Language and the art of disguising what you mean (oh and some sex thrown in)!

But That's What I Meant Though!

I wonder how many times people have either heard a complaint about or complained about a politician who doesn't mean what they say?  They're all at it aren't they!  Answer the question Mr Cameron please!  Well, we would never do such a thing would we?  Sadly, we are all guilty of massaging information to either make it more palatable or more emotive depending on our personal situation.  We can change the meaning of what took place from being against us, to being either less so, or definitively in our favour.  Words hold emotion after all don't they? 

This blog will cover how changing a term or a phrase can change the whole meaning of what's happening.  We won't dwell on grammar and spelling, although in written word these create another level of complexity that many people in social care seem to miss entirely.  Putting a comma in the incorrect place, or spelling a word incorrectly can turn a logical report into meaningless drivel!  Often this information gets "interpreted" differently and can lead to a different standard of care for the person involved.  Let's not forget that when you complain about not having enough time to write an incident report and it says the wrong thing, that incident report will still be in circulation years later and have huge a huge impact on the person concerned.

So? What's The Problem?

So, if we don't like others doing it, why do we do it ourselves?  Clearly different circumstances require different types of massaging information.  So for example adding the word "again" to a statement can both improve our image and denigrate someone else.  Or shift blame from one to another.  What do these statements say, and what do they imply?

"When Frank got angry he threw his shoe"
"When Frank got angry again, he threw his shoe"

"Frank got really angry because he missed his bus"
"Frank got really angry because he missed his bus.....again"

Or what about this
"Frank's bus was late, this made him so angry that he threw his shoes in the corner when he got here as he'd missed his favourite show on TV."

"Frank missed his bus again, he got angry as usual and threw his shoes around"

Essentially the same thing happened but adding "as usual" and "again" changes the emotion in the statement to turn Frank from the victim of the bus arriving late to the shoe throwing villain.

These simple changes in terminology may not sound much, but if you work in social care, it's easy to add them to every day conversation and as such, change other people's perceptions of those people.

If some one's behaviour "appears" to be unjustified, then they will naturally appear more negatively in everyone else's eyes.  This is one level of using language to disguise things, but there is another level, that's the use of meaningless phrases.  Things people say that sound logical, but often leave us with less information than we had before.

The Meaningless Phrase Widely Accepted!

The primary reason for writing this Blog was the use of the term "Last Resort" when applied to using "Physical Interventions" with someone.  If you don't work in social care "Restrictive Physical Interventions" is what used to be called "Restraint".  Nobody liked the word because it sounded bad, so we changed it to something that doesn't really mean anything and that allowed staff to carry on with their original behaviour.  There's no real evidence that people changing the word has reduced the level or frequency of the activity being carried out. 

There are other variations on a theme as well.  Some of the common ones are;

• Restrictive guiding
• Therapeutic holding
• Restrictive holding
• Guided holds
• Gentle holding
• Care and responsibility 

What these all have in common is that they try to deflect from what people are really doing.

Astonishingly, some people felt that if you changed the language, then people would stop restraining people in unethical ways.  That didn't happen of course and we will probably change the term again at some point to sound lovely and fluffy so we can again ignore the real problem of why restraint is being applied, not what it's called.

The Last Resort? - What A Great Holiday Destination!

Anyway, back to the issue.  I am constantly encountering this term "Last Resort" when discussing holding people and whenever I question what exactly they mean by it, I get lots of different replies.  Most of which are inconsistent even when only one person is replying.  This is a concern, because It's quite clear that my "last resort" before I restrain someone, is clearly not the same as everyone else's. 

How can this be?  As it's a universally used phrase, both in local authority guidance and the NHS.  Charitable organisations use it as well, so it must be right? No? 

Sadly, no it isn't right!  It's meaningless.  As meaningless as the catchphrases people use throughout business to disguise the fact that they really don't know what they're doing, but would like you to believe you don't know their subject matter very well.  What we all used to affectionately refer to as "bullshit bingo" in meetings.

So, why do we continue to use and be advised to use such a meaningless statement?  If we are going to hold someone who is in our care against their will (even if justified) let's all do them the courtesy of being crystal clear why it's happening!  If we have inconsistency among staff when "last resort" applies, then I guarantee you that sometimes, that person is being restrained when they didn't absolutely have to be. 

The reason we use the phrase "Last Resort" is clear, it's because the vast majority of people aren't sure what to say, therefore they use vague terms and phrases which sound good, but mean little.

 

So, What about the sex?

Well, that was to get you to read this Blog, isn't it interesting how throwing just a single word like "sex" into a title can change disguise what you are about to read?