and then in this second part is where we are going in and in depth to that and obviously showing people, as I have as well, you know, to speak and seek these, the help that's there. Do you believe And as we've talked about the first, the side of it with trauma, which is a simple trauma, but obviously as we've gone into— so with the second part, the chronic, can you explain the chronic one? How— obviously, because, you know, we've done an overview on, on the simple one, you know, like you said, car accidents, etc. That obviously set my trigger, and different things that happen to us, people, you know, witness to murder or anything like that. This— the other part, which is chronic, is that something that is a continuation of the first, or can you be completely different? It's— well, the incident, if somebody is say assaulted, say hit on a one-off basis, then, then that's a simple trauma. If that beating, if that— and becomes systematic abuse, whether it's perpetrated by a carer, a parent, a partner, a child on an adult, if that's perpetrated continually, then that becomes a complex trauma, because essentially the person, the victim, can't get away from the perpetrator because they depend on them. So you might be, as a woman in domestic violence situation, you might be financially dependent on your partner. As a child in a care situation, you are dependent on, on the carer, whether it's your parent or foster carer, or what— you're dependent on them for your very existence and you can't get away. So that creates some similar symptoms to simple trauma, in that some of the symptoms are similar to post-traumatic stress disorder, and that you get flash— you might get flashbacks, you might get changed in your mood, you might get, um, sort of levels of anxiety, you might avoid being in particular places that remind you of that event. Um, but with complex PTSD, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, what happens is you have additional problems, which are specifically there's a shift in how you view yourself and how you view the world. So cognitive shifts, cognitive changes that are chronic, and also people have difficulty— they often will either not trust people at all or they'll trust people too readily. And with people who, as we said in the earlier section, with— with— trust too readily, then they're often more vulnerable to repeated abuse. Some people don't trust at all. We use that phrase, some people wear their heart on their sleeve. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so people such as that would actually possibly tell people things very, very quickly and not wait to see whether that's a safe place, you know, safe place to share some of our most intimate secrets. So somebody might, in a situation where they trust They will often be desperate to belong, to be cared for, to be looked after, so they'll trust people very quickly, and therefore, you know, there are some individuals who will spot that vulnerability and will abuse it, which is why you often see people repeatedly going into abusive relationships, because they're so desperate to belong, they're so desperate to have somebody that cares for them, as we all are, As I said before, that being attached to somebody is our most basic instinct. Yeah, but when we're talking about that, we're going to touch on domestic abuse at the moment. When you're saying that, you get— you know, you read this, and on media when I'm reporting, or people read it, hear about it, but mainly in the media. I don't think you hear about it so much, um, generally in the day-to-day with your neighbour because it's hidden, isn't it? They tend— your perpetrator tries to hide and not show you till your bruises have gone and then you'll see. But it's not until something has happened, you know. We had that in the media not so long back when that woman killed her husband. It's got to go to trial, so we've got to be very careful what we say. On there, but we can report on the stuff up to her arrest where she rang the emergency service and she stabbed her husband and went, you know, I wanted to wait before I rang to ensure he wasn't— and you have other cases where people are battered and battered and battered, and then the police, you know, with domestic violence get them to a safe house and then they go back. And you think, 'Into yourself, why have you come back?' Because it's because that instinct to attach to somebody trumps every other instinct. But also what happens is that people who've got complex trauma, such as that situation you described so well where somebody is battered repeatedly, over time you— the part— the individual often thinks hold on a minute, this must be my fault, I must be a really bad person. They become ashamed of what's happened to them. They don't see the blame as lying with the person that's hitting them, they see the blame as lying with themselves. So they don't tell other people because of that huge shame that accompanies it. And that's the biggest thing we have to overcome when it comes to talking about complex trauma, is saying to people, if you are in a situation where you have been are being abused, even if you've gone back 20, 30 times, you're still not responsible for that person choosing to hit you. And it's really important that we get that message across. Sometimes it will take several times for somebody to be taken away from the situation where they're being abused, but they actually begin to think, hold on a minute, maybe I don't have to put up with that, maybe I deserve something better. But for a long time, the balance is towards people wanting to feel securely attached somewhere. So I'll go back to that man who's abusing me because it's better than being on my own. I can't, I can't be on my own. I don't— I can't look after myself. I don't think I can look after myself. So I'll go back time and time and time again until eventually they think, hold on a minute, there are more people out there who treat me well than this person who treats me badly. And that's often the point at which they decide to leave. But we have it— have as a society to recognize people will always say, why did she not just leave? Why does he carry on doing that? We've seen that