1 00:00:05,790 --> 00:00:15,030 Hi, Malika Boma, and you're listening to a podcast hosted by the Accelerating Achievement for Africa's Adolescents Hub, 2 00:00:15,030 --> 00:00:19,740 hosted by Oxford University and the University of Cape Town. 3 00:00:19,740 --> 00:00:32,370 This podcast was recorded as part of a series in Oxford in November 2019 to discuss the theme of understanding adolescence in African contexts. 4 00:00:32,370 --> 00:00:40,570 Thanks for listening! Hi. 5 00:00:40,570 --> 00:00:55,170 So we're recording a podcast about storytelling and adolescence, and we're just going to explore how adolescents tell stories, 6 00:00:55,170 --> 00:01:06,450 how stories work for them and how stories work for people generally in terms of presenting their identities and their problems to each other. 7 00:01:06,450 --> 00:01:11,760 The four of us in this conversation, I'm just going to ask people to introduce themselves. 8 00:01:11,760 --> 00:01:17,760 I'm Alex Bouma and I work in literature. 9 00:01:17,760 --> 00:01:22,330 I'm very interested in storytelling and I'm a storyteller myself. 10 00:01:22,330 --> 00:01:26,800 I'm a writer of fiction. 11 00:01:26,800 --> 00:01:39,100 And have a book, and I teach literature at University of the Western Cape and the interesting context almost 2000 undergraduate students. 12 00:01:39,100 --> 00:01:40,780 My name is Caroline Jimi. 13 00:01:40,780 --> 00:01:52,690 I'm a student in global health working on violence against women, and I'm based in London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in London. 14 00:01:52,690 --> 00:02:00,790 For me or your body or my academic psychiatrist whose primary interest is in psychopathology, 15 00:02:00,790 --> 00:02:12,790 but I also teach medical humanities so using the novels and poetry and plays to explore how patients are 16 00:02:12,790 --> 00:02:22,300 and how they perceive the illnesses and so on whom perhaps using that as a jumping off place for me. 17 00:02:22,300 --> 00:02:29,290 I was very struck by a conversation involving a couple of us here. 18 00:02:29,290 --> 00:02:39,100 I think it was yesterday where you were remembering back to a radio interview you did with somebody. 19 00:02:39,100 --> 00:02:49,390 You have a person younger than yourself in their early 20s who felt a bit inhibited about telling his story in that context of a radio interview. 20 00:02:49,390 --> 00:02:59,910 And then it was an experience in common that encourage that person to feel more confident about telling their story. 21 00:02:59,910 --> 00:03:04,920 This could you could you just remind us about that situation? 22 00:03:04,920 --> 00:03:06,880 Yes, I can do that. 23 00:03:06,880 --> 00:03:15,730 Maybe it's probably helpful just to set it as a kind of preamble to say that that commonality is one of the things that you would normally use 24 00:03:15,730 --> 00:03:23,260 in a kind of psychotherapy group to help people who are a little bit more anxious about seeing what it is that's happened to them in the past. 25 00:03:23,260 --> 00:03:27,940 So they may then find that somebody say something, then opens up the space with other people, 26 00:03:27,940 --> 00:03:34,900 then to also voice their, you know, their their issues and their bases and the causes of their distress. 27 00:03:34,900 --> 00:03:37,030 So in this particular situation, as a young, 28 00:03:37,030 --> 00:03:46,780 a young 21 year old Nigerian poet and these boxes is ours would have been you might regard him as a 65 year old Nigerian poet, 29 00:03:46,780 --> 00:03:51,610 and we're being interviewed to discuss the nature of fatherhood. 30 00:03:51,610 --> 00:03:56,980 And the idea was whether we would be coming off our own fathers. So that was a kind of theme. 31 00:03:56,980 --> 00:04:02,570 And and he then turned to the to the interview and said to the interviewer, You do not. 32 00:04:02,570 --> 00:04:10,900 I've already told you before before I agreed to do this, but I lost my father to engage and and the interviewer said, yes. 33 00:04:10,900 --> 00:04:16,030 So I say to the both of them, I said, Well, I lost my father when I was 17, 34 00:04:16,030 --> 00:04:20,860 and that allowed the interviewer to just say, Well, I lost my father, and that's quite young. 35 00:04:20,860 --> 00:04:22,780 And he was obvious, 36 00:04:22,780 --> 00:04:35,020 demonstrably obvious that the that the young 21 year old poet relaxed because he had heard that we had lost our fathers at a young age, 37 00:04:35,020 --> 00:04:45,070 but we were then able to talk about it. I then allowed him during the recording of the programme to open up about how that did affected him. 38 00:04:45,070 --> 00:04:52,960 So it's the opening up of a space that that helps people to share stories and 39 00:04:52,960 --> 00:04:58,900 do stories themselves or work as space open an openness to my experience. 