Alistair Campbell and the Jam Jar Theory

This summer we experienced an election which saw the Conservative Government swap over to a Labour one after a very large change in the number of MPs that were voted in for each party. After a long time in government for many, it was a much-wished-for change – and for many, it could not come soon enough.

This happened in 1997, when Tony Blair led the Labour Party to, again, oust a long-standing Conservative Government. This is a long time ago, particularly when discussing the moment with teenagers. To emphasise the passage of time I told them in assembly that in 1997 the physics star, Professor Brian Cox, was not known for his science but instead for his keyboard playing with the band D-Ream. The band were hired by the incoming government to help them celebrate the event of government change by performing their hit “Things Can Only Get Better” at the event. For those of us who were aware at the time, it was a big moment.

Alistair Campbell is widely thought of as one of the largest influencers, and perhaps architects of the Labour win in 1997. He was the political advisor and “spin doctor” of news and issues at the time for the party. A successful journalist and political activist he is now well known for his political commentary on the podcast show “The Rest is Politics”.

I explained in Assembly that Alistair Campbell as well as being very successful and very driven is also, by his own admission, terribly flawed. He has an affliction of repeating poor mental health – he suffers from significant depression and has done so for most of his life. There are some days when managing to get out of bed and open the curtains is an achievement and an achievement for the day that merits real celebration.

Alistair has talked a lot about his depression and done a lot of positive work for mental health awareness – and ensuring that conversations about depression and how help can be found have been had. He has produced books and also films and
TV series about such.

One of the philosophies that Alistair found most useful was the “Jam Jar Theory”. I have a number of friends who have struggled with depression and at times one just seems to need the passage of time for the “clouds” to pass. However, the Jam Jar Theory gives some advice on how we can help prepare ourselves for better mental health, and I wanted to share it with the school. The concept of the jam jar is that it represents how much difficulty we can take in terms of anxiety, stress, worry, etc. When the jar becomes full then this is when we have an episode of poor mental health. Much of this is beyond our control – things are there in our jars that we cannot control – some of it is how we are or the environment that we are not able to change, or the things that happen to us. Other things happen which also add to this – worries or stressors at work or in our lives. However, one thing we can perhaps control is the size of our jam jar. If we can make
it larger then we are more likely for it not to fill or overflow.

Things that can make our jam jar larger are interests, hobbies, friendships and connections, good sleep, taking pleasure in aspects of life that we enjoy. I explained to the Rossall community that there are many such opportunities here, for staff and
pupils and that they would do well to think about how many that they can do and to make an effort to make more connections and gather more interests – and to make their jam jar larger.

Mark Dixon
Pelican Houseparent