in recent, you know, well-known international cases of abuse. So why did the person keep going back? Because actually, it's better to feel that you're cared for somewhere than to feel that nobody cares for you anywhere. Does that make sense? Yes, yeah. As you're saying with that, you know, when we look at that, and you'll see people that do go and they're put into safe houses where they're moved completely around different parts of the country. So if somebody is feeling, I need to go, I need to get my children, they can't make any contact with any family members for 6 months for their own safety whilst they work with them to get them to understand you don't need to be treated like this and can move on, and that the perpetrator is wrong. Because as you're saying, you know, these people go back and then they'll come You know, we've had it in the media. You know, you pick up magazines and read where people have told their stories and allowed us in to understand, you know, abuse from domestic violence in the fact that, you know, they've kicked you, they've beaten you, and then they come and say, 'I didn't mean to do that. I didn't mean to do it. I'm so sorry.' And they're the nicest person, whether it's the female doing it to the male, because females do do it to males. And they suffer because they're men, are scared to come out because they're meant to be these macho people. But men shouldn't be abused as much as women, you know, we're equal in that side. But on a general scale, am I correct in the statistics that it is more females that are abused than males? It is, it is more females often because we talk about gender-based violence because it's often about men being physically more powerful than women, and historically up until quite recently men had more authority and had more sort of psychological power, if you like, than women had. But you're absolutely right, Kendall, to say that women can be, you know, equally as violent. It's more— I think there's often a huge amount of shame around men disclosing abuse, and certainly my clinical experience is that men are often far more reluctant. I have had lots of patients over the years who've taken a long time as male patients to disclose the fact that they themselves were abused in childhood because they have this belief that that doesn't happen to men, that if you'll hear men saying, oh, nobody would ever done that to me, they've beaten them up, but the reality is lots of people were abused, lots of men were abused as children and can go on again to be abused in adulthood. It's not as common, but we can't assume that it's just a men-towards-women issue any more than we can assume it's a parent-towards-child issue. We know that some children go on to abuse adults, their parents, over time. Again, it's not as common, but we have to— I think sometimes what we try to do is to create simple rules, simple ways of viewing the world, and actually it's very much more complex than we might initially assume. Yeah, and I want to say to the listeners who will be both male and female, because there's women's radio station and men's, and we, you know, It's not because it's a women's radio station we're just talking about women that have done it. This is an open show that we, you know, it's mental health for everyone. Because yes, we are saying about this stigma, the stigma of mental health, things that have gone wrong with domestic abuse. Like for the lad, he may be, he may be a great big 6-foot-4 hardback hooker in the rugby and He's going home and he's mentally abused by his partner or wife and frightened to say anything, walking on eggshells, and then this abuse that comes in from that. He may be a gentleman that's been raped, but dare you say when he was down, if he had been able to go out for a bit of freedom, so you know, that control and saying, oh, I was raped, or I'm suffering domestic because of like, love, I'll pat them on the back and say, oh, come on, lad, you know, don't be so daft, have a pint, what's the matter with you? You know, you know, and he would get name calls, you know, at him. And which— and any listener, if you are male and listening to this show with Alan and I as we're talking through this domestic violence, you have a right again. You have a right as anybody else to speak out and reach out and put yourself in there. Because when you are involved in domestic violence, it— once they've started, if they hit you once, they'll hit you again and then again and it'll go on again. If they say you can't go out, you're not wearing that, they start taking away your control. You have the right to control your mind. You have the right to do what you want, as long as you're not hurting anybody. Obviously, when you're in marriage, it's a team commitment that's working through that. But you have a right to be you, that character and that person inside you, this wonderful person that is able to work and laugh and enjoy happiness and expel love themselves. And for— on the female side, you are not like an animal. And, you know, there's abuse to animals as well. Yeah, God help us. You see that, you know, people torture— why? And this is why this psychology and minds and why we're constantly looking at why does somebody do this? But when you see somebody kick a dog and beat a dog, starve a dog, you know, that's abuse. But the perpetrator is the human that is doing that. So that human brain, what we're interested in— why would you do that? Again, like with the person, the, the beaten and beaten, and then he's romancing her, doing everything, and then put her up. Oh, he won't do it again, it was a one-off, and it carries on again until you accept that, as you were saying, this is not right, you know. And they financially trap them as well, don't they, in something like you were saying. But I can't afford to live by myself, I won't be able to do that. So they're more scared, as you were saying, to go off and do that and just stay and be beaten until eventually they're killed and we find it, you know, we're dealing with a murder. Yeah, absolutely. And also the effect that it leaves on children that are growing up in that domestic violence situation, which is causing trauma. That's one of the childhood