Hello everyone, this is Ross a teacher talk at the most influential blog on education in the UK today The third time of asking I have a VIP guest Steven Sadler a man of many many different hats, but he is a guru or You know, I've got to go worldwide here Steven or maybe you can shoot me down, but I'm a world-wide reputation for his Passion with technology robotics and stem net and particularly lots of things that he does in his work Which you'll unpick in a moment and he won the award for digital innovator of the year from the teaching awards a couple of years ago Steven Years ago, so I'll let you introduce yourself to a listeners. Tell everyone what you do and then we're gonna unpick stem and robotics My street Steven Sadler Steve as people call me. I've been teaching now for what 20 years since I graduated in 96 works industry for a number of years and then came back into teaching around 2002 it was mid 2002 perhaps my old secondary school as a technician And teacher and also helping to develop the school in other areas of virtual learning But I never really intended on sort of beyond to be honest I never really intend on staying there because I was in between jobs. I've been maybe that's always the way isn't it? It's always the way For context listeners I In my role as a judge for the teaching awards I of the many schools I had to visit stumbled the prop across Steven at his school This is just before the pandemic wasn't it about It was literally October to February that window just before March 2020 where we were lucky enough to come and see you and it was Phenomenal Could you kind of give us a visual picture of the kind of things that we saw? If that's possible and I'll try and add some of my memories But what kind of things were you doing on our visit for people listening here can get a sense It's a school and hopefully you've been greeted very well by my SLT. Yes, we were Obviously the students I'd found out it was the students that actually Me and put my name for so I do yeah, the staff didn't even know about it No, there's my head of faculty So but I think by that time it got an obviously pretty serious that they had to give up Who the owner who had actually put their name forward or put my name forward sex to for the award So, you know, this is the time of the silver one. I remember actually Being at the school and my co-head of faculty came to speak to me and said are you gonna be in school on this day? And I said, um, I'm actually not and I said all we need to be No idea Um, but I generally had a book to sit my An exam because I was in the middle of doing my accreditation So I arranged to go to the all to this university in this this event for me like once a year Yeah, it's just the queen could turn up But I'd still wanted to be all this university to sit and take this I was so determined to take There's a bit of a secret going on and you Yeah, so I didn't know so So obviously one thing led to another is that when they really need to be in I don't know So not the attendance of nothing a bit. You've got a bit So eventually My head came to speak to me and said, um, are you gonna be in on this day? So you can I thought yeah, I can be here. So I think this must be pretty serious Oh, I'm kidding. I'm in trouble.  It was just a wonderful place to be and some of the stuff that the kids were producing What will you know? It's international. It was international national, you know kind of quality material and projects Wasn't it? For the technical out there, could you give us a little synopsis of some of the kind of things they're doing the robots the programs? Yeah, well they are designing and developing Robots using a platform called Vex robotics. So Vex robotics is the educational platform that I chose to use and introduce into the school What it's maybe yeah, but ten years ago now, so it's really Drummed up through from competition. So this competition through learning aspects of Getting kids involved in STEM and you know getting other people making industry aware that there's a growing demand Obviously for all these skilled engineers and so we can try and gamify This learning in you know through this competition and really that's how it stemmed but from that the kids obviously You know developed a love and a passion for working with this hardware And that's led on to a number of students one student particular Daniel Oakley To design and develop a robot that will float on water Wow, actually And they've gone off internationally speaking in front of lots of adults, haven't they in big big kind of representations in the UK A number of occasions up to maybe seven times now the world championships in California So that in itself has been an amazing experience for numerous students That have gone on to set you know a number of different standards in their field And that's also encouraged a lot of other schools in the surrounding area in london and other feeder primary schools to also Yeah, now you'll you'll be having this but you're you're a big cheese in this sector, aren't you? Say Rumor has it. Okay. Now.  You know, what was life for you as a young black man? you know school education career paths role models all that kind of Dialogue give us a kind of little whistle-stop journey Well, I'd say my role model. I have to say obviously my parents my mother in particular. She was a head teacher Um, the two schools actually she used to be a head teacher at Broadwater farm for about 15 years Broadwater farm. Yeah, it's just Fantastic. Wow She took she took ownership of uh dealing with the community. Yeah, and the family. I know it very well students um, so she was there for Yeah, a number of years 16 17 years before She then was head hunted to turn around another school failing. Oh, was this what 70s 80s? When was this 80s? Yeah, this is the 80s And uh, after that she moved to F for primary school. So I had experience of yeah doing some work there as well Uh, you had the teacher talk at home all the time growing up. Yeah, so I couldn't really skype off Yeah When you've got a mother from the Caribbean lots of home work get your homework You've got to get your stuff done So, uh, so I was always I always had that a drive But I always said I'm never going to teach him because I could see the stresses and hassles that my mother had But at the same time I could see, you know, I could be shopping with her down in wood green one day And then you know a group of guys would come up and say, oh, oh, Mr. Sadler Hey We're always remembered and respected. Yeah She did what she did for them. So she was always a driver and I say a role model for me growing up at 16 So that I suppose led me to think about Yeah, having it as a potential backup plan So I mean I stand up studying at Loughborough University in Dutch technology and decided to do a course of education Instead of just a straight line of design. What year was that cup? I put you on the spot That was uh, you can guess my age. No, that was 1992 to 96 You know what a funny word. I I I miss Loughborough that exact same course. I think by one A level grade So we could have been best mates, but there you go We'll start best mate relationship now But um a great facility and did you get into sport while you were there? Um, I was into basketballs and footballs into tennis He's played a lot of tennis In north London and basket north of Finchley at the time But again, I was there really because I knew how great it was as a course for B&C and industrial design So that if you're gonna go anywhere, it was if you're gonna stay in London, you went to Brunel If you're gonna have London, you went to Loughborough That was what I attended You know, well, London's done the first place, but you know, not to say you're not gonna struggle with um, you know The issues that we're still talking about, you know, many years later What what was it like growing up for you was it? I'm sure it wasn't a smooth ride, but it was it was it was tricky. It was difficult. Well, you had to do a lot to stand out You know, there was even many things always said to you I I can even remember a time when I was just about to start the course at Loughborough right and I mentioned the cheaters name, but it's yeah saying you're gonna have to Work really really hard to make sure you can stay on this course deal I didn't really click what you know what you meant by that. I thought well Yeah, you know, I've made it here.  He probably didn't I was the only Black guy or Michael black person on the yes, or a number of years actually for about three or four years And it wasn't really that diverse as I suppose many things were at that time But again, I didn't really look at it. Uh, you know, look through that lens because I was really there to just focus on what I need to do You know, I suppose I always have that drive my parents and so what happened after after Loughborough After Loughborough, um, I did some teaching in Leicester. Uh, I did my training actually, um in Braunston In Leicestershire And then I came back, you know, I was working in London My mother's primary school actually a couple out there for primary school Right to get some primary training and and really, um Try to decide like you do what you're gonna do. Do you like to go straight? Yeah And I actually had you know, I was keen to work for design consultancy There's a lovely lady I used to use to actually one of my my teachers actually school Ross Lucas She'd actually put me in touch with her son Uh at the time and I was yeah in email his uh Design consultancy at the time down in Blackfriars and that was some good training Yeah, so when did you move out to the suburbs up to Barnett? Well, um, well, I lived in it and lived there in Filch And so I ended up working in Barnett just purely by accident It was a visit to pay, uh, the old school to visit just to see what's happening. Well, there you go And I guess the key question, you know, so obviously the in the I go back to Loughborough. There was obviously A design electronics robotics thing emerging here. Yes I was I suppose we were at the cusp of that era where Software was really coming into play. So yeah, I think I think back now And it was our year, you know, third and fourth year where we started to be introduced to water desk and autocad Release at least 12 it was and 3d studio max So the days of marker rendering and doing all your final presentation you remember those days you need Yeah, yeah The software came out as like well, if you're not using this software and doing your rendering in 3d No, I was looking after me. Um, I met my graphics teacher at my old school. I used to be a student at The cup of October ago actually in Fleetwood Blackpool before I moved to London to train as a teacher and we were reminiscing about orthographic projection by hand and now you can just log on to a bit computer online all those skills Um are gone. So I'm moving forward. Um, you know back to