My Potential is excited to announce our Lived Experience Occupational Therapist speaker Keir Harding speaking on Polands Syndrome and Social Anxiety
Bachelor of Science (Psychology, Honours)
Master of Occupational Therapy
Presentation
This presentation will explore the lived experience of polands syndrome and social anxiety with particular reference to schooling, OT training and early career experiences. A perspective on what helped manage these difficulties will be shared with reference to both being an Occupational Therapist, experiencing different types of therapy and in effect, experiencing Occupational Therapy inadvertently as an individual.
The presentation will consider the value of people with mental health difficulties stepping into the field of mental health care and the benefit of the current expert/patient paradigm that pervades our current healthcare culture.
Finally we will reflect on the value of being open about difficulties and whether this is simply a privilege of those who already have an established career.
About Keir
Keir has worked in mental health in the NHS for 20 years. This includes 8 years in specialist Personality Disorder Services where he led teams to win an NHS Wales award (2010) and be the only mental health team shortlisted in 2016.
Keir’s MSc involved studying how organisations work effectively with the difficulties often labelled as personality disorder. His research project examined how a team he was part of was able to save several million pounds from their Continuing Health Care budget by ceasing the use of private mental health placements.
Keir has developed a number of Day Therapeutic Communities, is a Dialectical Behaviour Therapist and Occupational Therapist. He is experienced in consulting to organisations and individuals around complex mental health problems and has trained hundreds of NHS, Criminal Justice and 3rd Sector staff in this area.
Keir has published literature in this area, contributed to Guardian publications, led symposiums at national conferences and writes a successful blog on the issues associated with Mental Health and Personality Disorder.
Keir founded Beam as he recognised that organisations often struggle with those who feel chronically suicidal and use potentially lethal self harm. He wanted to improve the experience of service users by helping organisations work more effectively and providing a realistic community option when it seems that enforced residential care is the only way forward.
Beam Consultancy
Clinical Expertise and Lived Experience in the areas of potentially lethal self harm, suicidality and complex interpersonal dynamics, often described as ‘personality disorder’
Beam Consultancy is a unique organisation driven by clinicians and lived experience practitioners. We provide training, consultancy and intervention for those living and working with complex mental health issues.
Beam was founded in response to the realisation that the NHS often struggles to work with those with complex mental health problems, particularly when these problems feature relationship difficulties, self harm and suicidality.
OT for BPD 