adversities that we talked about in the first section, because, you know, I've worked with lots of adults and children who have experienced witnessing domestic violence And, you know, the fear that they talk about when they've seen a parent being beaten by the other parent, when they've been caught in the crossfire, when they've tried to defend a parent, is absolutely— it's horrendous. And the impact on them is really, really very marked. So we have a responsibility as a society to recognize it goes on. And I was struck as well by you saying we have to remember it's women's— this is a women's radio station. Women, the numbers aren't as high. I think it's something like only 14% of all crime is committed by women, and women generally don't get involved in the same violent crime as men do, but that doesn't mean that they don't do it. And I think as a feminist as I am, I have to accept that actually women have got as much potential to be— to offend as you know, some women do, as some men do, and we have to accept that women who are offending actually need to have that ability to also talk about what they're doing and be able to be supported to stop the offending. Because, you know, as I always say, a child of 3 does not grow up wanting to be an offender, wanting to be a rapist, wanting to be a domestic violence batterer. People don't want to do— something goes along on along the way that means that they end up in the situation they're in. And we have a responsibility as a civilized society to help not only those people who are abused, but to also help facilitate the abusers to stop what they're doing. Not by making excuses, but by thinking, okay, where does this come from? What is this about? How do we change this so that you can go on and have— live with more calm and more effectiveness, if you like, within society. Do you find, as we were saying, you know, and as you were saying about the criminality side, obviously where you've worked with female mentally disordered offenders in prison, has that been more on the way that where they've gone for diminished responsibility Or is it where you will still go if somebody has been sent to jail and you'll work with them in any— well, it's a bit of both. Our Mental Health Act is slightly different up here in Scotland than you have, in that we have people who have got what we call a personality disorder tend to be managed more within the prison setting, and whereas people who've got severe and enduring mental illness, that would be your psychotic illnesses, schizophrenia, schizophrenias and so on, where they have— where there's been a link between their illness and their offending, then they may well get a diagnosis of— they might get a verdict of diminished responsibility, and they may well end up in a secure hospital, which is— so I've worked in both settings, and my role within both of those is to assess the— was to assess the individual concerned, and together with the rest of the clinical team, which would be psychiatrists social work, occupational therapy, nursing, to work out the best treatment plan so that we could help the person to go back out into the community and not commit another offence. As I always said to my patients, if you leave here and you re-offend, then we will have let you down, because it's our role to help you to, to not re-offend. Yeah, so you can get to the core of the situation. Then you would, um, in your diagnosis and, and to get them, you'd look all the way back to when they was born, to where they went to school, what happened. You would assess that in each section. Yeah, because it's saying that if somebody is sent and when the verdict comes, there's diminished responsibility. In lay terms, you know, the general public, a lot of outcry comes when somebody has, you know, gone along and killed somebody. They've been in there under the system and said, right, you've done your time, here's time to go out. But that gentleman, he was in jail and he actually was told, 'This is your date of release,' and begged them not to let him out of jail and said, 'You know, I'm not well.' And he said, 'Well, I'm sorry, the system says you have to be released.' He then went from there to a hospital and then said, 'I'm not well, I'm going to kill somebody. You've got to do it, you've got to admit me.' They didn't, and he walked along and killed that person, didn't he, on the beach so that he could be in. You know, that is diminished responsibility. The people, as though, as an innocent person walking along, then the jury finds he had diminished responsibility. What they don't understand is he was mentally ill. So, and I think he was put in the wrong prison, wrong category, that if he'd been put into a— because we see people with diminished responsibility that commit these crimes with the mental health, they're put into secure units and you work them and they cannot be released till such time as deemed that they are mentally well. And then obviously with a parole board, and you've worked on a parole board, so we have— we've obviously got insight and they'll be working on that. How does that work? I, I don't know anything about that particular case, and I think, I think, well, and again, things are slightly different here, but if somebody commits what we call a capital offence, which would be a murder or a rape, then there's— they tend to be seen by a psychiatrist very quickly to determine whether or not they're psychotic. So, whether or not their behaviour was driven by perhaps a belief that they were the devil themselves, that the person that they attacked was sent to, you know, persecute them, that they've— people have all sorts of delusions about being controlled by aliens, about being listened to by, you know, having radio transmitters put into them. People have all sorts of delusions, and it would be up to the psychiatrist to determine whether or not that person was of sane mind at the time of the offence. And if they weren't, then they would be found guilty, but there would be a verdict of of diminished responsibility, and then they would be sent to hospital to be treated there. And it's partly medication, and it's partly people like myself, occupational therapists, a whole