40 00:04:58,900 --> 00:05:03,040 I have been working with three girls in Cameroon for the last two years. 41 00:05:03,040 --> 00:05:12,640 I have the impression they're telling the girls, telling them so that their story was a way to find some sort of validation from people. 42 00:05:12,640 --> 00:05:14,140 They would be telling their story, 43 00:05:14,140 --> 00:05:22,420 but they also wanted the person who is listening to understand what she's been going through to validate her feelings and to accept her 44 00:05:22,420 --> 00:05:33,190 as she is and actually try to support her because those kids living on the street call the cold weather and living in the daily basis, 45 00:05:33,190 --> 00:05:37,690 you know, trying to make it every day and not even being sure about tomorrow, 46 00:05:37,690 --> 00:05:42,220 but still making it onto tomorrow and then come back and talk about yesterday. 47 00:05:42,220 --> 00:05:48,730 For them, it's like, Well, I've made it, so I'm telling my story so that people understand what I'm going to in. 48 00:05:48,730 --> 00:05:58,360 They can actually not only understand what I'm going through, but they can also in some way relate so that I don't feel alone. 49 00:05:58,360 --> 00:06:05,830 But because when we do, we usually do the group. We have kids coming like girls coming from everywhere, all of the town. 50 00:06:05,830 --> 00:06:15,700 So I think I have that impression. Sometimes they want to hold someone in the group and they wanted that wonderful feeling to be validated. 51 00:06:15,700 --> 00:06:19,720 And then they also really want to share, you know, what they've been going through. 52 00:06:19,720 --> 00:06:28,120 And are they out of interest in those in those situations when they're sharing their stories, they're seeking validation? 53 00:06:28,120 --> 00:06:35,920 Are there particular things that they do verbally to to get going or to kind of keep keep going? 54 00:06:35,920 --> 00:06:40,510 I mean, like, is it correct or do people say, I don't know yes? 55 00:06:40,510 --> 00:06:44,040 Or am I agree with that actually? 56 00:06:44,040 --> 00:06:51,460 Yeah, I think there is usually a lot of interaction, not one damn that someone will be telling the story and the other will be less. 57 00:06:51,460 --> 00:06:56,410 Yeah, I did that yesterday. Oh, yeah, I remember that like that, really. 58 00:06:56,410 --> 00:07:05,320 And also, I've also noticed that when they're telling those stories, they tend to be laughing around. 59 00:07:05,320 --> 00:07:10,000 But it's not. And sometimes the laughing interrupts like disturb the session. 60 00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:16,390 But I got to realise that they are not laughing. And but I think that's the way to relieve the stress. 61 00:07:16,390 --> 00:07:22,990 Sometimes they feel very uncomfortable sharing difficult things, so they have to find that way to really, you know, 62 00:07:22,990 --> 00:07:26,980 make them feel so comfortable and not trying to be like, Oh, 63 00:07:26,980 --> 00:07:32,500 she didn't she or she was ashamed like that in that competition where they want to get their story out. 64 00:07:32,500 --> 00:07:35,680 But at the same time, they're also afraid of a reaction. 65 00:07:35,680 --> 00:07:44,050 So telling that story makes a difference makes a huge difference because at the end of the day, 66 00:07:44,050 --> 00:07:48,280 they feel like, yeah, maybe we should have been living on the street doing all those things. 67 00:07:48,280 --> 00:07:49,580 We are not alone. 68 00:07:49,580 --> 00:08:05,530 I'm I'm thinking also about echoing patterns, echo like patterns we were just hearing in the poetry session we had earlier about kids. 69 00:08:05,530 --> 00:08:14,920 You know, these school kids that we were talking about, picking up on things in the poems they were reading that corresponded to their lives? 70 00:08:14,920 --> 00:08:25,570 And then I'm thinking also about the women saying yes, or, you know, laughter even is kind of like picking up an energy and kind of feeding it back. 71 00:08:25,570 --> 00:08:31,420 Yes, absolutely. I mean, from the practise of teaching English literary studies, 72 00:08:31,420 --> 00:08:37,420 and I've become really more and more convinced that we need to think about breaking down that 73 00:08:37,420 --> 00:08:47,560 boundary between what we do as a practise analysis of literary texts and actually the stories and and 74 00:08:47,560 --> 00:08:55,930 really focus much more on the by directionality of the of what we do that we create in our teaching 75 00:08:55,930 --> 00:09:05,260 nexus points between texts and ourselves and learn how to insert ourselves into the stories. 