Blogs

The English National Hearing Voices Network (HVN England) is publishing an alternative report, today, to coincide with the launch of the government's report on its Review of the Mental Health Act.

I write about the ways in which child sexual abuse and exploitation has been sanitized by prominent academics – including internationally high profile intellectuals – over the last four decades, contrasting this with what is known about the impact of such abuse on the psychological development on those abused and exploited.

A new, free-to-use guide to the healing of psychological trauma is available to download. It comprises information, approaches to healing and resources together with links to selected clinicians, organisations, projects and support groups.

It’s World Mental Health Day as we publish this. On this day, while we think of how it is good to talk and that 1 in 4 of us (at least) will experience mental health problems, let’s try to remember some other people too. Let us try to remember the people for whom we pay £200,000 a year to keep out of sight and out of mind. Let us consider whether life at all costs is worth forcing people to live in hell. Let us ponder whether our care can harm people.

On October 10th, 2018, World Mental Health Day, The Lancet Commission on Global Mental Health and Sustainable Development published a report outlining a proposal to “scale up” mental health care globally. In this podcast series, we discuss the implications.

For three decades, it has been clear to me that governments and the public alike have made – and continue to make – a very serious error in trusting mainstream psychiatry with the emotional and mental health care of the general public.

Let’s try to get some other messages out there that challenge the old, tired, damaging narrative of diagnosis and disorder. Messages that offer hope and solidarity to people and messages that put the responsibility for the primary causal factors of emotional distress firmly back where it belongs.

The Journal of Addictive Behaviors has today published a new systematic review which shows that antidepressant withdrawal is much more widespread, severe and long-lasting than indicated by current guidelines, with millions of antidepressant users in the U.K. potentially affected.

This week on MIA Radio we turn our attention to a recent debate held at the Institute of Psychology and Psychiatry, Kings College, London. "This house believes that ECT has no place in modern medicine".

The very first Maudsley debate in January 2000 was on the topic of Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT). The motion was ‘This house believes ECT is barbaric and ineffective.’ Clinical Psychologist Doctor Lucy Johnstone shares her recollections and notes.