Mindfulness-based Therapy

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this important issue before the House. Youth unemployment is as high as 30% in parts of the United Kingdom, and it is also high in Northern Ireland. In certain parts of the Province, where we have idle hands we have other problems. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that something must be done to reduce youth unemployment, and that the issue he raises might be a way of doing that?

[Chris Ruane]

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman. Giving young people antidepressants is not the cure. We need a range of tools and I believe that mindfulness will be key. He is right to say that the devil makes work for idle hands. I have given the statistics and we need young people to be in work and positively contributing to society, rather than being sidetracked into criminality or—dare I say it?—to terrorism in Northern Ireland.

The exact causes of the problem may not be known, but people now feel that they are far from themselves and are on a hedonic treadmill. They are working for consumer durables for themselves and their children, to impress neighbours who perhaps they do not even like. The incidence of mental health problems among the general public is worrying, but among the long-term unemployed it is much higher.

Recent scientific research has measured the impact of long-term unemployment on mental illness, and shows it has physical effects on the brain. Research also shows that those who experience a bout of long-term unemployment never fully recover. It usually takes two or three years to recover from the death of a close one, but long-term unemployment does permanent psychological and physical damage to the individual, their family and community.

The damage that long-term unemployment does to young people just starting their career is particularly harsh. A few minutes ago I gave the percentage of young people who experience mental health problems—the exact figure is 32.3% of 16 to 26-year-olds who tested positive during screening for one or more psychiatric condition. There are 1 million long-term unemployed young people in that age bracket, and their life chances have been diminished from the outset.

For many politicians on both sides of the House, the unemployed are just numbers or percentages with which to bash each other over the head. The true impact on the individual, their family, community and society is not fully appreciated by many Members. The unemployed are portrayed in the media as feckless or wastrels, and the disabled have been particularly marked out. I do not include the Minister or the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), who are present in the debate, but some Conservative Members have used terminology with which I would not agree, and which has led to an increase in hate crimes against the disabled over the past year. Only one category of the five hate crimes based on gender, race, religion, disability or sexual orientation has increased—that against the disabled.

The language and tone of some politicians, amplified in the media, are responsible for that. It is no wonder that in constituencies such as Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, where 85 people are chasing each job, there is a lack of sympathy for the unemployed. There is no modern Yosser Hughes to portray the slow disintegration of an individual within his family, community and finally himself. The negative reinforcements of such labelling and alienating behaviour serve only to make those affected by unemployment and mental illness more difficult to place in work.

The current preferred treatment for depression is antidepressants. As I have said, I was informed in a recent parliamentary answer that the number of prescriptions issued rose from 9 million to 46 million. The increase in the use of antidepressants occurred in the past 10 years, but in 2004 the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence said that mindfulness was a better way to treat repeat-episode depression. It is a proven and scientifically accepted way of improving mental illness, but it has not been taken up. When I have tried to find out whether mindfulness has been taken up by general practitioners and hospitals, the answer has always been that the information is not collected centrally. I believe that it needs to be collected centrally.

How can mindfulness help with unemployment? It can prevent people from becoming unemployed, limit the effects of unemployment, and help people to get back to work. What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is an integrative mind-body based approach that helps people to change how they think and feel about their experiences, especially stressful experiences. It involves paying attention to our thoughts and feelings so that we become more aware of them, less enmeshed in them, and better able to manage them. It uses breathing to slow the mind and the body down—it uses breath as an anchor to help us to live in the present moment.

The DUP—

[Jim Shannon]

We are to blame for everything.

[Chris Ruane]

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman. The Democratic Unionist party may have co-funded the pilots in Northern Ireland, but the DWP—the Department for Work and Pensions, which is what I meant to say —has co-funded pilots on the use of mindfulness in helping people to get back to work. A three-year pilot in Durham finished in 2010. The pilot was jointly funded by the DWP and Durham county council, and there was an element of European funding. It dealt with the most difficult cases—people who were unemployed for between one and 15 years. The average length of unemployment was three years. Depression, and loss of self-confidence and self-worth, had already set in. The catchment area was the Derwentside-Consett area, which had experienced mass unemployment in the ’80s and ’90s.

I spoke today to Gary Heads, the organiser of the project. He told me that not only were clients trained in mindfulness, but so were jobcentre staff. A traditional mindfulness course usually lasts eight weeks. This one lasted for four weeks, consisting of a two and a half hour taught course each week, with 45 minutes of homework a day. The cost was minimal—£300 for each person on the course—but the benefits were maximum. Of the 300 clients who attended, 47% found employment within six months. The 53% who did not find work were placed on a traditional full mindfulness course. Ninety per cent. of those who started the course finished it. Pre-screening ensured that the drop-out rate was minimal and efficiencies were maintained. All who attended were, as I have said, from the difficult-to-reach categories.

