Personality + is a unique pioneering project, where people with a diagnosis of personality disorder can collectively speak about issues, including their feelings about the diagnosis, the services they have been offered, and their achievements. Personality + aims to draw public attention to the positive achievements and stories of people with the diagnosis, in particular through creative and expressive work.

Beginning with The Haven, clients from the Personality Disorder National Projects were invited to local events about story telling and photographic workshops. Clients from The Haven have also submitted art, photography, poetry, and writing for a high profile exhibition at the Tate Modern on Monday 29th October. In order to tell people at the national event about our work, we were recently offered a day with a film maker to capture the essence of what we do.

Our first experience of the Personality + project came in February when Haven clients met with Roma, the project lead, Belinda the artistic director, and a storyteller called Richard who arrived with a black bin liner! Half way through the meeting he opened the black bag and pulled out a harp!! When he started to play beautiful music, and tell us a story, it was just so different, and clients began to join in throughout the day to tell their stories. And so we were introduced to Personality +.

After the Photography Workshop three articles appeared in local newspapers and one is included below. Some of the photographs from the workshop are also featured below.