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CHAP TER

Phil Barker

The Tidal Model of Mental Health Recovery

Nancy Brookes

“Mental illnesses or psychiatric disorders are ‘problems of human living’: people find
it difficult to live with themselves or to live with others in the social world. A simple
idea that becomes complicated when we try to engage with it. Nurses try to help
people address these problems of living, in an effort to live through them. Another
simple idea, that becomes complicated at the level of practice. All is paradox”
(Personal communication, February 23, 2008).

for Young Painters in 1974. By this time, he had
Background and Credentials already become a psychiatric nurse. He continues
of the Theorist to paint word pictures in metaphor. Barker credits
Phil Barker was born in Scotland by the sea, and art school with introducing him to “learning from
thus began the influence of and interest in water, the Reality,” the reality of experience, which became the
ultimate metaphor of life (Barker, 1996a). He credits focus of his philosophical inquiries. His fascination
his father and grandfather with “the warmth of nur- with Eastern philosophies, which began at art school,
ture and the discipline of boundaries,” who helped flows through the Tidal Model with echoes of chaos,
him appreciate that “life was an answer waiting for uncertainty, change, and the Chinese idea of crisis
the right question,” and he, like them, became a phi- as opportunity. This early involvement in the arts
losopher (Barker, 1999b, p. xii). Life in this context also helps to explain Barker’s view of nursing as “the
contributed to his enduring curiosity and interest in craft of caring” (Barker, 2000c, 2000e; Barker &
the philosophy of the everyday, which resonate Whitehill, 1997).
throughout the Tidal Model. Following art school, Barker worked as a commer-
Barker trained as a painter and sculptor in the cial artist and mural painter, supplementing his income
mid-1960s, and he won the prestigious Pernod Award with laboring work on the railroads and in factories.

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