INFORMATION ABOUT STUDY DAY
Highly acclaimed London based Ridiculusmus Theatre Company is coming to Cornwall at the end of
March as part of a national tour of their new production entitled THE ERADICATION OF
SCHIZOPHRENIA IN WESTERN LAPLAND. The show has been developed by the company who have
been working closely with clinicians at the Tavistock clinic and members of Finnish Open Dialogue
team headed by internationally renowned Jaakko Seikkula. The project has received funding from
the Wellcome Trust.
Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust staff have worked in collaboration with Ridiculusmus
and Carn to Cove (Cornwall’s rural touring performing arts scheme) to devise a local study day
complimenting themes contained within the performance. We have talks from two senior clinicians
who work with people experiencing psychosis, Dr Mike Metcalfe (Consultant Psychiatrist) and Dr
Emma Cousins (Clinical Psychologist), as well as a session led by John Shotter, Emeritus Professor in
Communication and a key developer of social constructionist theory. (Provisional programme for the
day is in separate attached flyer)
The study day will be held at The Poly, 24 Church St, Falmouth, TR11 3EG. Places at the study day
will be restricted and early booking is advisable if you wish to attend. The cost will be £20 for the day
(to include tea/coffee but not lunch). To book a place please email
kristy.nicholls@cft.cornwall.nhs.uk or telephone 01208 834276 (email preferred).
In Cornwall Ridiculusmus will also be doing public performances at The Poly in Falmouth on Friday
28th March and Grampound Community Hall on Saturday 29th March in the evenings. Both
performances will be followed by a Q and A session with the cast. Tickets for both of these
performances will be available via www.carntocove.co.uk or direct from the venues (The Poly 01326
314566, Grampound Community Hall 01726 883874).
Further information about THE ERADICATION OF SCHIZOPHRENIA IN WESTERN LAPLAND
The show is described as an investigation of auditory hallucination through the lens of one family’s
experience of psychoses. The audience is immersed in this recreation through an innovative split
staging arrangement: the action and dialogue from two different sequences of scenes are
simultaneously performed to two different groups of audience in the same space. The Eradication
of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland is the first part of a trilogy of work to be developed in the next
3-6 years, focusing on mental health. The company hopes to create meaningful relationships with
the mental health sector, both with professionals and with users and their families, to trigger
productive conversations around the performances.
Jon Haynes and David Woods of Ridiculusmus have had a long association with mental illness. In the
mid-eighties Jon was sectioned and then treated at the Maudsley Hospital. He came into close
contact with a variety of disorders and formed an awareness of the larger culture surrounding the
mental health profession. David gained a quite different perspective on mental illness as a carer for
members of his own family experiencing flamboyant psychotic episodes. These experiences have
never found direct theatrical expression but they have informed the work they have made together
over twenty-one years, work which has been described, variously, as ‘incisive’, ‘hilarious’ and
‘intelligent’ but also ‘amiably bonkers,’ ‘daft,’ ‘anarchic’ and ‘zany.’
The creative team met with researchers at The Tavistock Centre in London who were working on
‘ways of coping’ with adult mental health in a family context and they were alerted to the highly
successful ‘Open Dialogue’ approach used in Western Lapland. They then began a discourse with
Professor Jaakko Seikkula, one of its key proponents, on the ability of dialogue to eradicate
psychoses before they escalate to chronic levels and define the person experiencing them as
‘Schizophrenic’. Ridiculusmus are also collaborating with Associate Professors Suresh Sundram and
Neil Cole at the Brain Centre, Melbourne, and Dr. Ben Sessa, Dr.Charlotte Burck and Dr.Graham
Music. Their expertise covers the areas of systemic therapy, neurological investigation, genetics as
well as current and future drug based interventions available to patients.
Further information about John Shotter
John’s long term interest has been, and still is, is in the social conditions conducive to people having
a voice in determining the conditions of their own lives. He is internationally well-known as one of
the founders of the social constructionist movement in the human sciences, and especially for
introducing into it the works of Wittgenstein and Bakhtin, as well as for his focus on practices rather
than theories. He is the author of a number of books and journal papers. But what he most enjoys is
working alongside practitioners in the fields of systemic family therapy, health care, and public
sector consulting, and with members of The Open Network for Dialogical Practices. John has been
collaborating with Jaakko Seikkula for a number of years.
Further information about Open Dialogue Approach
The Open Dialogue approach is both a philosophical/theoretical approach to people experiencing a
mental health crisis and their families/networks, and a system of care, developed in Western
Lapland in Finland over the last 25-30 years. In the 1980s psychiatric services in Western Lapland
were in a poor state, in fact they had one of the worst incidences of ‘schizophrenia’. Now they have
the best documented outcomes in the Western World. For example, around 75% of those
experiencing psychosis have returned to work or study within 2 years and only around 20% are still
taking antipsychotic medication at 2 year follow-up.
Remarkably, Open Dialogue is not an alternative to standard psychiatric services, it is the psychiatric
service in Western Lapland. This has afforded a unique opportunity to develop a comprehensive
approach with well-integrated inpatient and outpatient services. Working with families and social
networks, as much as possible in their own homes, Open Dialogue teams work to help those
involved in a crisis situation to be together and to engage in dialogue. It has been their experience
that if the family/team can bear the extreme emotion in a crisis situation, and tolerate the
uncertainty, in time shared meaning usually emerges and healing is possible. Open Dialogue has
drawn on a number of theoretical models, including systemic family therapy, dialogical theory and
social constructionism
The following links are to publications by the Finnish team from Psychosis: Psychological, Social and
Integrative Approaches Volume 3, Issue 3, 2011
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17522439.2011.601750#.UtcKG9JdWhM
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17522439.2011.595819#.UtcJctJdWhM
THE ERADICATION OF SCHIZOPHRENIA IN WESTERN
LAPLAND
A STUDY DAY BASED AROUND A PERFORMANCE BY
RIDICULUSMUS THEATRE COMPANY
FRIDAY 28TH MARCH – THE POLY, FALMOUTH
PROVISIONAL PROGRAMME
9.15-9.45
REGISTRATION – Tea and Coffee
9.45-10.00
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION TO DAY
Dr Cathy English, Associate Specialist Psychiatry, Early Intervention in
Psychosis Team, Cornwall.
10.00-10.45
MAKING SENSE OF VOICES –
PEER GROUPS TO AID RECOVERY
Dr Mike Metcalfe, Consultant Psychiatrist ,Early Intervention in Psychosis
Team, Cornwall
11.00-13.00
PERFORMANCE OF PLAY -
THE ERADICATION OF SCHIZOPHRENIA IN WESTERN
LAPLAND
Ridiculusmus Theatre Company (Includes interval and refreshments)
13.00-13.45
LUNCH - Not provided but various shops and bakeries close
to venue
13.45-14.15
Q and A SESSION WITH RIDICULUSMUS
14.15-15.15
TITLE OF TALK TO BE CONFIRMED
John Shotter (GB), PhD, Emeritus Professor of Communication, one of the
central developers of social constructionist theory.
15.15-15.45
BREAK – Tea and Coffee
15.45-16.30
THE FAMILY INTERVENTION SERVICE –
WORKING WITH PEOPLE LIVING WITH PSYCHOSIS AND THEIR FAMILIES
LIVING IN CORNWALL
Dr Emma Cousins, Clinical Psychologist, Early Intervention in Psychosis Team,
Cornwall
16.30-17.00 QUESTIONS ARISING FROM DAY AND DISCUSSION
All speakers
17.00
CLOSE