Journalism can change the world

I wanted to get into Journalism from a very young age, because I believed it could make a difference to the world we live, in a peaceful and democratic manner.

My first experiences of student journalism were inspiring and fun. I learned to be difficult on other people’s behalf and broke campus news stories on shoddy student residence and LGBT politics.

However, when I got into doing it professionally after years of saving up money to do a Masters, I was thrown into the world of business journalism, which though interesting, seemed a world away from the human rights and democratic concerns that interested me in the field in the first place.

I embraced my role in Aviation journalism, but redundancy from that role was to prove an opportunity to engage in journalistic projects that felt like they were making more of a demonstrable difference on the world.

I started writing short pieces on mental health for academic journals in the Psychology field, building on the knowledge of the area that I had built up in my Masters dissertation/articles.

Then the Psychologist that had directed me to writing for these journals suggested turning some of my MA work into a book, with extra articles/chapters on positive journeys of mental health recovery.

I jumped at the chance to write my first book and alongside the Psychologist, Dr Jerome Carson and Historian Elizabeth Wakely we approached the publisher Pavilion. They thankfully also liked the idea of the project and paid a modest advance on the book and we got started.

Later, to even out the work load Jerome suggested including the journalist Sophie Davies in the project, so the work could be evenly split between the four of us.

The project itself was to champion mental health sufferers’ achievements rather than to focus on their symptoms. It was to serve as a text book for clinicians and the public to give them a more positive image of the mental health journey and a more optimistic view on mental health recovery.

Dr Carson introduced the clinical aspects of the subjects of the book, Elizabeth Wakely introduced the historical figures who had suffered from mental health conditions and myself and Sophie Davies profiled the mental health everyday heroes that constituted the bulk of the book.

The book was a joy to write. Although for some heroes I had an article ready from my Masters that just needed editing down, which made it markedly better prose in my opinion, some chapters still needed to be researched and written from scratch.

It was a fascinating journey interviewing the mental health heroes for the book. All had overcome huge challenges to go on and achieve significant milestones in their lives. Some heroes had climbed mountains, others had completed MAs as mature students and others were working in the mental health system as clinicians with experience of mental health challenges.

From the time we pitched the book to completion took just over six months, but the whole publication process took about a year.

Looking back on in now I cannot be sure how much of an impact it made on the world, but it was my small contribution to improving the image of mental health conditions.

You never know with publishing how people will respond to your words, but I hope that the clinicians that I knew purchased the book gained some insight from it that helped them in their professional work and gave them more hope for patient’s prognosis.

I have not made millions from the book, as it sold modestly, but I hope reading this you will buy a copy or pick it up from the library and learn a bit more about mental health patients’ achievements and goals.

Link to the book.