76 00:09:05,260 --> 00:09:11,770 So instead of just doing an analysis of what the poem or short story means. 77 00:09:11,770 --> 00:09:24,130 How about rewriting it into your in your own voice, inserting ourselves into that story and transforming it and making it part of our own lives? 78 00:09:24,130 --> 00:09:36,400 The one doesn't replace the other one, but these are ways of of rethinking the relationship between us as readers and literary literature. 79 00:09:36,400 --> 00:09:44,030 So I think increasingly, I think there's a there's a sense that that that stories are not just up to. 80 00:09:44,030 --> 00:09:53,270 It's of study, but that they can change the way we rethink the way we lead our lives and that we can actually 81 00:09:53,270 --> 00:10:02,750 narrate our own stories because that's the point in the end to become the author of your own story. 82 00:10:02,750 --> 00:10:08,030 There's something very interesting about narrative about stories that I talked 83 00:10:08,030 --> 00:10:15,050 about that yesterday that aren't saying that stories are a form of action. 84 00:10:15,050 --> 00:10:24,470 They're not just words on the page. They are the way in which we insert ourselves into the into the real world. 85 00:10:24,470 --> 00:10:34,070 Yes, if I might add something to that, the said. So just speaking at a seminar for a retired psychiatrist about three or four 86 00:10:34,070 --> 00:10:44,540 weeks ago and using as using a fellow and media as a way of doing some work. 87 00:10:44,540 --> 00:10:53,960 But the reason for bringing that up is that in using a fellow, um, I was using it to come back to the self. 88 00:10:53,960 --> 00:10:59,930 So as I say about a fellow that he Othello is a black boy from North Africa. 89 00:10:59,930 --> 00:11:11,750 And even though he's achieved a lot to be a general in the Venetian Army is a bit like me, who is a black African who is an immigrant, 90 00:11:11,750 --> 00:11:17,540 just like he was untrue on the on the superficially you might think is very successful, 91 00:11:17,540 --> 00:11:26,900 but retains all the vulnerabilities that make it possible for a year ago to produce induce jealousy. 92 00:11:26,900 --> 00:11:32,900 This doesn't mean to say exactly what you're saying, that you're using that account that everybody shares. 93 00:11:32,900 --> 00:11:36,560 I don't have to open you up in the big way. 94 00:11:36,560 --> 00:11:45,580 But I can use him and then I can insert myself in it and they look at me differently than, you know, the 15 or so retired people. 95 00:11:45,580 --> 00:11:55,250 And we used that. And then I need to use the same about the the kind of loneliness that being an immigrant does for me, dear. 96 00:11:55,250 --> 00:11:59,510 So she's married to Jay-Z, and she's left her country. 97 00:11:59,510 --> 00:12:02,000 She's put her and her all in with Jay-Z. 98 00:12:02,000 --> 00:12:08,450 And, you know, she's helped to kill her brother, and she's helped him to get the golden fleece and all that sort of stuff. 99 00:12:08,450 --> 00:12:14,900 And then he chooses to marry another woman, and then she's properly socially isolated. 100 00:12:14,900 --> 00:12:24,310 But the emphasis here is on what it does to you where you immigrant because you, you, you, you're kind of detached and dispassionate. 101 00:12:24,310 --> 00:12:29,390 So it's doing exactly what you are doing, what you are. We're doing the storytelling. 102 00:12:29,390 --> 00:12:36,800 We're doing it in the story that everybody knows about. So you have to do a lot of hard work to get that little account, you know? 103 00:12:36,800 --> 00:12:41,630 You know what, William Carlos Williams, what I call the word machine you do. 104 00:12:41,630 --> 00:12:48,110 So you've got that little gem that's already been created for you and then you can use it to open. 105 00:12:48,110 --> 00:12:55,490 But you've got to be confident enough to insert yourself into it because I don't think, you know, if you it makes me 20 years ago, 106 00:12:55,490 --> 00:13:01,250 I wouldn't have been able to insert myself into a story storyline that says an immigrant is vulnerable. 107 00:13:01,250 --> 00:13:09,420 So I'm a bit older. I'm not as anxious as I was. Therefore, I can sit within that story without being anxious about it. 108 00:13:09,420 --> 00:13:11,720 I would definitely want that only 20 years ago. 109 00:13:11,720 --> 00:13:18,770 So again, it depends on when it's ready, when you're ready to be able to do it, on which story it is, and not just any story. 