We need brave people to speak out

Angela Gilchrist on the launch of ‘Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia’ , a new report from the British Psychological Society

This is a critical moment in mental health history: never have so many decision makers wanted things to change. That’s according to the National Clinical Director for Mental Health, Dr Geraldine Strathdee, speaking last week at the launch of ‘Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia', a report from the British Psychological Society’s Division of Clinical Psychology.

The event, described by many as 'ground-breaking and momentous', was remarkable in that it brought together numerous and disparate voices in the mental health community including psychiatrists, psychologists, policy makers, third sector workers and people with lived experience of psychosis. Among the guests were the Shadow Minister for Public Health and Mental Health, Luciana Berger; and the founder and principal theorist for the Hearing Voices Movement, Professor Marius Romme.

Guest post: 'Schizophrenia then and now'

Continuing our recent reflections on how things in mental health have changed Richard Hallam and Michael Bender take the long view of schizophrenia

The cuckoo's nests have closed. What
else has changed in mental health?

The theme of this year’s World Mental Health Day on 10th October is Living with Schizophrenia. For those of us of a certain age, and with a historical bent, it’s also an opportunity to compare services now with those provided when we started out in the 1960s. Recently we’ve had the privilege of editing the diaries and letters of a young man, David, a patient in the mental health system five decades ago. The resulting book offers, we think, a window into the social attitudes of the time and the way mental health problems were treated.

20 years on: Finally our myopic brain obsession is on the wane

Professor John Read, back in the UK after a long period away, is struck by some important changes in the way we view mental health problems

Has how we talk about mental health changed?
Illustration: Mend the Mind

It’s good to be back in the UK after twenty years in New Zealand – well, apart from the weather, the political, economic and spiritual state of England, and the endless phone calls to India to get someone from up the road to install a phone. Amid it all I’m writing my first ever blog! What an antiquated old prof.

As regards mental health research, the difference I notice most is how far people’s thinking has moved on from the old, simplistic, ‘blame-the-brain-for- everything-and-medicate’ idea. 

A national scandal: psychological therapies for psychosis are helpful, but unavailable

Peter Kinderman and Anne Cooke

Can talking therapies be a realistic response
to psychosis and schizophrenia?
Photo: minds2mend.com

For years, drugs were it. If you felt paranoid, heard voices or were diagnosed with schizophrenia, the only thing likely to be on offer was ‘antipsychotic’ medication.  Like all drugs, these have a number of different effects on our nervous system. Some of the effects can be helpful, for example calming us down or making our experiences less intense or distressing.   Others may be less desirable. The unwanted effects – euphemistically called ‘side’ effects – of these particular drugs can be seriously distressing.  For some people, they can be more disabling than the original problem.  Despite the drug industry hype, it’s been a fine balance for many people, and worrying evidence is now emerging that some drugs can cause serious and permanent problems such as brain shrinkage if taken long-term.