#55: Caring Means Holding Grief Without Turning Punitive, with Richard Rollinson

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In the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of care is grief, lament, sickness, mental suffering.
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A burdened state of mind arising from fear, doubt, or concern about anything or anyone.
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And the verb to care is to sorrow.
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But I do think we need reminding that it's hard work.
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Our inner lives, our human relationships, our relationships with the world are actually vast as well.
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They are enormous.
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They are very, very deep.
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There is so much there.
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Hello and welcome to the Secure Start Podcast.
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I'm Colby Pearce, and rejoining me for this episode is the much-loved elder of the Mulberry Bush community, Richard Rollinson.
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Before I begin the episode, I'd just like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands that I come to you from, the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains, and acknowledge the continuing connection the living Kaurna people feel to land, waters, culture, and community.
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I'd also like to pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging.
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I hope you enjoyed this conversation between Richard and I.
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I know I did.
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So welcome back to the podcast, Richard.
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It's been a little while and um although not so long.
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We last spoke, I think, um earlier this year, and one of the the central aspect of that conversation was um the objects that you use to bring the work to life.
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And um we finished that conversation with you saying um afterwards that um there are many more objects that you'd like to have the opportunity to talk about.
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So here we are.
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And I'm pleased to be here.
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Thank you.
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Um for for those who who haven't listened to, and it would be of course be very few of you, but for those very few of you who didn't listen to our second conversation where you talked about um about the objects, I wonder if perhaps you could just um set the scene by by letting us know how you came to tell stories with the with the use uh with the aid of of objects.
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Hmm.
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Well, it's a long story, and as I perhaps said the last time, people will have to read all 78 volumes of my autobiography in in due course, but but very briefly on this occasion, uh I can't quite understand it.
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For for many reasons, I've always been interested in objects, not just in themselves, but their significance.
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And in fact, I came across a photo since we last spoke.
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It's safe here.
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It's it's a photograph, I would say it's from 1954.
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Yes, and it's in my bedroom.
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And I'm sharing it with my newborn brother, and it's a little parade of my toys I did.
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That's what uh yeah, if you uh I can make out a lot of objects in it.
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Yeah, it's it's an old black and white photo from a century and three quarters ago.
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But I I was quite struck by it when I found it because I thought, oh yeah, I always collected things, they weren't just toys, they were for me objects, and I I I I put them in the shape.
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Now, I won't show you the photo again, but just as important is in the lower left-hand side of the photo is my father's shoe.
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Oh so he got into the photo, so it was a display, it was a performance that I did.
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So I think I've always been given to performance and being present myself, but also objects being present that were significant to me.
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So I have a long history, it would appear, of noticing objects and their significance beyond just what they might be for ordinary daily use, even in play, and and remembering.
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And I think what I valued on our occasions to speak, last time particularly, and now this time is it helps me think and it helps me remember.
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Not entirely in a sentimental way, but it is important for me because I I I always felt that remembering is quite an important part of living.
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And in the absence of that, I guess I'm I I feel or fear it would be dismembering, not just not remembering, but it being taken apart and holding things together and making sense can be so important.
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And doing it all on my own in my head would would be challenge enough.
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So it's rather good for me that I have these objects.
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Now, I'm sure that the stories I've already told and will tell today about the objects, some of them might not be entirely true in fact, but there will be truths there.
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A truth or truths, and there is a difference as we know.
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So it's really just sharing with people some of the things that I've come to understand.
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And when I was in my first year at university a long time ago, because I was a perpetual student for a long time, uh I did in American universities when you start, you have a selection of things.
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You don't major really until your third year, and I chose an archaeology course.
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And the set book for the archaeology course was a book called The Mute Stones Speak.
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And it was about the Etruscan civilization, which is the which was the precursor to the Roman uh civilization and empire.
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And he he found all these Etruscan objects and then he interrogated them and told a story about them, not just, oh I found this and it was really good, oh, and then I found this is really good.
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He he really drew me into what communications, what meanings, what significance can be not imposed on objects, but in a sense taken out of them because of what they are and what they meant.
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So I was I was quite taken by that.
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And I didn't really I didn't really start collecting objects then because I wasn't working, but uh when I came to England and started working, well, when I started studying, I I was in York and I went down to London.
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Uh it was a good train ride there, it's even faster now.
