Legacies and futures

Time flies. From 3-5 March it flew backwards as over 200 delegates reflected on the legacy of 60 years of collaborative service from the members of the British Psychological Society’s Northern Ireland Branch. It leapt forwards in future possibilities generated by scores of contributors, headlined by engaging keynote speakers.

We assembled in the beautiful, historic Ballymascanlon House Hotel, where the Branch had met for its first residential conference. Regular visitor, Society President Professor Jamie Hacker Hughes (pictured), led the membership session ‘Towards a Regional Assembly’. The present leadership and Chairs of Divisions identified opportunities and benefits in further strengthening our already strong collaborative identity.

Team building was guaranteed from the regular first night in-house entertainment quiz, delivered by Liam O’Hare and Donncha Hanna.  Much wit, in-jokes and sore cheeks all round.

At the delicious dinner Past Chair, Professor Carol McGuinness, whose modesty is inversely proportional to her influence, was ambushed by the presentation of a lifetime achievement award by current Chair, Professor Chris McCusker.  The ovation she received was seasoned with great affection. Her compilation, The Origins of Psychology in NI, details an honourable history going back over a century to 1914.  Another outstanding historical figure and past BPS President, Professor Ken Brown, entertained us with a great story that wove a thread from his home town Brechin, Scotland via Queen’s University Belfast to Princeton University in the person of James McCosh, a churchman who taught philosophy and psychology, defended Darwinism and whose student, James Baldwin, founded the Psychological Bulletin and Psychological Review. Several toasts were followed by dancing to a great band.

Our future legacy grows in collaborations that ensue from bringing great work to the attention of great people. This conference brought us exciting work from homegrown regular contributors to our scientific meetings, Professor Rory O’Connor (University of Glasgow) and Professor Daryl O’Connor (University of Leeds). Their regular communication as twins and as academics interested in stress, the psychology of suicidal behaviour and its intergenerational effects, brought work of breathtaking impact to our attention. Add to the mix the energetic problem solving disposition of Professor Huw Williams (University of Exeter) who spoke to us on Traumatic Brain Injury and Crime: Causal links and potential interventions. Now you have the spark of a new expanded conversation, where evidence of the impact of injury and intergenerational stress could have a beneficial impact on how people can be helped to heal instead of simply being punished by our judicial system.

In more good news, the conference celebrated the achievement of Banbridge Academy pupils, Amber McLoughlin, Ciara Carmichael and Joanna Greenaway, who, under the guidance of their A-level teacher Mrs Lisa Duke, won the prize for the best paper at the 2015 Northern Ireland A-level Psychology Conference.  All three plan careers in Psychology. Their prize, the invitation to present to this conference – a fate that many would seek to avoid – demonstrated to us why they won.

Complementing Professor Williams’ talk on Traumatic Brain Injury and the Brain Injury Symposium, playwright Shannon Yee gave us a ‘time out of mind’ where we could experience her acquired brain injury and recovery experience inside our own heads. The disorienting drama powerfully illustrated how communication skills from the arts can beneficially inform practitioners of the experience of service users. University training departments are following up.

Dr Anne Davis, President, Psychological Society of Ireland, in her keynote on ‘Dealing with Religion and Spirituality in the clinical practice of psychology’, enabled us to reflect on how it seems a greater taboo to discuss matters of faith than matters of sexuality. Is this the next frontier?  Thanks too to Dr Wendy Hardeman for her behaviour change work in the face of the growing problem of diabetes, and to former Branch Secretary, Professor Orla Muldoon, whose work brings to the world lessons from the conflict in our own country.  

I’d give short odds on a return to the same great venue in late March 2017. Put it in your calendar, get your papers in shape, come and be part of advancing the work when we meet again next year.  You’ll find it time well spent.