Welcome to our winter issue. In this issue, Jerome Sewell highlights the damage and underlying racism of long-term hospitalisation.

This theme is picked up in Mushtag Kahin’s piece on the difficulties facing Somali refugees in UK mental health services, and in a brief account of an event on racism and restrictive practices. Ornamental Hermit is our featured cover artist and we also include her ‘brief but necessary satire’ on the controversial Serenity Integrated Mentoring scheme (SIM).

What about alternatives?  Cayley Blair-Steele tells us how they managed to host a rock concert for a long-term patient. In a fascinating piece on self-soothing, James Collector, interrogates his own arm tickling behaviour. This issue also includes moving pieces by Eleanor Higgins on the impact of the suicide of a friend, Alice Langley’s powerful prose on self-harm, and Jane Fisher’s unsettling account of being both a mental health professional and service user.  Casey Clabough describes Schizophrenia as Madness in Motion and we include a short commentary on psychiatry’s response to the pandemic. Meanwhile, Alex Dunedin reflects on the need for Asylum as he embarks on the MSc in Mad Studies at Robert Gordon University, Edinburgh.

As usual, we have stand-out poetry, creative writing and, this time, three book reviews. We end this issue with pretend journalist, Ms Benn, and her particular brand of stand-up lunacy.

Contents

The Trauma of Institutionalisation – Jerome Sewell
Arm Tickling: The mystery of subconscious selfsoothing – James Collector  *** SAMPLE ARTICLE ***
A Tale of Two Losses – Eleanor Higgins
Digi–Summons: A new way to collect Council Tax debt – Mark Bertram
Serenity Integrated Mentoring – Ornamental Hermit
Which way is Mecca? Being a Somali Refugee in UK mental health services – Mushtag Kahin *SAMPLE ARTICLE*
A Crisis of Identity – Jane Fisher
A Healthy Escape – Finding Freedom Through Music – Cayley Blair-Steele
It Pains and It Roars – Alice Langley
Racism and Excessive Use of Force – Dina Poursanidou
Mad Studies: Setting the Tone – Alex Dunedin *** SAMPLE ARTICLE ***
Madness in Motion – Casey Clabough
CoVid 19 and Castles in the Sand – Henry Bladon
Peer Respite Soteria Summit
Creative Writing – Samantha J. Linderer
Poetry
Book review – Mental Hospitals, Care Homes and Other Stories
Book review – Warp & Weft
Book review – The Zyprexa Papers
Ms Benn interviews Miss Diagnosis

Sample articles

• Arm Tickling: The mystery of subconscious selfsoothing – James Collector
• Which way is Mecca? Being a Somali Refugee in UK mental health services – Mushtag Kahin
• Mad Studies: Setting the Tone – Alex Dunedin

To read more. . . . . . SUBSCRIBE TO ASYLUM MAGAZINE