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And there was a bar on the train, which was great, and so I'd go down.
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And I was walking around Leicester Square and I saw this advert for a performance, and it was called Brief Lives, and the actor was Roy Dutrice, and he was performing something he had put together about John Aubrey, who was a diarist in the late 17th, early 18th century, who wrote things.
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He was a minor court official, but he kept a diary and wrote about things and about objects and people.
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And uh so I thought, oh, that sounds interesting.
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And I went to see the performance, and it was this stage that was absolutely filled with objects, filled with them.
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And the the actor came out all because he was young at the time, 1972, and all as an old person, and he just came in, picked up an object, and began talking about a story that emerged from it that was encapsulated in it.
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I was quite taken.
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I thought it was so good.
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I went back the next day, I stayed in the youth hostel and went back the next day to see it again.
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And to my delight and amazement, he did the same performance, but he used different objects.
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He didn't just talk about the same ones, he really would just pick things up impromptu and talk about them.
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And I thought, this is amazing, and I've always remembered it.
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Now, strangely enough, and I think it was about 2015, I was working in Richmond and I was walking through in Richmond Theaters there, and I saw um uh Roy Dutrice was performing in the same thing, and I thought he'd been dead for years.
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But the the only difference was he didn't have to get dressed up as an old person because he was an old person by then.
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And he went out, and there were the objects, and he picked them up and did the same, and it was just wonderful.
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And it made me realize I had started collecting objects through the course of my work and relationships and things, and I have them, and I've got a suitcase back there where they're all dumped into, and quite a few of them are out on the bed now as well for today's thing.
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And I I just held them and I thought, that's so good.
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It's really good.
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And over my professional career, you know, increasingly, I'd be asked to give lectures, write papers, and I do them, and I, you know, I thought it was good.
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But after, you know, 25 years, I was thinking, well, hang on there.
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You know, look, actually, the reality is 96% of people that I'm speaking to are the converted already.
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They might enjoy it.
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I'm happy to reinforce it.
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There might be another 3% of people who'd say, Oh, I hadn't thought about that.
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Maybe I'll think about that.
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And there was, you know, maybe between 1% and 1.5% of people who, like I say, I could have stood on my head and whistled Dixie and they wouldn't have paid any attention to it.
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I thought, well, you know, what could I do that could really engage people themselves?
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Not being told, not being told off, which sometimes lectures in some countries do, but just get them interested.
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And I thought, oh, I've got these objects that I've been collecting over the years that were either given to me by children, or I'd see, and I thought, oh, that reminds me of so and so.
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And so I thought, okay, I'm gonna just say I'm available to do a brief communication, you know, to your team.
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And I did it, and people liked it, they were really interested.
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And I even did it with children, on a children and young people on occasion, and and they they were even more enthusiastic than the adults.
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They would say, Oh yeah, I remember, oh yeah, that that something like that happened to me, and that that's reminds me of that.
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And you know, the only thing there was I had to negotiate sometimes to get the object back because they wanted the object.
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So I'd say, Look, you know, I really need that, but I can get you one for yourself, just like that.
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It's a and you know, usually they'd reluctant to give it back.
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Yeah, but but I I think it had captured them in a way, and as younger, you know, they wanted the concrete thing.
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But I said, Well, we you know it'll come to you, and you you start gathering your objects, and uh and then they did.
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So it was just something about finding a medium where I could share people, not to tell them, not to teach them, it's to share with them.
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And always the question is, well, what do you think?
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What do you reckon?
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Does you know, does this remind you?
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Does it make sense or not sense to invite them to engage with you know the detail in our living and learning together that we can use to help us make sense sometimes of ourselves, but other times that that remind us of uh ways we can engage with those with whom and for whom we're we're we're working.
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And I you know, I did I did sometimes wonder, well, you know, in in in terms of the world and the universe, is this any significance?
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So let me just show I may have done this the last time.
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Uh the yellow tennis ball is the sun, and the golf ball is our earth, and in the museum in Oxford, the Natural History Museum, up on the Clarestory Walk, which is about 200 meters around, on one plinth is it's actually gold there, a a gold ball the size of a tennis ball, and on the other plinth where you stand, there's a golf ball, and they say these 200 meters distance represents the relative distance between our sun and our earth.
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Where would you put the sun that would re represent our nearest neighbor in the galaxy?