110 00:13:18,770 --> 00:13:22,250 Shakespeare. Oh, well, yeah, you're using the wonderful kind of account. 111 00:13:22,250 --> 00:13:27,590 You know, I love to count because you also write this when you look at your fellow, 112 00:13:27,590 --> 00:13:34,740 one of the other things I'll say this that Shakespeare is understood that in order to make him properly vulnerable, he also gives them epilepsy. 113 00:13:34,740 --> 00:13:38,570 And we are doctors. So it's important that I connect with that. 114 00:13:38,570 --> 00:13:43,850 He's a person who's got epilepsy. And what happened? The disability of that sort? 115 00:13:43,850 --> 00:13:52,430 To your sense of self and a bunch of stuff. So that's how that is, how competent the writer is, that particular writer that is understood, 116 00:13:52,430 --> 00:14:01,580 that is not just being an immigrant that makes him vulnerable, but it gives him another stigmatised condition that makes it even more. 117 00:14:01,580 --> 00:14:06,200 And not only that, he actually that gets him to have a feat in the play deals with. 118 00:14:06,200 --> 00:14:12,470 So so it's not just that he's talking about it in the abstract, but he actually gets it to have a fit in the play. 119 00:14:12,470 --> 00:14:16,890 So yes, he does open up these possibilities for us. 120 00:14:16,890 --> 00:14:25,130 He makes it gives you a room to be a bit detached. He allows you to insert yourself in it because you have quite a bit of detachment. 121 00:14:25,130 --> 00:14:30,710 It allows other people to examine that situation and use it to do some work themselves. 122 00:14:30,710 --> 00:14:37,130 And because you're given the permission to insert themselves in it, they may not do it in language you verbally in public, 123 00:14:37,130 --> 00:14:44,410 but it's going on inside them because they today reassert themselves in it and use it to explore their own lives and so on. 124 00:14:44,410 --> 00:14:53,830 I'm very interested in being part of what everyone's been saying, and, you know, this is to look way to your word for it, 125 00:14:53,830 --> 00:14:59,620 really, but I'm really interested in the embodiment that's also involved with the stories movement over insertion. 126 00:14:59,620 --> 00:15:04,300 We've been talking about, you know, inviting people to be part of stories. 127 00:15:04,300 --> 00:15:16,430 We've been talking about manipulating stories. You know, Hannah Arendt saying that, you know, we we we can use these stories in order to affect, 128 00:15:16,430 --> 00:15:22,570 you know, political change or, you know, to to to create a positive reaction. 129 00:15:22,570 --> 00:15:30,250 But what what also, as part of all of that interests me, is that total immersion is quite primal actually in stories. 130 00:15:30,250 --> 00:15:38,380 It's like sort of rhythm is very primal and poetry, you know, it kind of sweeps us along without really being fully aware. 131 00:15:38,380 --> 00:15:49,600 I think of some of some of the effects, and I was a little while ago yesterday, I was telling somebody because we're talking about Jane Eyre, 132 00:15:49,600 --> 00:15:54,850 you know that Charlotte Bronte novel and I was once listening to that on an audio book. 133 00:15:54,850 --> 00:15:59,180 I knew the story very well, but I just wanted to refresh my memory from certain things I was listening to. 134 00:15:59,180 --> 00:16:06,220 You were driving in the car and, you know, touch was the only time I had a car accident because I was so inside the story. 135 00:16:06,220 --> 00:16:10,810 I drove into a post. Mm-Hmm. So there's there's that. 136 00:16:10,810 --> 00:16:15,100 It's that that way in which with storytelling, we're both. 137 00:16:15,100 --> 00:16:21,250 If we're listening to someone else's story, we or reading it, we are both inside and outside. 138 00:16:21,250 --> 00:16:31,240 As you were saying, I mean, you sort of both inserted and you're also able to try to emphasise which mean empathy involves, 139 00:16:31,240 --> 00:16:37,030 you know, stepping into the other person's shoes. No, I think you're correct. 140 00:16:37,030 --> 00:16:45,180 There's something deeply primal and deeply connected to being human. 141 00:16:45,180 --> 00:16:53,080 The way we tell stories and we have and the way we have told stories, you know, for a hundred thousand years or longer. 142 00:16:53,080 --> 00:17:00,310 And I think so. There's something very deep and and and and affective in stories. 