A Place to Share
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A Place to Share |
 
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Twelve months after major brain surgery following a brain haemorrhage I represented Great Britain in the 1999 Wild Water Racing World Cup and won a bronze medal, the first individual medal for my country ever. I had achieved a childhood and lifetime ambition. Through ups and downs, relationships and illnesses, family commitments and educational studies, the ability to adapt and evaluate the here and now became an essential quality. To recognise lifes advantages and its limitations, to form new strategies, new paths, but still remain focused on the overall destination and to actually arrive there was a dream come true. The experiences and techniques I have had to develop in order to achieve my childhood dreams will be adopted and used in developing my research. Although I am under no illusion about how hard life can be, if I achieve only some of the success I have shown through sport and recovery in my research, it will hopefully make life for others somewhat easier. Since the beginning of my recovery I have felt that “life is like standing on top of the White Cliffs of Dover on a lovely summers day putting your arms in the air and shouting I’m alive”, a feeling I hope others will be able to share.
Introduction
The aim of ‘Yesterday’s Memories’ is to give people with neurological disorders movement back into their lives and to re-establish the balance between, mind, body and spirit in order that they to can move on and achieve their dreams. Drawing from my own experiences when I lost my sense of smell over nine years ago as well as a reduction of other sensory functions, hearing and sight all of which returned after neurological surgery. I believe that essential instinctual functions like these and others such as movement are never lost. To illustrate, in cases of neurological patients who have suffered a stroke and lost movement, the loss is accredited to an area of the brain responsible for that function dying through oxygen starvation or traumatic shock. However through personal experience and literary accounts (Stories of Sickness an account of Oliver Sacks) I believe, the brain millions of time more efficient then a computer it’s primary function ‘Survival’ cannot afford to lose this information in a world where ‘survival of the fittest’ is still (unfortunately) a paradigm. To account for the return of my functions and that of Oliver Sacks, the brain in that moment of system failure downloads that essential information into an area of the brain, with the intention of returning at a later date to resume normal functioning. The only problem is that the brain does not no where that information has been attached. Only through conscious searching will the information be found. Which once found will enable the brain to reconfigure the neural network needed to re-establish movement in an arm or leg, or the return of smell or whatever. If a person accepts their predicament then the searching ends and only through luck will that person find that lost information. Also, in order for the therapist and patient to find such information a great deal of searching through billions of memories and internal defences, a long and possibly painful journey hampered by internal and external emotions, fears and pressures all of which have to be faced in order to find the lost treasures.
Methods
The main methods used would be, one to one sessions and also group therapy, in order to encourage the memory recall participants will listen to music which they will have highlighted as best associating to. For example for me, music from the early eighties will have most meaning for me in memory recall, memories that make me smile, cry and dance the night away. Why music? Well according to Dr Anthony Storr (1998), author of Music and the Mind, “sounds have a greater effect on us all more than visual imagery, he claims this is possibly due to the fact that at the beginning of our lives, before birth, we can hear before we can see” Amanda Smith (1999), Heath Magazine, healing sounds.
I believe that a song remains in memory and can be recalled if the correct prompts are given. If I asked you to sing the song ‘Yesterday’ by the Beatles and I gave you the first word of the song “Yesterday.... could you sing the song all the way through? The answer would probably be no. If I then played it on the radio you would probably find yourself unconsciously singing along to the record and only make a few mistakes. Whilst this sounds like common senses the first word is the key to the start of the memory with the final word of the song the end of the recall ‘the destination’. The music, notes and keys, the words, the tone of voices and even possibly those memories of the high school disco are all helping you in memory recall. The feeling of joy and well being when the song ends is not just the music but all those memories that song has stimulated, if not directly consciously, although a closer look at these could identify lost memories. Memories which once awoken are like old friends (or enemies) but to cry is not always a bad thing.
To conclude Yesterday’s Memories is about healing through memory recall stimulated by the senses, memory recall through music would be the first sense looked at. A theory that would look at all the senses and there potential for finding information lost during storage or re-storage.
It would also possibly lead to areas of human motivation and the effect of emotion on neurological rehabilitation and the effects of positive and negative motivation on rehabilitation which would include heightened empathy in neurological suffers leading to over sensitiveness and the effects of high and low self esteem on rehabilitation.
Nick "Panik" Redshaw
Any comments nick.psychology@21ao.com
Thank you Nick "Panik" Redshaw
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
This you can'not doubt
I love the way they smile with joy
Whenever I'm about
My love complete in everyway
So glad that I, was allowed to stay (Unfinished)
Any comments nick.psychology@21ao.com
Thank you Nick "Panik" Redshaw
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
This you can'not doubt
I love the way they smile with joy
Whenever I'm about
My love complete in everyway
So glad that I, was allowed to stay (Unfinished)
Any comments nick.psychology@21ao.com
The Dawn of a New Era Nick "Panik" Redshaw
The sun of life shined through that night
Darkness had lost once more to light
The morning seems so fresh and new
Blanketted in mist and morning dew
A new day was born for me to live
My full potential I must give
That is all thats asked of us be sure
In its self a strong and powerful cure.
Any comments nick.psychology@21ao.com
The Power of Love Love to you all,
As I stared into the jaws of death,
There was still the gentle sound of breath.
The strength and support of family and friends,
Delayed what seemed the inevitable end.
I thought of them, when all I could do was pray,
Through all the pain, please God let me stay.
I love them so much as I always will,
Deep within there's more yet still.
From this depth the feeling grew,
That life was now an odds-on bet.
It was not my time to die just yet.
Nick "Panik" Redshaw
Any comments nick.psychology@21ao.com
The understanding Regards
We live beneath a Damaclease Sword
A state of mind of own accord
A sentence that is hard to bare
With every feeling, with every scare
We've survived an almost fatal time
A second chance in life to shine
I won't waiste that gift in fear and dread
The rich tapestry of time still weaving its thread
Striving to live life in everyway
Its better to burn now then to fade away
Is this so wrong as they treat us like glass
When all we want is to rejoin the mass
My wife and family are staff and rod
I place my faith in the lord my God
And the belief that destiny guides me to that date
Thats always been written in the book of fate.
Nik "Panik" Redshaw
Nik "Panik" Redshaw
I turn my head up to the sky
It makes me want to almost cry
So many memories from my life I see
Now that I posses the key
To conclude from all my life is nice
But to master it has a price
The power is strange a tinge of fear
In ignorance all they can do is snear
Foolish men in positions of power
I stand above them like a tower
I have an answer to every question set
It makes them angry I must regret
The gift of hearing lifes eternal song
Means I know were I belong
Im here to dance and sing that song
And put to right whats going wrong
To defend and protect the weak I swear
Because I really trully care