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And of course, that's 200 meters the equivalent.
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You would put it on the very bottom of South America.
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So our nearest, our nearest star neighbor.
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And when you realize that distance and how vast the world is, you think, well, it's it's enormous.
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You know, it's it's so huge, I'm so s insignificant, why do I even bother to get up in the morning?
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I'm so insignificant.
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And then we think actually our inner lives, our human relationships, our relationships with the world are actually vast as well.
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They are enormous, they are very, very deep.
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There is so much there.
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And just so long as we're prepared to recognize it, uh you know, the universe is vast, it's wonderful, it's glorious.
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But our lives, human, animal, and others, have so much of meaning and significance, and it's often overlooked in the ordinary unfolding of a busy day.
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And one of the things as well about the objects is it gives me a chance to remember and share even the ways we can think about what's going on in ourselves, with ourselves, with others, and for so that that that's really how I got there and keep keeping going.
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And you know, I I really, really feel sorry for whoever is going to be uh commissioned to organize all my bits and pieces and papers and things, because you know, yeah, I know what it is, but I think to anybody else it could look like a total mess.
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So I've rather enjoyed the last couple of days going through things and picking some things out to talk with you and others about.
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So that's by way of introduction about these objects.
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Perhaps a lengthy one, but it gives some context.
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And I that that example of the the sun and the earth and the sun at our near our nearest other sun is uh is such a is relates, I think, and and perhaps this is an individual thing as well.
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For we you know, we all make our own meaning of the story, and um, and so the meaning that I make of of that story that you that you just told us is or at least what it got me thinking about, is often when we we remember our life, it feels like it it went it's part as and particularly as you as you get older, it feels like time passes more quickly.
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And um another guest on the podcast, Laura Steckley, introduced me to social acceleration theory.
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Um we do have that sense of life passing clear quickly, notwithstanding that our life is getting longer and longer in a way.
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So we we have this this emerging sense of the brevity of life that sits alongside life getting longer and longer.
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But what I've been spending a lot of time thinking about, and there'll be more about this uh soon, I hope, once I get a chance to it, is how how significant an ordinary day is when you pay attention.
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Just before we wake up in the morning, you know, and then we wake up and we become aware of waking up and we become aware of our surroundings, our physical environment, our set the sensations, and then from there right through the day is vast in terms of our uh in terms of our experience of it.
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But as you say, we probably rarely pay attention to it, the vastness of it.
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Yeah, it's actually a little pro pet project that I have that just between you and I.
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Uh, there's something coming in relation to this, but uh yeah, um so that that was kind of my my reaction to that to that first story, and you did tell the had a a previous object.
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I've been in my mind thinking, shall I bring Richard back to this at the end or shall I just do it when I get an opportunity?
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Was I wondered about the significance of like I almost got emotional when you said about the your father's shoe being in the in that photo.
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Because to me that that was that that that was uh uh a representation of presence.
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Yes, yes, and it's interesting you mentioned that, and we'll go back to presence.
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Uh I mean my father's shoe is very significant because he was quite a character, and uh he he he contracted polio at the age of three, walked with crutches his whole life, um, reminded us that he survived because in the 1911 polio epidemic, lots of children and young people died, but he lived, and thanks to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he was able to drive a car.
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Right.
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So in 1955 he got his first car, and the reason that is, is because Roosevelt contracted polio at the age of 28.
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And there are hardly any photos of him that where he isn't sitting down behind a table with a drape or standing up and the table is just above his uh just below his waist.
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Uh everybody knew he was had polio and walk with crutches himself.
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And shortly after he was elected no, he was uh no, he was elected president, a uh a cheeky young uh interviewer said, and and and tell me, Mr.
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President, is there anything you miss doing now that you were able to do before you had polio?
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And Roosevelt paused and he said, Yeah, yeah, there there is one thing.
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I had just learned to drive a car and now I can't drive a car.
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Because in those days it was, you know, shifts.
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You know, manual thing.
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And of course, that was say nineteen thirty-three.
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And of course, in the run-up to World War II, what was one of the things that was developed?
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The automatic transmission.
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The Jeep was the first vehicle that just had a stick, but you didn't need you didn't have to put it, it'd go forward or reverse.
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And you did it.
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And so the auto tra automatic transmission was was developed.
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And by the early 1950s, it was being sold in many cars in the U.S.
