One to One: Julia Bradbury on Emotionally Challenging Work, Radio 4
Journalism is not brain surgery – that’s a mantra that comes up in work when the pressure is on and there’s that great adrenaline rush of a big story and a tight deadline.
An old friend in print journalism used to say: “Remember, it’s just tomorrow’s fish n chips paper.”
And yes, as journalists and TV presenters, there have been very stressful times.
But most of us, minus the courageous war correspondents - maintain a small safe distance from the frontline.
TV presenter Julia Bradbury said she’d had her moments - like sleeping rough on the streets for a documentary on homelessness.
But she wanted to find out how people with emotionally challenging work cope. She chose to interview Dr Rory Conn, a specialist registrar in psychiatry who deals with young people with mental health issues as the result of addictions, occasionally psychosis.
The hardest cases are the puzzling ones with no clear cut diagnosis, he said.
These are the young people who have stopped talking completely or stopped eating and drinking for no apparent reason. “Those are the ones that I can’t get out of mind when I get home.”
And, in his opinion, this is no easy world.
“The current generation of young people are really the canaries in the mine ... I don’t think there has been a more stressful time to be a young person in society.”
From cyberbullying – “so pervasive and inescapable” – to self harm which seems to have taken such a grip on young people, the challenges of working with patients with mental health problems are huge.
“People tend to burn out rather than become de-senstitized,” he said.
Bradbury wanted to know about coping mechanisms – how he switches off.
Talking to his wife, also a doctor so she understands and watching his children happy and growing, he said.
It was a sobering interview ... a window on others’ lives and experiences.