the kind of clubs or your school and robotics stuff And at what point did you start to think right robotics for kids stem club? You know developing these skills 2006 At that time I just introduced a school to a virtual virtual learning environment front So we were the first second new school. I think in the country to adopt severely Convinced right brilliant. This is the way to go. We're a split site school as well at that time. I think when you can't remember franta Yes, does it still exist? It's just we moved on since The technology's moved on so we moved all the way from it. So um, but yeah, that was great to get involved and also see Depending on you how the Scandinavians and Norwegians in particular. Did yeah Yes, there wasn't much stem. It was more focus was on technology. But at the time we were working very closely with uh, middle six university and the chat called professor john cave and Dennis Hallam, uh, who was head of faculty at the time in the associate head teacher We used to really help them develop a lot of their project work and And small scale, you know Stem kits and things we test a lot of them out with our students through systems control at the time when that course was running and dnt and Graphics, etc. So, you know, we were very close that we're affiliated with the university and the campus was basically basing up awkward So you know I could you know the days when you could lumb the students in the back of your car We're gonna go down to middle six and can do some work and work with the senior students for a while And see what's going on there and and test things out. So we had a lot of hands-on experience And then that eventually develops in to what we then introduced was our enrichment of triple E enhancement enrichment engagement. Yes And I sure would have spoken to you about how that develops over time And and that was really where we got to really trial out Things it didn't matter if it didn't work. Um, yeah We could really experiment and it was great for the design team it's hard work because we were a lot of This triple E course up at the time. Yes, as we were going on for a number of weeks But the kids love them. We've got kids that visit they're in their 30s now that come back and so yeah So in terms of what the kids get for enrichment, you know Monday to Friday will knows very busy in a school anyway But you know that after school enrichment that you offer You know outside of the statutory curriculum stuff, you know, what what does a regular week? It's one out of curriculum. So I mean, I've got for example tomorrow Wednesday afternoon and Thursday afternoon I've got my year seven enrichment and year eight the following day And so it's great because I can pretty much Teach what I want as long as I I'm aligning it with the d&c curriculum.   How do you keep up to date with the latest bits of software and make sure you know for you in your case? You know world leading and keeping up to what everyone else is I'm always looking at what Universities are still doing. I'm still in touch with people that laugh, but I'm still in touch with Students. I know that gone through now. I mean, I'm chatting yesterday to another students at Wolverhampton Another engineering course I'm always finding out what they're doing and what they're learning so that I can bring that back Yeah, they've got the latest kit haven't they latest bit of technology and also it means that when our students are You know when the when students are graduating that year 12 year 13 or leave at 16 They've got a real idea about what they can do or where they want to go Um, and they usually have already identified what course they want to do because we've invited some students into their talk And we sort of go from there. I mean on online resources Looking at what other people do. I mean, I'm just about to finish my main stem So that's a key. So I'm mingling with lots of other teachers and finding out their perspectives of how they Deploy them in their classroom and could you know ideas from different people? Could you just list off, you know top four or five kind of resources and things you get your kids to do? You know, I kind of think that you do every year or every term that's that Yeah, um, well VEX VR, which is an online program Which is great to get the kids into coding as well as a compute science teacher That's definitely one you want to do the curriculums all online We've also got the VEX IQ and the VEX EDR again the curriculums all online and that's well supported by the REC foundation, which is the robotics educational Competition foundation there based in the states And they obviously promote the girls in stem initiative and there's a big Yeah, no, I was just going to ask that question actually, you know, what what's your um You know How are you raising that profile and tackling stereotypes and I know the answers but just for people listening Well, in the early days, I I think for me Trying to encourage or break in that stigma, especially with I suppose it even stems down to things like open evenings at school and those parents know that their daughter can actually be involved Girls can code and things like that I mean, I've got my you know, my approach has completed them because I've got my own daughter now Who's eight, you know, she'd be praying with raspy pies and build a little raspy pie spider robots All kind of things so really I use you know, you know showcase my own my own children and what they do Um been very fortunate that I had a VEX impact a series And a series of other girl teams Invexables girlbots Um, great. They're all involved in You know, these these girls really took it under their wing to try and well, I met a lot of them when I came to visit Didn't I got to see some of them were like students coming back as well Yeah, I got to see their online ids and their online projects as well, which is fascinating Exactly And some of them have gone on certainly is eating out and a few others have gone to look at other areas of biomedical engineering As a result of being part of amazing And they would have never done that Some of them are their confidence are great in terms of presenting and And they're working and talking with you know, with judges and people like yourself at competitions and Hannah, she's just recently signed off to be a barrister, you know, Wow, fantastic.  Because I'm sure you're in demand. I'm sure a lot of people email you for advice and things Yeah, I mean, I always try and we've got a lot of the NQTs that come through our school And one of the things I always try to say to them as well as if they want to stand up is Don't just I know you're busy and it's it's difficult But you I think it's part of the profession. It's really good to give back An evening of your own time or two. I mean, I probably give you too much But but an evening or two of your own time where at least you can Um, you're not just putting something on for the kids, but you're learning with them something. Yeah sharing is caring, isn't it? So you have to And and with d&t, you know, you know the design is such an iterative process that you've got to be repeating What you're doing all the time to try and well, I think the nature of our subject is, you know I guess the physical structure of the department is you're always sharing resources and moving between rooms So it's always that workshop feeling all the time, isn't it? Yeah, exactly So in terms of the people that ask you for Advice or the kind of teacher training things that you've led Externally outside of your school. Give us a picture of the kind of things that you do Um, I'm also involved with the creative education project. So I that they are initiatives that promotes 3d printing in Primary schools through secondary schools. So, you know working very closely with companies like Ultimaker um, and the The initiative basically they look to obviously also give a 3d printer out free for Schools to actually test for a number of weeks six to eight weeks Michelle Other ladies there at the creative education was, you know, very kind enough to drop off an Ultimaker printer with us about 10 years ago Uh, and it accidentally didn't go to the next school Because we were doing so much work with it. I said someone forgot to check the list of the email Paying Michelle a visit at the bet show. I know if she's listening she'll probably smile But she did end up letting us keep because we did a lot of work with it But that then led us on to you doing training. Okay Training also even printing the manufacturing of some of the drones you would have seen Yeah Other projects like engineers and things like that Fantastic. Now I kind of switch in topics again, you know, the the umbrella design technology and how the dialogue of you know The e-back and everything else and how dts evolved as a subject since you and I qualified I was in a school in north yorkshire. Um before christ about november and there was 10 or 12 lathes beautiful lathes Never used huge printer in the corner kids sitting in front of computers drawing something online that the machine makes it And I know there's a space for that, but um, that's physical labor. We're still old school even today We're doing our good old uh wooden boxes and things that Could you um, give me your own perception? You know the state of dt across across the country I know you're involved with exam board stuff as well and things that Well, I think well, it's a shame because I think some When I've been to some data meetings in the past and met other teachers I found out sadly that sometimes there's only one or two teachers or there's one case one lady I met at the school and she was the only teacher in her department Trying to provide DnT as a subject for for the entire school secondary school So I can't survive I'm thinking laddiel I'm struggling for money and there's so much more I want to do How are you coping? You know, I think you know, I've got a good foundation and good support structure, but You and I both know there needs to be more work subject needs to be put on the spotlight more And this is something I mean it's You turn the telly onto nothing and you're gonna see you're gonna see Pottery shop, you know all these kind of uh competitions so in being all those all this technology in front of us and uh the dialogue and schools is Non-existent, I think in some some respects. It is and I think I don't know how You know as I'm not that high up the house. See how they're going to manage it financially, but I've I know I've got out of my way as you know I mean as an article I wrote for I I news they interviewed me where And I looked at you know over the course of the last decade how much funding I've brought in for the students and And it it masses over 80 000 quid with trips amazing And you know help with go from parents as well even on our first And second trips to the states. We didn't have any money