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And my father got one.
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And you know, so Jackie would take us, we'd go here, there, and everywhere in his automatic transition.
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And, you know, which was it was fantastic.
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You pressed down on the pedal for the brake, pulled up on the hand control for going, and you do it.
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And then you turn it off and park.
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I inherited that car when he got a new one in the early 60s.
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And he said to me, Look, Panel, you can have that car, but you got to keep the hand controls in, because if my other car breaks, those are my feet.
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I need to get everywhere.
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I said, Yeah, that's right.
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He said, but you can't use them.
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It's illegal for you to use them.
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I said, that's fine, Dad.
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So on Sunday mornings in the summer, we drive out to Jones Beach and we drive along the parkways in Long Island, and I'd roll the window down, and I'd put my legs out the window, and I'd drive with the head control.
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And you can imagine the looks we were getting from that.
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So uh I never told him because if he found out I'd be useless.
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I mean, one of the other things my brother and I did, if there were big sporting events on in New York, Madison Square Garden or Yankee Stadium, my father always had three sets of crutches.
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And some of them were adjust, some of them were adjustable.
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And my brother, who is a better actor than I was, he'd he'd get the crutches there, we'd go in and we'd get in early.
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Come this way.
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Oh, I'll just go with my brother.
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And we get into the match.
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Again, he would have killed us if he found out what we were doing.
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Uh oh dear.
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But you know, though those are the kind of things in the memories that even a photo where it's only in, I would say, four percent of the photo from 1955, can awaken all those memories.
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And I think remembering, if we only just spent time remembering, I'm not quite sure what kind of life we had, but I I think it's a good balance between the engagement you were talking about earlier in the day-to-day living and remembering.
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This reminds me, I've been thinking.
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I think I scare people sometimes when I begin saying, I've been thinking, because I thought, oh my god, here he goes, he'll be on one now again.
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But but it is something about thinking.
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Yeah.
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Gosh.
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Right.
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Um, shall I anything else?
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Shall I get an object or something?
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I think so.
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Okay.
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Okay.
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Look.
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I'm gonna start with an important combination.
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This is a care bear.
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It's I think it's my daughter's, but I've taken good care of it.
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And along with that, it's one of my favorite books, the Oxford English Dictionary, based on historical principles.
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And it's annotated.
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See, I've got notes, I've got notes all through it, and and I write in it, which my wife thinks is an abomination, but there you go.
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It's my book.
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I can write it.
00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:25.680
Now, the thing about care bears, I don't know if they still exist as children's toys, they might do, but you know, it's from a particular era, and you know, they're all soft and gentle and cuddly and lovely, and they are care bears.
00:26:25.680 --> 00:26:45.119
But I think those of us who are, if I say in the work of living and relating, know that caring isn't just soft and cuddly and gentle.
00:26:45.119 --> 00:26:49.920
And of course, if we needed evidence of that, here it is.
00:26:49.920 --> 00:27:11.279
In the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of care is grief, lament, sickness, mental suffering, a burdened state of mind arising from fear, doubt, or concern about anything or anyone.
00:27:11.279 --> 00:27:26.960
It is only lower down, it's uh in definition four that it says oversight with a view for protection, preservation.
00:27:26.960 --> 00:27:32.000
None of these none of these things work.
00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:34.640
And the verb to care is to sorrow.
00:27:35.279 --> 00:27:35.680
Yeah.
00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:38.160
And and I think so.
00:27:38.160 --> 00:27:41.839
I don't think care is wrong.
00:27:41.839 --> 00:27:43.599
It is care.
00:27:43.599 --> 00:27:49.200
But I do think we need reminding that it's hard work.
00:27:49.200 --> 00:27:59.920
And anybody who works with children, particularly young children, you know, you've been told countless times, you don't care, you don't care.
00:27:59.920 --> 00:28:06.480
Because what they mean is we're not just giving in to things that won't help them or or other people.
00:28:06.480 --> 00:28:12.640
And it's worth remembering that they have this sense of care as a care bearer.
00:28:12.640 --> 00:28:32.160
And we have to remind them that, well, actually, I'm sure that's how you feel right now, but I do care about you, and I care about you enough that I am not going to let you do what you want to do because it wouldn't work for others and it wouldn't work for you.
