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All in the Mind

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Factual: Health & Wellbeing

The show with the latest evidence on psychology, mental health and neuroscience.

The show on how we think, feel and behave. Claudia Hammond delves into the evidence on mental health, psychology and neuroscience.

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All in the Mind: Life in and out of Asylums - Digital Memories - Work Capability Test

Life in and out of Asylums - Digital Memories - Work Capability Test

30/11/2010

BBC Radio 4 - All in the Mind, Life in and out of Asylums - Digital Memories - Work Capability Test

Life in and out of the asylum. Poet and writer John O'Donoghue talks to Claudia Hammond.

John O'Donoghue gives Claudia Hammond a first hand account of life in and out of England's old asylums.

John O'Donoghue's first admission to a psychiatric hospital came when he was 16 years old. He experienced the final days of the huge old asylums like Claybury and Friern Barnet well as ECT, homelessness and prison. He tells Claudia Hammond about how education turned his life around. He's a poet and now teaches creative writing. This year his memoir, Sectioned: A Life Interrupted, scooped the MIND Book of the Year prize. 

Digital Memories: 
When family members die, many of us inherit photos and maybe even old love letters. But in the digital age, with huge amounts of data stored on hard drives, servers and even in the cloud, how will our family members make sense of our digital legacy ? Dr Richard Banks and Dr Abigail Sellen from the Microsoft Research Laboratory at Cambridge University talk to Claudia Hammond about technology heirlooms, digital curation and the emotional importance of memories.

Mental Illness, fairness and the Work Capability Test: 
All In the Mind hears from Linda in Carlisle, Cumbria, who suffers from depression, panic attacks and agoraphobia but failed the new, compulsory medical assessment and lost her benefits. Sue Thomson from DACE, Disability Association Carlisle and Eden tells Claudia Hammond how her organisation is overwhelmed by the number of people who've been judged as being fit for work after the controversial new medical, but who want to appeal. And, in the wake of Professor Malcolm Harrington's critical report into the WCA, Jane Harris from Rethink calls for the mass migration of claimants on Incapacity Benefit onto the new benefit to be halted, until the current medical assessment can be judged as being fit for purpose.

Producer: Fiona Hill.

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