Ross to get there. Yeah A lot of fundraising and stuff isn't it fundraising a lot of the parents helping out I mean I had one parent. So what's your secret formula? Oh, I can't tell you that Are you gonna say one we had one parent doing what? Well, one parent is actually going at the Costco buying loads of sweets and we were you know, we were selling even pennies Yeah, we tried every every method getting sponsored working with industry. I think a lot of departments now need to Yeah school and you're not linked with your Local industries. It's really important to think look at your school or your location Look at the map that surrounds Your school look at all the industrial estate. What do they do? Yeah, sometimes crazy. It sounds I've gone for you know, even when I'm living now I've gone for a drive just around industrial estate just to see what's available. Yeah What companies are any of them? Any scrap metals any any any acrylic that they get 80 teacher. There's always a resource outside, isn't there? I'll make travels to schools go on Yeah, so say and also if you find someone who's interested in what you're doing Put yourself out there and invite them in If you're confident what you're doing, which I am and you know what you're doing is good I've got the great bunch of students that are there to support it as well Absolutely Introduce myself that the kids talk to them off you go and that's all you need and We had a laugh offline about my judging process with my colleagues when we came to visit you But it's a very impressive place to to go and visit So mr. Sadler top mark so far, but I wonder if you can pass my kind of end of podcast summary What I'm going to throw loads of quick fire questions at you and you can't pause or hesitate. So let's see how you get on Right, so let's start simple. What project what projects on your desk tonight?  Do you really want to see? Here I've got the effectiveness of competitive robotics on student learning off computer science I've got another paper here to read on educational robotics in the stage of secondary education empirical study on motivation Fantastic. So what's the title of your working paper? My working paper is the effectiveness of competitive robotics and how robotics should be used as a driver for STEM learning in secondary schools Brilliant. Well, I can't wait to read that. I'm going to record for video and audio purposes You need to send me that once you've published it, please. Um, right. Okay. That was a long question What book are you reading apart from your papers? What's your book you're reading for fun? I've just bought will Okay Okay Words of wisdom from your mum head teacher. What was our famous catchphrase? Famous catchphrase Do as you're told boy For someone who doesn't know raspberry pi, what would be your top tip to get, you know, my 10 year old son? How could I get him into coding? I had to get him into coding. Head to the rcpi website and Ask for a lady called Sue. She's one of the senior directors there. I say Steve sent you can Steve sent you Well, there you go, folks Ask for Sue and then see what happens. Um, what would be your piece of advice for a new teacher in a dt department? Wow Make sure you collect the chisels in Get to know Get to know all to death software. Yeah, well, there you go. My would be count all the scalpels back here Otherwise you have the whole kids after school searching up and down the workshop Okay, biggest career achievement today. What are you most proud of? Um, I'm most proud of what my students have achieved and the fact that they all come back with a bottle of rum to say hello There you go. Yeah, I love to hear the stories of how they're They've made you know how they're progressing in life. And is there a favorite rum tipple?  What's that off the wall career? What would it be? Probably be a racing driver. I've got a thing. Yeah, what what what bikes or cars or cars cars Track track racing track racing track. Now. This is a tough question for you. What is your number one piece of CAD cam software? I'll do that one. That's fusion 360 fusion 360. Okay, all to this all to this fusion 360 Have you got a favorite drone or a robot? My favorite robot is now is the one my daughter's just built. It's a little A 3d printed family. All right, very nice. If we had 24 hours in finchly, where would we go for dinner? What will we do? What would we see? What what's the local landmarks? In Finchley or Barnett? Well, Barnett Finchley of Tottenham even I probably have to take you down to the west end to one of my clubbing spots All right, so leave leave the west end or the west end of london west end in london There's not much to see in Barnett to be fair, is there? Um, okay Basketball position Uh, always always a strike always the forward. Okay. Um, who would you recommend an interview next and why? That's a really good one. I think you should interview mr. Dennis Hallam Mr. Dennis Hallam, okay I'll look up Dennis and I'll see if I can find him Um, steven. Where can people find out more about, you know, links online, you know blogs tweets You can find me on linkedin. My twitter handle is Steve underscore fc tuning. So you're welcome to drop me a dm anytime. There you go. And uh, my last question the big one this time, um What would you hope to be your legacy? I don't have a bottle of rum to go with this question sadly, but um in 30 seconds in 30 seconds That is a really tricky one. Um To be to be remembered for the the good I've done And there you go. It was just simple. Keep it simple. Keep it simple. Keep it simple. Well, that that was good enough Well, you know, having visited and seeing you in action and seeing what the kids say Um, I think that is evidence from all the kids that visit you and all the things you do around the world Um, and although, you know, the pandemic's gotten away And I wasn't physically be able to be with you for the teaching awards It was great to see all the photographs and the videos emerge and your big cheesy smile Out there as you lifted up your award and stuff and how cruel all your school to play all that on you thinking you Might have been facing a disciplinary rather than a teaching award Uh, but can you pass on my best wishes to lian and everyone else at your school and uh, everyone for listens Steven sad that do check him out if you need help with dt or some robots or stem or whatever it is This is the man. He is the big cheese. Um, so steven. Thank you for your time. I hope to see you physically In the future soon. I'm back on the road. So hopefully I'll come and pop in soon and say hello All right, all the best


We're spying so you can't run with that stuff up with the quarterback here. Good play 4th down though Oh, yeah, get the ball get the ball get the ball.  I mean look how look how bad that man look how bad That man coverage was on that dude, bro. Look how bad it was.  Oh, he's just matchy.  He baited my Yo, the safety came right in the middle like he was one man up and he just didn't It was open. It was open. It was open. So happens, bro You throw a pick and you get to touch the next one. Oh, no, we didn't both miss that Ah Like cuz how does he have all day, man? This boy's be humming bro. Who the I mean, bro push him one way or the other man. Oh my god I do Oh, no, bro, like it's called man Big base I think the risk and reward there was worth going for it because like the risk was I get the ball I'm down three. I can go get the lead. The reward was now I get the ball. I'm up four I can end the game really did I like my chances. I'm be honest not really but I did like the way the third down There the base before that looked looked pretty good. So I was like He's a legend in the streets, man. I don't know what happened I think I caught him and that was match and he just beat this out the press Play snap. All right. Now we gotta just make it a stop here, man Honestly, I don't want him to roll out right when he rolls out, right?  There's just no way we're over a quarter that got easily in this game Man, that's a good play. I mean he's off day. Good play, man Oh What's this a big play, boys? How do you jump? Why are we jumping? Secure catch. Oh, he's getting under pressure. I know I didn't got about four of them But he got under pressure like he's got that like so it's like Are you happy to be mad at my quarterback when he has he has under pressure, bro Oh, you just went up field for me right there. You went up field, dude Oh, that could have been a first clock running. Nice. God. That's why I don't like scramble almost got me Let's go, man All right, we gotta get outside boys.  Let's see. I mean blary allen You're killing me, man. You're killing me new red zone play do new red zone play. Ask about me new red zone play Boss come on. I man Look at where we are now boys up eight no timeouts a minute left I mean, let's go over what big plays I can give up the corner like I feel like we need to put 30s. All right. I don't want him to roll right and that's all I don't want him to do You can go that you can have that. I mean, I don't want to go out of bounds, but that's Come on, man. Can you can't be this unathletic a third just gets and I gotta move them Oh my god. There's just no way a third gets smoked that crazy, dude This one's gonna be a whip around here. It's gonna be a whip around Oh No, we need some pressure, man. We're like what's going on right now Oh, I like how do I not look at that right away? How do I like? Oh my god.   I was thinking about it. Yeah, I really thought he was just caught Yo Oh, I really thought he was just gonna dump it off and try to do. Yeah, that's what I thought like I was I was daydreaming. That's my fault heads. Yes, sir ski. I really thought yeah I really was like thinking like bro a quick out where I'll snap throat like and he could get five yards Could he get five yards on that?   That's game like that's game He's under is this dude have under pressure right here. He's the one that keep coming free ed read Maybe I am getting cheated here boys. Maybe I am who knows I should have why I called it combos or out combos Proud I mean put Marshall on a regular street, please Bro, he's two mother f**kers man. Come on He might have GGs again Yeah, I'll play ladders this weekend. I keep winning the toss. I can't lie I I kind of beat them the last couple times because I won the toss and I got a ball to have early only I really haven't stopped them really The ball man, dude, I can't lie to she's just he's just blocking the f**k out of this dude Yo, he has so much time man. Good read. Good play We hold again, baby. We hold again, baby. We hold again, bro. We hold again Catch mosque a play. Yeah, I I think he plays better defense out of wide. I think he does man. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong I don't know if y'all would agree disagree. I don't know Died boys. Whoo. I was scared of that pass. I was scared of that pass. I was can't even hold y'all. I was scared You want to have two clock on here? We're in trouble He tried should I've been afraid should I have been afraid right there? You know what I only put that streak I only put that streak because I hear skimbo say you should always have a streak on every play every place you'd have a streak I'm I'm the opposite every place you have a smoke screen like a little I just can't get any pressure on this one What the f**k is going on on this side of the field man? Like for real? What the f**k is going on over here? This is like I just gotta back that f**k up so much. I'm just giving free plays because he's just Smoking the press man. Man. I lost my user trying to click onto the oh my god, man That's the second game. I just baseline. I have to move that dude all the way back, man Bro, I'm like, bro. I just cannot is y'all size please bro. Hold on It's close. All right. I like my defense. I do. I like it. I like what I got But I just cannot give up that streak Bro, he can pass lead that up high as f**k Lord Jesus dude.    I he's got a glit like cuz Unf**king real Dude, i'm getting smoked. I can't put him in a third. I literally cannot put him in a third I can't do it. I cannot do it. He's four yards. He's standing through. He's just getting left Oh my god, how the f**k I gotta have a spy. I just have to I really just thought he would run. I really thought he would run I really tried to run commit. I can't get any f**king luck. I lied. I get love. I get love I just can't get nothing Yeah, that's where I want you to f**king go.  Watch it. Watch it. Watch it. Watch it. Watch it Bro, he rushed two and was instantly through a double team instantly instantly Well, he runs match or cover four mesh post is like it's honestly been my best play against that That look is it maybe it's josh allen like bro Command i'm accident. Oh my god. I'm playing so bad on defense, dude. Oh my god Come on, man. You're not this guy right now. You really not this guy, dude Like bro, like how do you run that that out of nowhere? How do you run that that? Oh my god. Come on, man Bro, he just I'm I feel like he has five post-ups. I really do. I feel like he has five post-ups My dollar is so bad right now, dude. Really that was the easiest walk and touchdown in my life Dude, I just can't I just can't catch a f**king break, bro. I really can't like come on, dude We got a block better than that like we just have to Ah I really didn't think he'd stand there the whole time. Somebody help me. Thank you, dude. He has all day Like this is I'll tell you what this is actually f**king.  Let's go. Let's go.  Thank you. Once time. Josh Allen throws a bad pass for once Who are you? Oh, they just didn't click me on my bro. Uh, this is just like cuz he's just Josh Allen is just a f**king goat, bro. Oh, let's go quick snap that food. Why does that cry? Double me Oh, look at my Josh Allen font How are people close to me? How is there people f**king close to me?  Let's go man Josh gambler got to be caught.  I didn't know if he caught it or picked it. I didn't know I really didn't know All right, man, we gotta play a lick of defense, bro Pro This is gonna get 80 yards. Oh my god. Like there's so many people on this guy I mean, that's p. You know that play is p. A boot over. I swear to god It's the same easy. Let's go man out of here. And of course, I run right out of end zone And I'll take the ball into five I gotta read that and throw it. I gotta read that. I have to read that bro. I just thought it was covered too I was going I was going to one-on-one. I was going to one-on-one the moss, but he manned him up twice man Oh Good My god, bro. I yo his three people are just like I'm under so much pressure If he would never blitz I wouldn't move on him I swear to god, I wouldn't move on god.    It's just I'm under so much pressure, dude Like these three, dude, I swear to god moss is a touchdown Animation was that they took me right to the lead into the left. I did bro that animation was Josh allen let's go man gg's again gg's rush two people. That's what you get Answer participating man. You played well, bro. You played well Ggs


Okay, borderlines and borderline nets, today we are going to discuss your chances. Are you ever going to heal? Is it possible at all? Borderline personality disorder is a mental health issue that comes with stigma. But stigma is half the problem. The other half is myths, misinformation. And as usual, loads of unmitigated rank nonsense propagated by self-styled experts and borderline personality disorder patients themselves. So let us review the facts. Facts is what we do in Akadem and I and Sam Vaknin, a professor of psychology and the author of Malignan Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited. I love my voice. Okay, let us start with a bibliography. So I recommend that you try to find the article, The Lifetime Course of Borderline Personality Disorder, Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, July 2015. It was authored by Robert Viskin, B-I-S-K-I-N, but don't hold his name against him. The article is well written and a reasonable summary of what we know. So let's start with some facts. Borderline personality disorder is not as widespread as people would have us believe. The community prevalence in the general population is something like 1-2%. But the problem is that borderlines present in treatment much more than their share in the general population. In other words, they hit above their weight. They are frequently in crisis and whenever they are in a crisis they go to therapy, they go to inpatient clinics, they go to mental institutions, etc. So there is this optical illusions that borderline is everywhere. Borderlines account for 10% of outpatients, 20% of inpatients and 6% of patients presenting for family medicine. Now the fact is that there are equal numbers of borderline men as there are borderline women. Yeah, that's a fact and this also applies to narcissism lately, by the way. But borderline women are three to four times more likely to frequent clinical settings. No one is sure, no one knows why. We can only speculate and guess, perhaps grandiosity. Male grandiosity is more kind of in tune with culture and society than female grandiosity, perhaps an issue of empathy. I suggested a new diagnosis, covert borderline. Covert borderline is actually an amalgam, a hybrid, a cocktail between borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder. That might explain why borderline men refuse to attend therapy. And so again there is this optical illusion, there is this myth, there is this misinformation that there are more borderline women than men. Wrong. Now we have been studying borderline for decades. It's one of the oldest mental health issues to have been studied repeatedly. There are even studies that are still ongoing, 20 and 30 years after they had started. I will touch upon these later. When borderline patients present themselves in clinical settings, they are always in some mayhem, in some mess, in some chaos, in some crisis. Help me. So they trigger the rescuer savior instincts and reflexes of every therapist, especially if he happens to be a man. Borderlines are irresistible, I must admit. So borderlines suffer intensely. And they do so publicly, in open view of the treatment community and other practitioners. Their family, their friends, they make a spectacle. The drama queens, they convert their suffering into a spectacle. And this gives them a bad name. But actually, the prognosis for borderline personality disorder is not bad at all, as we will see. By age 45, a sizable portion of patients with borderline personality disorder will have healed spontaneously and miraculously. We will not be able to diagnose the disorder anymore in these people. And the other half respond very well to dialectical behavior therapy, DBT. So if you put the two together, theoretically, we can heal, cure, whatever word you want to use, something like 90% of borderline patients. This is, I mean, in narcissism, for example, you can forget about it. No one heals from narcissism. No one ever recovers from narcissism. Don't listen to the online nonsense about recovered narcissists. These are con artists masquerading as experts. There's no such thing as a recovered narcissist. It's total unmitigated trash. Borderlines, however, do heal and do remit. Technical term is remit. They do remit. Okay. Borderline, according to the diagnostic and statistical manual, is a pervasive, inflexible, impairing and non-normative behavior outside the cultural and societal background. And it's important to understand that in most borderline cases, the unusual, atypical, non-normative, sometimes even antisocial behavior, the socially unacceptable misconduct in every field, sexually, by way of property, with family members, with friends, with other people, people, all these types of misconduct start actually in most cases in adolescence. Borderline personality disorder is one of a few mental health disorders where we can safely diagnose at a very early age. Now, for example, psychopathy cannot be diagnosed in children and adolescents. Instead, we have something called conduct disorder. But borderline can, we theoretically can diagnose borderline personality disorder pretty safely at age 12. And this is unique. The diagnostic and statistical manual says if the symptoms of a pervasive, persistent and unlikely to be limited to a particular developmental stage or another mental disorder, as long as these symptoms have existed or present for one year or longer, that's borderline. Never mind the age. So we are faced with something that starts in late childhood, early adolescence, that is intimately linked to anxiety, disorders, depression. And so we tend to believe that borderline personality disorder is somehow associated with brain abnormalities. Possibly hereditary brain abnormalities. Studies tend to support this. Functional magnetic resonance imaging, other types of studies tend to support this conjuncture. Not conclusively, not rigorously at this stage, but we are getting there. There is a body of evidence that psychopathy is actually a brain abnormality. And this body of evidence is building for borderline as well. One of the reasons we now consider borderline to be a form of secondary psychopathy, especially among women. Zanarini and allies, they have demonstrated that patients with borderline personality disorder start treatment on average at age 19, 18, I'm sorry. Many of them start much earlier, like 16 or 15 or 14. Her team, Zanarini's team, demonstrated that over 30% of patients with borderline personality disorder started to self harm, to self mutilate. When they were 12 years of age or less, another 30% initiating self harm between the ages of 13 and 17. And this is bodily self harm. This does not include reckless behaviors. For example, sex, especially sex with much older