00:28:32.160 --> 00:28:34.000
It would make it far worse.
00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:40.000
So I'm caring for you by not letting you through things.
00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.720
Other times I care for you by helping you, giving you, enabling.
00:28:44.720 --> 00:28:53.039
But on this occasion, so care has too gentle and genteel a sense about it at times.
00:28:53.039 --> 00:28:59.119
And I always remember um gosh, senior moment here.
00:28:59.119 --> 00:29:03.519
I can't remember the person who he he coined the phrase stern love.
00:29:03.519 --> 00:29:13.039
Where you have to be stern at times to genuinely show loving care.
00:29:13.039 --> 00:29:15.200
And and I I think that's important.
00:29:15.200 --> 00:29:24.960
And it it shouldn't be a you know passport to just be unthinkingly uh controlling.
00:29:24.960 --> 00:29:51.359
It's about caring needs someone to be in charge in service to the child, the young person, the work that we're doing very, very clearly, not as an excuse, but as a support that you know holds the person and the task in mind rather than being soft and cushy and squishy.
00:29:52.960 --> 00:29:53.519
Yes.
00:29:53.519 --> 00:30:11.440
I yeah, it I think you did you said that it maybe it's something that children can be reminded of, but I I I but what immediately went through my mind hearing you read that definition is it's probably it's something that adults can be reminded of as well.
00:30:11.440 --> 00:30:25.519
That particularly in the business of as a professional person delivering care, and and that care is not just those warm, fuzzy moments.
00:30:25.519 --> 00:30:55.920
Care is is a lot more of that, and I think Tesor is is a is a very interesting way of thinking about care because it it there's a it it it's implicit in it that there is connection with the experience of with of the cared for person.
00:30:56.720 --> 00:30:57.119
Yes.
00:30:57.440 --> 00:31:15.359
So care is not just things that you do, it's it's a it's a whole experience that you have when you're relating to someone who you care about care about or are delivering care to.
00:31:16.079 --> 00:31:17.759
Yes, yeah.
00:31:17.759 --> 00:31:30.319
And look, you know, being human means we have sentiments which are important, but I think you know, I can recognize times when I'm being sentimental.
00:31:30.319 --> 00:31:38.559
And, you know, that's okay in a bit, especially when one's being an indulgent grandparent on occasion.
00:31:38.559 --> 00:31:47.359
But but there are other times where we really have to recognize sentiment and not be sentimental.
00:31:47.359 --> 00:31:53.279
And you know, you know, being very positive by saying no, we're not doing that now.
00:31:53.279 --> 00:32:03.920
So it it's just something that it's helpful to be reminded, and it's helpful to remind ourselves about that.
00:32:03.920 --> 00:32:27.839
We're not gonna get it right every time, but I think that if we're at least in tune with that dimension or the whole dimension of it, we we will probably avoid losing ourselves in what would prove to be an entirely unhelpful way of helping and caring.
00:32:27.839 --> 00:32:29.920
Yeah.
00:32:29.920 --> 00:32:31.200
Yeah.
00:32:32.079 --> 00:32:33.440
It's a remarkable definition.
00:32:33.440 --> 00:32:37.920
I've never thought of it in in that way before.
00:32:37.920 --> 00:32:48.000
But it it it also it really talks it it speaks to the multidimensionality of care and caregiving and models of care.
00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:55.200
Think about uh thinking about what what's a model of care if it's not mod multi-dimensional.
00:32:55.599 --> 00:32:56.960
Yes, yes.
00:32:56.960 --> 00:33:03.039
Um it it is.
00:33:03.039 --> 00:33:09.920
It just w when we mention the models of care, it it it gets me into the whole thing because we know there's risks.
00:33:09.920 --> 00:33:11.680
We know there's risks.
00:33:11.680 --> 00:33:28.559
If there isn't an internal discipline to pay attention, and a team, group, and service recognition of that, it can go we know it goes it can go badly wrong.
00:33:28.559 --> 00:33:32.000
Yeah we can't just use the word in a concrete way.
00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:36.240
We have to be really open to challenge.
00:33:36.240 --> 00:33:41.920
And uh I think one of my other objects I found it.
00:33:41.920 --> 00:33:44.480
I wasn't gonna do this one, but it it connects it.
00:33:44.480 --> 00:33:47.119
It's a whistle, it's a good whistle.