variety of people that would, that would carry that out. And what generally happens in situations like that is that the government essentially oversees where somebody's treatment plan and when they get out, and what happens with them thereafter. But I'm not— I can't speak with any authority whatsoever about what happens. No, that was not Scotland, that was just in England. It was just— I was just giving it as a case study, really, just to put out there for people listening in that will think, what is this? What does diminished responsibility mean? But essentially, at the time of of that you committed the offence, you weren't your normal self, you weren't your usual self, your brain was reading things differently, it was reading things completely inaccurately. I have to say it's hard to get a diagnosis of diminished responsibility, it's not something that's readily available, it's a very rare thing to get, certainly here, up here, it's rare relatively speaking. But what it does is essentially says is, you know, you weren't functioning in your usual way. And I think that's the difference between somebody who, for example, might have had a lifetime of lots and lots of offending and lots and lots of violence, maybe running with gangs, and then commits an offence which is a clear murder. Then, you know, it's more normal for them to be engaging in this kind of behaviour, whereas diminished responsibility recognises that actually you weren't yourself at that particular point in time. That's wonderful to give that clear analysis on that for the listeners to understand, because, you know, that is another part of the Mental Health Act, except that, you know, we often hear about and people don't quite understand. So thank you, Ann, that was lovely to give that clear analysis on that. Whilst we were talking about that, you know, and obviously your forensic clinical psychologist career, when you worked in the Good Shepherd Secure Care Unit— now this is for young people admitted to secure care— so was this, you know, when you hear, which is quite rare, and thank goodness, but when a child murders somebody, is that where they go to somewhere like that, and you— they, you— they're not given because under the law you cannot give any names. And when you have that little boy was taken from the, um, mall— that's my American coming out, sorry— in English, uh, what do you call a shopping center? You know, in America call them shopping malls. So apologies for that, um, that's crossing over there. So when that happened and his murders were put away and they were put in a different section, because they can't go to a youth offenders at that age that they were and into a male prison, so they have to go somewhere else. And they assess on that. But for a child to do these murders, why would— you know, as you were saying, they must have had a trauma. But, you know, as we talked in the first part, It's quite rare, isn't it, for a child to do this? Oh, it's very, very, very rare. I mean, I think generally, one of the things we have to remember about offending generally is that it's pretty rare, you know, that most of us go through life, you know, functioning reasonably well and not committing offences. But certainly offences of that type amongst children is particularly rare, and that's where we get very concerned that we should understand properly what's what's gone on, so that we can make sure that that child is supported to not do it again. And, you know, we don't have a system—thank goodness—we don't have a system that locks up people for life. Certainly people on a life sentence will be monitored by the authorities for the rest of their days. That's what a life sentence means. It doesn't mean necessarily you're in prison, but it means you will be looked after by the authorities and not free to do whatever you might like, want to do, you know, possibly ever in your life again. But young people, certainly, we have to think that what was going on, what's happening, what's— because most of them will have come from some pretty horrendous background before they end up committing that kind of offence. Because my, you know, the query that went in my mind, you know, when you look back on that and you look at a child doing that Having studied child psychology, you know, as I said to you, I, I constantly, uh, feeding my brain. That does help, you know, that you understand. So if you get triggers, as, as you know, we spoke about myself earlier, um, to understand stuff. And when I'm reporting or to write something, how it can affect somebody, or voice can affect somebody in there, and people that will be traumatized and will suffer at the hands of somebody else, you know, that's gone into that. And we must think of ourselves as a person, what we expel, what we give out, how we are to another human being. You know, we can really harm without hitting. Our voice can cause just as much as that fist, as much as— I mean, and we are in a society now, you know, that we're seeing so many people in their teenage years, you know, with these murders that have been committed already, you know. You know, we are what, the 8th of January, and the people have been stabbed and murdered already, you know. As we said, you know, this joyous New Year, Happy New Year everyone, you know, as we linked arms in the castle, go Happy New Year, you know, going on for us and the people that are like that. That, you know, we wake up to this stuff. And when the police people like yourself are working so hard to try and stop knife crime, but we're getting a large proportion now that we're seeing in the media when reporting on the news, as I do as well, that the amount of children, you know, a 12-year-old stabbed You know, this stabbing, 16-year-olds, people, you know, come to 16, I'll just say child. These are adolescents, you know. You know, how do we stop this? How do we stop this with mental health? What message, you know, in what we're going to do this year, which I'm very grateful for you along with other people coming on this year with these shows, we have to change, we have to educate, people have to listen. Even if you're that parent, you need to be listening now. We all need to be listening. We're