Creating a section for member's journal threads.

oops just realised posted under wrong heading...

I loved your post. @Sophia1

@Former-Member

Maybe a new journalling/ chat section would encourage people who have not opened up much. There is a difference to a thread that one person has solely for their ruminations and interests and more interactive threads.

It actually begs a question about rumination, which funnily I was prompted to think about in last session with pdoc. He told me to think moire about something, more as a sop as he was going away and he did not want to work on the issue I raised.

When is thinking the right thing to do, when is it ruminating and going over same ground but necessary and when is it unhelpful???

What do you think @Hope4me and all ...

Firstly; I apologise @Former-Member for not responding to your post in early December. I'm happy to see issues I raised are not only being mulled over by your team, but members are open to it as well. Thankyou...

@Sophia1 - What a brilliant perspective! Points raised are highly applicable, interesting and very thought provoking. I want to go through your post again before I comment as I'm going out soon ok. Might log in again early evening.

@Appleblossom - As with Sophia, I'll comment more when I get back. Rumination is a big topic, especially for those affected by trauma. While I'm out, there's one thing you could ponder - the difference between over-thinking, and ruminating.

Power to us!

Hope

Ha ha @Hope4me

I have been pondering about thinking. For a very long time. I am one of those people who dont need a computer for grammarly or synonyms, that just sprout out of my head like alfalfa.

I am upset with my pdoc as he gets too much money to sit in an airconditioned room and be with me for 20 minutes. That is the system I am/ we are stuck with.

I have enabled too many overseas trips for people. I am less prepared to do so any more. That becomes a challenge I throw out. It is not a question of money for me. its a question of access and abilty to make decisions, and blame etc and access to my biological daughter. When I did do all the dirty work and then some.

Hi @Appleblossom (Shout-outs to @Sophia1@Former-Member@Former-Member)

You wrote: 'I've been pondering about thinking'

I had a bit of a giggle at this. I must admit I've done the same...

Nigh-night...

Hope xo

Ha ha @Hope4me

Glad you saw the funny side. I have to hold both serious and funny sides in mind and thats work.

I did most of my furious writing as part of under and postgrad coursework, so had a good excuse.

I also find NARRATIVE THERAPY useful for trauma processing. It is a more recent approach and needs understanding beyond "ruminating". After all the mother cow chews her cud or ruminates for a good reason. Ruminants are mammals and we do belong to that family.

Hi everyone!

We are really grateful for your feedback and insights on this subject. Also, thanks for your patience! We have been carefully reflecting on this idea within our team, considering the positives and negatives regarding launching something like this within the community.

An interesting discussion has emerged that is in line with what we as Community Managers consider a lot in our work - the notion of rumination. Whilst we understand the desire for this kind of thread area, it could result in having a fairly negative impact on members that are continuously revisiting various aspects of situations that are not always helpful; within each respective thread (you can read more about rumination here)

We also understand the desire for a chat style like you mentioned Sophia1 however that’s a little outside the scope of our service as a forum. That kind of thread style can definitely happen in the social area.

A lot of this conversation comes down to managing threads when they have gone over a long period of time and they may have gone off topic. We really encourage members to start a new thread when the topic goes off track. This is something we still need to work on but in review having a journal section is not in line with the scope of the forums at this point in time.

If you have questions or concerns - feel free to email the forums team 🙂 (team@saneforums.org)

Good morning @Former-Member;

I'm really impressed this discussion was taken on board by your team and dealt with in this manner. Thankyou for the specific style of your feedback, I'm sure everyone will appreciate such an in-depth explanation.

I agree with points you've raised too Lauz. I think sometimes there's a tenuous line between focus on member's needs, that of the community as a whole and the forum mission statement and goals. Please pass on my thanks to the team for me.

Have a great day!

Hope

(@Appleblossom @Sophia1 @Shaz51@Former-Member @Former-Member)

Hi @Former-Member I checked your link

Tbh I think it is pretty superficial and does not address my point about the benefits of narrative therapy and how to balance that with rumination. One does not want to leave oneself open to a casual criticism of rumination when one is thickening one's narrative and becoming more differentiated and authentic.

Hi @Appleblossom and @Hope4me,

Thanks for your replies, it's great to get feedback. We definitely agree on the benefits of narrative therapy! As you know we don’t “do” therapy/have therapy sessions in the forums, but definitely encourage people to use techniques they find helpful here.

From what we have understood from you, there does seem to be a gap in exploring story telling/narratives and having more options for chat style discussions. Have we understood that right? We want to work on how to bridge that gap together with ideas outside of the journal threads.

The reason we struggled with the idea of named journal threads was that when we looked at the benefits and the risks – for us the risks outweighed the benefits….

Reading back on this thread, we apologise as we only explored the one reason of rumination, however there is a bit more to it. Thinking about the context of our forum space, we have to keep the whole community and its dynamics in mind - our service is different to other services that work one-on-one. That community focus is one of the reasons that SANE doesn’t actually encourage ‘journal’ threads. Another is that it implies a sense of thread ownership and that’s also not really what the Forums are about. The risks and benefits we are weighed up are:

Benefits: narrative therapy techniques can be used, clearer labelling of what these threads are; meet the need for chat-style discussions away from “meatier” threads (is there more here we are missed?)

Risks: rumination for member and those reading; not as inclusive for all members (implied “ownership” of threads); not community focused (lends itself to one-on-one convos); sense of hierarchy – who can have a thread and who doesn’t?

Other considerations: narrative therapy techniques could still be engaged in other ways that’s more community focused/inclusive; could you (or we could) set up more threads/opportunities to “chat” in the Social Spaces

Question for you guys: Considering what we have flagged as the risks above, is there any compromise that you can suggest? Is there another option for resolving this?

The way everyone shares their stories in the forum is great and we do want to continue to encourage that! Would anyone be up for starting a thread about narrative therapy and how people can utilise it - share thoughts about it and look at its coping strategies?