00:33:47.119 --> 00:33:51.440
This was the whistle I had, I've had for many years.
00:33:51.440 --> 00:34:07.519
It was connected to the worst job I ever had in my life, which was a lifeguard for four years back in the States in my late teens, and uh you you blew the whistle to tell people it was the worst thing because I like the sun, the sun hates me.
00:34:07.519 --> 00:34:13.519
And you know, they're picking bits off my head and my back on the sun's butts now.
00:34:13.519 --> 00:34:16.239
But um, you know, here's the whistle.
00:34:16.239 --> 00:34:26.880
But in our work, every organization has a policy, it's actually required by law here in the UK of whistleblowing.
00:34:26.880 --> 00:34:32.639
When something's gone wrong, people blow the whistle.
00:34:32.639 --> 00:34:36.320
And I thought, well, okay, yeah, that's gotta be there.
00:34:36.320 --> 00:34:47.920
What I've always been interested in is there is not a policy alongside it about voicing concern.
00:34:47.920 --> 00:34:51.519
And so I did one at the Mulberry Burst.
00:34:51.519 --> 00:35:06.000
I said, look, we have to, and voicing concern, before things have gone really wrong, and you have to blow a whistle, a culture of communication and inquiry that says, hang on a minute, Richard.
00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:08.719
That's not what we usually do.
00:35:08.719 --> 00:35:11.360
What what's this about?
00:35:11.360 --> 00:35:13.360
Why are we doing this?
00:35:13.360 --> 00:35:20.880
What's it and you think you know, and and and ri Richard or whoever has to be able to think, well, what do I tell him?
00:35:20.880 --> 00:35:21.840
Just shut up.
00:35:21.840 --> 00:35:25.519
I'm the I'm the senior, I'm the boss, and we'll do what I say.
00:35:25.519 --> 00:35:28.880
We say, oh actually, you're right.
00:35:28.880 --> 00:35:43.599
And recognizing that in the in the pressure of the moment or something, we were going down this this route and it needed a course correction.
00:35:43.599 --> 00:36:02.320
And of and of course, the Roman goddess Fortuna her symbol is she stands in a boat with a tiller, and she's got the cornucopia in one arm, and she's got the tiller in the other arm.
00:36:02.320 --> 00:36:12.000
Because the Romans knew you can keep a steady hand on the tiller, and things will be going well, and all the cornucopia.
00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:20.159
All you have to do is go a bit off course and a hard turn in another direction, it's all lost.
00:36:20.159 --> 00:36:29.199
So we we need to be able to voice concern as course correction.
00:36:29.199 --> 00:36:32.480
Are we really wanting to go this way?
00:36:32.480 --> 00:36:44.960
And it really takes hard work to develop a culture of communication and inquiry where anyone can ask that question.
00:36:44.960 --> 00:36:47.599
Why do we do that?
00:36:47.599 --> 00:36:51.760
I mean, some of the things are just, you know, kind of boringly institutional.
00:36:51.760 --> 00:36:53.920
Oh, we do that because we've always done that.
00:36:53.920 --> 00:37:00.159
Yeah, well, can we think about it again?
00:37:00.159 --> 00:37:03.280
And and sometimes they're quite petty things.
00:37:03.280 --> 00:37:16.159
You know, we when I first went to the Morbury Bush many, many years ago, they wouldn't cut the crusts off bread when they did spreads for the children if they asked for it.
00:37:16.159 --> 00:37:17.760
Well, we just don't do that.
00:37:17.760 --> 00:37:28.559
I said, okay, you know, you know, here it is 1974 or five, and I'm arriving, and you've been around since 1948.
00:37:28.559 --> 00:37:30.159
But what's that about?
00:37:30.159 --> 00:37:32.000
I don't think we should do it instead.
00:37:32.000 --> 00:37:34.880
But if a child really asks for it, could we do it occasionally?
00:37:34.880 --> 00:37:36.400
Oh, yeah, okay.
00:37:36.400 --> 00:37:37.039
Yeah, we can.
00:37:37.039 --> 00:37:38.159
Oh, right, good.
00:37:38.159 --> 00:37:40.320
Somebody just had to ask a question.
00:37:40.320 --> 00:37:44.960
And people say, well, it doesn't have to be rigid.
00:37:44.960 --> 00:37:47.440
We won't do it as a matter of course.