destroying our whole world. Yeah, I would, I would agree completely. And that is the question, isn't it? You know, we get as much as we educate our minds and trying to reach out and obviously in Scotland working very hard, England, Wales, Ireland, to try and come with this. But if we don't deal and deal with the problems with mental health and we really start openly talking about it, looking at Citroën, and educate yourself. So if you are in the street and this boy's screaming, all the parents looking, you know, hitting the child in the street, you have a duty of care, you have a duty to know. Yeah, if you are that neighbor and you believe that child next door is being hurt. Whether you're frightened or not, you can do it anonymously. If you are domestic violent, uh, at the hands of domestic violence, yes, it's hard. There is support there. You don't need to be battered. You don't need to be trapped. Your children will suffer. This trauma will continue to ever revolve, won't it, Anne? Unless we stop. For the female prisoners, people around, if you've offended, you have to stop. You have to look in the mirror. You have to see your reflection, see inside your mind, see inside your soul. And even if there is something there, we have to find out what went wrong. As you said, a child of 3 doesn't know to shoplift. Education is important, educating in the schools. I do believe that the schools should be having more, even if you did an online thing in the classroom where psychologists come to understand at small age. They know when the health visitor is showing which colour apple they're going to pick up, do they know this? You can teach us at a small age. And for a child to speak out is why, as you were saying, is to understand that people to understand in schools, etc., to understand mental health, to understand abuse. That is a fundamental thing with everybody we're going to work with this year, is we must understand abuse and the trauma and, and trying as hard as we can. We've had all this big talk on climate change What's the point in changing a world that we're going to batter and kill each other in and destroy each other? Climate change is as much as important as abuse. Am I— do you think I'm— do you think that's too strong a statement? No, no, I think I absolutely agree with you. I think what we need to be doing is also listening to people as well and listening for signs that things aren't as they should be. And that's what we're trying to push with this agenda around adverse childhood Experiences for Children, and trauma-informed working is to actually listen and think what's going on. Don't assume that you understand what's going on. So if you walk past somebody in the street who's begging, don't assume that they're— that they live comfortably somewhere. Don't assume that they're at it. If a child is crying, don't assume that they're attention-seeking. Just sit back and think and consider what might be going on. Because too often we jump to conclusions because it's easier for us to come to these conclusions. It's safer. Yeah, absolutely. I think, yeah, it's safer to think, oh no, she's just having a tantrum. Please speak out, because this, you know, when things have gone wrong, that poor little boy, and then the social services are called, why didn't you pick this up? Why didn't you do this? Social Services themselves under immense pressure when they're visiting families, and we are controlled by law in— whether Scotland, Ireland— by law and trying to do their best. Why didn't they do this? But also, these offenders that cause abuse have got very clever at masking things. Oh yes. And if you are, um, the mother and your partner is beating your child. She's probably at the hands of domestic violence, thinking, 'I don't say anything. No, no, no, I have to agree because you'll be beaten,' and you allow this to go on. This is the time. If he's battered you, then he will batter your son, and it'll just get worse and ends in a that is the time to go. And no money security. You— we have a security state pension here that, you know, you will get a home, that will be done. Yes, you won't have the luxury, but they're materialistic things, and those materialistic things don't count. Happiness, health, freedom of your mind— you can't buy that. Um, and that is one thing. And obviously we are coming shortly to the close of our show again, but we will be having you back on, and, you know, because it'd be nice to be working through, as you're seeing, with people that coming on that you know onto the show and running this and listening to the story. And just quickly before you left, you were saying perhaps, you know, I was looking to doing a phony, and it would be quite good. And did look at that, you know, in between, um, when we we recorded part 1 to part 2, that yes, there is a way. And I will be working on that over this next 12 weeks so that I will dedicate, you know, a time a week, you know, slowly, because obviously, you know, there's only one person, but people can ring in and ask that advice. And then I will be me personally at the end of that call to pick up that call. For that time and then divert you off and give numbers that can be there and to you to speak. Yes, there are other organizations, but I want any listener to know, any guests that come on, you know, like you are, your intention is to help. Absolutely. Yeah, I'm excited to do that. Yeah, well, and again, it's been an absolute pleasure. And for anybody that works with you, there are many people even, you know, leaving messages that what— how you do achieve your goals, how the sort of person you are. And I think that's been shown in, in this interview over both sections. And we'll be coming back on there. And let's hope— this is January— let's say when we— we will speak again throughout the year, but when we get to December, that there has been a better shift towards, you know, dealing with this and with the courts and, and going the right way and educating through this mental health. But, and thank you very much. Thank you for coming on. It's my pleasure, Kendall. Thank you. With LKJ, and I'll speak to you again later on in the year. Yes, will do. Thank you. Bye. Take care. Bye.