Bio: John Parker is Specialist in OPD and Medium Term Care at Lentegeur Hospital. He is a senior lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health at UCT. He qualified as a doctor in 1990 and has have been working in psychiatry since 1995, initially as a medical officer in the Eastern Cape before going on to specialize in Cape Town. His academic interests include Public Mental Health, Social Psychiatry and the Environment, Mindfulness and Recovery in Mental Illness. He is a founding member and director Spring Foundation at Lentegeur, which aims to re-design what a psychiatric hospital, looks like, feels like, is and does using ecological principles. Translated lente geur means “the essence or aroma of spring” and this project is transforming a large psychiatric hospital in an impoverished area by bringing alive the metaphor inherent in this name as the re-birth of hope through reconnection with the world. A fanatical surfer and a keen mountain biker, he is married, has two daughters aged 10 and 11 and lives in Noordhoek in Cape Town.