143 00:17:00,310 --> 00:17:12,310 But there's also something deeply ethical in stories because stories are always life affirming, even if they are terrible stories, 144 00:17:12,310 --> 00:17:15,640 which are maybe the cautionary tales that are truly old stories, 145 00:17:15,640 --> 00:17:24,820 the stories we've grown up a firm, life affirming living together in a in a humane way. 146 00:17:24,820 --> 00:17:32,500 Stories celebrate the good. And so stories are different to actually life. 147 00:17:32,500 --> 00:17:41,170 Stories tend to mirror life, and the bi directionality of this is interesting that when we study two stories, we read stories. 148 00:17:41,170 --> 00:17:44,560 We we tell stories, we write stories. 149 00:17:44,560 --> 00:18:01,060 We we engage in an ethical activity as well, which which, you know, to use our words again, which which is able to action something in the world. 150 00:18:01,060 --> 00:18:12,400 So it's something very precious, unique and about stories which we need to hold on to and and cherish and and build on, 151 00:18:12,400 --> 00:18:14,860 especially in our new liberal world, 152 00:18:14,860 --> 00:18:25,360 where often the humanities just really about stories about it is is often seen as not making a valuable contribution. 153 00:18:25,360 --> 00:18:32,080 Yeah, I mean, this is sort of both an instrumental thing which I worry about a bit, you know, using stories to improve the lives of young people. 154 00:18:32,080 --> 00:18:44,170 But then there's also, you know, that way in which these these stories, these poems work in spite, in spite of those U.N. programmes. 155 00:18:44,170 --> 00:18:52,420 You know, they are they that and they are they are just that kind of a power and power of kind of, you know, 156 00:18:52,420 --> 00:18:58,130 a pulse and stories of physical energy moving forward that it can be that can be harnessed to the good. 157 00:18:58,130 --> 00:19:06,760 I I myself, I'm not. I'm not as sure as I think you just were there about the ethical power of stories, 158 00:19:06,760 --> 00:19:11,890 I think is something that does have to be harnessed and that, you know, some really terrible stories can be told. 159 00:19:11,890 --> 00:19:21,100 And I'm just going to kind of go around a small circle here and just ask if you have a kind of closing thought about, I mean, 160 00:19:21,100 --> 00:19:33,940 any of the multiple aspects of storytelling we've touched on, be it embassy, be it for speed identification, be it insertion. 161 00:19:33,940 --> 00:19:41,550 Caroline, do you want to do on time? Yeah, so. 162 00:19:41,550 --> 00:19:45,630 So thank you. So I've been on May, in my opinion, 163 00:19:45,630 --> 00:19:56,160 be we have to talk more about the reinsertion because I'm still going to talk about my own experience working with those girls on the street. 164 00:19:56,160 --> 00:20:00,060 They already are looking at them, so like they're not part of society anymore. 165 00:20:00,060 --> 00:20:04,380 So getting the story really not only validates that, yeah, you're still part of the society, 166 00:20:04,380 --> 00:20:15,060 but it also brings them to the table to talk about the difficulties and to, you know, to people from the society. 167 00:20:15,060 --> 00:20:20,580 And also, this is the I mean to our turn to take those problems, 168 00:20:20,580 --> 00:20:26,910 whatever they're going through and try to, I don't know, bring it to the next level to find a solution. 169 00:20:26,910 --> 00:20:30,510 So I think really bringing them together, as we say, during the harm, 170 00:20:30,510 --> 00:20:37,230 really bringing those you like from the beginning of the process, they have to be part of the discussion from the beginning. 171 00:20:37,230 --> 00:20:45,320 And I think the discussion starts with telling their stories. Thanks for having me. 172 00:20:45,320 --> 00:20:49,860 Yeah, right. One of the things which are really fun, 173 00:20:49,860 --> 00:20:57,360 very interesting in this workshop was sort of some insight from the colleagues from 174 00:20:57,360 --> 00:21:06,150 psychology about what is so strong and important and pronounced in adolescents lives. 175 00:21:06,150 --> 00:21:20,070 So intense interest in in the social, the search for authenticity for for the real, for risk taking. 176 00:21:20,070 --> 00:21:34,140 And I thought to myself, Yes, this is this is these are good things to take into account when when we choose which texts to to study at university. 177 00:21:34,140 --> 00:21:39,870 So that was a very practical way in which, you know, that was a moment, 178 00:21:39,870 --> 00:21:47,400 one of the many moments which I thought was really, really practically very interesting and useful and special. 