people, which is a pretty common occurrence and phenomenon in borderline personality disorder. The diagnostic and statistical manual permits the diagnosis in patients earlier than 18. Again, if they persist for one year. And so we are beginning to conceive of borderline personality disorder as essentially a childhood or adolescence disorder. Indeed, in many cases, the disease is present in childhood and adolescence and vanishes as the person grows up. We'll talk about it a bit later. Are there any, is there any way to diagnose borderline personality disorder in very, very, very young people? Like I don't know, six or seven. Paris, a scholar by the name of Paris and her colleagues, they suggested a syndrome called borderline pathology of childhood. Borderline pathology of childhood is a combo, is a cocktail of effective, impulsive and cognitive impairments, cognitive problems. And so what they did, they used a kind of a tool, an instrument, a test, a psychological test. They rebuilt it as a kind of diagnostic criteria and then they applied the diagnostic criteria. We'll not go into it, into all this right now. The authors found, Paris and allies found that children from ages seven to 12 who met the criteria for borderline pathology of childhood were more likely to have experienced abuse, neglect. There were also neuropsychological findings suggesting executive dysfunction similar to that found in adults with borderline personality disorder. But five years later, when these kids were 15, the mean was 15, five years later, only very few of them actually developed borderline personality disorder. They were borderline in childhood and yet in extremely few of them, the disorder had survived. They function poorly as adolescents, but they did not have BPD, borderline personality disorder. There was a first clue that actually borderline personality disorder is a cyclical disorder with some features reminiscent of bipolar disorder. It seems to wax and wane. There seem to be period in life where borderline is more pronounced, more manifested, takes over, overwhelms the individual, causes the individual to decompensate and act out and even becomes psychotic. And there are other periods with borderline personality disorder where the disorder remits. There are relapses and remissions. And when the disorder remits, it vanishes altogether. The person functions totally normally and normatively. There was another study and they studied a cohort community sample of high-risk girls between the ages of 6 and 12. They reported some interesting findings. They asked the parents to participate, the teachers to participate, to rate and rank these girls. They found a lack of control. They found aggression. And they discovered that these features, lack of control and aggression, remain stable six years later. It seems that children and early adolescents with borderline personality disorder carry forward some of the features of the disorder, but not all of them. So while they don't merit the diagnosis, some elements of borderline behavior, some borderline traits, problems of impulse control, problems of aggression, they remain well into adulthood. So we tend to begin to think that borderline personality disorder symptoms may appear in childhood in some patients, but we don't know what's going to happen to them. In the majority of people, majority of children, these symptoms are going to vanish. In a minority of them, they're going to persist into adulthood. In adolescents, borderline personality disorder probably can be diagnosed reliably and validly. We call this adolescent onset borderline personality disorder. And borderline personality disorder in adolescents, let's say ages 12 to 17, is indistinguishable from borderline personality disorder in adults. And that includes promiscuous sex, drinking and substance abuse, aggression, recklessness, problems with impulse control and so on. The borderline adolescent is already a borderline adult in effect. There are many studies that followed the outcomes of patients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder in adolescents. The course of BPD in adolescents is not very stable. There was a study of clinical population between the ages of 15 and 18, and they found that only 40% of patients with borderline personality disorder met the criteria two years hence. A two-year follow-up. But this sample only included a small number of adolescents with BPD because it looked at the course of all personality disorders. There was another community study of self-reported symptoms in adolescent twins. And they also, this study also found a decrease in the rates of BPD diagnosis between the ages of 14 and 24. With significant reductions of symptoms in every two-three-year intervals through the 10-year follow-up. So perhaps adolescents BPD while on the surface appears to be identical to adult BPD is actually not the same. Because in the vast majority of cases, it remits to oblivion, it vanishes, living behind vestiges of aggression and impulse control problems. So in each follow-up in this study, there was a 50%, 50% reduction in diagnosable BPD, which raises a fundamental question about the validity of the clinical entity of adolescents' onset BPD. Is it a real clinical entity? There was a large longitudinal community study of adolescents with two and eight-year follow-up. They found that BPD symptoms tended to persist even when formal diagnostic criteria were no longer met. Again, the same result. Some behaviors, some traits, some problems and impairments persist into adulthood, but not the totality of the diagnosis. When a sample of adolescents previously diagnosed with BPD were followed up four years later, 65% remitted from the diagnosis. And this is consistent with many other studies. There was a research group that tried to identify risk factors for the development of BPD in a community sample of adolescents. And they found that maternal child discord, maternal BPD, when the mother has BPD, paternal abuse of drugs and substances, paternal abuse of drugs and substances, as well as depression and suicidality in the adolescent, they all predict later development of BPD symptoms. And these risks may moderate the improvement of the patients during this phase of development. In other words, it seems that what we call adolescent onset BPD is actually, in large part, reactive to familial context to the family unit. If a family unit is disrupted, dysfunctional, if the mother has mental health problems, if there is conflict between mother and child, if drugs and alcohol are used and abused, if the child herself is depressed and anxious, there's a tendency, suicidal ideation or even suicidality, she's likely to develop BPD symptoms in adulthood. But if these factors, contextual factors, family factors are missing, she is not likely or he is not likely to develop BPD later. BPD begins in adolescence, is not necessarily a lifelong disorder. Many patients retain residual symptoms later in life, and these are not predictable. And we simply don't know enough about this. Okay, but what about adulthood? In adults, there's been a lot of research, especially over the last two decades, numerous meta-analysis and longitudinal studies and so on. Two of the most important studies are known as MSAD, MSAD and CLPS. MSAD is still ongoing. 20 years later, it's by far the largest, most thorough and substantive study of borderline personalities. It's a prospective longitudinal study. They've been following a group of 290 patients who were hospitalized, so they used to be inpatients, and they were diagnosed with BPD. And they compared these 290 people to 72 patients, initially hospitalized with other personality disorders. There was a reassessment every two years. They measure symptomatology, functioning, comorbid, psychiatric and medical conditions, you name it. And the other study... I'm sorry. No, it's not COVID. You're not infected. The other study, CLPS, they recruited 668 patients, and mostly outpatients. And these patients met criteria for BPD, but also comorbid avoidant personality disorder, obsessive-compulsive schizotypal or major depressive disorder. There were no other comorbid personality disorders, but I would say that the CLPS muddied the water. By accepting cases which were not pure BPD, we are left wondering which artifacts come from the other diagnosis. At any rate, these patients were reassessed six months after baseline, then annually for 10 years. Massive serious study. Again, they focused on symptomatology, comorbidity, functioning, but there were also several assessments of dimensional personality traits. Both studies, the MSAD and the CLPS, both studies found that most patients with borderline personality disorder, and these are the good news. You know, it's almost religious. I bring you the good news, the Evangelion. Most studies, these studies found that most, I repeat most patients with borderline personality disorder, improve with time. The CLPS provided clear evidence that even when followed up two years after the initial assessment, about one quarter of patients experienced a remission of the diagnosis during the prior two years, within two years. And during the 10 year follow up, 91%, a whopping 91% had at least a two months remission and 85% shocking number, 85 miraculous number, 85% had remitted for 12 months or longer. In other words, they didn't have BPD. That BPD was not diagnosable in them for a year and longer. The MSAD had similar results, found similar results. And if the MSAD found these results consistently over a period of 16 years, the MSAD's definition of remission was even much more rigorous than the CLPS. The MSAD defined remission as no longer meeting diagnostic criteria for a period of two years or longer. The MSAD found that by 16 years later, 99% of patients, 99% of patients had at least a period of two year remission. 78% had a remission that lasted eight years. Now, for example, in cancer, in oncology, if you are cancer free for five years, you're cured. 