00:37:47.440 --> 00:37:55.440
But if a child particularly asks, which might be linked to prior life experience, I think we can do it occasionally.
00:37:55.440 --> 00:38:09.920
And so it's small things, but they're important things, and then very significant things about rules that be can become punitive if they are imposed.
00:38:11.280 --> 00:38:11.920
Yes.
00:38:11.920 --> 00:38:50.480
I I'm you know, Richard, I'm still stuck on well, I'm not stuck on it, but in my head is to sorrow is is is still is still good, and and relating that that to what you're talking about just now, I I'm thinking about um when we sorrow, sorrow can be experienced as a hardship of the work if we're to to sorrow, truly sorrow for the children and for the um for their experience of life heretofore.
00:38:50.480 --> 00:39:07.679
And so we know and we know that it's really important for um staff to um and I I think that I would also wonder about the role of projective identification here.
00:39:07.679 --> 00:39:53.199
I I've become very interested in projective identification, I think, through these conversations and that to sorrow, to to take on, to feel for, to feel for the child, and the need the the need for uh organizations that work in a social care space to be mindful of this, to be mindful of how the children's feelings get experienced by us, and um and the need for containment, the the need for opportunities to stop and think and and say this is what's happening for me in the same way as what you're you've just saying about having a culture of being able to ask questions.
00:39:53.199 --> 00:40:14.639
I think sitting alongside that easily is a culture that allows people to talk about experience, and I think the antidote an antidote to some of to being a bit more punitive, I guess, at times in in the way in which we approach the work is containment.
00:40:14.639 --> 00:40:17.280
Now that's that's not my original idea.
00:40:17.280 --> 00:40:31.920
I've had a couple of uh people on on the podcast talk about how punitive caregiving practices often arise in in circumstances where the where staff are feeling uncontained in their experience.
00:40:31.920 --> 00:41:04.320
So I'm just reflecting on, we may not come to the some the perfect answer to all this, but I'm reflecting on to care for, to sorrow for, to all of those things, all of that experience of the child, which they're put they may be projecting elements of, which we're feeling for, which we have to manage in some way, lest we become not only punitive, but also another way we manage the word is to become very routine.
00:41:04.320 --> 00:41:06.960
This is the way we've always done it.
00:41:06.960 --> 00:41:10.559
It's easier to not think about the word too much.
00:41:12.960 --> 00:41:19.119
I mean, it yeah, it's one of the things I'm gonna do after we finish this.
00:41:19.119 --> 00:41:23.519
I'm gonna go up to my English dictionary, OED, and look up sorrow.
00:41:23.519 --> 00:41:40.719
I probably have it loaded, but I'm going to look up to it and we're gonna but but it what you said, it's also about within that what you were describing is being able to name something and give a context to it.
00:41:40.719 --> 00:41:43.920
So I'm still in touch with him, Lee.
00:41:43.920 --> 00:41:53.280
He was six year old when he came to the Mulberry Burch, and he's uh 52 or three now, and we've been in touch.
00:41:53.280 --> 00:42:04.800
And he came up to the breakfast table when early on when I was there, and John Armstrong was the head, and he came and he said, John, John, you know, Carl said my dog's dead, etc.
00:42:04.800 --> 00:42:05.119
etc.
00:42:05.119 --> 00:42:06.400
And that's not fair.
00:42:06.400 --> 00:42:08.239
And he was jumping up and down his feet.
00:42:08.239 --> 00:42:13.599
What he wanted John to do was say, he said, What?
00:42:13.599 --> 00:42:16.559
Let's go get him, let's go pound him.
00:42:16.559 --> 00:42:20.559
And you know, John held on to his coffee.
00:42:20.559 --> 00:42:27.760
He taught me how to drink really strong black coffee, and he nodded his head a bit.
00:42:27.760 --> 00:42:33.360
Meanwhile, you know, Lee is still bouncing up and down with his toes, ready for action.
00:42:33.360 --> 00:42:37.199
And then he turns to me and he said, Yes, son.
00:42:37.199 --> 00:42:41.920
It can be hellish here sometimes, can't it?
00:42:41.920 --> 00:42:46.400
And you know, Lee's bouncing up and down got slower and slower.
00:42:46.400 --> 00:42:48.480
And he said, Yes, John, thank you.