179 00:21:47,400 --> 00:21:54,210 And Jim, thanks. Yes. The first time to see how those stories work. 180 00:21:54,210 --> 00:22:00,810 You know, I've got a patient of mine many years ago is working prostitute because Caroline's 181 00:22:00,810 --> 00:22:06,090 talking about girls to work on the street or the working prostitute as a patient of mine. 182 00:22:06,090 --> 00:22:10,740 And I could tell you all the stories about that, but I stopped looking after her. 183 00:22:10,740 --> 00:22:18,330 So she moved because I changed jobs and all that. So she moved away and I didn't see her for 20 years and then standing in the canteen, 184 00:22:18,330 --> 00:22:25,860 in the hospital canteen, I've got this woman standing in front of me about to pay and she turns around. 185 00:22:25,860 --> 00:22:33,270 I just said, I bet you don't know who I am and another farmer on earth is this woman. 186 00:22:33,270 --> 00:22:38,670 And just like I thought I was going to panic, I think into mine and I said, Of course I know you. 187 00:22:38,670 --> 00:22:42,480 I said, you had, you know, you had Debbie and Debbie. 188 00:22:42,480 --> 00:22:51,330 You haven't changed. You haven't changed a bit. You said, I should tell you, I said, Let me just say yes, I said, Liar, liar. 189 00:22:51,330 --> 00:23:01,000 But tell me all over again, you know, through your fiction to true. 190 00:23:01,000 --> 00:23:08,520 Yeah, wonderful kind of captured your bags and and I've gone and written the poem about it, 191 00:23:08,520 --> 00:23:14,460 and I've inserted into a poem which is totally about something completely different. 192 00:23:14,460 --> 00:23:25,320 But I'm telling you that story again, and it's a beautiful story. And and and I use it to use it with medical students and they use it for. 193 00:23:25,320 --> 00:23:26,910 I use it all sorts of reasons. 194 00:23:26,910 --> 00:23:40,920 One of the reasons I use it is for the sheer humanity of Debbie that when I tell it, the nobody does it just it becomes irrelevant. 195 00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:44,070 That she was a working girl doesn't mean I. 196 00:23:44,070 --> 00:23:55,650 What comes out of all of it is the wonderful fresh interaction and relationship between Debbie and myself and I, and I can imagine that, 197 00:23:55,650 --> 00:24:03,930 you know, I've got a glint in my eye and she's got this wonderful glow in her eye as we make that exchange in the canteen. 198 00:24:03,930 --> 00:24:10,350 You know, and I think you, we're using it. They're just amazing tools. 199 00:24:10,350 --> 00:24:20,490 They are. You are all the time in, you know, experiencing tiny little human events that become accounts that we give to others, 200 00:24:20,490 --> 00:24:27,240 that we use it to open up human life and use it to show what is ethically right about how you know, 201 00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:33,030 if you want to teach a young medical student how to respect patients who respect the fact that they come from a different social background, 202 00:24:33,030 --> 00:24:38,310 as most doctors are from a middle class background and they don't make a prosthetic before in real life. 203 00:24:38,310 --> 00:24:40,780 And they've never met somebody who is a criminal who's. 204 00:24:40,780 --> 00:24:47,990 They were met a murderer before, and if you are going to be working with a psychiatrist, all of those people, you received them, so you so you, 205 00:24:47,990 --> 00:24:54,950 I have to find a way to get a young person, not to be dismissive and not to be contemptuous, 206 00:24:54,950 --> 00:25:00,770 to regard the real person and to have affiliation with that real person. 207 00:25:00,770 --> 00:25:08,600 And and often it's storytelling that does it. Yeah. You know, he just comes across all that stuff and they can get a real sense. 208 00:25:08,600 --> 00:25:14,480 But they also do with the actual patients. Certainly, the actual patients are paying some account. 209 00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:16,700 They can get them to laugh and then I can laugh. 210 00:25:16,700 --> 00:25:24,080 And then all the kind of funny, awkward accent and the fact that, you know, African happened to be living in England. 211 00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:31,610 All of that falls away and we just become two people in a room together and then we can do the work that we really did. 212 00:25:31,610 --> 00:25:48,710 So it's amazing stuff, but raising stuff, and maybe we can end of that line, tell it to me again and. 213 00:25:48,710 --> 00:26:06,798 Thanks very much for listening to this podcast. Do you have a listen to the others in this series on understanding adolescence in African contexts?