78% of BPD patients lost their diagnosis, did not have BPD anymore. For eight years, definitely cured. This study has demonstrated that BPD is slower to remit than other personality disorders and depression, but it remits much more. There was a study that followed patients for 27 years, and this study found that 92% of them no longer met criteria for borderline personalities. These are staggering numbers. It means everyone heals spontaneously. All BPD patients heal. Now, we don't know why. Is it hormonal balances as people age? Is it something to do with the brain, neuroplasticity, rewiring? We have no idea, but it's nothing short of miraculous. This borderline is a really, really bad problem. It's a serious mental health disorder, and it's a sibling of narcissistic personality disorder, and yet narcissistic personality disorder is utterly resistant to any change, any meaningful change. While borderline personality disorder inexorably, glacially, but surely, slowly, but surely, people with borderline personality disorder heal day by day, year by year, until finally it's gone. And no one knows why. A major topic of study. The rates of recurrence, so remission and relapse, the rates of recidivism, recurrence, were not quite consistent. It's the only point where most major studies disagree with each other, probably because of how they define relapse or remission. In the CLPS, the recurrence rates for patients with BPD were 11% at a 10-year follow-up. In those who had achieved at least 12 months remission. This was significantly lower for other personality disorders and also significantly lower than the recurrence rate for patients with major depression. So people with borderline personality disorder take longer to remit. They take longer to spontaneously heal, but the healing stands. The healing is forever. It's resilient to any remission, resistant to any remission. The MSAD found that recurrence rates decreased the longer the remission lasted. 36% of patients experienced a recurrence if their remission lasted only 2 years. But this number declined to 10% if their remission lasted 10 years. These numbers are amazing. They compare extremely favorably with rates of relapse and remission among, for example, alcoholics and drug users. Anyone in rehab, anyone who's ever worked in rehab will tell you that something like 80% of alcoholics remit or relapse within the first year after rehab. Compete the numbers. The BPD group was slower to heal, faster to remit, by the way. They remitted faster, but the rate of remission was much lower. This results suggest that patients with BPD are able to achieve remission of symptoms and that the longer the remission lasts, the lower the risk of relapse. When we study the course of individual symptoms, not the entire diagnosis, the borderline personality disorder affects every trait, every behavior, every area of functioning, everything. That's why Otto Kernberg and others suggested that it borders on psychosis. That's why it's called borderline between neurosis and psychosis. It's that bad. It's like almost one abyss schizophrenia. So borderline is bad. And it's a panoply. It's a colloquium. It's a cornucopia in a way of symptoms. So if you study these symptoms separately, there is an overall decrease in all symptoms. But symptoms that relate to impulsivity and behavioral manifestations of BPD, they remitted at a quicker rate than internal, primarily effective experiences. In other words, the internal experience of the borderline changes dramatically as the borderline ages. As she grows older, her inner experience changes. For example, dysregulation almost disappears, emotional dysregulation, moodlability disappears. But behaviorally, impulsivity, aggression, recklessness, defiance, what you could call secondary psychopathy, these things remain. They no longer reflect an inner reality, but they have become probably habituated or entrenched and it's difficult for a patient to get rid of them. It's like a reflex, automatic response. In general, the behavioral symptoms of personality disorders are less stable than the personality traits associated with borderline personality disorder over time. So despite early reductions in symptoms of self-harm, for example, suicidality, the risk of completed suicide remains. So suicidal ideation decreases. The inner landscape changes, but the behavior remains. It's a mystery, by the way. It's difficult to understand this disconnect between behavior and internal interiorizing, internal view. After 27% of follow-up, about 10% of the patients completed suicide, typically when the patients were in their 30s and after multiple failed treatments. The MSAD found a suicide rate of about 5%, an identical rate of death, by all other causes. In this sample, there were issues with the factors, because there was a question of how to deal with suicide attempts, how to deal with comorbid depression, substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder, family history of suicide, and so on and so forth. So it's not a clean result, but it does seem, based on these and previous studies, that the rate of suicide in BPDs falls to between 8% and 10%, but then mysteriously stabilizes. Even as the disorder remits and disappears, suicide remains as a risk factor. We don't know why. We have no idea what's going on. Now, in borderline personality disorder, it's very common to find in the same patient mood disorders, substance abuse, anxiety disorders, eating disorders. It's very common. Comorbidity and dual diagnosis are very common, much more common than in other personality disorders. After six years of follow-up, over 60% of borderline patients meet the criteria for mood disorder and similar disorders, like anxiety disorders, 60%. The presence of a BPD diagnosis is associated with a longer duration to recovery from some psychiatric illnesses, such as major depression. And so comorbid personality disorder are more frequent in patients with borderline personality disorder, and so we have comorbid avoidant, dependent, self-defeating, or passive-aggressive. If the patient has this disorder, in addition to borderline, the remission rate is lower. Strangely, if there is a comorbidity of borderline and narcissistic personality disorder, there's no effect on the remission rate. But avoidant, dependent, and passive-aggressive or self-defeating, these have an impact. Comorbid medical conditions are also significant problems for patients with BPD, including irritable bowel syndrome, osteoarthritis, diabetes, obesity, and others. Patients with BPD also experience more frequent, more intense pain with increased use of opiate medications, opioids. In general, the rates of psychiatric and medical treatment, the rates of usage of psychiatric medications are much higher in patients with BPD. And though there's always a decline in addictions and misuse in essence of medications and medical treatment, although there's a decline in the eighties of each study, in the eighties of follow-up, treatment use is relatively elevated and unchanged after that. So there's a slight decline in its stabilizes. In other words, the borderline patient continues to attend therapy and continues to abuse medications long after the borderline is gone. We see in borderline something very strange. The behaviors persist. Suicidality, impulse control, defiance, reactance, recklessness, consumatiousness, substance abuse, alcoholism, drug abuse, medication abuse. And overuse of treatment, medical treatment. All these are behaviors associated with borderline. But when the borderline is gone, in the majority of patients, as you've heard, and the borderline is gone, these behaviors don't. Why would someone without borderline personality disorder commit suicide? We don't know. We don't know why these behaviors persist. It's one of the greatest enigmas of psychiatry. Because they persist as though in vacuum. They're like a floating cloud. They're not tethered and they're not grounded in any underlying mental health condition. It's like the borderline had vanished but left behind a trace, a ghost. The ghost of the borderline remains with the patient for life. Perhaps as I said, it's habit. Habit-forming or habituation. Perhaps it's these are coping strategies that the ex-patient is loathe to give up on. The patient doesn't know any better. That's how she had coped with life all her life. So, you know, she doesn't, is not aware of other options. We are not sure because, for example, in dialectical behavior therapy, we teach the patients how to cope, how to better cope. We introduce them to new coping strategies, but it doesn't help. It doesn't help with the behaviors. It helps with the disorder, but not with the behaviors. The inner experience changes and becomes much better. There's a lot less dysregulation and mobility and the patient feels empowered and in control and optimistic and looking forward and everything. But the behaviors remain. So, this is a normal simplification for treatment and clinical management. First of all, there's the issue of diagnosis. How to properly diagnose the behavior in adolescents, especially adolescents, young adults. Should we differentiate between symptoms because they persist in the disorder? Or is the disorder the symptoms? Or are the symptoms connected to behaviors or behaviors? We don't know.  It's everything and every item from the world of mental health is there. But we don't exactly see how they all fit in. There's no coherent view of the disorder. The disorder itself appears to be unstable during adolescence and the long-term course is essentially identical to that seen in adults. So, we have treatments, some of them work wonderfully, as I said, like dbt. But we don't really know what we're doing and we don't really understand borderline personality disorder. And stigma doesn't help because there is this myth, misinformation, that BPD is untreatable. That it has bad prognosis, that these women are going to end up like cat ladies and these men are going to end up in jail, in prison or derelict, homeless. This is nonsense. Actually, the vast majority of people with borderline personality disorder are high-functioning. They occupy positions of power and they are accomplished in their fields. It's nonsense. The stigma is not based on reality. It's fear. It's based on fear because these people are really sometimes frightening in a way. When the borderline switches to the secondary psychopathy state, to her self-state of secondary psychopathy, she can be very frightened and she does a lot of damage. She harms. She hurts. She destroys. She misbehaves recklessly, promiscuously and so on to the great detriment of those who love her. So, there's a lot of pain in borderline personality disorder and there is nothing more painful. Let me tell you from personal experience. There's nothing more painful than loving a borderline.  