The report on the pilot will be finished early next year. Will the Minister assess it? If it can be rolled out immediately, I urge him to do so. If it requires further refinement, I urge him to do it. Gary Heads particularly praised the head of the employment team, Bernadette Topham, who gave support to the project and was pleased with the results. The scheme came to an end after three years because—I was informed—the local authority pulled the funding.

Mindfulness-based interventions can and do work. I mentioned steel and coal communities. The new steel and coal communities will have high numbers of public sector workers. In my constituency, 46% of workers work in the public sector. In the neighbouring constituency of Clwyd West, it is 45%. We need to prepare for the mass lay-offs that will occur in such constituencies throughout the country. Mindfulness-based interventions have been used by Google, Apple, the American military since 2009, and American prisons, emergency services, schools and hospitals for the past 40 years. We need to make an assessment of what has worked over there and whether it will work over here.

Mindfulness-based therapy has been rigorously tested in the laboratory, using MRI and electrical scanners. Electrical activities in different parts of the brain have been monitored in the laboratory. Its efficacy in treating a whole range of mental and physical conditions, including bipolar disorder, generalised anxiety disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and psoriasis, has been tested and proved. It also helps the immune system and the healing process.

Mindfulness has proven to be beneficial in the workplace, with participants more engaged in their work. With a greater ability to concentrate, workers become more compassionate, both to themselves and their co-workers. When it is used in prisons, prisoners become less aggressive and hostile, and have fewer mood disturbances. It has helped those who suffer from long-term pain, lessening the use of painkillers and their damaging side-effects.

Mindfulness is not just for those who suffer with mental health issues, or who work in high stress occupations— its applications go far beyond that. It is being used in education. In primary schools in my constituency, it is used to train five-year-olds to be more mindful, to live in the present moment and to concentrate. Its effect on personal relationships within families and marriages has also been recorded.

Felicia Huppert, the mother of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), is one of the foremost well-being researchers. She maintains that the bell curve of well-being can be shifted for the whole nation. The biggest gainers will be those below the curve. I pay tribute to the Prime Minister for his work on well-being, which was a bold, innovative and forward-thinking step. This could help to deliver the targets on well-being in the years to come.

It has been estimated that sickness related to mental health costs the economy £12 billion in lost productivity, because of sick leave, and in lost taxes and increased benefits. Surely, if there are successful pilots, such as the two I have outlined, they should be taken up across the country. They would cost a fraction of the £12 billion being lost. The savings to the Exchequer could be massive, public and private sector companies could be more efficient and workers less stressed, more resilient and happier in their workplace.

One of the biggest barriers to the take-up of mindfulness is that GPs do not know about it. Surveys have been conducted by the Mental Health Foundation. More than two-thirds of GPs say that they rarely or never refer their patients with recurrent depression to mindfulness-based practices, and 5% say that they do so very often. GPs do not know about it. Politicians do not know about it. I have asked dozens of questions—perhaps hundreds—on mindfulness and often the response comes back that information is not collected centrally. I urge the Minister to do all he can.

Another reason why mindfulness has not been taken up is that there is no effective political lobby for it. The pharmaceutical industry worldwide spends £19 billion lobbying GPs and politicians to tell them that their latest drug is fantastic—stuff it down children’s throats. That is what happened with GlaxoSmithKline, which received a £2.9 billion fine in America in July. It is a powerful lobby that dismisses any alternative therapies. We need to be open. We need to meet mindfulness practitioners and academics. We should be spreading best practice in our prisons, armed forces, emergency services, the NHS and in the DWP.

In conclusion, I have a number of requests for the Minister. Will he ask the private sector providers of the Work programme if they will engage with the mindfulness experts, practitioners and academics across the UK? In particular, I highlight the work of Mark Williams, at Oxford university, and Rebecca Crane and her team, at Bangor university, north Wales. Will he meet Health Ministers to see whether the Department of Health can play its full and proper role in promoting mindfulness? Will his civil servants in the Department for Work and Pensions assess best practice within the pilots they have sponsored so far, and will they spread this best practice?

Will the Minister visit Durham to see the legacy of the pilot scheme that finished in 2010? Will he visit the real city strategy, in my town, which is using mindfulness and other psychological interventions to help people stay in work, through the fit for work programme, and to reintegrate the unemployed, some of whom are in very difficult circumstances? We have recovering drug addicts and alcoholics working on a local farm. We have disconnected, alienated young people working with animals, including through the coastal hawks project. We have a Jamie Oliver-type restaurant training young people and helping them gain full employment. So there is best practice out there, and I am asking the Minister to go out and visit those projects.

Will the Minister personally meet mindfulness experts and practitioners across the UK? We have many fine academics who have given years, if not a lifetime, of work to the development of mindfulness. They have a strong story to tell, and they have the scientific proof to back up what they are saying. Will he use mindfulness in his own Department? I have put questions to every Department about sickness levels. They have gone up massively. This is a powerful tool that could help Ministers reduce sickness in their Departments. Lastly, will he keep an open mind about, and be mindful of, the issue of mindfulness?