00:42:48.480 --> 00:42:49.280
And he ran off.
00:42:49.280 --> 00:42:55.920
He said, Carl, Carl, I told John on you for what you said, and he said it can be hellish here sometimes.
00:42:55.920 --> 00:43:07.599
Now look at that moment I thought what what a device, what a way to to calm things.
00:43:07.599 --> 00:43:08.800
You know, right.
00:43:08.800 --> 00:43:17.679
Thirty-five years later, I was thinking about this, and I thought, actually, that was a hugely important communication.
00:43:17.679 --> 00:43:21.760
He named something, it can be hellish.
00:43:21.760 --> 00:43:30.400
It's not hell, and it's not heaven, but it can be hellish at times, and it can be a bit heavenly.
00:43:30.400 --> 00:43:46.639
It's the way we live and work, but we can name things, put it in some kind of structure to understand and and and sometimes be sorrowful about it or be sorry for it.
00:43:46.800 --> 00:43:56.719
Uh yeah, it's uh well my mind's now going on to how uh how containment can be a contagion.
00:43:59.360 --> 00:43:59.679
Okay.
00:43:59.679 --> 00:44:00.559
All right.
00:44:00.559 --> 00:44:01.519
How do you mean?
00:44:01.519 --> 00:44:01.920
Sorry.
00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:30.000
Uh so when when we contain so I I saw that child's next interaction that it w he left and what he said to the next child made meaning of or the next person made meaning of the the experience made and in some ways made in you in made but by putting words to it makes the unbearable bearable.
00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:32.559
That's how we that's how we contain people.
00:44:32.559 --> 00:45:00.880
So it had in my in my my mind was going to how contain because I think you talked about this previously about the mulberry bush, um about how you and and other other guests have talked about this as well, but you see, after a while you see the older children or the children who've been there a bit longer start to act as therapeutic actors for the newer and the younger child's children.
00:45:00.880 --> 00:45:06.159
So that that's like a contagion, in it in not in a bad sense, but in a good sense.
00:45:06.159 --> 00:45:14.719
And it's it's like when we contain our staff, our staff are then better able to contain the children.
00:45:14.880 --> 00:45:15.199
Yes.
00:45:15.360 --> 00:45:18.800
And then the children are then better able to contain their peers.
00:45:18.800 --> 00:45:33.760
And in a in a fostering agency, in a fostering sense, it would be the fostering social worker contains the foster carer or foster parent, which then better equips them to be able to contain the child.
00:45:33.760 --> 00:45:40.239
So yeah, contagion, a containment can spread like a contagion.
00:45:40.880 --> 00:45:46.000
And containment is not a restriction, it's an enabling in that way.
00:45:46.000 --> 00:45:56.480
It gives space for feelings to be transformed into thought and in form.
00:45:56.480 --> 00:46:00.800
And I think that's uh a good example of what we did.
00:46:00.800 --> 00:46:08.639
And there's never one single occasion when you know the child says, ah, that's perfectly clear to me now.
00:46:08.639 --> 00:46:28.400
It's a feeling I don't have to act as because remember, this is a population, many of the ones we work with who had life experiences often from a very early age, if not from birth, or even before, that were unthinkable and unspeakable.
00:46:28.400 --> 00:46:59.039
And we're encountering them because either at their age and developmentally they're not able to do it, or they're prevented because they haven't had a lived experience of it, they don't have that space, and we are working to give them a way to have space to turn a feeling into a thought that can then inform actions.
00:46:59.039 --> 00:47:08.639
And you know, fully it was just going down to Carl and rather than bringing John to pound him to death and bury him under the paving stones.
00:47:08.639 --> 00:47:14.559
He said, Carl, I told John, and he says it's hellish here sometimes.
00:47:14.559 --> 00:47:18.239
And it just gives a different shape to it.
00:47:18.239 --> 00:47:24.480
A way of being that's not just an impulse of doing that, did it.
00:47:25.199 --> 00:47:36.480
There's so much to pause and think about from this conversation with Richard that I've decided to release it in two instalments.
00:47:36.480 --> 00:47:46.159
So keep an eye out for the second instalment, which I will release very soon.
00:47:46.880 --> 00:47:53.119
It's not allowed, but it survives still light.
00:47:53.119 --> 00:47:59.679
I won't beg the plane to go, but I'll learn to let it go.