I read to you a poem I'd written recently. But the prognosis is optimistic because the disease remits even spontaneously, even without treatment. And if you add treatment to this, literally everyone can be cured, can be totally healed. There are dysfunctional behaviors that remain, but you know, behavior modification is a well-developed field in psychology. What we need to do, which we are not doing, we treat the disorder, but then we need to teach these people the healed, the recovered borderlines. We need to teach them how to behave themselves. We need to reintroduce them into the process of socialization. For more is acceptable, not acceptable. We need to teach them to sublimate, to self-control. I mean, they need to learn. They started in late childhood or early adolescence. They lost touch with society and family and community and so on. They drifted. They did horrible things to themselves and to others. They didn't have a chance to be socialized. No one taught them how to control impulses, how not to act recklessly, how to protect themselves sexually and otherwise. They fall prey to predators. It's a bad thing to have borderline personality disorder and clinicians need to have a perspective on this. We need to parent the borderline patient after she had recovered from her primary disorder, from the primary problem. There are relapses, but the prognosis is wonderful, much, much better than alcoholics, for example. So we should not be deterred by relapses. For example, DBT focus primarily on self-harm and suicidality, which is these problems are serious, but they're serious early on in BPD. As these symptoms remit with time, patients who are older want to deal with other problems related to emptiness, fear of abandonment. These are not directly addressed by DBT. These are symptoms that are slower to remit. So we need to build a new psychotherapy founded on DBT. No question it's the most effective modality we have, but with a much wider spectrum. Not focusing on immediate dangers only, but teaching the patient to rebuild herself as a socially functioning unit, to become more self-efficacious, to regain agency and personal autonomy. There's a lifelong, long-term, poor functional status of these patients. The aforementioned Zanirini and her colleagues demonstrated that recovery is significantly less likely in patients with BPD than in an Axis II comparison group. Slightly more than one half of patients with BPD achieved recovery, which was defined as a remission from symptoms, as well as good full-time vocational and educational functioning. And at least one stable and supportive relationship with a friend or partner. So while the disease disappears, BPD disappears, when it comes to functioning, people who used to have borderline personality disorder are much more dysfunctional than, for example, narcissists and psychopaths. We need to teach them to functions. And so predictors of recovery are not being hospitalized. Higher IQ, prior good vocational functioning, absence of cluster C, comorbidity, like schizoid, and trait measures of high extroversion and high agreeableness. Recovery was also associated with both marriage and being a parent. Now most borderlines become parents at a much, much later stage. Ironically, borderline patients with active borderline, they become parents early on. Once the patient had lost her or his borderline diagnosis, they postponed parenting, they postponed fatherhood or motherhood to a much later stage. They feel more mature, they feel responsible, they act responsibly. There's a study that demonstrated that the global assessment of functioning scores were lower in the BPD group, and significantly fewer of these patients achieved levels that represent good functioning. These people seek social assistance, but they're getting the wrong social assistance. They're getting DBT, which focuses on emergencies, like suicide and self-harm. They're getting, or disregulation and liability, they're getting social, they're getting money. They're getting social workers who usually take away their children. They're mistreated in many ways. We must provide a one-to-punch treatment of borderline. First tackle the core disorder, get rid of it. It's possible to do it. Then focus on teaching, acquiring skills of functioning. Teach the borderline, or the former borderline, or the recovered borderline to function. This functional recovery is so difficult for patients with BPD to attain and maintain. I'm quoting now from the article that I started with. As functional recovery is so difficult for patients with BPD to attain and maintain, this becomes an important long-term goal for intervention. Currently the only long-term study to directly assess vocational or educational functioning indicates that mentalization-based treatment provided in an 18 months partial hospitalization setting is associated with a greater chance of being employed or in school up to eight years later. Other studies have also demonstrated improved social and global functioning, but these were not primary outcomes. They were not significantly different between the different treatments. Also, duration of follow-up was too short. Thus, says, concludes the article. Thus, there is evidence that while treatment is likely to lead to improvements in functional recovery, there is a notable absence of studies that focus on this as a primary outcome. Consideration should be given to providing patients with BPD as much support in attaining functional recovery as possible. This may include psychosocial programs aimed at returning to work and evaluation and involvement from occupational therapists, vocational counselors, or other specialists who can help patients develop the skills necessary for any sort of work. This is more or less the conclusion, the situation. Let me read to you the conclusions of this article. Research during the past two decades has clearly demonstrated that BPD has a positive trajectory over time. Although it is a disorder associated with many psychiatric and medical comorbidities, many of the most troubling symptoms remit during the first few years. Unfortunately, several of the underlying personality traits remain for longer periods, and these are the elements of the disorder that may not be fully addressed by current treatments. Many of the specialized psychotherapies help patients with BPD, but long-term functional recovery is difficult. One potential solution to this problem is in early identification of patients with BPD. Early intervention may allow these patients to resume a healthier trajectory early on in life and to attain the social and vocational functioning that is often challenging for somewhat older patients. The lives of patients with BPD have improved significantly with specialized treatments, and further refining these treatments for a younger population may lead to greater changes in the long-term course of borderline personality disorder. Amen to that.


A pianist, Jenny Boas, is using music to bring hope and love into the scenes of devastation South Africa reveals following last week's unrest. He's doing so in the middle of anguish and despair. Standing behind a piano surrounded by debris and damaged storage units, Boas bells out songs including the South African anthem. At one point I just knew that I wanted to sing in Koziseke Lele and so yeah I sang it in faith, I sang it not just for me and our personal situation but I sang it for the people in this facility, for the people of this province, for the people of this nation because I mean


Hello and welcome to NewsClick. My name is Vijay Prasad. Today with great pleasure, we have with us Roger Waters. Roger Waters is a revolutionary musician in two senses. On the first sense, he's a person who revolutionized music. Most people of my generation would not have had an adolescence without his songs, without Pink Floyd.  In his career as a human being, he's taken up all the major issues of our time, including the cause of the Palestinian people. And I think importantly as well, taken up causes in South America, especially in this period when imperialism has been striking back to make gains against people's movements. Roger, great to have you with us. It's really good to be here Vijay. Good to see you brother. Nice to see you. Why don't we start with where we are? I mean, we're in the middle of this COVID-19 global pandemic. You're in the United States at present. Give us a sense of what you think of the governments of, let's say, Boris Johnson in Great Britain, Donald Trump in the United States and how they've handled the pandemic and how these societies are coping with it. Well, that's an interesting question. Bojo is somewhat surprising in that his response is not pure thatcherism or it doesn't seem to be. So it may be that you have to understand when I answer these questions though, I never watch television and I don't read the papers. So somehow information only trickles down through me through a wall of resistance on my part, not to buy the propaganda, not to listen to it, not to take any notes. But obviously some of it gets through. In fact, this morning I got up and I had my first cup of coffee. And the first thing that I did was read Corona shock, your piece about China, which I've read before because now you have that story going out as a booklet with those beautiful paintings illustrating it all. But it's such an important article because people have to be told that COVID-19 is not some Chinese plot to destroy the Western civilization, which is the story that Mike Pence and Pompeo and the Donald himself clearly and probably Boris Johnson as well would have us believe because that's the way their minds work. And it's all part of that exercise control. I was in New York when this all started happening. I've sort of done a runner. So I'm now 100 miles almost from New York in the countryside somewhere in isolation. So, you know, like everybody else, I'm sort of waiting to see what's going to happen and whether all the panicking about the world economy is going to collapse and it'll be, you know, billions of people are going to die of starvation because we isolated or whatever the whatever the current fad story maybe. Thank goodness we have electron microscopes and we have, you know, competent medical authorities who are doing the research and who are trying to figure out what to do. I had an interesting email exchange with a friend of mine the other day. He's called him. His name is Greg Galliatsi and he's a lovely young man. He had both his legs blown off in Afghanistan a few years ago. And what did he do when he got back and I met him in Walter Reed where I was working with some of them making music. And what he decided to do while Greg, he decided that he was going to apply to medical school. He's now in his fourth, he's just starting his fourth year at Harvard Medical School. Can you imagine? I mean, the courage is taken to do that. So it was fascinating and he was talking, he said that because they're now in isolation techniques and things, they're having to do bits of the curriculum that they're fitting in from other place, ethics. And I went, wow, we need to talk about this a bit. And I haven't had that conversation with him, but in order to have a health service that is basically profit motivated is a contradiction in terms. It's oxymoronic. No, if you have a health service, it has to be about providing health care for the people. And of course, in the United States, they don't have one to have to have a health service for rich people. And that's it. And so it's very, it's a strange and alien atmosphere for an Englishman who grew up with the National Health Service, you know, in England. And so I live, you know, I literally started my life, you know, with Beecham and in that post war dream where the health service was created in post war England. And of course, it's all crumbled to some large extent. I don't know if you've seen John Pilger's documentary. I think it's called The Dirty War Against the National Health Service. So, you know, we see the same story is unfolding all over the world in different ways. And if you don't watch, if you don't watch television, if you live in the United States and you don't read the New York Times or the Washington Post or any other of those instruments propaganda, you do get a picture that filters down. So, and it's really interesting the way the more socialized societies are resisting the empire and kicking back. So, so you see it in, you know, obviously in South America in Venezuela and Bolivia and Mexico now. And you see this struggle going on between the pure, purest evil of Bolsonaro and, you know, whatever his name is Marquez in Colombia and, and, and all of that. And, you know, the Bolivarian Revolution. It doesn't matter whether it's Bolivar or, or Che Guevara or whoever it is, but for the last couple of hundred years people have been trying to figure out how to wrest power from the monarchs and allow it to devolve to the people. Yeah, Roger, last year there were massive demonstrations in Chile, in Ecuador, Ecuador, of course, which you know very well, you've been to the areas where Chevron had its big oil spill. There were massive protests in, in Bolivia. It's not a spill. Don't you don't call it a spill. It's not a spill. It was the deliberate. Exactly. It's not a spill. You're quite right. The oil, let's say the, the release of oil into people's into people's communities and so on.  