James Sheedy. known to most students as Jim - the TAFE counsellor is a calm and steady influence on all around him. Little do they know that beneath that quite demeanour is a lethal weapon, owned by a recognised master of the Japanese martial art, Judo.
Judo
"judo
ˈdʒuːdəʊ/
noun
noun: judo
- a sport of unarmed combat derived from ju-jitsuand intended to train the body and mind. It involves using holds and leverage to unbalance the opponent."
Like many TAFE students, Mudgee Counsellor Jim Sheedy was an
early school leaver. Finishing up his secondary studies at just 15 years of
age, he left school and entered the workforce. In his early 20’s, he took a
TAFE course that assisted him to gain university entrance as a Psychology and
Sociology double major. “Universities are always happy to work with mature age
students” Jim says. “They have a really high completion rate, and usually do
exceptionally well.”
Jim proved his lecturers were right to believe in him as he easily
progressed to graduation. But it wasn’t just in the academic realm that Jim
showed his talents. Despite sustaining an injury as a young player, Jim went on
to represent his university and his country as a master Judo practitioner. He
won the University Blue award for sport and represented his country for three
years, including a sporting tour of Brazil.
Jim’s career has taken him into the experience of mental health
work on many fronts. He has contributed research papers into schizophrenia and has spent many years as a clinical worker at the frontline of mental health
care. He has also published several books on Judo.
Choosing a role as the counsellor at TAFE provided Jim with
the opportunity to combine his specialties of working with mental health issues
at the same time as moving away from the extreme end of crisis management and
more towards the sociology spectrum of his qualifications. It also gave him the
opportunity to live in a small country town, where he had slowly been building a
home for himself and his wife Karen. “I
used to live in Sydney near Merrylands”, Jim says. It was close to Westmead and
the Cumberland health resources where Jim completed his psychology research. “We
were looking a lot at the response of drugs and alcohol on the brain, working
with those who donate their brains for screening.”
“You really get to find out how the brain is affected by
substances in that line of research. Alcohol has by far the worst effect – that’s
why when people consume a lot of alcohol they can’t remember things. The brain
can tolerate a much higher level of exposure to other substances such as
cocaine. For substance abusers using those kinds of drugs, their bodies may be
suffering from Hep B or Hep C, but their thinking will be very clear.”
Jim says the nature of mental health issues is not related
to personalities. “Diseases don’t discriminate,” Jim said. “It’s just like
other diseases such as diabetes – there are some people who can control their
illness with diet and require no medication. Others require a lot of medication
to get their health under control.
“Mental health is no different”, he says. “Some people are
suffering so badly that they are not going to live very long. They can’t speak
in logical sentences, they say ‘yes, I’m fine, I haven’t slept for a week and I’ve
promised ten people I’m going to work for them tomorrow’. At the other end of
the scale you get people who function better than I do! They know they can have
one glass of wine but they can’t have a case – they know they have to sleep and
eat and if they do those things they will be fine.”
One of the strongest influences on Jim’s life has been the
presence of good mentors at pivotal moments. “The mentors I’ve had have shown
me how to behave well at different times. My father was always a good mentor for
me, because he was calm, stable, and a high level athlete. He represented
Australia in the Empire games in the field of Walking.
Having learnt first hand the benefit of being a mentee, Jim
has dedicated many hours of his life to mentoring other athletes. He was
recently approached by an international team to assist an athlete who was
preparing for an important event. “It’s an important role being involved with
athletes at that level – it’s not unusual for the entire team to go on a strict
regime where there is no alcohol consumed for 3 or 4 months before the tournament.”
It’s an area of life where Jim’s professional role in mental
health and his world as an athlete combine. “Sometimes people need help to
understand that there is life after sport. There’s a physical cost and you need
to keep that balance. And sometimes there’s a cost – you can’t have a family during
that time of elite performance, all that has to come later. And sometimes it
all comes to an abrupt end if there is an injury involved.
