{"id":6099,"date":"2024-04-19T09:54:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-18T23:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=6099"},"modified":"2024-04-18T19:09:21","modified_gmt":"2024-04-18T08:39:21","slug":"launching-everyone-story-duncan-mckellar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2024\/04\/launching-everyone-story-duncan-mckellar\/","title":{"rendered":"Launching AN EVERYONE STORY by Duncan McKellar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This week, Duncan McKellar’s moving and important An Everyone Story: Finding our way back to compassion, hope and humanity<\/a><\/em> was launched by Professor Nicholas Procter, Chair: Mental Health Nursing, UniSA Clinical & Health Sciences, University of South Australia.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We’re thrilled now to be able to share Nicholas’s excellent launch speech. Read it in full below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

An Everyone Story<\/em> is a compelling, comprehensive, and carefully crafted, synthesis of life story, values, practice, and leadership.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Duncan, there are many things to like about this book and the way it has been written. The way you share your family story and the care and love that you convey to them. It is also the story of your faith, your love of music, the progression into studying medicine and then specialist training in psychiatry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book\u2019s cover comprises of artwork by Leon Pericles titled Islands of Lost Memories.<\/em> It\u2019s clear this serves as a metaphor for dementia processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pericles’s cover art depicts memories characterised as objects and ideas of personal and sentimental value, gathered from a person\u2019s life, and transferred between generations, tethered to earth by the love and strength of others, preventing them from floating away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time the book\u2019s cover art hints at the process of how this book has been constructed.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The story that is within<\/em> the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cover art is metaphor for your life growing up, the way in which ideas and personal memories are interwoven, and values held firm by who you are, what you stand for and most importantly perhaps, what you believe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The work you do as a psychiatrist and how you navigated Oakden and its aftermath are so clearly conveyed in the books\u2019 narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The central arguments of this book recognise the deep distress of what took place at Oakden, alongside the lived and living experience of behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Your writing also takes us to new places. Behind the scenes in the aftermath of Oakden \u2013 including some of the political machinations. Most importantly it tells the story of what it means to empower people in the workplace \u2013 whatever environment they are in, really \u2013 to help to live a life with meaning and purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The narration is also about individuals and families, and the way the book is written helps the reader understand the personal significance of compassion and storytelling. It is the \u2018person in the patient\u2019 that you compel us to consider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life stories are always relevant in the care, comfort, and support of people with dementia. They are also relevant in the care and support provided to their loved ones, because we explain our life through our stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No-one experiences dementia care in a biographical vacuum.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Why is this book important? Why now? Through his writing, Duncan explains both the benefits and limitations within current medical model approaches to dementia. In our society there are still stories of punitive treatment, harmful and unnecessary restrictive practices. So, there is a message for all of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Effective comfort and support for behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia require compassionate recognition of the story of how things got to this, and it\u2019s the overarching theme of this book that takes the reader to this place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here’s the thing: this book is also the story of how Duncan came to the realisation of person-centered, story informed actions in care of the older person. It’s a biographical sketch about the human phenomena of dementia and best possible services from an internationally recognised specialist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This book is a must read for families, carers, clinicians, people with lived experience as well as policy makers. It is written so accessibly that anyone who is interested in civil society and the human condition will benefit.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Readers of this book will learn the importance of establishing physical and psychological safety; trustworthiness and transparency; collaboration and mutuality; empowerment and choice. Readers will also learn what it takes to stand firm on what you believe in, what is means to have a value driven mental health service for care of the older person. That is, a health service that is compassionate, story informed and trauma aware. A health system and a practitioner that actively resists re-traumatisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being trauma-aware and story informed at individual or system levels involves making conscious effort to understand and be responsive to the deeply personal impact and meaning a person ascribes to their experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This book gives guidance on how to do this. It also gives guidance on how we can bring life history into conscious play, to know how and when to move in new ways, helping each other to embed dignity and empowerment in all our interactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This book is officially launched. Congratulations, Duncan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, Duncan McKellar’s moving and important An Everyone Story: Finding our way back to compassion, hope and humanity was launched by Professor Nicholas Procter, Chair: Mental Health Nursing, UniSA Clinical & Health Sciences, University of South Australia. We’re thrilled … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[225,80,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-for-fun","category-launches"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4v1Of-1An","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6099"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6102,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6099\/revisions\/6102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}