On March 31st, you released your cover of Victor Harra's really brilliant song. Why did you release that song on March 31st in the middle of the lockdown with beautiful images of the protests from Chile? Why? Because I have a strong affinity with Santiago in particular, because that's where I've worked when I've been in Chile. But also, I got involved with when they had the big earthquake and the tsunami, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago, whenever it was a little bit with an organization called Un Techo Para Chile, a roof over Chile.  So that video was put together by a friend of mine, Pablo Lopez, his name, he's a doctor, a working doctor. So he's, he's pretty busy at the moment in Santiago, working in ICU. And his, he put together that, the video. So he made, he made the video that goes with my rendition. However, I had made it my business to go and have a glass of wine with John, who is Victor Harra's widow. And so I met her and I met Amanda, his, their daughter, and a few years ago, when I was, when I was doing kicks there. And actually we played El derecho. I had it on my phone and, and, and in the national stadium. I held it up to a microphone and everybody started singing along with it because it was him, you know, singing the song and of course he is a great national hero. So that kind of indomitable spirit and resistance to the Pinochet's and now Piniera, who's the current. Well, he's the El Presidente, but he's, you know, he's cut from very much the same cloth as Pinochet is heroic and, and we, and we obviously will never forget them. And, and in Santiago and in a lot of other places in, in, in South America as well. The Casa Rola, which is the, you know, the, the protest with the banging of pots and pans in the street or even just after curfew leaning out of the window and is deeply moving.  They are, they are shooting children's eyes. They're trying specifically to blind them.  So like that size and they aim at their eyes and they're quite good shots and they blinded thousands of kids.  It's so disgusting. Anyway, I don't want to rant. No, no, it's, you know, this shooting into the eyes is a commonplace thing of these kind of governments. During the uprising in Egypt in Tahrir Square, government snipers were shooting into the eyes of children. We see this in Kashmir, where the Indian troops are shooting into people's faces and things. It's repulsive, truly repulsive. But what I found most powerful about your rendition of the song was that it's a reminder that even in the lockdown, those demonstrations haven't really ended. No, they haven't. And I spoke to Pablo just last week and I said, what's going to happen? He said, well, it's all quiet and down, but he said nothing has gone away. The second that the pandemic left a bit, all those children and grown ups as well will be out on the streets. This is not going away. The people have got the bit between their teeth, certainly in Santiago. And when seeing what recently happened in Bolivia, where they got rid of Eva Morales and, you know, he's had to flee his country, which he had talked about pulling a country up by its bootstraps. That man single-handedly turned Bolivia, you know, from a feudal state into a proper modern progressive country, where they were beginning to distribute the wealth a lot more. And that man where they paid was starting to take the indigenous population, which is the huge majority of the population, including Morales. And so Bolivia was a wonderful example of, and you know, but they made one huge mistake in Bolivia. They found lithium.  Like this is disgusting, what is happening here, you know, and you say it right in that way. The other area where you've taken an important stand, you know, at great cost, I think, because this cost is asked of everybody who takes that stand, is the other disgusting open so on the planet, and that's the occupation of the Palestinians. Could you just tell us a little bit about how you got involved in the struggle with the Palestinians and what it means? Yeah, I was sort of blind, like almost everybody, you know, after the Second World War. And I was, when the war finished, I was two years old, so I wasn't really copying very much what was going on. But, you know, and then in 1948 I still wasn't copying anything. The Nachba meant nothing to me living in England as a, you know, a five-year-old kid or whatever. And there was a lot of propaganda about, you know, this glorious new state for the Jewish people and Israel and blah, blah, blah, blah. And also it was very, I come from a very left-wing background in England, and so there was a lot of lauding it because it was the whole thing about the kibbutzes, and it was very socialist in its own way, or at least it was pretending to be at the time. And so anyway, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I went to school and then I went to college and studied, and then I, you know, and then I got involved in a pop group and boom! and so and I've been doing that professionally since 1967 well 33 years later or it's the turn of the whatever and and I started doing some shows again and I was doing a tour of Europe and somebody said you can do a gig in in Tel Aviv okay and I got I started getting emails and very very very quickly I found myself in correspondence with the right guy who was Omar Boghuti who's since become a very close friend of mine you know who was one of the founders but it was right then this is in 2005 or 2006 that's it's just when the BDS movement started as an expression of the will of the whole of Palestinian civil society and so he asked me to not go join the boycott and for better or worse I cancelled the gig which was in the stadium in Tel Aviv but I did go and play but and we played a village called Neves Shalom or Wahat Masalaam is the Arab name for it which is a peace village it's ecumenical and and drew some Christians and Jews and Muslims all live together and their children all go to school together and they grow chickpeas it's an agricultural community so we did a gig there and it was the biggest gig there's ever been in Israel by a long way I did it was during my dark side of the moon tour and we had 60 000 people there and we started we didn't start till midnight because nobody could get there the roads were packed and blah and it was but I went back a year later and and I was taken under the wing of Unran and a lovely woman called what was her name Percheo um I forgot her first name anyway it doesn't matter and so the UN sort of took me all all over the occupied territory I didn't go to Gaza but I went everywhere else and I and I was like that are you this was in 2006 or 2007 and by then it was like I thought how can I've been this blind it is so horrific to watch what's going on and you're driving down this empty you know highway and um Alexia was her name anyway it doesn't matter explaining well you know of course if you're Palestinian you can't use this road they go through the little tunnels and everything's blocked off and because these these are only for settlers these are only Jewish people are allowed to drive on these roads because actually it's illegal for Israeli citizens to go into the occupied territories so so and it was just and and I had long conversations with the elders in the refugee camp in Janine and they were and I'd sit there and listen to these to these stories and and so it became quite clear to me that I couldn't rest until um you know there was some measure of equality in terms of human rights in that part of the Middle East because it's disgusting and it's got worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and so now it is completely awful apartheid fascist state white supremacist colonial settling of indigenous people and attempting to destroy them man by one at a time or maybe many at a time you know it's slow genocide is what the Israeli government is perpetrating there so that's why um my politics now have come down to this tiny platform um which is this platform it's paris 1948 universal declaration of human rights I believe in it so if I'm having a conversation with somebody from the Israeli lobby I will say to them do you believe in it I would say this to Donald Trump or Mike Pompeo or Mike Pence or do you believe in it and if they're honest they go no absolutely are you insane of course we don't believe in human rights well I do I think it's fundamentally important and the only way for this globe to survive is for us to respect the thinking that's gone on since the enlightenment over the last two 300 years and to accept that there that there is a route forward but it but it can only we can only move forward and save this fragile planet that we call home if we cooperate with one another rather than fighting one another it's it's so self-evidently clear and obvious we cannot just be driven by a profit motive and by narrow national self-interest and patriotism the last amazing what I want to say to people who are listening is that the reading assignment that comes with this interview is the 1948 UN declaration of human rights and while you're reading that make sure that you put on dark side of the moon a great soundtrack to the UN declaration Roger Waters thank you so much you're very welcome it's good to see you brother